I remember when I encountered my first shiny Pokémon. To tell the truth, though, it wasn’t my shiny Pokémon. It was my brother’s.
He was playing his Pokémon LeafGreen as I was doing my homework. Suddenly he cried out. “Hey!” he shouted. “Come look at this!”
“You some here and show me,” I replied, without even looking up.
Completely hyper, my brother scampered over and started waving his GameBoy Advance in front of me. I grabbed it and stared at the Pokémon my brother was fighting.
It was a Machop.
It was a shiny Machop.
We both stated squealing with delight. I never thought I’d see a shiny Pokémon with my own eyes! My little brother was ecstatic at the sight of the golden Machop. He didn’t know exactly what shiny Pokémon were, but he knew that this Machop was special.
“Should I catch it?” he asked.
“Obviously!”
And after a few seconds, all was done. The shiny Machop, affectionately nicknamed Golden, was tucked safely away in Bill’s PC.
For the next few days, my brother hounded me with boasts about this new Pokémon. At first, I was just as excited as he was. After a while, though, it began to annoy me. Okay, okay. You got a shiny Machop. Good for you. Now go away.
A few months passed. My brother didn’t seem to want to evolve the Machop, just keep it in his party as a little reminder of his luck. Machop obeyed his every command — well, why shouldn’t it? But every time the golden Machop did something, my little brother would laugh heartily as if he expected otherwise. It drove me nuts.
At first I was annoyed, then enraged. I wanted to do something; I had to do something.
Then I lost my own LeafGreen. It might not have been that great, but I had had a Bad Egg that I was proud of. That’s when I snapped.
My brother was still at school, luckily enough; he never let that darned LeafGreen leave his sight. So I went over to his GBA and switched it on. On the screen where it says “Continue” and “New Game”, I scrolled down to New Game. I hit A.
I breathed a sigh of relief. That God-forsaken Machop had finally gone for good. I was at peace.
Slowly, I removed the LeafGreen that had once held that Machop and placed it amongst my own collection of games. That LeafGreen would be hiding in plain sight. It was the perfect plan.
When my brother came home, he wailed for a while. I consoled him. I told him he could have my LeafGreen instead, and that I would even start a new game for him. He cheered up and immediately sat down to play. He never found that shiny Machop again.
I, however, did.
A few years later, HeartGold and SoulSilver came out. Nostalgic for the good old Johto region, I purchased HeartGold almost immediately. It was great, reliving all the times I’d had as well as a whole slew of new ones. Was I unbeatable? No. Did I really care? No.
And then came that one day, just a few days ago, in fact. I was venturing in Rock Tunnel (you know, the place that connects Cerulean City to Lavender Town). Nothing out of the ordinary here, I thought. So I started for the exit.
Then the text appeared.
Right there, at the bottom of the screen. “Leaving so soon…?’
Now, being new to HeartGold, I thought this was just a little event or something. Intrigued, I set off back down the cave.
However, something was different. The music had changed to a slow, creepy tune not unlike the one in Pokémon Tower. A light fog had come over the entire area. I couldn’t wait to see what the game had in store for me.
“I know what you did…”
I jumped. The text at the bottom of the screen…was it talking to me?
“You killed me. You took me from my master, from my home. You made me die. You made my master sad.”
I didn’t know what the thing was talking about, but I was beginning to get a little frightened. I set off for the exit.
“No!”
My character was hurled back by some unseen force. He hit the cave wall. I mashed buttons, trying to get him to move, but nothing worked.
“You shall not leave!”
Then I was thrust into a battle. Instead of saying, “Wild ____ appeared!” it said…
“TERRY’s GOLDEN wants his revenge…”
Now I was seriously freaked out. My brother’s name in his LeafGreen was TERRY, and he had found his shiny Machop in Rock Tunnel.
Golden was a golden Machamp, level 100, with about 700 HP. Nothing I did could damage him; all it said was, “The move doesn’t affect GOLDEN…” One by one, the accursed thing cut down my Pokémon until I had one left: my prized Feraligatr.
He was cut down too. But the battle still continued.
“Xavier sent out himself!”
What? How did my character send out himself? I mashed buttons, even clicked “Run” on the touch pad, but nothing happened.
“GOLDEN is laughing evilly…” I could only imagine what that sounded like.
“Now you will pay for the pain you caused my master.”
“GOLDEN used Revenge!”
“Xavier fainted! Xavier has no usable Pokémon left…Xavier whited out!”
And the screen went black. And stayed there. Anything I did refused to register on the dratted thing. Eventually I turned it off and turned it back on. There was only one option…
“New Game”
Disgusted, I shut down the DS. I was scared and confused. What had just happened?
A few days later, my little brother was playing his SoulSilver version while I returned to my prized Emerald. Suddenly I heard my brother shout with excitement.
“Hey! Come look at this!”
Cautiously, I got up and looked at what he wanted to show me.
It was a shiny Machop.
