Second Chances

If you're reading this, you're no doubt fascinated by the numberless possibilities presented by the pokemon games. So many generations, so many pokemon, so many glitches to exploit, challenges to enter... There's so much to the games, one would say it's impossible to finish them. You could fight the Elite Four until your pokemon are level 100, you can earn perfect scores in all the contests, you can breed and EV train for the competitive metagame... Yes, there's so much to do isn't there?

But suppose you've finished. You've achieved all there is to achieve. Your team is at level 100, and so powerful you can defeat the Elite Four by closing your eyes and pressing random buttons. Your boxes are full, your pokemon beribboned, you've hunted Red, Steven, Cynthia, or what have you, and defeated them too. You are, for all intents and purposes, a pokemon master. Unbeatable. No one dares challenge you. Alone in your game.

So perhaps you get bored. You set it down and pick up a new one, play through new challenges and new victories. Your old cartridge, whatever it may be, sits. Not gathering dust certainly, you'd never be so careless with your beloved games, but unused. For a while. But then one day, you've finished with your other game, and you remember what lies tucked away and waiting for you. Perhaps you'll transfer all your carefully raised pokemon to a newer cartridge and start over. It will be fun, won't it?

You should be careful.

But something happens when you try. Whether you're trying to transfer from the third generation to the fourth, the fourth to the fifth, or even just trade between similar games, it won't work. The screen will flash and the system will shut down however many times you try. You get frustrated, and give up. You'll raise new pokemon later. Now you just want to play the game. So, for the first time in a long time, you power up your old game with the intention of actually playing it. But it's different this time.

Your message from the professor won't be the usual query of gender and name. No, he already knows, and he'll greet you by your old name.
"Ah, hello! It's you again? It's been a while. Come, they'll be glad to see you."
There's no introduction beyond that, and the scene opens with you at the lab rather than your house. Your character walks up to the professor, waiting as always by a table with pokeballs. But this time you don't get to pick.
"Here they are, safe and sound. They've been looking forward to an adventure with you." You'll get a short message telling you that you received your pokemon.

At this point, curiosity is burning inside you. What's this? So of course you open the options screen and check your pokemon. It's a full party, six of them, in their most basic forms, all at level five, all nicknamed. All, in fact, your final team, beaming up at you. How great is that? Your favorite pokemon, your old friends, all here to start with. You can go through your entire adventure with them, never having to run around in the grass looking or waiting until later in the game when you can find them. You already know you're going to be unstoppable.

So of course you set out, and your journey continues normally. You crush your rival in the first battle, your six pokemon to his one. Your team levels up so much faster now that you're only focusing on them, instead of worrying about building it as you go. You beat the game faster than you ever have before, winning flawless victory against trainer after trainer, culminating with your triumphant defeat of the elite four.

But, this is still an older game after all, not your favorite. You don't play it very often, only tried now because you were bored. You don't want your favorite pokemon to sit and molder on it. You'll transfer them to your new favorite, where they can live their days as champions and win even more fights for you. Perhaps you feel a little twinge as you try to start the transfer, but surely whatever glitch that was won't happen again, right?

You're halfway right. The same glitch doesn't happen again. Something else does. In the middle of the first transfer, the screen goes black. It stays that way for a long time, but just as you begin to wonder if it's shut itself off, words begin to appear.

Why are you sending me away? I did my best for you.
I wanted to stay here with you.
I thought you wanted me.
You didn't deserve this second chance.

It will shut off, transfer unsuccessful.

If you restart your game and try to play it again, nothing terrible will happen. Your old save file is gone, but I suppose you expected that, didn't you? That strange glitch must have corrupted and erased it. But the rest of the game is fine. The dialogue will proceed as normal, the plot, the gameplay. Nothing will spring from the screen and devour you in your sleep. There will just be one small change. You'll never see any of the pokemon from that team again. They've vanished from the wild everywhere they used to be. The professor will only offer you a choice of two starters. No matter how hard you look, you won't find a single one.

Wild pokemon will be harder to find as well. They'll be scarcer in the grass, harder to capture when you do find them. Regardless of how many badges you have, sometime in battle they'll turn their face away and decide to disobey you. It's best to switch them out then. Push them too long and the battle will end abruptly, telling you your pokemon has run away. You won't find any more of them either. Little by little, the grass, the caves, the seas, will grow empty. You'll be all alone in a vast land, with no one to share it with.

Those who waste second chances don't get any chances at all.