Scamming The Scammers
"Booo, you suck"
"That was cheap"
"I can't believe I thought he was a respectable man"
The crowd was shouting at the Gentleman who pulled the ultimate scumbag move and effectively rage quit. The Gentleman was at a loss; their really wasn't a good option for him, if he defended himself he would be ridiculed, if he apologized and conceded defeat he would be admitting to it, and if he walked away then he would lose any respect he gained.
By the end, he decided to walk out with his head down and go to sit down for a while. And seeing this the crowd saw no one was planning on continuing the battle, so they scattered.
Ash finally got to walk over to his friends, "Yo, congrats Yellow you completely destroyed him."
Yellow looked a bit flustered, "N-no I didn't even win he said it was a draw so I really haven't won anything."
Ash patted Yellow on the head, "Don't listen to him he only said that cuz you were winning, everyone here thinks you won have some confidence in yourself."
"Ash is right you totally kicked his Butt," Misty said putting her arm around Yellow as Dody also walked forward and snuggled both heads onto Yellow.
"Ok, Ok thanks guys (◍´꒳`◍)," Yellow said, slightly blushing at the praise from everyone.
The group decided to continue looking around the giant Ship since at this point they only had about 1 hour before everyone arrived and 30 minutes after that until the ship would leave, so they made the most of the ship while they could still walk comfortably.
Over the way Ash saw Green acting like an employee and scamming people in any way she could, on the other side, Gary was depressed since he spent way too much money because he was an idiot, sucks to suck.
There were also some people setting up some stands and he saw a certain Magikarp salesman that he had seen before, selling 'special Magikarps' from Hoppy Town, which were not from Hoppy Town they were just painted and marketed as such.
Needless to say, he ignored him and continued walking and looking through the ship.
—
James was walking around in his tuxedo, surveying the room and serving people. He was frankly pretty uncomfortable wearing a suit, The last time he wore one was back when he was still in that place, it still brings back bad memories.
He was suddenly brought out of his thoughts by the sounds of a man "Hey you there, boy!" James blinked as a man at a stall called him.
"Hm, me?" James asked, looking at the man in surprise.
"Yes, yes, yes look at this Pokemon," The man said pointing down. James quirked a brow and looked to see a Magikarp with a really weird pattern
"A Magikarp?" James asked in surprise.
"Oh, so you know about this Pokemon." The man asked with a wide grin. "Legends tell that one Magikarp lays a thousand eggs at once Each of those 1,000 baby Magikarp lay 1,000 more. One thousand times 1,000 makes one million. Every one of those one million lies another 1,000. That's a billion Pokémon. And you can sell one Magikarp for 1000 poke dollars each."
"So why is it weird looking?"
"Ahh that is because this is a rare species from Hoppy Town, they specially breed each Magikarp so that each one is of the highest quality, and you know what since I like you and you know your stuff I will sell it to you for 3000, and tell you what for another 2000 I'll add in a breeding guide and incubators, what do you say?"
James just looked from the Magikarp to the man with a deadpan expression, he knew a lot about Pokemon and knew a scam when he saw one, he should know he makes one every week, especially since this Magikarp's special spots were smudging off on the container.
But then again he didn't hate the idea of a Gyarados, and since Jessie just got a ground type he also liked the idea of destroying her with a water type. His imagination also started going wild with the idea of him riding on a Gyarados through the water.
"I'm interested, but not for 5000, make it 200."
"Sir I can't possibly do that, each of these Magikarp cost me 2000, selling it to you at 5000 already puts me at a loss."
"Yeah, say that again when the paint isn't smudging on the fish tank."
The man looked down at the Fish and gritted his teeth, "OK OK, I'll give you everything for 2000."
"Not interested, but I wonder what my boss, the captain, would think of this."
"Fine 1000, that's as low as I'll go," he said mumbling.
"Just the Magikarp for 500 or I walk away."
"Fine, but you better know this is costing me more than you can imagine."
"You have a deal." James said handing over the money and receiving the 'Gold Pokeball', "By the way the paint is smudging on your hands."
The man looked at his hands and frantically started wiping on the water the Magikarp was in, meanwhile, James walked away spinning his new Pokemon in his hand.
—
Brock separated from the group to go and flirt with more girls, with his unorthodox method of flirting with all of them before any of them gave him an answer, the worst thing was that it seemed like one girl was interested but as soon as he jumped to say the same thing she immediately lost all interest, poor guy.
