Crimson loved hearing himself talk, if that wasn’t a dead give away then his attire and overly cheerful tone would reveal that he had a very big ego.

“Now, we all love the youth,” Crimson smiled as he lowered his guns while he kept his fingers on the trigger. It was subtle but the message was clear.

I can shoot faster than any of you can act.

He wasn’t wrong, I just saw him shoot a Pokédex and Pokéball at the same time without even needing to take aim.

His Butterfree was blocking the door with its wings.

I had no interest in trying to escape right now. If I wanted to escape I had to outsmart both Crimson and find a way to deal with his two guns and I had to get rid of Butterfree in quick succession.

My pocket knife burned in my pocket but I knew that drawing it would result in bloodshed.

Ralts was a decent fighter but most of her attacks were useless in such a small area and I doubted she could be faster than a bullet.

Why the hell does Crimson show up the first time I enter a Poké Mart? That’s just Fate telling me I should fuck off.

Crimson jumped on top of the counter, his cape waving behind him. He aimed his golden gun at the man who worked here.

“Now, I want all your TMs,” Crimson said, he paused and then added. “Please.”

The poor guy gave him a shaky nod and knelt behind the counter.

The man was balding and he had to be in his forties, at least. He wore a blue shirt that had the Pokémart logo but the shirt was a bit too small for him.

He was a bit on the heavy side and right now his entire forehead was glistening with sweat.

Still sweating like crazy, he opened a drawer and pulled out 10 golden discs around the size of an apple. They were packaged in a plastic case that made it look like they were music discs.

Crimson grimaced, “Only 10? Please tell me you have a few good ones.”

The man nodded carefully and answered with a high pitched voice. “One is a Seismic Toss and I have a Rock Tomb.”

Crimson sighed and lowered his gun. “Yeah, whatever. Please put it all in a plastic bag for me.”

He hopped off the counter and his heavy boots made a heavy thud as he landed.

While the counter guy was putting all the TMs in the plastic bag, almost dropping one to the floor, Crimson walked over to the magazine stand and paused in front of it, he put his weapon away in what I now saw was a belt.

His left gun slid into an empty sheath that was previously hidden by his red cape and he placed his left hand on his chin. He gave the magazines a thoughtful look.

He stood with his back towards everyone in the room, completely open to any attack.

Except he had a small smirk on his face, still clearly visible despite the Butterfree shaped mask he wore.

It was a challenge or a display of power.

He knew it, we knew it.

If we tried anything he could still shoot us, even with his back to us he held all the cards.

I knelt down and picked up Ralts, both to prevent her from doing stupid and to protect her...okay I could probably do nothing to protect her but it's the sentiment that counts right?

But there was also a second reason, or third, whatever works out.

“Remember Alex please,” I whispered and I waited.

Ralts knew that Alex was the codeword for trouble but was she smart enough to decipher what I meant by remembering what I meant by Alex?

It was something we had never discussed before so it was pretty much guesswork for her.

Ralts narrowed her eyes on Crimson and nodded.

As she did so I hid a smile, that sneaky trickster of mine had understood it.

Now, I had an ace against Crimson.

Crimson impatiently grabbed a magazine from the rack and flipped through the pages.

Apparently, he liked it because he grabbed more magazines and walked back to the counter where the sweaty guy had packed everything in a white plastic bag.

The sweaty guy handed him the bag and Crimson took it in his free hand. “You happen to have Pokémon Daily?” He asked with a kind voice, though it had an edge to it.

He shook his head, “N-no sir. It’s no-ot out yet.”

Crimson’s shoulders slumped and he raised his right hand, a silver barrel was held against the man’s forehead.

“Too bad.” Crimson hissed. “Now apologize.”

“I’m s-”

Without a warning, Crimson hit him with the grip of his weapon against the temple.

The sweaty guy fell to the ground and the woman screamed.

She had short blond hair and I estimated her to be around 40, yet she squealed like she was a girl.

Crimson aimed his gun at the woman. “Please be quiet.”

Screaming woman covered her mouth with her hand and began shaking, still she managed to stay quiet, mostly.

Crimson grinned and he swept a red hair lock out of his face. “Now that’s what you get for such a horrible service.”

