****- Another sad one.>>'/ sorry guys. I got it from FYeahPokemonCreepypasta.
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When Pokemon Yellow version came out, I was about ten, I think? I remember it really well, because the game actually came out really close to my birthday, so I managed to get a hold of it before most of my friends did. By the time everyone in our admittedly small circle had managed to get the game too, I was about six gyms deep with around 60 species caught. The fact that you get all three starters in one game was so exciting to me, plus the new sprites looked so much better than the ones in Red and Blue, and I was determined to see every single one in my ‘Dex. I must’ve wasted half of my childhood almost getting there, too…
But of course, the best part of Yellow version was the Pikachu that followed you around. Speaking of wasting my childhood. I spent so much time trying to get that thing’s happiness up – it felt like it stayed just under the maximum happiness for ages. It was totally worth it, though, because when I finally beat the elite four, my team was something like Pikachu, all three starters, Snorlax and Alakazam. I was pretty proud of myself. I think the only ones I was missing when I restarted my game was Chansey, Tauros, Electabuzz and of course Mew, since I was fiercely anti-Game Shark. Of course, I had a really good reason for restarting my game. Well, no. It was a really stupid reason, but it seemed like a good one at the time.
The reason was Pikablu. I don’t even know where all those stupid stories about Pikablu came from when I was a kid. I heard at least ten different versions about how you could get it. Some I believed more than others, but I would’ve never admitted I believed any of them at all. I was too smart for that. I probably wouldn’t have bothered if it wasn’t my best friend Jeff that told me about this one method he’d found out. Me and Jeff, we were tight. He’d always told me about all kinds of new things I’d never heard of before, Pokemon-related or otherwise, and he always seemed to make sense. I knew he wouldn’t lie to me. It was tough, having to restart my game. Jeff had insisted that it took two brand-new Pikachus – we had to trade each of ours to each other’s Yellow versions, beat the elite four with just our Pikachu, and then use a water stone on it. Or something like that. Jeff had to convince me for a while to get me to restart my game – yeah, sure, it was easy for him, he hadn’t caught every starter and legendary – but my desire for the two of us to be the only kids we knew to both have a Pikablu won out in the end. I started a new game, named my character ASH like I always did, went through Oak’s whole spiel and got my Pikachu. I skipped over most of the dialogue, but I could’ve sworn that there were some slight differences this time around. Wasn’t really paying much attention though, I’d gone through the Pokemon opening dialogue like a million times.
Anyway, Jeff was way ahead of me by this point, he had his Pikachu and was already fighting wild Rattatas with it and talking a mile a minute about what we’d do with it once he evolved it. While he was doing this, though, I noticed another difference about the game. At the point in the dialogue when Oak gives you the Pikachu and you look at it for the first time, its face popping up in a window at the center of the screen, I realized that it didn’t have its back indifferently turned to me like it should - its happiness was already maxed out.
“Hey, Jeff, look at this!!”
“What? I hafta get my Pikachu to level 100…”
“My Pikachu already loves me and I just got it!”
“What? No it doesn’t.”
”Look!”
“…OH MY GOD! How did you do that?”
“I dunno!! Maybe it has to do with Pikablu!!”
We both giggled and screamed and chattered, and were generally obnoxious as we played through our games to get to the point where we could trade with each other. I kept turning around to talk to my Pikachu every few steps just to double check that it still loved me – Every time it was there to greet me with a huge smile and a heart above its head. I didn’t think to question why this would happen – I was too excited! I couldn’t believe it! I was going to get a PIKABLU! Finally, we were both at a Pokemon center, ready to trade our Pikachus with each other. We hurriedly got our link cable hooked up, both of our Gameboy Colors connected to each other.
I talked to the Link Cable lady, mashed B, blowing past all of the game’s messages beforehand, but stopped short again when I noticed a message I’d never seen before. Right after I said YES to the little dialog box asking me if I wanted to save before trading my Pikachu, the box at the bottom of the screen where text usually went stayed blank for just a few moments, and another message popped up.
