The Aron

I may sound crazy, but you need to know this. I'm telling you that this is real, and if you find one of them, please just reset the game..

On May 7, 2005, when I was about 10, I decided to play my new Pokémon Emerald.

There was one thing that always confused me, though. The box art had an orange tint, and the Rayquaza had a lighter and greyer green and bright orange eyes.. I never thought about it much, I always thought they were supposed to look that way, as I had never seen another Pokémon Emerald box before..

If you need an explanation for me not seeing other Emerald cartridges, I had lived in a not so rich neighborhood as a child.

The game was new at the time and I was excited to play. I wasn't that far in the game and decided to level up my pokémon in the Granite Cave, that was my first mistake.

I went down a level and did the usual, beating pokémon and wandering around trying to find more levels. Then, I encountered an Aron, the music sounded distant and muffled. I thought nothing of it at the time, probably just a broken speaker, but it's eyes were orange and it had neither gender or level. I tried to use Ember on the Aron but it did nothing at all.

I thought my attack had missed, so I tried to use Ember again, the Aron still wasn't damaged.. I was confused, and tried again. Still, didn't work. The whole time that Aron wasn't attacking at all, I thought of it as odd and decided to try throwing a pokeball at it.

But to my surprise, no matter how many times I hit the A button, it wouldn't let me throw the pokeball.

I thought this was some rare event that I was the first person to see, but I was wrong..

I tried to attack or throw a pokeball, but nothing was happening.

I got angry and tried to turn the game off, just so I could get out of the strange battle.. I struggled with turning my beat up Gameboy off, but I eventually did. The screen took a few seconds to go dark..

A few days later I decided to play again, I eagerly turned my Gameboy on. To my disappointment, it brought me back to the fight with the strange Aron.

The text "But you couldn't get away!" appeared and the text was bright orange, I was confused as I hadn't tried to run. I switched out my Torchic for my Shroomish, when I pressed attack, it said "Shroomish is scared, it can't move!" How could my pokémon be scared?

I got mad and yelled "C-COME ON, JUST DIE ALREADY!" I dropped my Gameboy on my bed and pounded my fist on the wall.

Suddenly, the screen turned completely orange and the battle ended. I used my last escape rope to get out of the cave, the music was fine now, although it was a bit quiet and slower.

The screen seemed to be a lot darker, there were no NPCs out, everything had an orange tint. There was no music either, when I tried to go into a house it said "The door is locked!"

While I was walking back, my walking seemed a bit slower. A text box that said "Torchic Collapsed!" popped up, I was starting to get worried..

Again another text box that said "Shroomish Collapsed!" and then again "Zigzagoon Collapsed!" I was starting to get a bit scared, as they hadn't been poisoned..

Every time one of my pokémon collapsed my character would walk a bit slower.. I started to get scared, for some reason I wasn't putting my Gameboy down, I wish I did..

I checked on my pokémon and the collapsed ones were a bit greyer and duller, they also had a tint of orange on them, they looked sad, scared, and tired.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally got to the pokémon center. Instead of healing my pokémon, the nurse instead said “Oh my! Your pokémon are injured too badly to be healed!”

I was shocked at what the nurse had said, I quickly swapped my pokémon out in my box, hoping to be able to bring my pokémon back.

This was the moment I made one of the dumbest choices of my life. I went back to the cave.

After going back to the level where I encountered that Aron, I quickly encountered it. The music just stopped, I was scared.

I used Bite, this time it worked! The Aron health bar went down by a bit. The Gameboy made a ear piercing static sounds that lasted for what felt like forever. I'd quickly press the "Run Away" button.

I kept on running and kept on encountering that Aron, and spamming "Run Away" every time..

I was able to get out of the cave, but the frame from when the battle first started was stuck on my screen and flickering, my Gameboy made a noise that sounded like a lot of Aron cries together but all different.

I panicked and ripped the cartridge out from the Gameboy. The screen lingered for a second then it went black, the noise lasted for a few more seconds but then stopped.

I stared at that cartridge for a bit, shocked about what had happened, I decided to reset the game.

To this day, I can still remember those horrible noises that Aron made..