The Case of the Pilfered Pikachu
By Ben
Disclaimer: Pokémon is © Nintendo, Creature, Game Freak, and some Japanese animation company. This work is not meant to infringe on any of these copyrights... It's a fanfic, for cryin' out loud!
This is a story that takes place in an alternate timeline, where Team Rocket doesn't exist as such, and James has taken up an interesting profession: Private Investigator!
The clouds hung over the city like a dingy grey pall as the rain hammered on the streets with a heavy staccatto rhythm like bullets from a machine gun. Cars crept furtively along the streets, as if they were afraid of being caught out. People rushed by on the sidewalks, not sparing each other so much as the briefest of glances as they went about with their busy little lives.
Nobody spared me the briefest of glances as I stood at my office window, taking in the dreary scenery. Few ever did. It's not like they were obligated to, but still, it would have been nice to get a little confirmation that I was a living, breathing member of the human race.
When most people look at Celadon City, they see the well-tended, manicured lawns and beautiful houses of the upper crust. They see the soaring towers that glint in the sun like candy bars still in the foil wrapping. They don't see what I see. If you think of Celadon City as a refrigerator, I spend a lot of time in the grungy stuff on the floor under it. I have to; it's part of my job. I'm a private eye. It says so, right on my door. It also used to say my full name, but some jerk stole the lettering for my last name, so now it says 'James [blank spot where my last name should be], Private Investigator'. Everyone just calls me James, and I haven't been called by my last name for so long that I've practically forgotten it.
At any rate, on this particular rainy day, I was about to rediscover another truth about refrigerators: there's sometimes something rotten growing in the back.
My receptionist paged me. "Yes?"
"Abra!"
(That was the trouble with being a private eye. You didn't have a lot of choice in who you could hire as a receptionist.)
"What? Is there someone here to see me?"
"Abra aaabra abraaa! Abra?"
"Er... once for 'yes', two for 'no'. Is there someone to see me?"
"Abra."
"Ah, good! Send 'em in."
"Abra, abrrrra!"
I had been hoping that it was one of those slim, pretty blondes with nice legs, like you usually see in those old private eye movies, or read about in private eye novels. Instead, my potential client was a tall, middle-aged man wearing a dark suit. His hair was black and clung grimly to the sides of his balding head like a swarm of ants trying to climb a hemispherical jell-o. Instantly I felt slightly suspicious of this character, though I wasn't certain why. Maybe it was the way he kept looking around, as if he were casing the joint.
Finally, he seemed satisfied about something and turned his attention to me. I gestured to the chair in the corner. "Please, have a seat, sir."
"Thank you, don't mind if I do," he said, sitting down. Once he made himself comfortable, I sat down on the chair behind my desk.
"Now," I said, leaning toward him, "what can I do to help you?"
He glanced around again, then leaned in close. "You can call me 'Giovanni', but a lot of my friends call me 'The Boss'," he began. "I came to you, Mr..."
"Just call me James. Everyone else does."
"Right. I came to you, Mr. James, because I don't believe the police can help me on this one. You know that a lot of Pokémon have been going missing lately?"
I nodded. "I'd have to be blind, deaf, and locked away in a bank vault to not know that. It's been in the newspapers," I said, "but so far, you're the only one to come to me about it." I shrugged. "Being a private eye, I don't get a lot of work 'cause I'm in direct competition with the girls in blue. And you don't have to pay them."
Giovanni chuckled a little. I didn't like his chuckle; it sounded sort of sinister. "But you don't get the results from the police that you get with a private investigator." He straightened. "What I want you to do for me," he said carefully, "is find me my Pikachu."
I was slightly surprised. "Your Pikachu?" I asked. He didn't seem to be the sort who'd keep a Pikachu. A Persian, maybe, but not a Pikachu. He didn't seem like a 'Pikachu person'.
If he noticed my disbelief, he didn't show it. "Yes, my Pikachu. It was stolen last night, and I want it back. I raised him from a little yellow cub... er, pup... erm, whatever you call a baby Pikachu... and I'm very attached to him. I don't know what I'd do without him..." Tears were welling up in his eyes, like my toilet does whenever it gets blocked. Either this guy really missed his Pikachu, or else he was a really great actor.
I decided to take the case, if only to keep this guy from blubbering. "Any clues? Any idea at all who might have taken it? How it happened?"
Giovanni nodded. "He likes to spend the night outdoors. He usually sleeps in one of the planters, and comes in through this little doggie door we have set in the back door in the morning. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to entice him away with standard Pokémon bait..." He seemed to be on the verge of crying again, but composed himself and pulled a photograph out of his coat pocket. "This was taken by our outdoor security camera. The guy in the picture has been hanging out around our place for a few days, and we haven't seen him around since Pikachu disappeared."