“Are you sure? YES/NO”
I hesitated for a few seconds. Jeff looked up at me, more annoyed than confused.
“What are you WAITING for?”
“…Sorry, I just… my game’s just being slow.”
I hit yes. The trade started. I stared at my little Pikachu sprite before it disappeared. I heard its cry – it still amazed me that the programmers had put Pikachu’s actual voice into the game – and then it was gone.
A few minutes later, we’d traded our Pikachus to each other, and I had unfortunately discovered what happens when you trade your Pokemon Yellow Pikachu out of your party.
“What? My Pikachu won’t follow me! It’s gone!!”
“You didn’t know that happened?”
“NO! Why didn’t you tell me you butt?”
“I thought you knew! That’s how you use a stone on it!”
“I want mine back! It had max happiness already!!”
“Awww…”
“Come on!!”
And so began the long, tedious process of hooking up our gameboys to each other once again and preparing and saving our games in order to trade our Pikachus back. When we were finally ready, though, Jeff paused.
“It won’t let me.”
“Huh? Is the cable loose?”
“No, Pikachu says no.”
“What? Why?”
“Look!”
Jeff showed me his screen. At the bottom, the message just said
“PIKACHU refuses!”
We tried it again. It still didn’t work. Jeff was looking a little uneasy now – he showed me his screen again.
“PIKACHU refuses to return to ASH!”
“What the heck? Is it not supposed to come back?”
”No, I mean, I’ve traded my Pikachu out of Yellow version before, it let me bring it back.”
”Maybe it likes you too much? It loved me, so maybe it loves you too, and like, you can’t trade it if it likes you too much.”
“It’s not following me, though!”
“Ugggh! I want it back!”
“Well… why don’t we trade it to your Blue version?”
That seemed like a good idea. I booted up my Blue version, which I hadn’t played in a while – not since Yellow came out. God, the sprites were so much uglier in this version, I’d completely forgotten. While we hooked our Gameboys up again, Jeff looked at my Pikachu’s stat screen.
“Does the sprite look… different to you?”
“What?”
He showed me his screen again. Pikachu’s sprite was in the corner, its stats at the bottom. I wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t said anything, but it did look a little bit different than it did in my cartridge – the difference was slight, but its expression almost seemed sadder. Or were we just seeing things?
Anyway, we both got ready to trade and this time everything went totally smoothly. I gave Jeff a Butterfree, his favorite Pokemon, in exchange for my Pikachu, no weird extra question screens or anything. The only weird thing I noticed this time was that when the Pikachu arrived into my Blue game, its sprite was still a little… well, sadder, kind of. It was hard to notice, especially on that ugly Blue Version sprite… in fact, maybe I was just projecting what I’d seen before on to it and just imagining things, but… I don’t know. As it popped into my screen, the message at the bottom signaling the trade was over said
“Take good care of ASH’S PIKACHU!”
“I thought your name in the game was Jeff.”
“My name is Jeff.”
”No, in your game.”
”Oh. Well yeah, I always name my character Jeff.”
“This says take good care of Ash’s Pikachu.”
“Lemme see.”
“Look.”
“…I don’t get it.”
“Me neither. Is it because it’s a Yellow version Pikachu?”
“No, I told you, I’ve traded my Yellow version Pikachu before. It was just like a normal Pikachu.”
“Maybe we should try trading again.”
“Do we have to? I’m tired of trading over and over… why don’t we battle or something?”
“I want my Pikachu back!!”
“I don’t think it wants to GO back!”
We were silent for a few moments. Could that really be what the problem was? If Jeff was telling the truth, Pikachu wasn’t supposed to do that… It made me a little uneasy, but I shook it off quickly. These games were pretty famously glitchy, after all, everyone knew about that Rare Candy Missingno cheat and all that. So I tucked the sad-looking (was it?) Pikachu away in the PC and challenged Jeff to a battle with my Blue version team against his Red version team.
