I don't remember my old name, but you can call me Red. Everyone else does. I don't remember how old I am, nor do I remember where I was born. Everything before the day I woke up in Kanto is a hazy fog, but I do remember a few details. My mom, my dad, and Pokemon.

The last thing I think I remember of my old life was finding a new romhack, a new way of playing an old game. It was "Pokemon: Roaming Red." I booted up the game, and was given my new name, and a rival: Blue. I chose Celadon City to start in, as the game let me choose where ever in Kanto I wanted as a metagame attempt to get more Pokemon early. I'm still not clear on it all, but I remember that the game then asked me to choose a Pokemon to spawn with.

I blacked out.

When I woke up, it was daytime, the sun shining down bright from somewhere in the afternoon. The breeze drifted across the landscape, smells teasing at a nearby restaurant, but I couldn't place the food. Opening my eyes, I noticed that I instantly knew my… inventory? Huh.

While I honestly can't remember the world I came from much, I figured this: I was now stuck inside the game. At least I wasn't alone. On my belt, a single Pokeball. Looking around, I somehow knew I was in Celadon City, probably due to the five story building a few miles off that was labeled "Celadon Department Store." Kind of a giveaway. People went about their daily business around me, and it seemed like no one really cared that someone may have just appeared in the middle of the road. Getting off the ground, I found that I had appeared in front of the city's Pokemon center. Palming the Pokeball on my belt, I dropped it to the ground to summon up the power inside.

A small Sandshrew appeared out of the light vomited from the Pokeball. It spoke fragments of its species name as it stretched and seemed to yawn. Again, something inside me told me that he was level 10, and that he knew…

That's not right.

It had been years since I had played Pokemon, and Roaming Red would have just been for the hell of it. Apparently, the hack messed with the game code something fierce. That was probably the reason why I saw the following information hovering above the Sandshrew.

Name: Hobbes
Attack: 22
Defense: 22
Speed: 13
Special: 13

Attacks:
Guillotine PP 5/5
Mega Punch PP 20/20
Tackle PP 35/35
Razor Wind PP 10/10

...how the hell did he learn all of these? Or did the game completely change up their pre-set moves and levelups? Oh, man. Any confidence about knowing the world in front of me vanished as I grappled with the fact that the Sand- Hobbes would be able to summon up whirling winds to punish those before me.

Picking up Hobbes and putting him on my shoulder, belting the Pokeball, I realized I'd need help if I was going to survive this world. An urge told me that there was someone at the top of an apartment building a block away who could join me on my quest, and that I could use the 9,000 Pokedollars in my wallet to buy some other Pokeballs at the department store. For some reason, I had a strong urge to visit the apartment before anything else.

"First thing's first, Hobbes," I said to the little dirt shrew taking up residence on my baseball cap as I began walking over to the apartment building, "There's something called an Eevee waiting for us on that roof."

Hobbes let out a little 'shrew' at that, wondering how I knew.

I shrugged, but wasn't about to question whatever had appeared in my swiss-cheese brain.

This… this wasn't right either.

After scaling a few flights of stairs at the back end of the tallest apartment building in Celadon, Hobbes and I had found a small shack. The front of the shack had the words I KNOW EVERYTHING emblazoned across it in big red font, which was either a great sign of getting some kind of explanation… or I had just found a conspiracy theorist.

In for a penny, in for a pound, I figured, and threw open the door. Meeting my gaze was a steely-eyed muscle-bound man, arms akimbo standing next to a desk. On the desk, a Pokeball and a small journal of sorts. The man didn't move, but met my gaze knowingly.

"I know everything about the world of POKEMON in your GAME BOY!" he spoke, his voice going oddly flat whenever he hit what sounded like key words. Hobbes didn't seem to notice, really. Continuing, Mr. Know it All said, "You have come here from ANOTHER EARTH. To leave for home, you must beat THE ELITE FOUR…" Stepping aside, he gestured to the Pokeball to his side, "This is for you, RED. Take this POKEMON and survive."

