A/N: This is NOT a Creepypasta
Do you remember those "Step Into Reading" books from your early childhood? The ones that were designed to help kids read in four steps and serve as the foundations from which an entire generation of children built up either a deep hatred for literature or an insatiable thirst? Well I've been a Pokémon fan since the days when Stage 2 gave me trouble and either my parents or older siblings had to read more than half of Pokémon Yellow to me with patient or exasperated expressions on their faces. I remember being so disappointed that year, the magical year of 1999, particularly towards the end because I received the yellow and blue "Pokémon Edition" Gameboy Color for Christmas along with Super Mario, Pokémon Yellow and Pokémon Blue along with the obligatory underwear and pajamas. It wasn't the presents had wounded my young hearts, no it was the fact that Pikachu couldn't defeat Brock's Onix like he had in the television show and the fact that when I woke up on January 1, 2000 the world wasn't like the Jetsons. Sue me, I was five.
As I grew older I began to realize that many of the television shows that I had grown up with were lacking in some then undefinable elements and thus didn't appeal to my changing tastes. Things like Gundam and Zoids were thoroughly capturing my attention in ways that many of the other shows simply could not, unfortunately one of the first shows that dropped off the radar of my third grade mind was Pokémon. To this day I cannot bring myself to watch the show but that hasn't kept me from collecting the cards or playing the games and through the magic of the internet I gained the ability to play games on consoles that I don't own through emulators.
With effortless ease I now smash through generations one through five and wait eagerly for the release of a generation six rom in a language that I can understand. The movement of the sprites in the over world is so slow and has driven me insane since Gen 1 and when I play ROMS on the PC I used Gameshark codes to increase both the movement and text speed to make it bearable.
Caught in the college 'why the hell am I doing this slump' I asked my best friend, James, to send me something interesting that I could kill a few hours with. He started sending me the newest beta for the rom that he was working on, an amazing hack of Emerald in an increasingly immersive world with a more adult storyline. He said that he was working on something else, something special but I had something to do and when he decided to be cryptic getting information out of him was harder than it was to win an argument with my mom.
About week later I receive a letter in the mail with my address, a false return address, an over the top letter signed by 'Sincerest Apologies, Rodger Smith', and a Gameboy advanced cartridge. It looked like it had begun life as a copy of Leaf Green with "Ultimate Leaf Green" written in neat black marker where the sticker should have been and neat lines where it had been super glued back together in two places.
Now I really had something to do even if I looked like that overgrown man child in class when I was supposed to be paying attention to whatever the professor was saying. I knew that I could Skype James later that night and ask him if Rodger Smith was a reference to Big O or American Dad. Things like that really bother me, I don't know why.
Briefly consulting the stove clock inside I texted James 'Seriously bro?' to which I got ':P' in response after a few moments. Dropping the letter on the kitchen table, where I knew I'd be able to find it after tearing apart the drawers of my nightstand in search of the black Gameboy Advance SP. Eventually I found it in its customary place, the very back of the bottom drawer, under all of the other crap that I don't use it anymore but can't bring myself to throw away.
Back in the kitchen I retrieved the cartridge and popped it in. Taking a place on the far end of the couch in living room, connected to the kitchen via an open air floor plan, I plugged the SP up to the charger and the charger into the wall. The opening cinematic played and I took note that the title screen now read "Ultimate Leaf Green" with a bad ass image of Venusaur that he must've drawn, scanned, photo shopped to get the right color scheme and put into the game.
There wasn't a previous save file so I started one naming my character LIAM and my rival CLYNE. My character has always been called LIAM and James had always been named CLYNE, after the dogs that we'd respectively had in childhood.
In the opening sequence with Professor Oak gave the usual speech but my sprite was different, custom: long black hair under a baseball cap, a hoodie and black jeans in a green and white primary color scheme. In honor of my choice to go to The University of North Texas despite the fact that it would involve me moving to Dallas. CLYNE's sprite was different too: blonde wearing a t-shirt beneath a vest and black jeans as well though his primary color scheme was the white and maroon of Schreiner.
The game started in Pallet Town and I immediately noticed differences between this version and the original. First my sprite was an over world representation of the sprite that I had seen in the opening sequence. When I went to get the obligatory potion out of the PC, LIAM was moving twice as fast as he should have been.
