My Missingno Story

My Missingno Story

The following story is completely true. This experience forever changed my way of viewing inanimate objects.

I was just your average 10 year old when I first got my copy of Pokemon Red. And like any other kid at the time, Pokemon was the BOMB, the best thing out there.

As surprising as it was, everyone in my class had the game. We all took our gameboys to school and would play the game together on recess.  Helping each other out if we ever had trouble, trading high leveled pokémon in order to clear the gyms, or just guide each other through the game.

They were wonderful times, and I made memories that I will cherish forever.

One day a friend of mine got the game, and my group decided to help him out by lending him our most powerful pokémon. So he could quickly clear the game, and catch any pokémon he wanted.

And so I said goodbye to my first pokémon Chacha.

Haha, yes laught it up. I know you're snickering and I know you're guessing who it was.

My first pokémon was a Charmander who I named Chacha. I was a kid and I loved my pokémon so I gave him a cute personal nickname. I never thought about giving him a cool name like Raptor or Rex (which are names my friends used lol).

He was lvl 84 when I gave him away. One fierce looking Charizard.

I spent a lot of time into training and raising that pokémon. I used him in every gym and he was always in my party. The first and only pokémon I used when a battle began, because I wanted him to lvl up and get stronger and stronger. It almost never lost a battle, except to Gary's Blastoise. But not without giving him a good side of damage.

I really felt a lot of love towards Chacha, it was my first pokémon, not to mention that I had a good imagination. I would imagine our adventure as if I was really there.

I can't express how exited and in awe I was, when I first played Pokemon Stadium with the game pak. It felt like Chacha had really come to life.

…

…

I'm all grown up and everything, but seriously when I think back at this memory it still makes me feel sad and angry.

No, my friend didn't keep Chacha and not give it back. It wasn't like that at all.

We all hate bullies don't we? Because that's exactly what happened. A bully took away my friend's gameboy and he would not give it back.

All our fav/toughest pokémon were in his game, so we weren't about to just sit down with our arms crossed. We chased the bully all over the school until we reached the 3rd story of the building. And yeah, just like you're probably thinking… the freaking butthole decided that since he couldn't have the game, then no one could.

He threw the gameboy into the courtyard. And the rest is history.

His gameboy broke to pieces. But somehow the game had survived. It partly cracked, and so it got corrupted.

When a friend pulled out his gameboy and put the game on, the whole thing was glitchy and was unreadable. But it would still work.

The sadness we felt can't be put into words. We cried. It was only a game, the teachers said, and we shouldn't have brought it to school in the first place. But they didn't know the love we put into the game, they didn't know the relationship we felt towards our pokémon. All our talk about feelings to them was dumb.

The bully was suspended, and the parents of the bully repaid my friend's parents for the broken gameboy.

Sadly, our pokémon were gone… Or so we thought.

One day I thought about how we could still save our pokémon. The game was corrupted and glitchy, but the music would still play and the saved game was still there.  So what stopped us from trading back our beloved pokémon?

We hooked up our gameboy's via cable link and started testing to see if our pokémon were still there. And through glitchy sounds and continuous attempts, we managed to make out which pokémon belonged to who.

And so the testing began. We all captured wild weak pokémon on our separate games and set up our pokémon on the glitchy game in order, so we knew which pokémon belonged to who.

The first trade went through. And it was a half success.  My friend got his Gengar back, but half the sprite was distorted, but its moves and everything were there. The second one was a complete failure. My friend's Taurus was just completely scrambled. Its head was in one spot while the body pieces were scrambled in random places. The third one was a huge success, which really got my hopes up. My friend's Kanghaskan was A-Ok, except for it's cry. If you're curious about how it sounded then go check it's cry, and think of it sounding lower and sort of broken.

…And finally it was Chacha's turn.

I crossed my fingers and let the transfer begin.

Everything seemed fine when it crossed by. The animal sprite looked perfect…

But when Chacha appeared on my screen my heart dropped. The sprite had somehow distorted so bad that it looked as if Chacha's left arm was half gone, there was a hole in its body, its wings were half split, and half its tail was gone. As if someone took a brush and painted parts of it off. When it roared, it sounded so high and broken that I felt as if it was crying in pain.

