Pokémon Lavander

I've been a Pokémon fan my entire life, Last week I got a bit bored after replaying Pokémon Ultra Moon and decided to check out Pokémon Fire Red on Ebay.

I found a copy for quite an affordable price but something else caught my eye. It was a Prototype of Fire Red called 'Pokémon Lavander" I was quite interested seeing as I've never heard of something quite like this. So I decided to get out some of my leftover Pocket Money and buy this game for only £10.

After a week of waiting the cartridge had finally arrived and had quite professional looking art to it too. It had a Marowak in place of Charizard. I didn't think much of it due to the relevance Marowak had to lavender town with Cubones Mother. So I checked the manual and it said this."Pokémon Lavender is a nearly finished product but is subject to change. If you are not authorised to play this prototype, get rid of the cartridge immediately, any sort of leak will result in a lawsuit". I didn't think much of it seeing as the game was 20 years old by the time I got the disk so I booted it in and started to play.

The Iconic Game Freak logo booted as a chill of nostalgia burnt through my veins but a warning went up before the game started. It read "Leave immediately. No use in fighting it. Just turn back before she gets you..". I was a bit confused, who is 'she' and what do you mean before 'she' gets me?I wrote it off as a tiny quirk the game had for the employees to giggle and chuckle out so I treaded forward. The title screen was the same but Charizard was again a Marowak but this one looked different. This one had red patches at its arms and legs. It looked a bit taller too, and there were still cracks from when it was a Cubone. Maybe they wanted a design change for Cubone's Mother to differentiate it from other Marowak or for story purposes. I didn't think much of it.

I entered the game and it all went as usual, I called myself "Gretst" shortening the word Greatest for the character limit and named my rival "Worst" to signify my greater role over him. It only started to get weird when I got to Professor Oak's Lab. He said "Oh Gretst! Worst already got his first Pokémon so you can have this one. It's specially caught for you. Take it!" I walked over to the Pokéball and it was a Cubone. It had the slight design changes the Marowak had but still being a Cubone and Shiny. Just my luck! I took it and tried to nickname it "Amazing" but when I pressed start it named automatically "Maroween" and asked if I wanted to really name it that. I tried to name it Amazing but a textbox appeared and said "Stop being persistent. I like this name enough." That caught me off guard by a large margin but I didn't like the name and would rather keep its name as Cubone so I pressed back but it named itself Maroween anyways. I didn't know why the programmers did this seeing as nicknamed were an already established concept, but I shrugged it off as another quirk they did for employees only.

I walked outside the lab to see Worst outside the lab and he exclaimed "Hah! I see you got your first Pokémon from Gramps, didn't you Gretst? Well let's have our first battle! Like the ones on the TV."And then a rival battle started. He sent out a level 5 Charmander and I sent out Maroween. This is how I found out Maroween was female because it didn't show when I was nicknaming it. I clicked fight to see what moves it knew. It had only one move, called "Wail". I had no idea what that move did because its not in actual Pokémon Firered or onward. It had zero PP or accuracy and wasn't Physical, Special or a Status move. So I used it and the screen started buffering before my rival's Charmander fainted and I won instantly. Worst didn't show up to jab or anything and when I got out the battle there was nothing but grass stained red slightly from where he was. I was confused but didn't take notice of it and took it as the game being a prototype and still being in construction. Professor Oak came out and exclaimed "Wow, that Maroween you have sure is strong. I forgot to give you this." and gave me a Pokédex. But the game buffered again and he disappeared. I thought this was because my Gameboy advance was a bit old and was just naturally lagging but a textbox said "You don't need Pokéballs, You have me, I'm all thats here and all that will be here."

That caught me off guard and came to the conclusion that this wasn't an official Pokémon prototype and was a hacked cartridge. I decided to keep on playing as I thought that it was innocent enough to continue playing. I went to the Pokémart to buy Pokéballs and went out for a Pidgey or Ratatta. I found a level 2 Pidgey but remembered that the only move Maroween knew one shots. I decided to farm in that patch of grass instead and hoped it would learn a move that would let me whittle down hp. Every time a Pokémon fainted, Maroween's bone stained a bit more red along with the grass the wild Pokémon occupied. Maroween ended up learning Destiny Bond at level 7, Bone club at level 9. I finally had a viable way to whittle down Pokémon so I went searching the grass again but a textbox appeared saying "If you think you can replace me, you're truly mistaken."

