Pokémon Blood Edition
Ever had a favorite game?
A game that you just couldn't put down?
A game that just had to be finished?
Well, my friend Steve and I were hanging out one day. This was back when we were younger; ten or eleven, if I recall correctly.
Anyways, we had just saved up quite a bit of money from our allowances and doing odd jobs (mowing the neighbors' lawns and whatnot), and finally had enough to each get a Game Boy Advance and one game a piece.
Steve was so excited, he was jumping with joy, in a literal sense.
We entered the game store, and all over the shelves were hundreds of games, for a bunch of consoles. I turned to look for my friend and I saw him talking to a store employee.
The employee nodded and walked away from him. Steve strolled casually towards me with a wicked grin on his face.
"Hey man! Guess what?" He said.
"Lemme guess... they don't have any Pokemon games." I responded, slightly bummed.
"Actually, they only have one game left." He said in an eager tone.
"Here's what I'm thinking, we pool our money together, and I'll borrow the game for a week, and then you can borrow the game."
I was reluctant to agree to this, but then again, we were best friends, so I accepted and remained happy that I was still going to get to enjoy the game.
The clerk came back and stood in the doorway, just staring at Steve... Steve walked over and handed him a twenty dollar bill, put something in his shirt pocket and just walked out of the store with a smile.
The clerk went back to stocking the shelves and completely forgot I was standing there, well I left and went home.
After the first night of waiting...
I'll be honest I really wanted to play that game!
But I think I can wait it out, I mean he would want me to give him some time to play.
—
So I continue about my day.
Well a few days go by, and I decided to call Steve to see what he was up too... There was no answer.
I thought maybe he wasn't home, maybe his family were out or something.
On the sixth day, I saw a television report about a boy who had gone missing, the picture was of Steve.
I rushed over to his house, and found that his parents were sobbing, outside.
"Johnny?" His mother asked.
"Hey..." I responded with uneasiness. "Are you ok?"
"The only thing he left was this. . " she said in mournful voice, as she passed me a piece of paper.
It was a note, written in dark red ink, it read "Game Over"
"I don't understand what it means. ." His mother cried.
"Do you mind. . if I go check his room?" I asked, rather determined. I had a feeling I knew what he meant in his note.
"Sure." She whispered, almost hopeless.
I ran into his house and headed for his room.
The strange thing was, that nothing looked out of place, he had an old wooden desk, and under a couple comic books, I saw the corner of what appeared to be a game cartridge.
Picking it up and looking at it, it was . . creepy. . .it wasn't the normal type of pokemon game, the case was a deep red, and the picture on the front was of Pikachu.
I didn't have much time to inspect the cartridge. . so I tucked it away in my pocket and walked out of the room.
Leaving my friend's house, I tried to think of where he could have gone but nothing came to mind.
I ended up getting home around 6pm, and after I took off my jacket, the game fell out of my pocket and struck the ground, it made me take a step back.
The cartridge was lying face down.
I stopped for moment, then realized that playing this Pokemon game was probably the last thing Steve did before he went missing.
I picked up the game and examined the label. It had a picture of what appeared to be Pikachu on the front, at least I think it's Pikachu, though it looked to be black, with piercing red eyes.
I grabbed my Game Boy, and put the game in the slot.
Pausing for a moment, I flicked the power button to on, and nothing happened.
This was weird, I had just put brand new batteries in this thing.
Well I opened some of my drawers and found a pack of batteries that only had two left, my lucky day!
I immediately popped out the old batteries and placed the new ones in.
I hit the power button again.
And again nothing happened.
"This is stupid," I thought to myself before placing the game on my desk.
After about an hour and a half or so of watching T.V, I was still so mad that I couldn't get to play the game.
"Johnny! You're father and I are going out, you be good. We'll be back soon." My mother said before closing the front door behind her.
I watched them drive away in the rain.
I continued to watch T.V, simply because there wasn't anything else to do. It was raining, getting dark, and the damn game wouldn't work!
I stormed to my room in a rage, annoyed, yet determined to find out the cause behind my game's refusal to work.
I closed my door behind me, and the only light illuminating me was the small night light that I had. I wasn't scared of the dark or anything, the light was a skull and it shadowed the skull on the wall.
When I looked over at the desk, it looked like the game boy was on.
I picked it up, and it immediately shut itself off. The screen went white and nothing happened. I sat there for a moment, just examining the whole system before a loud screech came from the game, so loud that I let out a scream. After taking a moment to compose myself, I watched the screen flicker from black to white.
"GAME BOY" flashed a crossed the black screen in a crimson color.
I've never seen any game boy start up this way.