Downstairs I noticed that my house was larger than it should have been; there was a hallway like the one in the lab on Cinnabar Island where you take the fossils. There were three doors, one for each of my older siblings and one for my parents. In the first room I found the in-game representation of my sister at a desk, when I tried talking to her she said that she was running late for school and that I shouldn't bother her while trying to pack her backpack. In the second room I found a custom sprite of my brother and when I tried to talk to him I got the message "LIAM has been Nerfed."
Leaving the hallway I talked to my in game mother and entered a conversation that made me smile and tear up a little.
Mom: "Good morning, HAYDEN. I got a letter from your father this morning from the desert. He said that he got the care package we sent and the pokémon that you drew for him."
Mom: "We finally have an address to write him at and your brother and sister have already written a little message for him at the bottom of the letter we're sending back to him in the next care package."
LIAM: *writes back* "I love you Dad and wish that you were home." *draws a Pikachu for Eric*
Leaving the house I explored this new version of Pallet Town. There were more trees and new buildings including: a Post Office, two elementary schools called Aurora and Orion respectively, a high school called Bartlett, a karate dojo, an electric shop and BX/Commissary Pokémart that sold Soda Pop, Coffee, Water, Juice, and Lemonade.
The kids floating around town knew me and made conversation about things that were relevant to ten year olds when I was ten, like how cool Adult Swim was and about the Toonami line up to which LIAM actually responded with generic things that I would have said. In the electric shop the few people that were there were dressed in green BDUs and made comments on how my dad would be fine, how the war would be over soon, and about my spectacular failure on the skateboard that one time during CLYNE's birthday party earlier that year.
Finally done exploring the Pallet Town representation of the Air Force Base I'd lived on for the most significant five years of my life I went to CLYNE's house and found his father downstairs. He made comment on how good it was that we'd finally gotten into contact with our family overseas and how good it was that CLYNE could finally contact his mother before telling me that CLYNE was outside somewhere. With nothing left to do I went to start the "Tries to leave town, Oak stops, journey begins" event.
In the lab Oak tells me that we're waiting for my best friend who he'd sent on an errand to the electric shop. Sure enough CLYNE walked up in the custom sprite that matched the picture that I'd seen in the opening sequence with Professor Oak.
The speech popped up with friendly differences Oak said something along the lines of "You're ten now, practically men, and it's time that you begin your journey. Now you both have a choice, there's only three on the table but there are three more that won't fit on the table."
There was the traditional Squirtle, Bulbasaur, and Charmander on the table. So out of curiosity I talked to him and received two more options: Eevee or Pikachu. The usual text prompt popped up asking me if I'd take the Pokémon like if I'd clicked on one of the balls on the table and I selected no both times just to see what would happen. That's when Oak told me that he had another but warned me that it's playful and unpredictable nature made it a dangerous companion and that he wouldn't trust to an inexperienced trainer.
He proceeded to ask LIAM if he thought he could handle it, to which I selected yes.
The color pallet on the screen faded some and Oak asked "CHRIS, do you think that YOU can handle it?" to which I once again answered yes.
Another text box appeared which sent me into spasms of hysterical giggles, like I was a little boy again watching the final episode of G Gundam where they shoot the Burger King man out of their fingers.
The text box read "Suffer no guilt, ye who wields this in the name of Crom." which is a quote from the show Big O, James' favorite non-Gundam giant robot series. After I had regained my senses and pressed the A button I noticed that the color pallet fleshed out to its usual bright colors and the text box prompting me to choose a nickname appeared. I chose not to name the female Bagon because I hadn't named my male in Ruby Version.
Before I left Pallet Town I checked with my mom and she gave me Running Shoes, and a cellphone.
The rest of the game proceeded much the same as a normal version of Leaf Green would with a few exceptions: having access to all the Pokemon available in both Fire Red and Leaf Green catch tiles, more fleshed out cities with post offices, a hallway leading to a room with beds, calls from mom in every city, letters from my father every three or four cities at the post office, an increased difficultly curve which made it interesting without being rage inducing, and funny little Easter Eggs referencing the childhood experiences that I'd had with James which made me check out every sign and talk to every NPC.
