***** - "Master... what is it you wish to do with me?" What is a ninetales to become if used by a monster just wanting to kill
It was another boring saturday. Nothing to do, nothing to play, nothing to listen, nothing to watch. So, what did I do? I went to a ROMs site, of course! I only wanted to find an interesting hack to play and came across one named “Pokemon Ninetales”. No need to say that I downloaded it without reading any other information. The one who made this hack also made a box art and put up a screenshot of the title screen, which featured a Ninetales on a black background and with the title reading “Pokémon Nintetales Version”Soon I realized, by the intro, that it was a Pokémon Crystal hack. “Interesting…”, I thought, “I should play and see where it goes.”.
As I selected “New Game”, the game skipped the naming, time setting and much anything else, taking me straight to the character’s bedroom. Pressing Start, I found out my character was named “Inari” for some reason. The play time was “9hrs 99mins”, which obviously was a hacked time. The money, however, was absolute zero and was in “Yen” instead of “PKMN$”. My character’s picture was Gold’s default and the Gym Leaders pictures were replaced by a “???”. Then I went to check Options and it showed a message:
“NO. YOU HAVE TO PLAY.”
A shiver went up my spine and I shook my head in disbelief. Then tried to save and, funny enough, it DID save. And know what else? It showed I had nine badges. That done, went to PokéGear to check it. Time and day were shown as interrogation signs and I had the phone, map and radio unlocked. The only station that worked in the Radio played the Kimono Girls music, which I actually enjoyed and the phone had only one entry: Ninetales. Funny… Why a Pokémon would have a phone? I didn’t care about that for now, so I went to check the Pokémon.
It was a female Ninetales, LVL 10. The sprite was modified to feature a mask, it had no animation and the cry was only a hissing, a white noise, that lasted one second. The name was simply Ninetales, but the attacks puzzled me: Will-‘o-Wisp, Curse, Kill, Transform. Could a Ninetales have those attacks in Pokémon Crystal? I doubted, but then I remembered this was a hack. So, I went on, playing the game. There weren’t many changes, other than the fact that this was my starter and Professor Elm told me I held an amazing power in my hands.
I tried each attack in the battles with interesting outcomes. Will-‘o-Wisp caused the wild pokémon to run away and the trainers to leave the battle, all of them with the message “Ninetales scared <name> off!”. Everytime I did this to a trainer, they disappeared and did not reappear. Then, I tried Transform. The result was of Ninetales’ back sprite disappearing and a message saying “Ninetales turned into a demon fox.”. One turn after, the trainer and wild pokémon ran away as the message “It is a monster!” appeared underneath. The trainers too disappeared from the map.
Curse’s result was pretty awesome. Ninetales became completly black and the message shown was “<pokémon> has been cursed!”. After the pokémon attacked, a message then reads “<pokémon> disappeared in a dark void!”, as the pokémon in question “sinks” as if fainted. Kill, however, was creepy. The screen flashed red and the pokémon sprite was gone, as Ninetales’ was red. When used on a trainer, the message “<trainer> has been murdered by Ninetales” showed up.
After two Gyms (and, oddly enough, gymleaders that didn’t reward upon their defeat), I received a call from Ninetales. It first said “Want to answer?” and gave me the two common choices (“Yes” and “No”). When I accepted, it asked if I was sure of this choice, to which I replied “No” and a message came up, saying “It might be really important. Why don’t you answer it?”. Rising an eyebrow, I pressed “A” and the same question from before appeared. Okay, then I accepted it and this message came up:
“FEED ME… FEED ME WITH THEIR SOULS… OR ELSE…”
I admit, it freaked me A LOT! My hands shivered and then I continued to play. After the next gym, another call. But the reply was forced. This time, the message was “See, I’m growing stronger, master. I love you, you are a great master.”. Still confused by her sudden change of heart, I went to check her. She was LVL 20, her sprite changed, with her having red markings and a tail missing. She was now holding an item: “Soul”
“Soul?!”, I thought, “What might it be?”. I tried to take from her and a message said “Please, don’t.”. So, I let her be. After another gym and pretty close from the fifth, another call came. This time, it asked me if I wanted to answer. I said “No” over and over, and the Kimono Girls music sounded strange, as if extended or distorted, after a while. Then I decided to answer to the call, only to be freaked again:
“YOU SEEM DELICIOUS, MY SLAVE! I WILL EAT YOU SOON!”
