Pokemon Aftermath

I'd like to start by saying that I've read creepypastas before, but this isn't your average Sonic.EXE or Ben Drowned. This is another story of how I stumbled on something that I thought shouldn't have existed. I ... well, I guess you get to hear it and make your own decisions.

The past
No, I'm not going into a tangent about how I absolutely love pokemon ... I mean, I did when I was younger, but that's barely relevant. I had played all of the games up until the fourth generation, and that was when my enthusiasm died for the series. I still occasionally played my gold version. Hell, I beat the elite four enough times to make it a world record. But that's just it. I had beaten the elite four and Red several times. I had most of the pokedex filled out and I had leveled each pokemon up to level one hundred regardless of how much I used them afterwards. Now I know it sounds crazy, but this was my favorite generation. When I was younger, I spent almost all of my time on it, even when a new pokemon game came out, I played gold the most. I must have had at least two hundred hours on it. that might also sound crazy to you, but keep in mind that I was once a fanatic. I had gotten so good at pokemon that I literally finished most of them in just one day.

Now, I remember one day, I had been playing my gold version, but my enthusiasm was quickly dying out. How was I supposed to enjoy the game now when I had all of the pokemon trained up to level one hundred? I didn't even know now, but this made me stop playing gold, and I ultimately stopped playing pokemon altogether. I turned into one of those hardcore critics of how the new pokemon were all terrible looking and the new games were just the old games all over again. And then pokemon X and Y came out. I know what you're thinking, that wasnt too long ago, and it wasn't, but once I heard that the fire starter was also a psychic type, I couldn't help but go grab the game. Once again, I know what you're thinking. Greninja is so much better cause he can learn psychic type moves to cover his weakness. Well, I didnt care. This was the game that got me back into the pokemon series.

The aftermath
Now, this is something no one ever really thinks about. In your travels as a pokemon trainer, you faint hundreds of pokemon in the wild, meaning that you leave hundreds of KO'd pokemon lying defenceless on the ground for some predator to eat. Sounds dark? Yeah, and that's the whole premise for what I found. I had finally gone back to my gold version to relive my past. Yep, nostalgia all the way! But as I travelled through literally every area, I noticed something out of place. I was heading towards mount silver to battle Red once again, but when I got to the entrance, Professor Elm was blocking the entrance. Talking to him only revealed an ellipsis. It made no sense as to why he was here. Had I played the game so much that I actually broke it? But I hadn't even used a glitch or gameshark cheat or anything. It was as I was walking away that I noticed a small path in the bottom left corner of the road as you head away from the mountain. I knew from several hundreds of hours of gameplay that this wasn't supposed to be there. Normally I would have left it alone, but something compelled me to check it out. glitches interest me, so I figured if i went far enough, the game qould crash and I'd have to trash the game. Well, I was wrong. The path continued for about thirty seconds of walking, or at least it felt like it, with how few things happened there. After that, it turned up and I walked for about five paces before seeing something odd. the path widened ot, but each space that I might have turned to walk in was filled with pokemon sprites. I was excited and confused. could this have been the source dump for all of the data? Well, I continued walking through the crowd of pokemon. Trying to talk to one was met with an ellipsis. This continued for what felt like minutes, but just as I was thinking about turning back, I saw a cave at the end. I was both confused, and extremely interested. These pokemon were definite parts of the game, and their text wasn't just random messages from throughout the game, so this must have been intentional. Well ... maybe.

I entered the cave and took in the boring glory of it all. the only Interesting thing was a red floor. I thought to myself "Oh no, I've entered hell and now pokemon are evil." After chuckling a bit, I went further in the cave. It was three spaces wide and completely empty for the first twenty or so paces. Then I saw pokemon ... or what seemed to be mangled versions of their sprites. They looked almost like they had been taken straight from the fan-game; Pokemon Nightmare, but they were a bit ... more believable. Now, I know what you're thinking, the floor was covered in blood, this story is focusing too much on blood blah blah blah. The odd thing is that I didn't really know. You would, of course, assume it was blood with the mangled and dead pokemon, but I just wasn't certain. Something in the way the pixels were laid out made me think that it might have actually just been a red carpet. You see, normally a designer of games, as far as I know, would go through the trouble of making apparent that it was still a hard, rocky floor covered in blood, but the floor was just pure red here. No odd sounds came from the game to suggest that it was blood either. Was there music? No. Just a red floored hall with what seemed to be dead pokemon.