The game began with the intro- you know the one- with the pokemon league battle. The first trainer called out a Charizard, though the image was hyper-realistic, like a real life dragon.
When it showed the strong willed pokemon, its trainer could be seen in the background... It was Gary Oak... he looked to be crying... constantly weeping, not paying any attention to the Charizard that he had just called.
Then the screen flickered.
A shadowy figure was standing on a platform looking towards Gary. The only way I knew it was a person was the thin, grey outline of his body.
The opponent threw a black Pokeball in front of the fire dragon.
A Squirtle appeared.
This Squirtle, however, had a black turtle shell with what appeared to be gashes in it, and it also had those sunglasses from the T.V. show.
"Squirtle used Sludge.
It struck Charizard's tail, and it was super effective.
Charizard has died..."
Then the screen flickered once more.
The Original Pokemon Logo appeared, and the words 'Blood Edition' in red appeared underneath before the menu screen popped up.
"How is this a kids game?" I wondered, but for some reason I just sat there staring at the menu screen.
There was only one option to select, and it was continue.
I tapped A and the saved file popped up. There was only one file.
A trainer, with 6 pokemon, and time played was ninety nine hours, ninety nine minutes and ninety nine seconds.
But the strangest thing about this file was the trainer's name. It wasn't "Ash" or "Red" or even "Steve".
The name was Johnny... that's... my name.
Hesitantly I tapped A and selected the file.
The game screeched once more, then an image of my sprite was shown, standing on the edge of a virtual cliff.
Before making any moves I checked the stats of my character. I actually had a pretty solid group of pokemon. It pretty much mimicked Ash's team.
Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Butterfree, Pidgeotto, and the last pokeball was blacked out. I just assumed the pokemon had fainted, and was unusable.
Well that, and because the other pokemon had very low health, pretty much ten hit points a piece.
I checked my character stats, and where the image of my sprite was supposed to be, was just a blacked out image.
I shrugged it off, and closed out and began to walk.
I was on what appeared to be a cliff of Mt. Moon.
There was something wrong, it looked like bones were scattered all around my sprite.
I walked to what appeared to be a cave entrance into the mountain.
Upon walking into the darkness, my sprite was knocked back to the cliff and a sprite resembling Professor Oak walked out.
I walked up to him and tapped A, and when I did
His dialog box came up.
'Oh... Gary... why didn't you listen to me?
You were the best...
But you were too stubborn...'
The Professor had stopped at the far end of the cliff. I slowly walked over to him and once more I tapped A.
'...Only a pokemon master can control them.'
His sprite said before walking off the cliff, the game then flickered as if reacting to something hitting the ground.
Then a high pitched screeching noise played, did I just watch a person commit suicide? I thought. I swallowed my fear and headed back to the entrance of the cave.
I entered and it was pitch black all around me, my sprite continued into the darkness.
I was just trying to get out of this mountain.
As I walked a dialog box came up
"Boy it sure is dark in here. . ."
The battle music instantly started playing, I was startled for a moment.
The dialog box returned.
"Surrender now. . or prepare to fight. . ."
My opponent appeared to be James from Team Rocket, but he looked incredibly sad and on top of that, he was all by himself.
"Trainer James has chosen Weezing."
"Jesse didn't . . listen. . .she was too stubborn. .."
After seeing the Weezing, I had noticed that its HP was at five, and the image of the Pokemon was completely blacked out aside from its eyes and the white X on its body.
I choose Charmander.
"Weezing used Suffocation. .
Weezing has died. . . .Charmander has died. ."
What the hell?! I've never heard of a Pokemon Technique called that before.
I wasn't too mad though, I had four more usable pokemon left and James only had the one.
After our battle, the sprite of James just sat there in the same spot as before, I tapped A and his dialog box flickered.
"Only a Pokemon Master can control them. . ."
His sprite then fell over on the shadowy ground of the mountain.
"Team Rocket Trainer. . James. . .has died."
At this point, two people had died.
I was terrified, I really didn't feel like playing anymore, this game was making me sick. I checked my inventory, I only had a single revive, and when I tried to select it, I simply got a response that "It's too soon to use this now."
So I pressed on, there had to be a reason why this file was left at Mt. Moon.
"Boy it sure is dark in here. . ."
I came across a ladder, ascending it to the top level of the mountain cave, it was a bit more visible than the lower levels.
The area was lined with gravestones, almost like lavender town.
A sprite facing away from me was standing before a grave stone.
He was crying.
"Why did he take my best friend?" The sprite asked.
The battle music started playing and my opponent appeared.
It was a depiction of Ash, though he looked savagely beaten, his eyes were missing, and so was chunks of his flesh.
"Trainer Ash chooses Haunter."
