I was going through all of my DS games the other week, and I found something anomalous- for some reason, I had somehow gained a second Pokémon Diamond! I asked my parents- and wondered to myself- where it had come from. I had no memory of buying it, yet my parents were convinced one of my classmates had sold it to me at school. What was weird was, I hadn’t lost any money. Still, I had the money-grabbing notion to find out whose the game was, and sell it back to them. That was something I would come to regret.

I booted the game up. All was well, although the icon on the DS main menu said it was, in fact, ‘WarioWare: Touched!’. This was fine, I though. Some games are dodgy; hackers take an ordinary game cart and force a ROM into it so it becomes a different game. In spite of this, anyway, it WAS Pokémon Diamond, except the loading sequence began with the bells and screens from HeartGold and SoulSilver. but then cut to the Diamond opening sequence. I skipped this, out of habit.

Fortunately, the person had used their real name for their character- as, at my school, either you gave them your real name, or something stupid. The character was named ‘Paul’, but was a girl. Again, something people would do. When the journal screen vanished, I found that Paul was in the Jubilife TV building. What was especially strange about this was, as I later discovered, Paul (who was in the year beneath me) and his ICT class had gone to the local TV centre themselves- and right at that very moment, had been trying on some unknown actress’ clothes.

I went to his Trainer Case- he had no badges, yet had 5 stars on his card. I checked his Pokédex- empty. His Pokémon were a reflection of this- he had none. I went to the Pokémon Lottery Corner, to see what the attendant would say- apparently, Paul had won somehow, and received a Master Ball. Then, a PA sounded, requesting that all children must prepare to leave within five minutes, so I (playing as Paul) left the building, where a bus was waiting. He boarded, and the screen went black.

When the image returned, the bus was in Sunyshore City, and the Diamond/Pearl/Platinum protagonist’s mother was waiting there. She said to come home (as, for some reason- a hack, I presumed- Paul now lived in the house with all the Pikachus in, just west of Sunyshore. She ran on ahead, leaving me back in control of Paul.

Before I headed ‘home’, I stumbled across a Pokéball icon. I checked it, and it said ‘Paul found an Amulet Coin!’. Fair enough, at least if Paul (the real guy) had had the nerve to NOT hack, and get some Pokémon to attach it to!
With this new discovery, I made Paul leave Sunyshore and head back. On the way, Paul went through some grass which, in normal gameplay, is not usually there. The screen flashed, and it was a wild female Purugly (although it was marked as a Lv.100 K, whatever ‘K’ is). Paul didn’t send out any Pokémon- because he couldn’t. However, the options remained as normal- except, there was only an Attack option. His/Her four moves were Doubleslap, Bite, Yawn and Flail. I selected Bite.

Evidently, Paul had a poor Speed stat, as the Purugly attacked first. It used Scratch on Paul, who shuddered, flashed purple with some bubbles, and the screen saying ‘K used Scratch!’, then ‘Paul was poisoned!’, then finally, ‘Paul has died!’ as Paul sank off the screen. The screen went black, then returned to the title screen. Prepared to return to Jubilife TV, I started it up, only to be faced by Rowan, as if there had never been a saved game in the first place. But that’s only the beginning...