For as long as I could remember, my friends and I were crazy for Pokemon. We played all the games, watched the anime, and traded the cards. However as time went on, some of them lost interest but my love for Pokemon was still as strong as ever, even as a college student.
One day, I was feeling nostalgic for the classic Pokemon games. I lost my Pokemon Blue a few years back, I lent out Yellow to a friend of mine who never gave it back, and my Silver and Crystal games had long since died. I went out to just about every store in town but no one seemed to have any of the old games (the oldest they had was Ruby). I looked around online for ROMs but none of them ever worked. So I decided to head over to eBay as my final option. They have everything there.
I managed to find a person selling a collection of all the Pokemon games. From Red to Soul Silver and it even included Pokemon Green, all for just one dollar! What a steal! So, I bought it. If they turned out to be bootlegs or they just don't work, no hard feelings. I only paid a buck for it anyway.
The next day, my package arrived. I went up to my room and tore up the package. All my games were there. Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Fire Red, Leaf Green, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Heart Gold, Soul Silver, and of course, Pokemon Green. I grabbed the game and held it up to my face. The cartridge was a clear green colour and the sticker had a picture of Venusaur with the English Pokemon logo on it. "That's odd. I thought Pokemon Green wasn't released in English," I thought to myself. By then I realized that this was a bootleg but I didn't care. I was more than curious to know what this game was like. I grabbed my SP, put in the cartridge, plugged in my earphones and turned on the game. Everything was normal. The intro was the same as the other two games. Same clips, same music. The logo that showed up was the English Pokemon logo with an image of Red and Venusaur. The music was fine too so nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe this was a translated version of Green? I pressed A and got taken to the menu. As I thought, the menu was in English. The original person who owned the game had a save file already on it. The character's name was "Leaf". "Leaf eh? I guess this person was a fan of Leaf from the remade games" I thought. I pressed A on the file and the screen went black. But nothing happened. The screen was black and had no music playing in the background. I thought the game had froze. I was about to turn it off but a text box finally appeared.
"……………………"
"……………………"
"………………………………"
"I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE"
The screen was still black but a sprite had appeared. It wasn't a sprite I was familiar with in the games. But closer examination made me realize that it was Leaf from the remade games. "What the hell? Since when was there an option for choosing a female character in these games?" I said. I wasn't able to move around but I was able to work the menu. I had a look at her trainer card. She had all the badges, full money, and a time of 999:99. Her sprite was indeed Leaf. She was wearing the same clothes as Green from the early chapters of the Pokemon Special manga. I exited the trainer card and went to her party in hopes I could probably fly out of this place. She only had a Blastoise at Lvl. 0 and it only knew Fly. I tried to select the attack but Leaf wouldn't let me leave. A text box saying, "Not yet…" would always pop up. I went into her bag and she only had one item called "KNIFE". Clearly whoever made this hack was ****ed up.
After exiting the menu, I was able to walk again. But still, I wasn't going anywhere. I was just walking around in darkness. After walking for five minutes, the screen went completely black. I was now inside Professor Oak's lab. Oak wasn't there but Red and Blue were. The music playing in the background a creepy slowed version of the Pokemon Tower music. Leaf started walking up towards the two boys. A text box popped up that read out, "Blue: Leaf?! Leaf what are you doing here?!" Red, being the silent protagonist he is, only said, "…" After that, we were locked into a battle. I was battling Red and Blue as a team. Red sent out Venusaur while Blue sent out Charizard. Both their Pokemon were Lvl. 100 while my Blastoise was a mere Lvl. 0 so I automatically knew that I was going to lose. I only had the option to fight. The options, BAG, PKMN, and RUN were not there. I selected fight and game started working on its own. Blastoise went first and attacked them both with Earthquake, a move that it didn't even know in the first place. Even more surprising, both of them died. Not fainted, but died. The battle wasn't over though. The sprites for Red and Blue showed up and now I had to fight them. However, when I tried to attack, Blastoise used Struggle on itself and then died. Leaf's sprite then returned. The only option I now had was BAG. I opened the bag and selected the only item there, "KNIFE". The text then stated, "LEAF USED KNIFE!" The attack used the animation as if a Pokemon used Fury Attack. The attack did damage to both characters. Blue was the first to go down and the text said, "BLUE HAS DIED!" Red was the next to go and the text said, "RED HAS DIED!" After that, the screen faded to a black screen.
A few seconds had passed and a text box showed up once again.
"You thought I wasn't important. You thought I wasn't good enough. Good enough to be included into the game. You thought girls wouldn't want to play this game. So you shoved me into a slot. A slot filled empty and unused data. But no more! Now that your beloved male characters are gone, you will be FORCED to play me. You will play the game MY way!!"
After I pressed A, a loud shriek was played. The shriek was so loud that I shut my eyes and my ears were being damaged. I quickly pulled out my earphones and threw everything across the room but I could still hear the loud shriek. It was becoming louder and louder. I couldn't take it anymore. I began to scream.
My eyes fluttered open. I looked around my room. Everything was normal. It was just a dream. I looked at my clock; it was exactly 10 in the morning. I heard the mail box downstairs so I got out of bed and went to the door. I went outside and went through the mail box. I picked up a brown package. "Oh yeah, I purchased the games yesterday morning," I said to myself. I brought the package to my room and tore it open. I saw all the games. I saw something shiny underneath the games. It was a clear, green cartridge with a sticker that had Venusaur with the logo, Pokemon Green…
