Pokémon- the infernal glitch (Part 3)

Yellow strutted along toward his next destination. If he had to get his badges back the hard way, so be it. After all, with this Caterpie, how could he possibly lose?

Or so he thought, until he remembered what his next gym battle would be.
Arriving in town, he let out a rather loud "fuck", when he saw Cerulean City before him. Remembering that his Caterpie seemed proficient with water attacks, he could tell right away it would be useless to even bother using him... unless it had some other trick up its sleeve.

As he took his first step into town, a man slammed into him in a rush. Both of them collapsed. Yellow was the first to get back to his feet. Infuriated, Yellow demanded that the man apologize.

"I don't need to apologize to a runt like you! And I'm busy!" The man yelled, turning his back and trying to climb over the small ledge that prevented most trainers from returning the way they came.

"Hey! I'm not done with you yet!" Yellow yelled, and with the full force of his body, he lunged at the man, just as he got a leg over the ledge. Grabbing onto his arm, Yellow pulled as hard as he could, but sadly the strange metallic gauntlet-like apparatus he was wearing simply came un-velcroed and fell off.

"Aww, shit! My snag gauntlet!" The man exclaimed, "The boss is going to kill me if he finds out I lost it! But whatever, I'm out of here! I'll figure something else out!"

No sooner than the man had left than Officer Jenny arrived upon her Vespa. Seeing Yellow standing next to the ledge as if he was about to climb it, Jenny made an assumption.

"You! Stop! You're under arrest!" Officer Jenny yelled.

"For what?" Yellow demanded.

"For attempted theft of a bicycle, and theft of two custom-ordered masterballs!" Jenny resounded, brandishing her handcuffs.

"Now wait just a second! I haven't tried to steal any masterballs! Or bikes!" Yellow countered, angry at being accused of petty theft. (Although, he admitted to himself, masterballs are somewhat rare and incredibly expensive.)

"Wait, you look familiar." Jenny said, thinking about the situation a bit more carefully. "Are you... Yellow? The pokémon trainer who..."

"Became the champion of the Elite Four? Yeah." Yellow interrupted.

"No, I was about to say, who recently lost his title of champion to another pokemon trainer, and has been accused of murder of an innocent Dewgong, leading to the life-threatening self-inflicted injuries of an attempted suicide by the Elite Four member, Lorelai. But obviously, you are he."

"Now, wait a second! If she had just opened the door..." Yellow said defensively.

"Well, you are fortunate. Since Lorelai has not yet regained consciousness and cannot press charges at this time, and the murder or even the passive and willful endangerment of the lives of pokémon is not a crime, there's nothing I can do." Jenny said with a tone of voice that implied that she wanted to cuff someone.

"Well, sorry, but I'm not the guy you were looking for and I need to get to Cerulean city to see Misty." Yellow said flippantly.

"Did you happen to see the suspect? I was trailing him, but he headed this way and disappeared in the tall grass."

"Yeah, I saw him. He climbed the ledge after assaulting me, and not apologizing." Yellow claimed, while hiding the gauntlet behind his back.

"Well, damn. This is bad. I have to go." Jenny said, doing a doughnut, and fleeing toward the City as fast as her Vespa could drive.

Yellow thought about the words of the suspect. So, he was a thief... and he called the metal sleeve a snag gauntlet... which sounded vaguely familiar. Not wanting to waste an opportunity, Yellow put the device on his arm. It fit perfectly, as designed, having Velcro straps to ensure that it would be well suited to fit any individual.

Yellow headed to the Cerulean gym. There, swimmers were training for an upcoming race. Yellow ignored them all, heading to Misty, who was just drying off. 

"Oh! Hey, Yellow. So, heard you lost the champ title, hmm? That's too bad. But that's what you get for being such a cheater." Misty said with a smug look. She seemed to be recalling how his first battle against her involved one incredibly mischievous, modest Pikachu who was (overall) outstanding in ability and couldn't be better in regard to its electric moves.

"Ow, Misty. I see you're still as ugly on the inside as ever. You may have that stupid tween Ash fooled, but I know better." Yellow laughed.

"Ugh, you're so infuriating, Yellow! Why are you even here!?" Misty yelled.

"Simple. I want another badge." Yellow said.

"What? Another Cascade badge? You must be kidding! This is your THIRD ONE! What did you do this time? Went skydiving off a Drifloon and forgot to secure your trainer case?" Misty inquired incredulously. She obviously didn't believe him the previous time, either, when he claimed that a rampaging stampede of Jumpluff had stolen his trainer case. Of course, she had been right. He'd simply lost it, but he'd never admit it to her.

"No. If you must know, it was stolen from me..." Yellow was about to say Blue did it, but he thought of an even better scapegoat, "by a man running from town with some masterballs in his possession after he knocked me down." Yellow retorted.

