It took us 3 entire days to find Crimson’s hideout.

I honestly expected it to go faster, we had traveled around 50% of the city on the first day and found his signal within Ralt’s range like I had hoped.

But he wasn’t in his base.

Instead he was robbing a second Poké Mart which made me realize a downside to my plan to locate Crimson’s hideout.

We could only find his hideout if he was inside it. After that realization I shifted to only tracking him while the sun was down.

His tendency to only rob in broad daylight led me to that decision, otherwise we would just wind up finding him robbing another bank or something.

Small problem, the buses don’t drive all night, they only drive till midnight which made it very hard to cover enough ground to find him. Also Ralts would grow more tired as the day lasted longer and I didn’t want to put her through too much stress.

On his first day Crimson robbed 5 Poké Marts which was troublesome, I had to find his base of operations before his robbing spree ended.

Luckily I found it on my fourth night in Jubilife City.

It was located near the river that slithered through the city. He occupied an empty warehouse that looked like all the other ones.

It was an abandoned part of the small haven Jubilife City supported.

According to Pokédex Lady it was abandoned due to a ghost Pokémon causing some deaths some time ago and it made people apparently wary of the place, even though the Pokémon was dealt with.

The warehouse was located on the westside of the river and surrounded by a large industrial yard with metal scrap piles everywhere.

Graffiti and wild growing vines decorated the brick walls of the warehouse making it look even more broken than it actually was.

The place was relatively small and had a heavy door which had a broken iron chain that probably once kept it locked but was now just lying on the pavement.

There was one big window on the front side right above the door that had a large crack in it.

It was kinda ironic that I could probably walk in, considering Crimson was a thief himself.

Maybe he just didn’t expect anyone ever to find him or maybe the fact that he was a teleporter made him less reasonable to common things like locking doors and shit.

Ralts and I actually hadn’t seen him enter the building.

No Ralts would suddenly sense two beings inside and they would hang around inside for some time and at a random point they would suddenly disappear, which meant they were off to rob another place.

From hanging around the place all day and night, Ralts and I learned that Crimson never put Butterfree in her Pokéball, instead she apparently slept outside her ball.

Using Ralts’ emotional radar we managed to draw a vague map of the place. I had managed to get a vague sense of where Crimson slept and where Butterfree slept, though I had no idea what the interior of the building looked like.

I briefly considered sneaking in the moment Crimson left to rob a place but if he came back too soon I would be done for.

Maybe I could make a gamble and sneak inside just to get my stuff but...I kinda wanted fucker behind bars and face justice.

I had spent 3 entire days and evenings searching for him and to let him run free as if nothing had happened?

It felt wrong.

Calling the police and giving them the location of Crimson’s hideout was the easiest option. I only had one Pokémon and Crimson was a known Criminal who has way more experience in this world than I have.

The problem was that I wasn’t sure the police could actually arrest Crimson.

According to the news, Crimson's base had been found multiple times but he managed to escape every time before the police could get to him.

This could mean three things;

Possibility 1 was that Crimson was a really lucky guy, considering this was the world of Gods who broke physics, it was a possibility, though I doubted it.

Second possibility was that this world’s police force was incompetent.

The game and anime’s policemen were pretty useless when it really mattered. It was possible but I couldn’t really imagine a society like this functioning properly with a police force as useless as the ones in the game and anime.

The third option was the most undesirable one, though the most realistic one as well.

Perhaps the police were corrupt to some extent.

It was possible one of the cops gave Crimson a warning every time they made a move and thus allowed Crimson to escape every time.

I had no idea how good this world police force was, for all I know Sinnoh has some Gotham levels of corruption going on in the shadows.

Considering how Giovanni was both a Gymleader and the leader of Team Rocket, it was certainly a possibility.

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This left me with a choice.

I could go to the police and let them deal with it or do it myself, Batman style.

I decided to let Fate decide to choose for me.

Was it lazy to decide with a coin flip? Yeah but honestly I couldn’t choose.

Theoretically I could buy everything again, tell Professor Rowan I lost his data and let the police deal with this shit.

Or I could do it myself and take the first step on my road to become the world’s best champion and shiz.

I flipped the coin.

A harsh wind blew it away as it fell down, but Ralts jumped up and caught it before it could fall into the river.

She opened her hand and…

“Ralts,” I said, “Tomorrow night we’re gonna do what the police couldn’t”

(linebreak)

The moon shone through the small window and painted the entire warehouse in a soft blue light.

Everyone was asleep, everyone except for me and Ralts.

Ralts had done a double check before entering the warehouse and our targets were still asleep.

Crimson was a heavy sleeper.

I had set off a small firecracker outside the warehouse last night to see if he would wake up, surprisingly he didn’t.

Maybe it was due to the location of the warehouse.

We were in a big city after all, and Jubilife City never truly gets quiet, not even during the night.