This caught me off guard as it continued "No more Pokéballs. All thats here is me and all that will be here is me." This was quite scary because I wasn't prepared to be addressed by the game so I gave up and went straight for Brock's gym. I got curious and realised that I haven't checked it's dex entry yet and thats one of my favourite things to do in Pokémon games. So I decided to try opening my Pokédex but yet another Textbox opened saying "No. You haven't earned the right to learn of me." This was quite annoying, I was used to just doing what I wanted in these games without being addressed or questioned at all by the game itself. I decided to not and continued the game. Every trainer I beat disappeared and was replaced by a pool of red liquid where they stood when I used wail. Maroween wouldn't let me use any other move in battle but Wail and made the game quite boring due to the lack of challenge. So when I got the chance I tried to forget the move when I got the chance but the textbox when I tried to said "Sorry! This move is in-able to be forgotten." Thats the biggest load of crap I've heard.

I sighed and continued on to the first gym and after I beat Brock I checked my trainer card to feel pride of my accomplishment I noticed my sprite was holding a bone. That was weird but I shrugged it off until a textbox said "Do you like the change I made to you? I think it's a better look on you." I looked unamused and shouted out loud "The hell do you mean do I like the look? It's just a bone." I don't know why I did but the game responded "I'll make sure to make a greater change next time." That shocked me, was thing listening to me? No. It isn't, it's probably a coincidence.

The game went on as normal but with the changes mentioned earlier until I got to the second gym at which Maroween evolved after reaching level 21. She looked a bit more lanky and her bone got larger. The textbox said "Am I doing good trainer..? Is this enough to convince you that im the only one who needs to be here?" I shouted again outloud "No! I want this game to be fun. This is just easy." The textbox said "You could have it way worse. You don't know how they feel."

That dawned over me for a while not knowing what she meant but continued on. I noticed that Worst hasn't been seen since the first battle, Strange. I continued on to the third gym and this time after I beat LT Surge when the game was done buffering I saw his Raichu's lifeless corpse majorly disfigured, it for around a second before I was out the battle sequence and the textbox said "You weren't supposed to see that." The corpse had a gaging hole at its torso and its eyes plucked out with blood vigorously spraying out of them. This made me sick to the core as I shouted out "What the actual hell was that? What did you do to that Raichu?!" before I was taken to the trainer card where I had the arms of a Cubone. The textbox said "That Raichu deserved it. After all, you don't need a Raichu, you only need me because I'm all thats here, and I'm all that will be here.."

I was horrified by Maroween's words and decided to take a break, but I couldn't get the thought of the game out of my head and decided to continue after 30 minutes. I had saved in Vermillion city but I was suddenly watching Maroween evolve again. She had two bones now and was much more tall and humanoid. The textbox said "Took you long enough, did you miss me?" and I was filled with irritation. I said "No I didn't." grumpily, and was taken back to the trainer card to see I had Cubone's legs now. The textbox said "Now you're nearly complete... is this better, trainer?" before I swear I heard laughter from behind me. I sighed and carried on with the game but the game forced me to the Pokémon tower with each step.

I got quite annoyed and went through the Pokémon tower until I noticed something. There was a misplaced gravestone and it read "Here lies Sabrina Mournes" which confused me seeing as that isn't a name of any Pokémon I know and the trainer called Sabrina didn't have a last name. A textbox said "That name is of no importance to you, don't look into it." and was interrupted by my trainer card having a Cubone torso. "This is getting old." I grumbled. A textbox appeared and said "Don't worry, it'll be fun when you realise whats going on.." and I heard the same unsettling laughter.

I went up through the Pokémon tower and every Cubone I fought ran away before Maroween could kill them. I got to the bit where the Mother Marowak would spawn but a different cutscene played. My playersprite turned into a cubone and Maroween came out of nowhere and the battle sequence played. The textbox said "A wild Maroween appears" as it slightly glitches to "A wild Sabrina Mournes appears" and it said "Trainer Gretst sent out.. Julius" that gravely petrified me seeing as thats my name as a textbox said "Check my summary. It will be amusing to see your reaction" and I immediately checked the summary as it read out "Maroween is an alias of the dead Sabrina Mournes. she was found impaled in the office of Nintendo and got sucked into an old prototype of fire-red where she took the form of her favourite pokémon. The lonliness made her lose her mind and have no regard for the lives around her and will do anything to get a reaction that satisfies her sick urges..." I exclaim in horror before the laughing gets louder before a distorted voice reads out "Maroween used Wail" before the game as I feel something sharp pierce my back before it all goes black...

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