I decided to choose Squirtle.
This Haunter was strange, it appeared to be white, instead of the normal black, the Haunter had only five hit points.
"Haunter used Fear"
The screen flickered a couple times and a painful cry echoed from the speakers.
When the screen returned, it was completely black.
"Squirtle has died. . . "
The game prompted me to choose another Pokemon, well I had no Psychic Pokemon to battle a ghost so I figured this is the ending of the game.
I chose Butterfree.
"Butterfree is too scared to move. . "
"Haunter used Torment."
Once again the screen flickered, and the sound of unrelenting pain shrieked through the speakers.
"Butterfree. . has died."
I began to feel sad, all of these pokemon are just dying, and I can't stop it.
"Haunter has run away. . ."
Confused I tapped the A button and the sprite of the boy in front of me had vanished.
At this point, I only had two Pokemon left.
Bulbasaur and Pidgeotto.
The only way out of his horrific place seemed to be a ladder in the corner of the room.
There was a sign post next to the ladder, it read:
". . .Only a Pokemon Master can control them."
I climbed the ladder and I was on what appeared to be the peak of the mountain.
The snow was heavy, and the screen was dimly lit.
After a few steps my sprite collapsed.
"Its hard to breathe. . up here. . "
The screen flickered once more, and I could have sworn that I saw a skull flash across the screen.
When the game returned to, normal, there was a sprite standing directly in front of mine, it was a shadow.
The shadow said one thing, and only one thing.
"I am a Pokemon Master. . ."
The screen began flashing red and black, with a twisted version of the battle music playing.
The shadow chose Squirtle. Though this pokemon looked different, the shell was black, and it was wearing the blackened sunglasses, but the strangest thing about this pokemon was it's skin, it wasn't it's usual Aqua blue, the skin was red and looked to be dripping with blood.
A Squirtle is still a Squirtle, I thought to myself and I selected Bulbasaur.
Bulbasaur used vine whip.
The master laughed at my attempts to overcome his little water Pokemon.
"Squirtle used Acid. . ."
I can still hear the screams of my Bulbasaur, the image of my pokemon was replaced by a rotten corpse, that had been eaten away to the bone.
"Bulbasaur has died. . ."
Fearful of sending out my final Pokemon, reluctantly I selected Pidgeotto.
The Pokemon Master chose Charizard as his final pokemon, I knew it was only a matter of time before I lost the game.
His Charizard had black skin, with patches of red, it was missing half of its wing, what scared me the most was it's eyes, it didn't have any, just black sockets.
Pidgeotto used Wing Attack.
"Charizard was unaffected. .
Charizard used Flamethrower. . ."
My Pidgeotto fell from the sky and was burning alive, it's cries of pain rung throughout my whole house.
The game grew silent. . .I had lost.
But why was that shadow trainer still on the screen?
The dialog box appeared:
"Are you a Pokemon Master?"
An option appeared, no, and yes.
I paused for a moment, this probably had to be the worst choice in my entire life.
I just stared at the options.
But I lost, a Pokemon Master wouldn't lose. Then I began to wonder, maybe this was a second chance.
I selected Yes.
An eerie sound began to play, it was twisted.
My inventory opened and the Revive was selected, I chose to revive the unknown pokemon I had from the beginning.
I finally knew what my 6th pokemon was.
It was a Pikachu.
The electric mouse Pokemon.
This little Pokemon, was the only thing standing between me, and pure terror.
"Finally a battle of Masters!"
As the trainer spoke, I felt a chill run down my spine.
Then he sent out his final Pokemon.
It too was a Pikachu, though his looked grotesque, the tail had bite marks, it's body looked to be rotting away.
It's eyes were lifeless, and white, it was staring at me, not just me in the game, but it was staring at me as I was focused on the screen.
"Pikachu used Shock. . ."
The screen suddenly went black, and so did my night light.
I was too scared to move, all I could do was stare blankly at the screen.
The screen flickered, then I saw my Pikachu, though it looked to be badly beaten, and it only had one HP left.
His Pikachu however, was holding an evil, warped pokeball.
"Pikachu used Shadowball."
Mine was swallowed up completely, as the ball rocked back and fourth, shrieks of pain and fear resonated through my speakers.
"You are not a Pokemon Master. . ."
The shadow said, then the game turned off.
Well the years have passed, and I haven't really told anyone about this game, well except for my psychiatrist.
And I had completely forgotten about it all, until my son told me he was gonna to be a Pokemon Master, just like Steve.
I corrected him. "You mean Ash, right?"
He shook his head. "No I mean Steve. . "
And then he walked back to his room with a smile.
Credited to CreepyPastaJr
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