That startled me a bit, and got me to check her status. Ths sprite’s ‘mask’ was gone and so was another tail. Ninetales’ face was contorted into a smirk and the eyes seemed to blink in this evil smirk. The held item was now “Heart”. The moveset was unchanged. I kept playing and then noticed something weird about my character profile picture: it was wearing Ninetales’ mask! How that got here? I don’t know. I went to the bag to check if I had anything and I DID have one item: Mask. When I tried to use, it said “But you ARE using it already!”, and it lacked description.
The game went on, one tail disappearing after each gym, Ninetales’ held item changing into creepy ones (even “Skull”, “Liver”, “Brain”) and the calls coming. I was entering the Indigo Plateu and then a last call: “NOW IT IS TIME FOR ME TO COLLECT MY REWARD!”. The screen went black instantly. After two seconds, a message reads: “Ninetales used FLASH”. “Hey, she doesn’t have that move!”, I thought. Once the place lit up, I realized I was in a sort of labyrinth of floating platforms linked by patches of dirt, on which I could walk on.
And so I did. To my regret, every platform had a pokémon and/or trainer I “killed” with Ninetales’ “Kill”. None of them could interact with me, I went through them as if they were part of the ground and, after some platforms, another call: “Master… What did you do? Why did you use me so wrongly? I loved you… I really did…”. And then a message: “Ninetales died”. It was a shock, which caused me to check her status. Her sprite was of her lying down, with all her nine tails there, but no mask. She had no attack, she had 0/0 HP and she was LVL 0 now. Her only held item was “Inari’s Love”.
I couldn’t stop shivering and sheding tears, as I saw that very message. “What did I do?! I killed her!”, I thought as the grief took my heart. It was all over… Or not? No, it was not. I checked my trainer data and almost jumped: The “???” that replaced the gym leader pictures were now replaced by the various held items that Ninetales had until she died: Soul (in the form of a will-‘o-wisp), heart, skull, liver, brain, hand, guts and, lastly… a FOX MASK!
I left that screen and went to explore that hell I was in. Suddenly, once I got on a platform that had a yellow pokemon on a red water (which I presumed that was Ninetales), Gold turned into a yellow pokemon like this one. a message then said “WHAT HAVE YOU BECOME?”. I checked the player information now and the player picture was replaced by a Ninetales with the mask on. I tried to access my Ninetales’ Status and it said “YOU ARE NINETALES”. It was not true, I didn’t believe this. When interacting with the Ninetales in the puddle of blood, a mesage appeared:
“GO BACK!”
Whenever I tried, it only told me to go back… And I followed the path back to where I started. There I found Gold’s sprite standing there, as if looking straight at me. And it was, actually. Because it then said: “It is you… You are the one who controlled us to do all those horrible things… Now I can take revenge on you.”. A battle began against this Gold, but his name was Inari and mine… Was my real name (which I prefer to not disclose).
Inari sent out a creepy Ninetales: It was blood red, had long claws, a sharp bone extending from the end of each tail, long fangs and an evil smirk. As if it wasn’t enough, it was standing on a puddle of blood. As for mine, it didn’t send out anything, as my character was now the pokémon. Instead, it just prompted the attack menu with the attacks: Ember, Bite, Scratch and Growl. We were both LVL 100 and whenever I attacked it only showed “You can’t attack, you are too scared to even move.” and the enemy didn’t attack. After ten turns… The enemy used a mysterious new attack: Slaughter.
The screen went black and it showed a pair of red eyes in the center and two message boxes. The one on the top reads: “NINETALES EATS YOU!”, as the one below reads:
“YOU HAVE BEEN CURSED, AND SO IS ANY WHO READS THIS MESSAGE!”
Suddenly, a ghostly variant of Kimono Girls music played.