I cant begin to explain how sad I was.  My Chacha looked like it was broken in pieces, and held to life only by its will.

After that, my friends and I tried making things seem normal again, pretending as if nothing happened. But every time I heard Chacha's cry it really hurt me on the inside. It sounded like it was in pain. Every battle the same cry would come out. And regardless of how victorious we were, hearing it's cry began taking a toll on me. It felt like my pokémon was dying or dead, but I only kept itself alive for my sake. It didn't seemed fair to Chacha. He deserved better than that.

I remembered that there was a graveyard in lavender town. And after a lot of thought, I decided that I would release Chacha. To make believe it died. Back then I really thought that it deserved some peace. So I went to lavender town, got to the pokémon center, placed Chacha on Bill's computer… and hit the release button.

It wasn't all that fast though, I actually cried and took me like 20 minutes to hit the release button. But when I finally did, I could have sworn that Chacha's cry turned back to normal, as if saying thank you. Even the sprite looked like it was back to normal.

'Good bye' I heard…

That was the end of that. I didn't play my game again, because it made me remember my incident with Chacha over and over. I regretted ever letting go of my friend like that. It wasn't until like 2 months later that I picked up the game again. When a friend introduced me to a way to make hundreds of rare candy and masterballs.

Yup, the very famous Old man trick.

It was simple enough. Talk to the old man in Viridian City, have him teach you how to catch Pokemon, place the item you want to make more of on slot number six, fly to cinnabar island, use surf, and go up and down the edge of the island until a random battle starts. You can choose to fight and beat the pokémon that appears, or just plainly quit. Whatever the choice, once the battle is over, you'll have a ton of items you can sell for money and buy whatever items you want.

But nothing prepared me for what happened that stormy night.

No, I'm not being dramatic. It was seriously raining and thundering outside. I lived in Mexico City at the time, and if none of you know, its an elevated zone. Which makes it much more humid, and it makes it so that there's more frequent raining.

Anyway, I got back from school that Friday and went for an afternoon nap. By the time I woke up it was already dark out. My mom was on the living room watching a movie with my dad. And the whole house was dark, except for the outside, which was raining and slightly thundering.

I decided I might as well try out what my friend had told me about the cheat. I took out a piece of paper that had the instructions and started the process.

By the time I got to cinnabar island, I called out my Golduck(Ducky) and had it use surf. We started going up and down the shore line, when suddenly the random battle went off. And exactly at the same it thundered loudly outside. I even heard the window shake.

Out of the corner of the screen it appeared... the shape of the ghost that was on the lavender town tower.

When that happened, I literally felt my mind go blank. I let out the loudest scream I could, turned off the game, and ran to my parents.

For the next two days I had nightmares and I would not touch the game. Why the heck did a ghost appear? Wasn't the ghost just the Cubone's mother? Why the heck did that appear in there? I couldn't sleep. I had the silphco. So it made no sense for it to appear.

It wasn't until Monday came, that I asked my friend about it, and he was puzzled.  He hadn't fought the ghost, but instead a random box shape.

Once recess came along, he took out his gameboy and showed me, with me still cowering from my experience. But sure enough, out of the corner of his screen a random box shape came out. He had his Gengar use nightshade and killed it with one blow. After that, he went to his item box and as he had told me, he had x*** amount of the item.

Due to the experience with the bully, my mom had prohibited me from taking my game to school, and so I left it at home.

By the time I got home, I took my game and decided to try it one more time.

I laid down in bed, took out my gameboy, and turned it on.

I redid everything I had done the previous night and thus the same thing happened again.

I felt my heart stop when the ghost appeared again. I wanted to turn off the game but couldn't… didn't want to.

…What if… What if that was Chacha's ghost?

My friend had gotten a weird looking box, but I got a ghost? Its name remained as Missingno however. Level 84. And its health bar was off the screen.

I was positive, that must have been Chacha trying to come back to me, it was the same level after all!

Instead of just running away, I had Golduck attack the ghost with surf. It didn't do much damage. The ghost then counter attacked with flame thrower. And that, half surprised me.

The moves that Chacha knew were Flamethrower, Fly, Fire Blast, and Swords Dance.