“Don’t think you’ll get away with this!” The man who tried to release his Pokémon exclaimed.

He had a croaky voice like he had been awake for an entire week.

My guess was that he was a Pokémon trainer as well, I estimated him around 30 but he could’ve been older. He looked fairly athletic and I could see some muscles on his arm.

Not that Crimson was intimidated.

“Of course I’ll get away with it,” Crimson exclaimed, “Everyone always says those cliché things when I enter but I won’t be caught and I WILL get away with it, right Scarlet?”

“Free!” The white Butterfree chirped and I couldn’t resist the urge to frown.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

His Butterfree was named Scarlet? Like Scarlet red?

I smell an ongoing theme here.

“Now!” Crimson exclaimed like he was announcing his next act. “Time for community service, who here is carrying around some cash?”

He gave everyone a look but no one reacted.

I had no cash, all my money was on my bank account which could be accessed with my Trainer ID or Pokédex. I considered getting cash but I’m really lazy and buying a wallet and visiting a bank had been too much of an effort.

Crimson sighed and strode towards the boy with green hair.

I noticed that both the girl and the boy had green hair and green eyes as well. They were probably siblings, they had to be.

The boy wore a black shirt with a Charmander on it, he didn’t have a Pokéball belt but that didn’t exclude the possibility he had his Pokéballs somewhere else.

The boy stepped back but Crimson simply put his silver gun against his head.

“Don’t tell me that no one here has some cash available?” He exclaimed, the boy let out a cry and held his (what I assumed to be) sister’s hand, probably crushing all her bones in the process.

“Do I really have to blow this kid’s brains out?”

“I do!” A screaming woman offered hastily and grabbed her purse to grab her wallet.

Crimson instead just stepped towards her and took the entire purse.

“Finally some honor among thieves.” Crimson sighed, he took the purse but put it down a second later, realizing he couldn’t hold two bags without putting away both guns.

Okay, he could’ve put one bag into the other one but I doubted he really cared about the purse anyway.

He had robbed banks all over Sinnoh; there was no way he actually needed the money. My guess was that he just loved bullying people and showing them how inferior they are.

He literally ignored all the money the Poké Mart had inside the cash register.

Still struggling with having too much stuff to carry, his eyes scanned the room and landed on me.

Fuck.

“Hey blue, care to lend me your back,” He pointed his gun at the green haired girl. “Please?”

“Ralts!” Ralts said furiously but I told her to stay still and took off my backpack.

As I handed him my back he gave me the sweetest smile. “Thanks a lot.”

I was quickly going over everything I had put inside...and fuck I had a lot of shit inside.

Everything except I had on me was in that backpack.

Besides all the expensive shit it also contained the black data box Professor Rowan had given me.

Now personally I didn’t really care that much about the data but I hated the idea of failing such a simple task.

Crimson opened the backpack and dumped both the plastic bag and the woman’s purse inside.

As he got up he smiled at me again, “Don’t worry about your stuff. I’ll take good care of it.”

He was fucking with me, I’m sure of it.

I took a step back towards Ralts, making sure not to keep my eyes on Crimson.

“Now,” Crimson looked at his right wrist, “Seems like we’re running out of time.”

“Free!” The Butterfree flew over towards her trainer.

“It was a true honor to rob you all.” He grinned and he gave us all a deep bow.

And just like that, he disappeared in a flash.

For a second no one moved.

It was like a movie that suddenly cuts to black but there was no next scene. Everyone was frozen, unsure what to do next.

Except me.

I was on a tight schedule, so I picked up Ralts. She yelped as I picked her up but calmed down once she realized that it was just me. I put her on my shoulders.

I strode towards the door but the man with the croaky voice called out to me. “Where do you think you’re going? We should wait for the police.”

He blocked the way with his body.

I rolled my eyes, does everyone have to annoy me today?

“I’m getting my stuff back. Now can you let me go?”

“You think you can get your stuff back that easily?” he asked, skeptically. “You, a kid?”

Technically an adult but meh.

“Yes.” I pointed above me, “We’re gonna find him and I’m gonna get my shit back.”

“Ralts,” Ralts agreed.