I examined the photo. It showed a young teenager or pre-teen with spiky black hair wearing a red and white baseball cap. In addition, he was wearing a red coat, blue pants, and carrying a backpack. "Villainous-looking character, isn't he?" I remarked jokingly.
"Is he? I hadn't noticed," said my client.
Either he was dumber than he looked, or he was playing along with the joke. I decided to not pursue the matter further.
"Do you have a recent photograph of your Pikachu?"
Giovanni dug in his pocket and produced a wallet. Opening it, he withdrew one of those photo holders, where people usually keep pictures of their families. Only in this one, there were several photos of a Pikachu. He pointed to the topmost one. "This is the most recent picture," he said, his eyes beginning to get misty again. I looked at it, trying to find some sort of discerning feature about this Pikachu. I wasn't successful. To me, one Pikachu looks pretty much like another.
"All right," I said, "I'll take your case." I had a funny feeling about this one, but then again, business had been slow lately (and by that, I mean that I hadn't had a customer in the past six months, so cash was rather tight). I really needed this job. "I get fifty bucks a day, plus expenses."
My client brightened at that (though how he managed to get that impression across, I don't know; he seemed to be quite a dark character). "Great! When you find him, bring him to me, at this address," he scribbled it down on a scrap of paper he fished out of his pocket, "and I'll pay you then."
He left quickly, glancing furtively around himself as he did so. I sat at my desk for a while, turning the encounter over in my head. Something in particular bothered me. A person whose nickname was 'The Boss' didn't seem to be the sort who'd start to cry very easily. And why was he looking around like that? It was like he was expecting something to suddenly jump out of nowhere and attack him. Ah, well, I'd had days where I'd felt like that before. I guess it comes with my line of work.
Enough mulling around. I'd figure out Giovanni's real angle on this soon enough. I retrieved my trenchcoat and hat from the closet and pulled them on, then headed out of my office. As I passed my receptionist, I stopped. "Remember to not hold all my calls this time. I can't afford to pay the phone bills if you do that."
"Ab-ra." I didn't hurry down the street. I wanted a little time to think. I wondered how I would go about finding the missing Pikachu. I wondered how and where I would find the suspect, the kid with the red hat and black hair. I wondered if I had enough money for lunch. I wondered how long it would take to crack this case, and how much money I would end up getting for it. I also wondered how many donuts that much money could buy.
I figured that the best place to start was to find the kid. He was obviously some sort of Pokémon trainer, else he wouldn't be wanting a Pikachu. I had to find someone who knew where trainers like to hang out, who knew who the trainers were. And the best person to find out those things from was Jessi.
You could call Jessi my girlfriend, I suppose, though friend isn't quite the word. We occasionally hit it off, but just as often we ended up hitting each other. I was most often on the recieving end. Her temper was on a shorter fuse than a hand grenade, and about as dangerous as one when it went.
Well, that wasn't entirely true.
A hand grenade probably causes less damage.
I drifted down the street until I reached the apartment block where she lived. I buzzed her on the intercom.
"Yes, hello?" she answered.
"Hey, Jessi. It's me, James. You in?"
"Yes, I'm in, you Slowbro! Could I answer the intercom if I wasn't?"
"Er... right. Listen, I just got a case and I need a little help from you to..."
"A case? You mean someone actually came to you for help?"
I could hear the note of sarcastic disbelief in her tone. I decided to ignore it. "Yes, I've actually got a case this time. Now, are you going to let me in, or do I have to find someone else to help me?"
"All right, all right. Come on up, and we'll discuss it in my apartment."
A few minutes later, I reached her door and found her waiting for me. She was wearing this slinky black dress that was so tight it looked almost like a second skin, or maybe more like the chocolate coating on an O'Henry bar...
(I'm going to have to stop making all these comparisons to food. They're making me hungry.)
"Well," she said, drawing close, "what do you need help with?"
I took a moment to collect my thoughts and pull my mind out of the gutter. After that, I was practically all business. "I, uh, that is, I need help finding, ahm, this... suspect." I pulled out the picture that Giovanni had given me. "He's supposed to have stolen a Pikachu, and I figured that he might be a Pokémon trainer. So I decided to ask you if you know who he is."
Jessi looked slightly disappointed, but covered it up quickly. She took the picture and gazed intently at it. "He does look... familiar," she said. "I saw him at one of the trainer tournaments once. I don't recall his name..."
She turned abruptly and called into her apartment. "Meowth!"
