We're Not Your Pawns

=We're Not Your Pawns=

I love Pokemon!

My favorite game is Soul Silver.

Or, at least it used to be...

I'll never forget the moment that changed how I view the games.

One dark and stormy night, I was bored thanks to the terrible weather, so I decided to boot up the ol' Pokemon Soul Silver.

Since I beat the game, I felt like fooling around on wonder trade.

After a while of getting useless pokemon like Magikarp, Pidgey, and all the low-level pokemon you can think of, I eventually got a Typhlosion.

Now you may be wondering, "Why would ANYONE trade away their starter pokemon?"

I would eventually find out the true reason the other player's Typhlosion was traded away to me, more on that later.

For now, I will tell you about my experience in the Battle Tower.

Everything was fine, in fact, everything was great!

I was winning battles left and right, thanks to my team of Meganium (who was my starter pokemon), Typhlosion, the shiny Gyarados, Tyranitar, Dragonite, and the legendary Lugia.

But on the 100th battle, everything went from fantastic to downright depressing.

I went into a battle with Palmer, the Tower Tycoon.

But the moment I sent my pokemon out, I was shocked by what I was seeing.

Since I was doing the double battles with a team of Meganium, Typhlosion, Gyarados, and Tyranitar, I sent out both Meganium and Typhlosion first.

Then I saw this... ​​​​​ For some reason, everything looked dark and dreary.

The least of my concerns was that Palmer had a Tyranitar and a Feraligatr.

But I noticed that the screen was in a noticeably darker shade than usual, the music sounded depressing, and my Meganium and Typhlosion looked different.

Meganium had pitch-black, soulless eyes with red dots for pupils, and his expression showed fear and sadness, with blood for tears.

Typhlosion also looked scarier than usual, but she was the opposite of Meganium.

Typhlosion had the same soulless eyes as Meganium, but instead of looking scared, she looked downright scary herself.

Her teeth had blood on the tip of them, and her expression showed bloodlust and anger.

Not to mention, Meganium's cry sounded depressing, and Typhlosion's sounded dark and menacing.

That's when I figured out the reason the other player traded away their Typhlosion, she liked battle a little too much, so she became too much to handle in battles.

I decided to ignore it and click the fight option, with everything looking normal there, until I chose for Typhlosion to use Focus Blast, and Meganium to use Giga Drain.

When Meganium used Giga Drain on the Feraligatr, the screen turned black for a frame or two, returning to normal to show Feraligatr, now skinny and covered in wrinkles.

Feraligatr also looked sadder than usual, it's life force was drained by Meganium's Giga Drain.

After that, Typhlosion's Focus Blast hit Tyranitar.

Once again, the screen turned black, but when it was black, the Tyranitar's fainting cry was distorted and loud.

When the screen returned to normal, Tyranitar was gone, and his health bar, now empty, faded away.

The text read, "The foe's TYRANITAR was obliterated!"

I couldn't believe what I was reading.

Tyranitar was actually blown up by the Focus Blast.

The next text read, "TYPHLOSION'S taste for battle and blood has returned! No use trying to calm her down now!"

I was terrified!

But after the battle, the only pokemon of mine that fainted was Meganium.

The text read in a blood red color, "Punish MEGANIUM?" with the standard, "Yes or No" question.

I chose "No", and it said, "Why not? MEGANIUM outlived his usefulness long ago!"

No matter how many times I clicked "No", it kept on saying, "MEGANIUM is awaiting his punishment..."

I had no choice, despite my record, but to start a new save file.

I still have voices telling me, "YOU caused Meganium's pain and misery!" to this day...

So the lesson I learned was, "Treat your pokemon like living beings with the same souls as us. Don't treat them like pawns for you to abuse in battle..."

If you don't heed my words, your pokemon might end up like mine...