“You really think you can get him?” The green haired girl asked, she sounded like she was on the edge of breaking down and needed a yes.

I think that being taken hostage might be traumatic for a child. Oh, Crimson is gonna pay for this.

“Of course,” I shot her my biggest grin.

What do they say again? Fake it till you make it?

“I will make sure he’ll pay, believe me.”

With those confident words, I walked past the guy who was blocking the door and stepped outside, leaving behind a room full of scared people and one unconscious guy...assuming he’s not dead.

Outside life had gone on like nothing had happened, people were walking around and shops were doing business.

I think that the entire robbery took around 5 minutes.

Weird, it felt like it lasted at least an hour. It was almost surreal to walk through the streets, as if nothing happened.

Ralts and I walked over to a quiet park without annoying bystanders who could interfere with my life and drag me into another side quest I literally had not the time for.

We found a small park that was placed between a couple of skyscrapers, it was not much. Just a green hill with some trees planted on top of it and a couple of wooden benches around the tree.

I sat down on the bench and Ralts hopped off my shoulders and landed next to me.

Glancing around I only saw a couple of children playing with a Poochyena.

“Okay, Ralts you still remember Crimson’s emotional signature right?”

Ralts gave me a firm nod and narrowed her eyes.

“He’s not in range right now?”

She shook her head. I hadn’t expected him to be nearby but I still had to try.

Okay fine, now my next quest.

Get my shit back from Sinnoh’s most famous bank robber.

Something the police failed to do for several years.

I had heard a lot about Crimson on the radio.

His strategy of teleporting in and out made him really famous as a bank robber.

Then he switched to robbing Pokémon Marts for TMs, a choice people were still speculating about.

The police had managed to find his base multiple times but he managed to teleport away every time before they showed up.

He had been robbing Poké Marts for some time and he had developed a pattern the media that picked up on.

Either he would rob one in a small town or he would rob multiple Poké Marts in a bigger city.

He favored bigger cities, my guess was that it got him more media coverage and he really loves attention.

Anyway, everytime he targeted a big city he would go on a robbing spree, robbing multiple Poké Marts in the city in quick succession.

Mostly it lasted a week which made it a cat and mouse game everytime Crimson targeted a big city.

Though he didn’t do it often, when he went on a spree he robbed like 5 to 10 Poké Marts and then kept quiet for a few months before starting it all over.

Being a teleporting thief catching him in the act would be really hard, considering he could retreat without any repercussions and attack whenever he wanted.

Thanks to listening to hours of talk shows covering Sinnoh’s most famous bank robber I might be able to take him down.

See, my hypothesis was that everytime Crimson targeted a big city he set up a temporary base somewhere.

He had to, right? Teleporting across the land multiple times a week had to be draining Butterfree, might as well stay in the city until you got everything you wanted.

It was a gamble but it was all I had.

I looked at Ralts, my precious radar.

If Crimson had a base I would find it, or better; Ralts would.

Emotion sense was a powerful tool for locating someone and I had been training her for this from day one.

However right now she wasn’t picking up a signal which meant Crimson wasn’t in her range.

We had to move.

“Ralts?” Ralts asked and I smiled at her.

“Don’t worry, we’ll show him why he shouldn’t mess with us. He’s a petty, narcissistic, thief. Not Dialga or Mewtwo.”

Ralts shrugged and I took it as a cue to start working.

I took out my Pokédex and flipped it open.

“Oracle, show me a map of Jubilife City.”

On the small screen the map of Jubilife City appeared.

“Show me a map detailing all the bus routes and bus stops in Jubilife City,” I corrected myself.

Colorful lines were drawn on the map, spreading from the middle of the city like it was the heart and all the other lines were the nerve system.

After tapping a few buttons, a grid overlay appeared on top of the map and divided the entire city in squares.

I changed the proportions to what I assumed to be the range of Ralts’ emotion sense...humm, I should find a better name for that.

Ralts leaned over the screen to see what I was doing.

“Oracle, plan out a route to systematically pass through every square on the grid as fast as possible. Don’t worry about money.”

“Calculating.” Pokédex Lady’s mechanical voice replied and I smiled, a genuine smile this time.

“Ralts, we’re gonna take a ride.”