Her short cat Pokémon sauntered to the door. I didn't like him much. As was typical of cats, he thought he was superior to humans. But that's all right with most cats, and indeed most Meowths, because they can't talk. The problem with this particular Meowth was that he could talk.
"Yeah, what do you want? My favorite TV show is on, so make it quick."
"You're always saying how superior cats are to humans," I said. "Why don't you show us how superior your memory is? Jess, show him the photo."
She did so, and Meowth studied it for a second. "Uh, huh, it's a picture of some kid. So?"
"So, who is he?"
The cat squinted at the photo again, like I do when I try to find the cereal in a bowl of 'Lucky Charms'. "I've seen him before, at the gym in Viridian City once. Went by the name of Ash, I think. Yeah, that's right, Ash. Why? He wanted or somethin'?"
"Maybe," I said. To Jessi, I said, "Any idea on how to find him?"
She looked at me like I was the most ignorant person on the planet. "You could try at the gym," she suggested, voice dripping with impatience.
That evening, I, Jessi, and Meowth were staking out the Celadon City Pokémon Gym. Night was falling faster than a plucked Pidgey, and a mist was creeping through the streets like a Mewtwo on the prowl. We were aross the road from the gym, and were having little success in finding the suspect.
Or, at least, I was.
"Something's wrong here, Jessi," I said, "We've been here for over an hour, and I haven't seen one trainer go in the gym."
"Five have already gone in since we came here," she replied.
"Then why didn't I see them?"
"Because," she sighed, "you're standing behind a lamppost."
Moving only a few inches to the side, I discovered that the lamppost I had been taking cover behind no longer blocked my field of vision. "Well, I'll be... Why didn't I think of that?"
"It might be because you have something else on your mind," said Jessi.
"On the other hand," broke in Meowth's voice, "it's probably because you're dumb."
I was just about to exact some form of retribution on the cat when Jessi grabbed my arm and pointed. "There! I think that's your man!"
I turned to look across the intersection. I pulled out the photo to be certain. Yes, it was him. And trailing behind him was the Pikachu! Or, at least, a Pikachu.
I crossed the street and intercepted him. "Your name Ash?" I asked.
The kid stopped, looked me up and down, and replied, "Yeah. Who wants to know?"
I replied in my most sophisticated, intelligent manner. "I do. You see anyone else?"
Ash looked across the street to where Jessi and Meowth were waiting. "Well, there's them over there..."
"And did they ask you who you were?"
"Er..." he thought for a second. "No."
"Good," I said, "I'm glad we cleared that up." I glanced down at the Pikachu. "That your Pikachu?"
Ash glanced down at the little yellow Pokémon. "Yes, he's mine. Why?"
I ignored his question. "Is he yours because you caught it... or stole it?"
The kid stared at me like I had gone insane. "No! Professor Oak gave him to me! He's my Pikachu!"
"Oh, yeah?" I challenged. "Let's go down to my office and sort this out there..."
"NOOOO! HE'S MY PIKACHU! YOU CAN'T TAKE HIM AWAY FROM ME!" screamed Ash, backing away defensively, keeping himself between me and the Pikachu.
I couldn't let him get away that easily. I dug into my trenchcoat for something to help convince him to cooperate with me. "All right, don't force me to use this!" I said, pointing the object I had pulled from my coat at him. "You're gonna come along quietly, or else..." I let the threat hang in the air.
Ash looked unimpressed. "What're you going to do, blow pollen up my nose and make me sneeze?"
"Sorry, wrong thing," I said, tucking my rose back into my pocket. My hand came back out holding the correct object. "Now, come along quietly or else..." I waved my Pokéball menacingly.
"I think I'll... else." he said. "Pikachu, I choose you!"
I pressed the button on my Pokéball. "Go, Koffing!"
"Pikachu, Thundershock!"
"Koffing, Tackle!"
My Koffing dodged the lightning bolt that sprayed from the Pikachu's pink cheeks, and charged at the little mouselike creature.
Ash wasn't the sort who would stand by and let his Pikachu come to harm. "Pikachu, Quick Attack!" The yellow electric-type Pokémon moved with lightning speed, barreling into my round, ball-like one. With a move remarkably similar to a volleyball serve, he knocked Koffing straight back where it had come from... me! My Pokémon collided with me and knocked me onto the street. As I picked myself up again, I was surprised to discover that I was directly in the path of an oncoming truck.
The driver of the truck was just as surprised as I was, but fortunately he kept his wits about him and managed to slam on the brakes. Thus, it didn't hurt as much as it could have, and Jessi was able to peel me off the street with her bare hands. (If it had been much harder, she would have had to use a spatula.) A short flick, and I was restored to my usual three-dimensional shape.