"Well, you know the rules. You want a badge, you have to earn it." Misty said, sticking out her tongue.

"Fine, let's battle." Yellow replied.

"I'm short on time. Our team has to train. How about an abbreviated battle. One Pokémon versus one Pokémon. First to be unable to use their Pokémon in battle loses." Misty suggested.

"Fine. I choose Caterpie." Yellow mumbled.

"WHAT?" Misty said as she burst into laughter so hard it brought tears to her eyes.
"Oh, this is rich! A Caterpie! Oh man, I can't wait for this." Misty said.

The battle began. Each trainer sent out their Pokémon, but Yellow still had an ace up his sleeve. Just after the battle started, Yellow threw a masterball. It, however, glowed with a strange light, and suddenly captured Misty's Starmie.

"Game set and match. I win." Yellow said, as Misty looked on in amazement. She had never seen anyone manage to capture another trainer's Pokémon before. Every time someone had done that in the past, the Pokémon had been able to resist. Misty, though peeved, gave him a Cascade badge.

"I never want to see your cheating face around here again. And don't you DARE think I'm going to let you just steal my Starmie! I'm filing a police report about this!" Misty cried as she ran off.

"Piece of cake. You know what? I could get used to this!" Yellow said, as he giggled and left the gym.

Pokémon- the infernal glitch (Part 2)

Yellow rushed to the "Elite" Four, flying on the back of his Togetic. He liked to put air quotes around the word "Elite" when referring to them because of how easily he kept beating them. (Incidentally, they always put air quotes around the word "Champion" when referring to Yellow because no champion other than the one hired by the Pokémon League ever stayed in the champion room like they were supposed to after winning.)

"Oh no. Not you again." Lorelai said as she saw Yellow approaching. "Listen, can I just give you your allowance and ask you to just leave? Or are you going to insist AGAIN to fight my Pokémon?"

"Forget you and your Pokémon! I want you to open that door!" Yellow called out!

"You know it's against the rules for me to do that unless you beat me."

"Fine! Then I shall best you in battle again!" Yellow exclaimed.

"I choose you: Go, Dewgong!" Lorelai roared.

"I choose you: SHOTGUN" Yellow said, pulling out the shotgun, and killing the Dewgong on the spot.

Lorelai, so shocked by this turn of events opened the door, and then threw herself onto the decorative icicles below. Yellow scoffed "Weak!", and then he ran through the door. An announcement went out over the PA. League Elites were to let Yellow through because he has a fucking shotgun.

"Hmm, makes sense to me." Yellow mused. "Alright, now let's see who this new champion is supposed to be!"

Rushing into the Champion's Walk, Yellow was surprised. Expecting to see Red, he had no idea he was going to run into this fellow. Standing before him was Blue.

"Ah, so I see you've come." Blue stated calmly.

"HA! It's just you! How did you ever get this far? Here I was worried and everything! You're nothing to fear. You're just Blue. Poor Blue, never able to beat anyone. Such a weakling." Yellow laughed.

"I'm no weakling, and I can prove it." Blue retorted. "In battle."

"Fine. Go! Umbreon!" Yellow shouted, throwing his luxury ball. His Umbreon emerged, and the stage suddenly seemed dark as night, Umbreon's markings giving off a pale and yellow light, like the moon.

"I choose you, go MissngNo. !" Blue said in a voice that sounded eerily like Auto-tune.

Blue threw his premiere ball, but the Pokémon that popped out... was it even a Pokémon  There he saw... a greyish block, it... looked odd. There were parts of Pokémon in there he thought he saw, but Yellow couldn't even give a good description of the thing.

"That doesn't look like a Pokémon at all! But I'll beat you anyway!" Yellow exclaimed, feeling the fear welling up deep inside it, but trying to force it down with anger. It wasn't working very well.

"MissngNo. ! Use Splash!" Blue exclaimed. Yellow burst into laughter! Splash! The worst attack any Pokémon ever knew. Limited to mainly Magikarp, the move was literally just flopping about where you are and not even hitting the opponent. What a joke.

Umbreon squealed in pain, and then collapsed in a heap, the light of its markings going out, and the room returning to its normal lighting. Yellow's mouth fell open.

"No. No way. That... that's impossible! I... I don't even! HOW!?" Yellow said, but then suddenly, he remembered he was in the middle of battle, so he withdrew his Umbreon, and sent out his Dragonite... but before he could even declare an attack, the world went all.. weird. There wasn't a way to describe it, the colors of everything swapped around, and everything went blocky.

When Yellow awoke, he was at his house, and he noticed he only had one pokéball with him. Fearing what may come next, he decided to open it. "Go, pokéball."