I Kept walking, curiosity getting the better of me, and soon found myself at a dead end. What? I came all the way here just to reach a dead end? I walked out, angry and confused. I just wasted ... I looked at the clock and realized that I had only used about five minutes, tops, to get there and back. When I left the cave, the first thing I noticed was the lack of pokemon. They were all just gone. I could move freely again. I walked around, but found nothing in the rather small space that was there. I left the area, but the moment I got back onto the actual road to mt. silver, my rival attacked. His text box, get this, was another ellipsis and the battle started. Oddly, he only had one pokemon. He sent out Meganium first thing. I figured he wouldnt be any more powerful than he used to be, and boy was I wrong. When I made my Feraligatr attack, he did little damage. It was in that moment that I actually shecked the level of Meganium. It was also level one hundred. It hit my pokemon with a super effective move and I watched as my Feraligatr just fainted. "So you wanna play it that way?" I asked out loud, even though no one was around. I sent out my pride and joy; shiny Arkanine, level one hundred. A single fire blast dealt with that Meganium. With that, the battle was over and I had won. When the battle ended, my rival was gone. I passed it off as another odd ocurrance. I used a revive and full restore on my Feraligatr and then went up to the entrance of Mt. Silver again. this time it wasn't Elm that was blocking the path, but Blue. I spoke to him, expecting the usual ellipsis. I was mistaken.

"Don't you understand what you've done?" he asked. What I've done? I had no clue as to what he was talking about. That was the whole converstaion too. Speaking to him again just made that same text box pop up. I left Mt. Silver confused, but not angry. By this point, I just wanted to know what was going on. I made my way to lavender town. The normal cheery music played. I honestly hated the new cheery music because Lavender was supposed to be a town dedicated to the burial of people's dead pokemon. ... Wait, why not all dead pokemon? I was slowly starting to understand where I had been earlier. It was probably a burial site for pokemon that died at the hands of trainers or the like. I still didnt understand fully. I had fought to stop that sort of thing in each game. That was the point of pokemon, to protect the world from the evils of team rocket and the like while striving to be the best. Was I missing something? I continued on into the pokemon memorial. Talking to each person revealed that their texts hadn't changed at all. Only when I spoke to the man that owned the place did something different happen.

"Do you want to see it?" he asked. I was given a yes or no choice. It was wierd, but maybe it would give me some insight as to what was going on. I hit yes and he moved one space over. I heard a clicking noise and a stairway appeared to his left. He entered it and I followed. I found myself once again in a hallway with a red floor. The pokemon all around us were either ghost pokemon, or the mangled sprites. A text box appeared once again.

"This room, specifically, was designed for the countless pokemon you've managed to kill." the man said. What? I didn't kill pokemon. He continued speaking. "Throughout your adventures, you've caught many pokemon, and every pokemon you encountered that you didn't catch, you made faint. These pokemon become defenceless and are shortly killed by their natural predators. You didn't even realize, did you?" once again, a yes or no option appeared. I selected no, as I had never thought about it before. "Good, you aren't like Red." he said. Wait ... Red was supposed to be a noble young soul. The man was accusing him of something horrible. "He doesn't care how many pokemon die, so long as he becomes the strongest trainer. He has even abandoned pokemon that needed him. And every time he was defeated, he went along and caused the deaths of more pokemon." I finally understood. my battles had caused pokemon to die. It wasn't like I could avoid it, though, it was just that I hadn't considered it before. And Red; he just wanted to be the best. He loved his team, alright, but any other pokemon was just another way to test his skill.

I ran straight to Mt. Silver the moment I left Lavender. I didn't understand what i was going to do, I mean, I've already beaten Red about fifty times. When I reached the entrance, Elm and Blue were standing on either side of it. I didn't care. I ran into the cave and found Red. The moment I did, I started the battle. This was where it got interesting. All of Red's pokemon were level one hundred. he also no longer had a Pikachu, and in it's place was an Electabuzz. I already knew what the game was implying. After a fairly short battle, the scene that usually plays did where Red disappears. the credits rolled and I was left with one question. Why was Red portrayed as the enemy in this?

I became curious about what triggered this event, so I went to a friend of mine and asked him to search the code. he was an expert at decyphering code, but he couldnt find anything. All he found was a useless line that seemed useless. Everything I experienced didn't exist? I began speculating that maybe that code was triggered after you trained a certain amount of pokemon and defeated a certain amount of wild pokemon. I wondered if maybe it was designed to write in new code, but my friend said he didnt know. He said he didnt know of any code that could do that, but it might exist. Wow. My opinion of my friend's skills worsened. Maybe he really wasn't being madest when he said he wasnt that great. I leave my question to you. Can a piece of code write in a new plot?

author's notes
So, this was a success in my book, but it just doesnt feel right. I used Red as an enemy to put in that extra question of "could this really be what he thinks?" because you just don't know. He doesnt speak at all, so maybe he isn't quite as noble as we think. Then again, you could also use that same argument against gold. (Or whatever you want to call him.) Writing this actually made me feel a bit sad for the pokemon. I knew what was happening each time and it still felt a little painful. If you felt the same or if you felt that it fell a bit short, tell me. I'm open to criticisms.