On the other side of the Ship Ash, Misty, and Yellow were still looking around through the stalls, a lot of them seemed to be similar to carnival games, things like bottle toss, ring toss, that one weird fish game, even some strength games and stuff like that.
Yellow was just looking around at all the games, and Misty was staring at the prizes. Makes sense because in her words she was only given the old toys her sisters didn't want.
Ash was about to offer to pay for them to play whatever they wanted before he noticed something, over next to the door that led to the captain's quarters stood a large man in a muscle suit. And talking to him was a beautiful woman wearing a sailor outfit but she also looked like she was above the other girls walking around.
They spoke a few words then she left, Ash felt like he had seen them somewhere before but he couldn't remember where, they weren't in the anime or manga but they still seemed like they were important.
"Hey, Ash are you listening?" Ash was shaken out of his thoughts by Misty.
"Sorry, what did you say?"
"We were asking if you wanted to play one of these games first, they all look fun." Yellow cut in.
"I don't really have a preference but you should probably know most of these are rigged," Ash said looking over to a line of stalls where he literally saw a person glue the cups in the ball throw.
Yellow looked like someone just shattered her world, "What that doesn't seem very fair."
"Your right.... Oh, were you expecting me to continue no that's it they aren't fair, but I know how to cheese them." Ash said, putting his finger on his mouth.
As soon as he said that Misty grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him over to a stall, "Great then you won't mind getting us some prizes I want the big Oshawott."
Ash was pushed to the ring bottle toss, he turned and gave Misty a 'Have you no dignity woman' stare. Before he got the stall owner's attention, "How much?"
The man looked over and looked at Ash. He immediately smiled, "You know usually it is 100, but for you 50 for 3."
"Alright here." Ash handed him the money then got the rings then almost immediately threw them each landing on one of the bottles, leaving spectators speechless, "I'll take the Oshawott."
The man looked panicked, "Well you should have said that sooner the big prizes need something else." he said before pulling out small red rings and handing them to Ash, "You need to use these, tell you what since you didn't know and you got all 3 these are your prizes and you can use them, usually it's one per person."
Everyone around could see this was a scam, someone was about to say something before Ash flicked them out one by one each perfectly landing on the bottle, "Alright so we get 3 big prizes for them, Yellow you want something?"
You may ask how he did it. It is simple, although he doesn't have telekinesis like Yellow he can create a pseudo-invisible hand To cheat, and no one could prove a thing.
Misty got her Oshawott, Yellow took a Pikachu, and with one left Ash grabbed a Clefairy for later use. After that they spent some time playing games and cheating to get prizes, you know you succeeded in life when you get banned from stalls.
They cleaned them out and Misty and Yellow were carrying a mountain's worth of plushies with them to their rooms, and by that I mean they made Ash carry them all.
After all the plushies were safely placed in the rooms they walked back to the dining room to look for something to eat, where they found Brock and some others crying, for what reason you get 3 guesses and the first 2 don't count.
So they let him cry his sorrows away with some new friends meanwhile they want to enjoy some of the banquets, surprisingly there was a large amount of variety and surprisingly there was even normal food like a regular lobster, he found out that normal animals aren't extinct just crazy expensive but he never really thought about it before.
He didn't think about it now either and kept looking, you could probably name any Pokemon type except Dragon and Fairy and they probably have something similar. Also, Pikachu finally woke up from his nap after smelling food. So he jumped out of Ash's bag and went out, grabbed a bunch, and fled back into the bag.
They sat down and ate before more people arrived.
Eventually, people arrived and the ship set sail, the boat quickly got filled up, and Brock went back to flirting.
After a few hours of hanging out and showing the Gentleman away, a person in a suit went up on a podium and got everyone's attention. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen." The host spoke gracefully, his eyes shining brightly at the audience in front of him. "Welcome to this beautiful night at SS. Anne. I hope you all have a lovely travel experience."
The entire audience clapped at his welcoming statement, as he continued, "As most of you have heard this Cruise will last a full week, during that time there will be a tournament anyone is allowed and welcome to join in, and of course, there will be prizes."
The crowd started cheering loudly and the announcer had to wait to speak again, "But before any of that, let's welcome the real reason you all are here, let's give a warm welcome to the new elite 4 of Kanto!"
The crowd started cheering and clapping as 4 people came out from the back. of the ship approaching on the walkway.