Out of it popped his Caterpie. Great. "What happened to all my other Pokémon?!"
Calling back his Caterpie, he strolled to the computer which he had installed a network connection to Oblivia's PC for Pokémon storage. He was shocked by what appeared on screen.

Empty boxes. Empty boxes galore. 30 Boxes without a single Pokémon  It just wasn't possible! Caterpie was now his only Pokémon in the world, and he didn't know how!
Opening his trainer case to grab the phone number of Professor Yew, he was startled to see something even worse. He was missing all his gym badges, except the last one he had earned.

Rushing out, Yellow ran from all the wild Pokémon and approached the first gym: the rock type. Bursting in through the doors, he demanded the gym leader give him a replacement badge.

"Sorry, but if you want a new badge, you're going to need to challenge me." The leader said calmly.

"But I already beat you once!" Yellow cried.

"One badge for beating me once. You lost it? Beat me again, and don't be so careless this time!"

"Alright, fine! Let's go!" Yellow said in a fit of rage, throwing his pokéball, and sending out his Caterpie. The rock leader sent out his Onyx.

"Caterpie, use string shot!" Yellow called, but Caterpie looked confused. "Ok, then use... uh... tackle" still no response "umm, oh for goodness sake do something!"

Caterpie smiled (smeyesed, actually, because it smiled with its eyes), and turned upon the Onyx unleashing a fierce Hydro Pump. Onyx fell to the ground, soaking and mostly crumbling into mud.

"Whoa. Okay, do another one!" Yellow called to his Caterpie as the gym leader sent out his Geodude. Caterpie suddenly called forth a huge wave of water, which it rode, crashing it into the Geodude.

Several Pokémon later, Yellow was once again the proud owner of a Boulder Badge.

"This is gonna be easy. But I still wonder why Caterpie knows these moves (it's awkward), and I'm also confused where all my other Pokémon went. I hope I'm not in over my head here." Yellow sighed as he left with a smile on his face.

A disastrous day

Yesterday was a disaster for me on a personal level. I awoke (early, thanks to my stepdad) for work to find that it had snowed, meaning that the drive to work (5-10 minutes at the most) was much slower and bothersome than usual (it took 20 minutes for me to arrive). Once I got there, I tried booting up the computer (required for all the transactions at my job), but the computer decided to give me a physical memory dump (Windows' famous blue screen).

Last week, my co-worker had been having difficulty trying to get the computer (and printers, et al) to turn on because the UPS (uninterrupted power supply - basically a surge protector with a built in battery just in case the power goes out, to give you time to shut down) had run out of battery and had no AC (the power went out). His solution was simple, and a bad idea: take all the equipment out of the UPS and plug it into a regular power strip. (With no surge protection.)

At the end of Saturday, I shut down the computer, and turned it off, moving all the electronics' plugs back to the UPS (now fully charged) to avoid potential problems should the weather (it had been snowy and rainy recently, off and on) cause the power to go out during the workday.

Apparently, this was the worst idea I could have had. It seems that the computer was unplugged (I did it, so this makes it my fault) at the wrong time (it never shut down normally, but it would get to a point where it was reasonably safe, but without any indication of such). So the system registry (specifically the part for all programs on the computer) became corrupted, or was possibly erased. This is what caused the blue screen of death.

So, I was placed in the awkward and uncomfortable position of calling the owner, and informing him that the computer died. He shut down his other store (he was the only one who could work it at that time) to bring us a replacement computer.

An hour later, I was in the even more awkward position of informing him that all the backup of our system data (which he had thought was going to an external hard drive), was in fact located on the hard drive of the dead computer. My co-worker (the one who had decided to remove all the plugs from the UPS the previous week) had apparently told him it was so. It wasn't; the external hard drive that they thought was being used wasn't even recognized by the computer, and so since it was wasting power and a USB port, I had simply removed it.

I then spent the rest of the workday (although I was only supposed to be working the first half, not the entire day) turning customers away because of all the problems associated with making the new computer work. Namely, getting drivers for printers, installing required software, and finding out, to my chagrin, that the new computer will not allow us the use of our USB hub (meaning printers, scanners, and other devices can't be attached because the computer then pretends they don't exist).

It was an exhausting day at work, made only slightly better by having a very caring coworker (a different one than the one mentioned above) decide to donate her half of the day to me (in hours on the timesheet), but stay around to assist in helping customers while I solved (seemingly) all the problems that could possibly go wrong (which all seemed to happen) short of a total system meltdown.