It was too much of a coincidence that the ghost that just appeared to know flamethrower… so I decided I would catch it.

For all I knew that could be Chacha trying to come back to me. I didn't think about it, I just went to the item box and threw my master ball at it. I couldn't let it get away. I named it Chacha and it joined my party.

It didn't have a description or info, so I just skipped it.

I saved my game, glad that I had Chacha back and turned it off. I set my gameboy next to my pillow and laid down, there was nothing for me to be afraid of anymore… it was only my friend coming back to me…right?

I closed my eyes, and drifted off.

Hours must have passed, because when I woke up it was dark again. I reached for my gameboy and decided to play some more. To spend some time with Chacha.

I turned on my game and continued from my last save.

I pressed start and opened the Pokemon box, to see that Chacha had taken the shape of a ghost sprite.

A sudden thought went off in my head. Why did the silphco not work? It was supposed to help me look past the ghost. I went through my items to see that it wasn't there. And that's when I remembered that I had stored it on the computer… because I had way too many items already.

I headed for the pokémon center and retrieved the silphco from my computer.

When that was done I opened up the pokémon box to see that the ghost was no longer there. It was replaced… by a picture of an animal sprite... and that… ladies and gentleman… scared me.

Not thinking about it anymore, I clicked on the summary for the new Chacha and didn't see the image of Chacha, my charizard… but instead, it was a patch of flowers.

With fear increasing bit by bit, I decided it was time to save and turn off the game. I did not want to mess with the game anymore.

But when I turned off the game, the screen didn't go blank. Instead, I saw that the menu box opened. Puzzled I tried turning off the game again, but this time the selector made its way to the Pokemon Box.

My voice died in my throat…What the heck was going on?

The box opened and I saw that Chacha's sprite had changed once again, this time the animal sprite was not moving cheerfully as it had been before. It had full health, however… it was not moving…it was just standing there… as if staring at me... The selector made its way to Chacha's sprite, it opened the options and saw that it now knew the ability fly.

It selected it, and without me doing anything my sprite jumped into the now deformed collection of sprites, and headed off into the unknown location.

We were now in front of the tower in Lavender Town… and I don't know how to explain anymore, the cryptic familiar music began playing…

Tu-tu-tu-tu….Tu-tu-tu-tu…. Tuuuuuuuu~………

The screen froze, along with the music… and then went black.

I was beginning to get freaked out by what was happening so I frantically began to toggle the off/on switch. Up and down multiple times… but nothing would happen.

The screen came back on, and the intro played like always.

I selected my saved game and started.

…However I wasn't where I last saved. I was on the final room of the lavender town tower.

I tried going downstairs but there was something blocking the way. I tried using an escape rope, but my items were all gone.

The intense fear I felt at the time had left me frozen… stuck looking at the screen… helpless.

It may seem dumb to some of you. You may be thinking 'that's stupid, you could have just gotten up and walked away' or 'You could have taken off the game from the game boy,'. But you don't realize that when you're in fear, you don't think straight. You're just a mess of fear and have no clue on what you're supposed to do. Take in mind as well that I was only 10 at the time.

I couldn't do anything, so I began walking around the room.

I checked my pokémon box and saw I had no pokémon at all. I was alone…

There was a sprite of the old team rocket member that was there before. But when I talked to him the the text was all glitchy. I could only make out that it said 'G3t 0nt u0m'. I think it was at that point that I think my eyes began watering.

What the heck was going on? Why was I a-top of the tower? What happened to Chacha?

After saying that the screen flashed, and the Rocket sprite was gone. I was alone once again.

I made my way further into the room. And saw it there… The animal sprite, starting at me.

Was that Chacha? I approached the sprite.

Why was this happening? Did Chacha hate me because I abandoned him?

When I was standing in front of him I pressed 'A' to talk to him, but instead of a box of text opening I a screech began coming out of my gameboy. At the moment I couldn't put the sound into words… but now that I'm older I know it sounded a lot like the mosquito ring tone.  I instantly covered my ears, the sound was so loud and sharp that it made me wince.

The screen faded black, and deformed unreadable letters began forming on the screen.

The animal sprite came back into the screen… it seemed like it was hovering… slightly moving.

