*** - Like a wilting flower, a warrior is loyal until the end
I had begun a game a long while back, when I first played Pokemon Diamond back in 2007. I had been enticed by a whole new region; and needless to say, I absolutely loved the game. There was one little icing on the cake; my favorite Pokemon while playing through Sapphire was Roselia. She didn’t have much uses in battle, but I had defeated the game with one before. Needless to say, I was extremely happy when one of my favorite Pokemon not only got an adoreable pre-evolution that I could get real easily, but had an evolution that was just plain amazing. I imidiantly loved Roserade; and made it my vow to play through with one by my side.
I ended up finding one very easily in Diamond at the time; a female at level five. Right on par with my starter Pokemon, a Piplup named Haku I had. I imidiantly caught the little one, my obsession with anime leading me to name her Zakuro.
To be truthful, it was a little hard to use her; a lot of gyms required paitence and time to grind, but none the less I managed to make it through with just her by my side. She plowed through Pokemon like they were simply made of cake; and that’s saying something.
I soon found that Diamond had nothing to offer me anymore; my Roserade was at Level 80 at the time, when I heard that Platinum was coming out. I figured that she’d be grand to use over and over again in these games. I managed to trade her over to Platinum when I got it; and went through the usual troubles of her refusing to listen to me. Who cared? I got to use my old, reliable girl over again. And reliable she was; she went up to Level 100 in the final Battle with Cynthia, in which I deemed Zakuro to truly be ‘my pokemon’.
You can imagine my excitement when Heart Gold and Soul Silver came out. I’d never played the original games, finding them rather hard to find at the stores. I waited paitently; killing some time by taking on some Pokemon in each of my games. Didn’t dare to try and take on the Battle Frontier; they needed a team of three in most of them, which in all honesty, I never had. I’d trained a few other Pokemon in the past, but most of the games were long gone by now. I did enter the Battle Hall but once; before the two games I had my eyes on came out.
I had managed to use Zakuro’s rather diverse moveset in order to defeat most of the Pokemon in there. It was actually quite fun! But then, this woman came up to me. This must’ve been the boss; Argenta, was her name. It was…odd. She spoke some rubbish about favorites at me, which I basically skipped almost entirely. After battling her, she said something about…well, I don’t know. I tend to skip all of that stuff. But it was after the battle, that I noticed something…weird.
The room was dark. The lights were on me and Argenta, but she walked over to me.
“Listen, Emilia. There is not much time left. Those battles have been shortening the time that is left. You may want to keep an eye on your pretty there. Something’s growing.”
…That was a little weird. I didn’t think games were sentinent! Either way, after all of that she gave me my points and the lights went back on. It was a little weird, but I didn’t pay any mind. Once I got Heart Gold a few days later, I ended up transfering my dear Zakuro right over when I got the ability to trade.
The game was…a little weird. I mean, I loved how I could talk to Zakuro now; know what she was thinking, and such. But when I got around to Blackthorn City, I had turned to her once; before we went into the gym. She shivered a little, before this text came up.
“Zakuro is weak! Take to the Pokemon Center?”
A Yes/No bubble popped up. I didn’t know if I had been battling too much lately, but I was…confused. Out of curiousity, I selected yes. The game faded to black for a mere moment, before coming back at the Pokemon Center. A Nurse was there; taking my Zakuro to her, I was a little perplexed by her words.
“She’s been serving her cause well…but I don’t think she’s been well for a while now.”
…I soon assumed this was some form of weird glitch. Nothing said anythng about this. Either way, I was let out after Nurse Joy had finished speaking. Man, now that I look back on it, I should’ve read what she said…but, it was past news now. I talked to my precious Roserade, who seemed to be normal. We went into Clair’s Gym and dominated; per usual. It went through the usual Clair being a jerk and not giving you your badge, but…I didn’t expect this to happen.
It was after I defeated Lance, because I figure I’m boring you with all of this. Either way, it went through most of the usual stuff…except for the fact that when Mary and Oak were supposed to come up, a Nurse Joy and Argenta did. That was a little bit of a twist; what was up?
Before anything could happen though, my Roserade came out of her Poke Ball. Exclaimation points rose over all of our heads, before my sprite disappeared along with Roserade. If anything, I could see the angered and worried expressions on the faces of the people there.
The game went black after a bit. I had almost turned it off, before an odd text appears on the screen.
“…
…
…Why?”
It then faded back to a snow mountain; my character (named Astrid; yeah, I give my characters all odd names) and Zakuro were standing atop a mountain. A snowy one. The Rose Pokemon stood in front of me, an oddly pale color coloring her now. It was like she was wilting; or dying. I was just plain freaked. She began to speak again;
“…You’ve been using me for so long. The two of you…you took me away from her. You took me away from the one person I trusted!”
Her words seemed to be in anger; and directed towards me, the player. The Rose Warrior took a few steps closer, closing in on me.
“I will not stand for this! I will not die in your possession!”
It was then that a battle screen had popped up. The sprite on Zakuro was just as lifeless as her original sprite in the overworld; wilting. Fading. I had a few other Pokemon with me, but they were only Lv 40 at best. Needless to say, she sweeped me.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Oh no. My trainer sprite ended up coming out; this was when I started to become freaked. I couldn’t attack; it said Astrid was too afraid. Still, the Rose pokemon I had adored once before had begun using Poison Jab on me; taking little bits of damage off every time she said something.
“…All I wanted was happiness.” She said with her first stab, taking a bit of HP off of Astrid.
“All I wanted was to stay with my trainer, and keep her happy until the end…” Another stab; doing a bit more damage than last time.
“But you…you took that dream away. Both of you did!” This next one did a lot more damage; the hit points were in the near-red zone now.
“But I shall avenge…I shall be back with her before I die such a meaningless death!” Another stab; and my trainer was knocked out. I prayed, pleaded, that that would be the end of it.
But nope. I wasn’t so lucky. Upon returning to the overworld, I was treated to the sight of a blooded Kotone sprite laying down in the snow; the entire place was covered in red. It was then that Zakuro colapsed; she had done her deed.
Still, there was…something odd in the snow. A white being emerged. She looked like Dawn from my old Diamond game! A heart appeared over the Roserade’s head; the White being drawing closer with a heart over her own head.
“Oh, Arina! I had been so lost without you…”
“Zakuro, I am so sorry for what those awful girls did to you…I was all alone without you. Because you were taken from me. I died…”
This alone…caused me to blink. Wait, what? Sense when do Pokemon die? Sense when do humans die in the Pokemon world? Something weird was up. I knew this wasn’t a hacked game; that was for certain. But seeing them speak again. I couldn’t turn away. It looked as if this ‘Arina’ was holding out a hand for Zakuro.
“Shall we go, then? There is…one more thing we have to take care of.”
“What would that be…?”
To my surprise, the sprite turned to the screen; facing me. She made a pointing sort of gesture.
“That one. She was the one who took you away. Revenge…we must get it!”
Needless to say, I froze then and there. I dropped the game onto the floor, shutting it off and stuffing it in a drawer; some place scatter brained me couldn’t find it.
Lately, things have been normal. I got another copy of Soul Silver, and decided to take a test run on my DS. It worked normally; but I’ve been having some rather awful luck. Seems like I can’t catch anything without wasting a lot of Poke Balls. My grades are slipping too; and I think I’ve been seeing shadows.
Odd, ain’t it? Well, it’s all just a game…
…Right?