In Vermillion City Lt. Surge made his usual comments about how he used his electric pokémon in the war before we fought. At the end of the battle he said that he'd stepped on a landmine and returned home with a purple heart. LIAM said that he had an affinity with electric types because his father was an electrician. Lt. Surge had told me to come back whenever.
The next great difference was Lavender Town's Pokémon Tower. It was renamed "The Tower of Mourning" and had the graves of both lost soldiers and dead Pokémon. The Rival battle with CLYNE began with him saying that he'd come to the tower to pay respects for the souls lost at war. The in-game event on the upper floors the Marrowak was a pokémon that was angry that some Rocket Grunt had kicked the flowers off its deceased trainer's grave.
I prepared to face the Elite Four with a dream team consisting of: Dewgong, Raichu, Primape, Rhydon, Salamence, and Chansey. At the end, before I challenged the Champion, a text box appeared saying "LIAM has been Nerfed". My older brother turned out to be the Champion and after the second hardest Champion battle I've ever fought, with Cynthia still having the number one slot, I won.
After the credit reel I found myself back in Pallet Town and went to Oak to get my National Dex so that the second act of the game could begin in earnest on the Sevii Islands.
After years of consistent wins, even during Nuzlocke Challenges, I'd never had much of a problem battling in the first or second arc of Leaf Green or Fire Red. Oh my God, the Sevii Islands in this game. They were infuriatingly difficult in a way that brought on a strong wave of nostalgia and I almost quit on multiple occasions but Pokémon has always had this quality to it that made truly giving up on the challenge impossible. Eventually I got through it to the end, undid the Rocket Operations on the Sevii Islands and captured Mewtwo.
With little left to do but complete the National Dex I decided to try it for the first time. So I began by catching all of the pokémon available without cheating to complete the Kanto Dex, trading the original three starters from a copy of Leaf Green.
I started the Johto Dex with Pokemon Silver knowing that I had to catch what I could fast because logging over seventy or so hours in the game would cause the file to be erased. After almost fifty hours I had defeated the Gym Challenges of both Kanto and Johto, gaining access to Mt. Silver which allowed me to catch what I couldn't from Gold before the inevitable dry battery would force a reset. Gold progressed easier due to my familiarity with the game's lay out and the lack of a deadline.
When I moved onto the Hoenn Dex I began with my copy of Ruby, the only copy that I had gotten most of the Hoenn Dex on, and the mostly gutted copy of Sapphire I'd brought for the soul purpose of using the other Eon Ticket on after discovering that I could purchase another copy of that volume of Nintendo Power and catch the other Eon Pokémon.
After trading the pokémon over to Ultimate Leaf Green, keeping all the non-essential pokémon there save the male Salamence that had carved my path of victory into the very face of Ever Grande City. Figuratively of course, something like three hundred League wins gives you that particular bragging right.
Then I began when Emerald to finish it. My holy Emerald Version on which I had collected American Distributions: The Old Sea Map, Aurora Ticket, and Space Center Deoxys which I'd had to pester my sister to drive me to Houston to get. With the National Dex complete I proudly went to Professor Oak who gave me that Nintendo Certificate proclaiming that you were a Pokémon Master now... two months of my life later. I'm getting too old for Pokémon now, I mean I'm nineteen and a college student in their third semester at UNT but it's a guilty pleasure.
James recreated a piece of our childhood, allowing me to relive it again in a safer, more certain environment. So I decided to play the game all the way through one last time before moving onto the hard copies of generation four and five that I'd finally got around to getting after purchasing the Link to the Past 3DS XL the day it came out. In the middle of transferring all of the pokémon back to their original games when I got slammed with babysitting my nephew, Todd, by virtue of being the only one not working that night and he immediately took interest.
Todd is five and those second step books are giving him trouble. But he's got a 3Ds and enjoys the Pokémon TV show so I couldn't help but smile when he all but begged me show him how to play the game. Unwilling to let him start a new game over any of mine, especially Ultimate Leaf Green, I strapped his booster seat into the back of my truck and drove him to Toys R Us to buy him his own copy. I snagged one of the last copies of the Black & White 2 official strategy guide and let him pick between the two games in the case, Todd chose Black because the dragon on the front looked cooler.
So we sat on the couch with our Gameboys playing our games, or trying too because Todd was constantly asking me what this or that word was and like any good Uncle I indulge him patiently, most of the time.