When suddenly I heard a familiar cry.

…

I felt my heart stop…

…was... was that Chacha?

The screen flashed a couple of times and the random battle music began playing.

Out of the corner of the screen came out a thing… I can only address it as a monstrosity. It seemed like a pile of static with a bones sticking about of it. Where those sprites came from? I don't know. But I felt a chord in my throat when I saw that. A combination of Kabutops and Aerodactyl's sprites, except in bone form. Along with the eyes of the ghost glowing a dark purple-ish black. MISSINGNO Level  84.

It made thing all the more scary because the background wasnt white, it was a dark void. I dont know if it was my imagination or not, but the air around me felt colder.

But then my player sprite reached for a pokeball and threw it… and out came the last thing I ever expected to see in the game.

It was the sprite of my Charizard…Chacha…

It let out its cry and the battle screen came up.

Nothing made sense at that point. But I knew what I had to do.

I wiped away my tears and decided to fight alongside Chacha. They were the same level, however the Ghost's healthbar was twice as long as Chacha's.

It didn't matter. I would not lose with Chacha with me.

I clicked on battle and decided to start things out with a flamethrower. It hit, but only took off close to a quarter of its health away. The ghost then used watergun and nearly took out half of Chacha's health away.

With wide eyes I realized the trouble I was in. If it knew any other water type moves I would be in trouble.

With that in mind, I used the other move that I knew would help me. Swords dance. If I increased my power enough I would be able to finish him off in one hit.

'Foe became cloaked in a harsh light'…Oh no! I had to get Chacha out of there.

Before Missingno had a chance to do anything I commanded Chacha to use fly, avoiding the deadly attack. And when it came crashing down, it took a good chunk of Ghost's hp.

I would finish things with the next move. I used fire blast.

But before I had a chance, Ghost himself used Fly and went upwards. Avoiding Chacha's strongest attack.

Knowing that Chacha was a flying type as well, I thought it would be best to have him to recieve the attack head on, while charging power once again for a final attack. I ordered for another swords dance, which further increased Chacha's strength.

But then the monster came crashing down… I had not expected for the hit to be critical.

I watched in horror as Chacha's hp dropped and dropped... I closed my eyes… I had messed up again… I failed my friend…  'Chacha…' I whispered sadly.

I opened my eyes to face reality… and couldn't believe my eyes.

It had stopped exactly at 5… Chacha had withstood it's attack.

I felt an involuntary smile spread on my face. I looked down at my gameboy and pressed the button that would finish this.

'Fire Blast' I commanded, and Chacha obeyed. He shot his star of fire.

I watched intently as Ghost's HP dropped down to 0 and crashed.

Chacha had gained a total of ********** exp, it leveled up until it reached level 100.

We had done it. We had beaten that thing… together.

I really felt tears strolling down my eyes as I watched Chacha. I was so glad to have my old friend back. We would be able to go in an adventure together again. Face the elite four and Gary, and have things go back to normal… how they used to be.

But then I heard it… or maybe it had been my imagination. Chacha used it's cry and I could have sworn I heard 'See ya later…Ashyboy'…

Before I had any chance to say anything, my gameboy turned off by itself.

And then… I opened my eyes. I awoke to see my mom fixing things around my room telling me it was time to get ready for school.  I turned my head to see my TV… Pokemon was on with Gary driving away on his red car away from Oak's laboratory.

I looked at the side of my bed to see my gameboy laying there. I quickly reached for it and turned it on.

My mom told me how I should be getting ready instead of playing, but I ignored her.

Everything seemed fine, the intro played normally. But when I got to the start screen… my saved game was gone…

The only options I had were 'New Game' and 'Options'…

…H-Had it been real? Had my victory with Chacha purged my game?

Had he done it in purpose?

A sad smile went through my face, a smile nonetheless. I knew what I had to do.

I clicked on new game… skipped past all the intro… and chose Charmander.

It could have been my hype to start things again. But I could have sworn Charmander's sprite looked slightly more happy that it normally did. Its eyes weren't glaring… they seemed more happy.

'Lets go Chacha… our new adventure awaits.'

And so… the adventures of Ashyboy and Chacha began anew.