Ships passed through the river and even after nightfall traffic continued as usual.

I could make some noise but still, I felt nervous as heck.

Ralts and I had prepared for this the entire day, we made plans and backup plans.

Ralts herself was maybe even more determined than I was, she held a grudge against Crimson that I only discovered on our second day of searching and jokingly offered to just give up on searching.

We were both ready, plans and backup plans were ready.

Now it was the time to act.

I was summoned to this world, time to see how much I could do with the life I’ve been given.

The heavy door opened without a sound, the oil we had preemptively put on the metal joints to make it as quiet as possible worked wonders.

It was laughable, how the door was not even locked but I wasn’t about to complain.

Hopefully it meant Fate was looking over me instead of trying to screw me over.

Anyway, I wasn’t about to rely on fate alone. Instead I decided to prepare myself as well as possible. I was carrying around a (cheap) backpack on my shoulder with stuff I might need.

I couldn’t buy any real weapons but I did manage to get an actual brand new combat knife and pepper spray. Ironically enough both were from a camping store which was a rather questionable choice.

Ralts might not need weapons but I did.

Although, I had no idea how Ralts would take a bullet. Would it do lethal damage or would her body treat it like any other Pokémon attack?

Better to take precautions.

Although sneaking around with a backpack and a big knife made me feel like a burglar it was a sacrifice my ego was willing to take.

Also the Ralts that stood beside me right now wasn’t the real Ralts. Nope, it was a Double Team clone, the real her was somewhere out of my sight, probably behind me in the shadows like a true assassin.

It took some time to convince her to let me go first and alone, however when I explained my reasons she agreed, albeit reluctantly.

The world of Pokémon relied on trump cards and right now I really needed one.

The insides of the warehouse cast away any doubts I had of Crimson staying here.

It looked about how I expected a warehouse to look. Messy and old, the building was divided into two parts, a lower part that was mostly empty and a rusty metal stair that led up to a second floor.

I couldn’t see the entirety of the second floor but it really looked like it was primarily made up of the metal walkways you see at building sites.

The place wasn’t lit by anything except the light of the moon which made some sense considering the eyes a light in this ‘abandoned’ warehouse would draw.

On the ground floor there was a large metal table that seemed to be stuck to the floor. A large pile of golden discs, purses and other random items like jewelry and phones were piled on top of eachother at the middle of the table.

The way it was put on display reaffirmed my idea that Crimson was narcissistic.

It reminded me of how dragons in films always sleep on their treasure, it was located the way that it catches someone’s eye from anywhere in the room.

However it wasn’t nearly enough , it was a lot and probably worth a lot of money but Crimson had been robbing banks for some time.

He had to have a real base somewhere else thus this had to be a temporary base.

Seems like Crimson did have some brains behind his ego.

A plastic desk was placed against the wall and had a black laptop on it, attached to the wall behind it was a map of Jubilife City.

Red flags were pinned on all the Poké Marts he had already robbed, which was quite a lot.

I scanned the place for Butterfree and found her sleeping in the left corner of the room.

Crimson had made a special spot for her, a large pile of pillows was stacked on top of eachother and a big butterfly was sleeping on top of it.

She was lying on her back, her wings open, and hugging a pillow which was oddly cute.

Still, I wasn’t about to back down.

If I wanted to succeed I had to get rid of her as silently as possible, if I didn’t get rid of Butterfree first then Crimson could escape the moment I had him in a tight spot.

If this was the Pokémon game I would probably fight it and have Ralts deal with it but the problem was that I had to keep it quiet because Big Red was sleeping above me, and he had two guns that could end my life with ease.

I pointed at the Butterfree and the clone Ralts nodded.

From somewhere else in the room a slow purple ray formed and began to crawl towards Butterfree at a slow pace.

A second later the more rays were placed into the already fired ray, making it look like a real world glitch.

If Ralts pulled through then the total of those rays should be around 24.

They moved slow enough that Ralts could place more along the way, of course they lacked power but I hoped that the total amount would be good enough to KO Butterfree instantly.

I had considered multiple ways of doing this, from suffocating Butterfree myself to letting Ralts try to Mega Punch a sleeping Butterfree, the problem was that a Mega Punch’s hit made a lot of noise.

Also, I didn’t feel comfortable trying to suffocate a Butterfree.

Confusion was a silent move which made some sense.

It was of course only energy, pure energy that only emitted the slightest amount of disturbances.

It had no physical effect after all, thus it was the perfect move for a sneak attack.

And I was right. The rays quietly traveled across the room and after a painful few seconds they arrived at their destination.

If they didn’t knock her out instantly I would fall back on the good old, run and retreat method.

Butterfree didn’t make a sound as the beams hit her.

And she didn’t move.

I gave Ralts a thumbs up.

Part 1, removing Butterfree from the scene, was completed.