The lights blacked out. When they flickered back on seconds later, the character had vanished. I didn't wait long to leave, but took the Pokeball with me.

Back outside on the roof, I summoned up the Eev-

Charizard. A massive winged fire-breathing lizard with a blazing inferno erupting from the tip of its tail, intended for later-game evolutions and an ever-popular transformation.

I had found a Charizard, level 10. And it knew Mega Punch, Drill Peck, Recover, and Sonic Boom.

Shaking my head in bewilderment, I greeted Burnie the Charizard for the first time. Luckily, he didn't ignore me outright and welcomed me as his trainer with a simple utterance of "Char." He even went back inside his Pokeball, though I wasn't sure how that was impressive. Must have been the remnants of memory I've forgotten.

That instinct inside me that had driven me to the roof of this apartment building urged me to go to the Celadon Department Store to pick up a few Pokeballs and go catch Pokemon in a field just east of the city.

This world makes no damned sense. The field had Sandshrews, the evolved Sandslash, tiny snakelike Dratini, Hitmonlee, Mangamites… all completely with no rhyme or reason. It blew my mind to have Dratini slither out of the long grass and sing Hobbes to sleep, following it up with a cut attack. Or for a Geodude to roll into battle… only for him to splash in some puddles rather than attack.

Still, a few hours of hunting, and I had something close to a full team. Something told me that six was my limit, and that I should go elsewhere for a sixth. But joining Hobbes the Sandshrew and Burnie the Charizard were Gary the splashing Geodude, Benny the happy Dratini, and Android the blastin' Magnemite.

Why that nickname for Android? It's not often you see a teeny Magnemite erupt from the grass shooting off Ice Beams and two Hyper Beams at once. I barely survived that, and I'm hoping he was worth the struggle.

The Celadon Game Store. A den of scum and villainy, so or I'd heard from the old man weeping in the restaurant. While the costumed thug guarding a simple poster hanging up on the wall was utterly bizarre, he wasn't my focus. The slot machines rang in my ears as I looked acorss the dimly carpeted floor. Every once in a while, someone would drop their game coins, and I'd scoop them up quick.

200 coins, that should be enough.

Heading out of the smoke-filled casino, I entered the Prize Exchange store in the same building. Walking up to the counter, I held up the change and asked what I could get.

An old cigar-chomping man in a similar costume to poster-guy earlier looked down at me and my 200 coins. The cigar moved about his mouth as he looked over the coins, as if making sure the rocket-emblazoned tokens were legit. He jerked his thumb over to the exchange chart to the left of the window.

Abra - 200 Coins

Perfect!

I left the coin exchange with 20 coins left in the Coin Case, and my sixth party member. Checking him in my inventory, I let out a small laugh. From what my crappy memories told me, Abra was a powerful psychic Pokemon. If that was the case, why did this Abra (named Shazam) come with Headbutt, Mega Kick, Bite, and Strength?

Well. At least I knew where TM-29 was.

The sun still hadn't set, even though it had been several hours. Since it was a video game I'd been stranded inside, it wasn't likely to set anytime soon either. Still, with six Pokemon at my side and no badges, I had my work cut out for me. I adjusted my backpack behind me as my hands brushed across five Pokeballs. Hobbes hadn't refused to go back into his Pokeball, but I just couldn't bear to make him leave my shoulders either. Besides, having a Pokemon at the ready really couldn't hurt, right?

This was going to be one hell of a weird quest, I thought to myself as I headed east towards Saffron City.

Author's Notes:

This is actually based on a romhack I discovered about a week ago. It is totally called "Pokemon: Roaming Red," and has a nice feature of shuffling up a ton of things, including Pokemon spawns, item randomization, and even Pokemon moves. I gave it a few test runs before this current play, and it truly is an open world Pokemon hack.

And completely bonkers.

I'm thinking of writing in a few NPCs as companions to open this up more as a story and less as a collection of scenes. Let me know what you guys think.