"Where'd the kid go?" I asked, recalling my Koffing to its Pokéball.
Jessi had that look that said, 'What, no "Thanks, Jessi, for all you have done for me"?' She didn't say it, but she did answer my question. "He ran up the street and ducked into that second alley."
"Thanks!" I called as I raced after him, leaving Jessi and the truck driver to sort things out.
I rushed into the alleyway which Jessi had directed me to. It was a fairly typical alley: dark, dank, smelly, adorned with graffiti and a liberal sprinkling of trash despite the large dumpster at the end. This alley met up with another alley which ran perpendicular to it, forming a sort of T-shape, with the alley I was in as the vertical part of the T. It was in this intersection that the dumpster was located. Instantly I was struck by an idea. Why not hide in the dumpster and see if he came back this way again?
No sooner had I thought this than I put it into action. I opened the left-side lid of the green dumpster and hopped in, closing the lid after me. I almost wished I hadn't; it smelled absolutely rancid. But I was a Private Eye. I was tough. I knew because I touched dirty socks and survived. Hey, I wore those dirty socks.
It took me only a few seconds to figure out that the dumpster was already occupied. I could see his eyes in the dark (odd how that works, isn't it?). "Oh, sorry, didn't realize that this dumpster was taken."
"Oh, that's okay," said the other guy.
I popped the lid up a ways and peered out. No sign of the suspect.
"What'cha looking for?" the other asked.
"For this kid... he's been accused of stealing a Pikachu, and I'm out to find him..."
"Oh," said the other. "Well, I have a feeling that you're a lot closer to him than you think."
I sat back down again, and I felt my bottom settle on something furry. My initital thought, that I had sat on some sort of moldy object, was soon corrected when it let out a cry that sounded suspiciously like "PIKACHUUUU!"
I don't know if you have ever had the experience of sitting on a Pikachu in the confines of a dark, metal dumpster. I have. It's a rather shocking experience. For my part, I know that I lit up like a Christmas light. I, Ash, and Pikachu shot out of the dumpster like it was an Arbok pit. They sprinted for the street. I tried to follow, but was forced to settle for just lying down on the ground and twitching a bit instead. After I got bored of that, I got up and started after the two of them. I met Jessi and Meowth as I came out of the alley. Meowth screeched and jumped into Jessi's arms. Jessi looked rather surprised herself. I can't blame them. I'd be surprised to see a walking pile of trash suddenly charge out of a dark alley. "Static electricity can be a terrible thing," I said, brushing the worst of it off myself.
Jessi and Meowth both got over their fright, and decided to occupy themselves with berating be instead. "You could have given me a heart attack, charging out of the alley like that!" screeched Meowth.
"Good," I said, "then I wouldn't have to put up with your endless insults."
Jessi, Meowth, and I spent the next few minutes hurling insults and piecies of trash at each other. Then I got tired of that and decided to get back on the case. "Where'd Pikachu and the kid get to?" I asked.
Meowth and Jessi traded insults and flying pieces of refuse before answering. "Up the street again. This time, they didn't bother to go into an alley; they just went straight up it."
I tore after my vanished suspect and was exceptionally surprised to find him a few seconds later. He was screaming again.
"NOOOOO! MY PIKACHU! CAN'T THEY UNDERSTAND THAT?!"
Two tough-looking thugs were holding Ash as a third was manhandling the Pikachu into a big black car. The Pikachu-handler was wearing rubber gloves to avoid getting a shock from his charge (don't you just hate puns like that?).
I couldn't stand around and let them steal my evidence. After all, if this was Giovanni's Pikachu, I didn't want to lose it! I walked up to the thug with the rubber gloves and said, "Just where do you think you're going with that Pikachu?"
The thug turned to look at me. Boy, this guy made an Onix look small! He gave me a look that could have stopped a Tauros in full charge and said, "Just where do ya tink youse goin' wit dat face?" He threw the Pikachu into the car, grabbed me, quickly folded my spine into an accordion and played a lively polka with it. I hate polka. Fortunately, one of my last thoughts remembered to turn the lights out before it left (the polka probably scared them all away).
I came round a little later, to see the concerned faces of Jessi, Meowth, and Ash leaning over me. "He's awake!" cried Ash, stating what was very, very obvious to me.
I pushed myself up again and discovered that my back had recovered from being used as a musical instrument. "Did anyone get the license number of that car?" I asked, massaging a few stray vertebrae back into place.
Jessi nodded. "I wrote it down on the brim of your hat so I wouldn't forget it."
"On the brim of my hat?"
Jessi shrugged. "It was the only available thing to write on," she said, dismissing the subject.
