Empress

My name is William, I love Pokemon Platinum. It’s the only Pokemon game I own at the moment and it’s fun as hell! I’ve grown quite attached to my trusty Pokemon party consisting of an Empoleon (Empress), a Staraptor (Starbolt), a Porygon (Seizure), a Ponyta (Cherry), a Lucario (Kami), and Giratina (Killer). In my spare time, I draw a series of parody comics called “PokeMEN” about me and my Pokemon roaming idly around Sinnoh after finishing the game.

I was only 13 at the time, I was playing DS Download Play on the bus with my friends on our way back from an overnight field trip. My Pokemon Platinum card was inserted, but I was going to download play Mario Cart with my friend Steve. The option for Mario Cart appeared in the download menu, but before I could select it I looked out the window of the coach bus and saw a hearse driving by followed by a line of cars. When I looked back to my game an option labelled “My Sweet Empress” had appeared in the roster, the description simply read: “I'm sorry.”

I downloaded it out of curiosity and my DS shut off. My first reaction was one of confusion, so I turned the game back on and saw that the menu icon for Pokemon Platinum was replaced with a greyed out illustration of an Empoleon. It was wincing, as if in pain. I selected it and was met with a black screen filled with code and Japanese text, as well as garbled, glitchy music sounding vaguely like distorted bagpipes. I then put the game back in my bag and proceeded to explain the situation to my friends.

A few days later, I decided to investigate further. I turned on the DS and selected Pokemon Platinum, and what I saw truly surprised me! The game started up and the usual intro played, though I couldn’t skip it. During the intro, however, the boy trainer sprite was replaced with an anime version of how I draw myself in “PokeMEN”, brown cap with a pokeball symbol, light blue shirt, sandals, a crest with the word “Will” inside a burst symbol, everything was recreated perfectly! At this point I didn’t know what to think, so I selected my save file. When I loaded my game up I was surprised to find myself sitting in my bed at home in Twinleaf Town.

My sprite was a small version of the PokeMEN sprite from earlier. I walked downstairs to find that nobody was home. Upon stepping out the door I was immediately greeted by Phil (My rival, whom I named after a friend). OH MAN, THIS ISN'T GOOD!!!!” he yelled, “WILLIAM!!! I‘ve been searching all over for you! Apparently something really bad is happening over at Rowan’s Lab! Come on!” Out of curiosity, I ran to Sandgem Town with Phil’s sprite trailing behind me. I ran from any random encounters I came across. Upon arriving in Sandgem Town we entered the lab… I really shouldn‘t have entered that lab.

An autopilot cutscene followed, Prof. Rowan was standing facing Dawn and her father, a dead Piplup lay on an operating table. Dawn shrieked: “NO! PIPLUP! How could you, Rowan?!” “I’m…so sorry, dawn!” Said the Professor “I had no idea your Piplup was so vulnerable to the tests I was running!” Dawn’s father chimed in: “Your intentions don’t matter, this is criminal negligence, we’ll settle this in court!” “No!” yelled Dawn, “WE will get the justice we deserve!” At this point I was on the verge of tears. I don’t usually cry over movies or fictional situations, I’ve played through Mother 3 without shedding a single tear, but here…there was something outside of the game that I  couldn’t explain affecting me! Phil piped up: “Don’t worry Professor! We’re coming to save you!” Our two trainer sprites ran up to Rowan and a battle sequence began.

The battle commenced, it was Me, Phil, & Rowan Vs. Dawn & Dawn’s Father, a 32-bit midi of the “Chozo Ghost Battle” theme from Metroid Prime was playing in the background. I sent out Empress as usual, Phil sent out his level 100 Tortetta, and Prof Rowan sent out a level 100 Infernape. Dawn and her father didn’t have any Pokemon on them, however Dawn had a steak knife and Dawn’s Father had a scalpel. Infernape used flamethrower on Dawn’s Father who the yelled: “Curse… you… Rowan!!!” and fled the battle.

Dawn put up quite a fight, and by the end the HP of all three Pokemon were in the red zone. Upon defeating Dawn, a scream sound effect was heard. “*Gasp!* *Pant!*” wheezed dawn, “William…Phil…I thought you were my friends, why are you defending him?” A microphone prompt then appeared. I spoke into my DS: “You were acting out of revenge, and that intent, no matter how justified, offends me more than any number of dead pokemon. I don’t care what Rowan did to Piplup, All I care is that you tried to kill him out of vengeance.” “WHAT!?” Screamed Dawn “You bastard! You're not even trying to understand my pain, are you?! ...Empress, you used to be a Piplup too, right?”

For 3 horrifying seconds the BGM shut off, and I was sitting in silence. Then: *Dawn used Stab* The screen flashed red for a split second and the Earthbound damage sound played. Empress then let out a loud, long, distorted version of her normal Empoleon cry, as if she was screaming in pain! A status effect appeared over her health bar labelled “WND“, likely short for “wound”. Dawn then fled the battle.

The battle exited out and I was met with Me, Phil, and Rowan huddled around a bloodied Empress. “Oh no!” said Rowan, “This is bad, these wounds are to severe for me to treat, and every Nurse Joy in the region is away on a family vacation! She’s going to die soon!” “I know!” said Phil “Take her to the Pokemon Temple in Hearthome City, Arceus might be able to help her.” I was given control of my character again and a timer appeared at the top of the screen. I exited the lab and the "Flood" music from Pokemon Emerald started to play.

I tried to fly to Hearthome using Starbolt but a message just appeared saying “Starbolt refused to let you on his back”, so I had to go on foot. There were no random encounters or trainer battles so somehow, I managed to beat the clock to Hearthome. I entered the church and talked to the preacher. “Can I help you?” He said, “What?! Your Pokemon is dying?! You must have the wrong idea, I’m a preacher, not a doctor… I’m afraid there is nothing I can do!”

The screen then faded to black and the game saved automatically. When the game resumed I was in my house again but with no background music. I checked my Pokemon roster and sure enough, Empress was missing. I walked downstairs and talked to my mom. “I’m so sorry about what happened honey.” She said “If it makes you feel any better, I heard Phil caught you another Piplup.” I wandered outside and walked up to a pond of water at the back of Twinleaf Town. I pressed A in front of it and a message appeared reading “The water is a deep blue color, use surf for the last time?” I selected yes and my character jumped into the pond, and as soon as my sprite touched the water a *Splash* was heard and the screen turned monochrome and froze. The Mother 3 “love theme” started up and the game just sat there frozen.

I turned off the DS and restarted it, everything was absolutely normal. The game had reverted to how it was before I downloaded that weird patch. The only thing that had changed was that now, whether or not I have Pokemon Platinum inserted, it always plays the Mother 3 “love theme” on my DS menu. To this day, I never figured out what that weird download option was or how it had appeared.

THE END

Alpha Leader (talk) 00:29, August 29, 2014 (UTC) WillTheWolfLover