I got back to my feet and looked at Ash. The kid was looking as if he had done something totally stupid and wanted to apologize for it.
"Uh, Mr. James? I, uh, just wanted to let you know that I did something totally stupid, and I want to apologize for it."
Boy, could I call 'em or what?
Ash continued. "I, uh, I'm sorry about getting into that fight with you, and then your getting zapped in the dumpster. I, uh, appreciate your trying to save my Pikachu."
I shook my head. "It was nothing," I said. "But remember this; I wasn't trying to save that Pikachu for your benefit. You've been accused of stealing one from Giovanni, and I'm out to find if it's true."
Ash looked crestfallen, but Meowth looked thoughtful. "Did you say that your client's name is Giovanni?" he asked. I nodded. Meowth blinked. "'The Boss' Giovanni?"
I was stunned. "Yes, that's him. Do you know him?"
Meowth laughed sardonically. "Yeah, I know him, all right! Biggest Pokémon dealer around... on the black market, to be sure, but the biggest! He used to be my owner, 'till he got his Persian. Then, at the trainer tournament in Viridian City, he traded me off to Jessi for a measly little Bellsprout!"
I was even more stunned. Then Jessi piped up. "How did Giovanni say he got that picture of Ash?"
"He said it was taken by a security camera."
Jessi looked thoughtful. "I thought it might be something like that. Did you think to ask him why he got a picture of Ash just standing around, and not one of Ash stealing the Pikachu?"
I had to shake my head. It hadn't even occurred to me. I admitted that to Jessi. "Why didn't I think of that?" I mourned.
"Like I said before, it's probably because you're dumb!" said Meowth. "He was only taking advantage of your stupidity. He probably figured that you were dumb enough and desperate enough for cash that you would get that Pikachu for him without asking too many questions."
I was as stunned as if I had been clubbed over the head with a Jigglypuff in full song. However, I did manage to pull enough thoughts together to figure something out. "Then, Giovanni's the reason all those Pokémon have been going missing lately! He must normally have his thugs drive around town, collecting any Pokémon they come across, then take them to Giovanni for him to sell on the black market."
Ash nodded. "I've had to deal with them once in a while. They've tried to take my Pikachu before, but this is the first time they've succeeded." He screwed up his face, as if thinking was as much a strain on his brain as it was on mine. "Then, the reason he got Mr. James here to go after my Pikachu was because his thugs were having so much trouble catching him on their own. It was just chance that I stumbled into them this time, and they were able to get me off-guard!"
Jessi nodded. "That's got to be it. But, how can we prove it? I mean, this is all speculation. We need proof!"
Remembering something, I dug into my pockets again. I found what I was looking for. "I think it's time we paid Officer Jenny a little visit," I said, holding up my hat with the license number of the car on it, and the scrap of paper on which Giovanni had scrawled his address.
At the police station, it turned out that the address of the person that the car was registered to was the same as the address Giovanni had given to me. In a few hours, I, Jessi, Ash and a horde of Officer Jennies descended on The Boss' Pokémon racket. We found several hundred Pokéballs, all labeled, priced, and ready to be shipped out. In one, we found Ash's Pikachu, and there was a happy reunion. Giovanni himself was caught, along with the thug who played polka with people's spinal columns and a few of their friends. I didn't know then that Giovanni's lawyers, a pack as vicious and cunning as a herd of Mewtwos, would find a way to twist the laws enough to get him out from behind bars after only two months. Oh, well, you win some, you lose some.
A few hours after we busted the Pokémon racket, I and Jessi were in my apartment. I was looking for something to eat, but all I discovered in the fridge was a slightly sick- looking Grimer (who had probably eaten that something that had been growing a nice crop of mold in the back of the fridge for a year - even in my most desperate moments, I wouldn't eat that!). I sighed.
"What's the matter, James?" Jessi asked.
"I just realized something," I said.
"What?"
"Well, I just cracked what may have been my biggest case ever, but I just realized that with my client behind bars, I won't get paid. And that means I'm practically out of money. I don't even have enough left to buy a single box of donuts!"
Jessi sighed. "Oh, well. At least it was a moral victory."
"Yeah, but moral victories don't put food on the table like financial victories do."
Jessi giggled. She had a nice laugh. I liked it much better than Giovanni's. She pulled close to me. "Don't worry, I think I can find a suitable reward for you."
"What?" I asked.
She pulled closer. "We could spend the rest of the night in the bedroom and make out," she whispered into my ear.
I had to admit it sounded good.
We two moved off into my bedroom and carried out her suggestion.
It wasn't a box of donuts, but it was good.
The End.
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