After such a terrible day at work, I arrived home. Less than 4 minutes through the door, I got a call from another co-worker/boss (we're trying to start a business). He was trying to get me scheduled for a meeting today (wednesday, the 16th). However, he informed me that he didn't have a room reserved for us to meet in, nor did he have any idea of the business expert on our team would be there, and furthermore, he had mistakenly thought I would be available during the time I have class. (This was vitally important, so I informed him that my class schedule was prohibitive of the time he *thought* I was available.)

I woke up this morning feeling quite tired (even after 9 hours of rest), because of the stress I dealt with yesterday.

For some reason, life has recently been trying my patience and attempting to stress me out. I'm normally quite patient, and I handle stress fairly well (most of the time being able to brush it off completely). This type of stuff, however, has been happening frequently, and has pushed me to the limits of my mental endurance.

I keep on being surprised by how far I can be pushed without falling apart, but I'd rather not have to find out this way. I'm curious if other people feel the same way. Needless to say, returning to school (instead of work) today will be quite relaxing in comparison. Perhaps it will do me some good.

Pokémon- the infernal glitch (Part 1)

‎"Come back, Bibarel!" The trainer called, as he withdrew his last Pokémon. It had been a totally one-sided battle the whole time. Honestly, the trainer who had just swept the match hadn't even tried.

"Well, thanks for the battle, and the change" The trainer in black and yellow said, collecting the 285 Poké from trainer Joey.

"You totally cheated!" He yelled, in a fit of rage. "Who has a Pokémon that strong?!"

"Apparently, I do. But hey, don't let it get you down. This Dragonite has fought against the Elite four countless times."

"Yeah, I heard that even as Champion, you keep abusing them by going through them repeatedly."

"It's a reasonable source of income." The trainer replied.

"You're just a dick." Joey said.

"Dragonite? Hyperbeam." And with that, the conversation was over. Clearly youngster Joey had overstepped his authority and had been taught his place for once. (Although, Joey had been beaten by hordes of other trainers... yesterday. Also, every day for the past 3 years, but that's a story for another time, and one that Joey refuses to let anyone hear.)

Heading on his way, the trainer in yellow and black made a quick stop by the Pokémart to get his team healed.

"Welcome!" Nurse Joy said with her usual smile. And as per usual, she healed the Pokémon to full health. "We hope to see you again!"

"Excuse me?" The trainer asked, starting to get a bit annoyed.

"I said, we hope to see you again!" Joy replied.

"Ah, so... what you're saying is... you're hoping my team gets hurt again!"

"No, no! Nothing like that! It's just..."

"Just what? HUH? Listen, I really don't need all your chit-chat. I just come here to get my team in top shape for upcoming battles." The trainer confronted.

"I'm sorry. But, wouldn't it be nice if people stopped fighting with Pokémon?" Nurse Joy asked.

"The world isn't so nice." The trainer replied, and he made a swift exit. As the trainer reached the edge of the forest, he heard a strange noise deeper into the treeline. Could it be the legendary Celebi? The trainer was eager to find out what was making that strange noise, so he ventured inward.

Suddenly a trainer dressed in red and black jumped out from the underbrush.

"I choose you, go Dialga!" He roared. Instinctively, the yellow-clad trainer threw his Dragonite's pokéball to begin the battle.

"Dialga, use Roar of Time!" Red yelled.

"Wait, say WHA..." Yellow began, but suddenly time was nothing. As the world stood still, air silent and motionless, Red commanded Dialga to attack. Time resumed, and suddenly, Dragonite fell to the ground, unconscious.

"What just happened?" Yellow asked, alarmed. Then, fearing for his Dragonite, he withdrew it, and sent out his Arcanine. It, too, was quickly bested. As was his Clefable, his Togetic, his Umbreon, and his Spinda. "How?"

"Dialga, use Draco Meteor!" Red bellowed with a dastardly gleam in his eye. Yellow was already out of Pokémon  so when the meteors fell upon him, it was no surprise that he was knocked unconscious. 

When Yellow awoke, he was greeted by Nurse Joy. Confused by his situation, Yellow asked Joy what had happened. She explained that apparently he had blacked out, given half his money to some trainer he just lost to, and had 'scurried' to the Pokémon center to get his team healed.

Yellow was at a total loss. How could someone have such a powerful Pokémon?  Surely he must have cheated. As Yellow stood up to leave, his C-gear began to ring. He answered it.

"Hello? Yellow?" The Pokémon Professor asked.

"Hello, Professor Yew. Nice to hear from you, what's going on?" Yellow replied.

"I was just calling to inform you that you are no longer the Champion in this region."

"WHAT? What do you mean I'm not the Champion anymore?"

"Well, apparently, someone just beat the Elite Four in record time. They're recovering now, but from the reports they have given, it seems that no sooner had they even sent out their Pokémon than their Pokémon was unconscious." Yew answered.

"Hmm, that sounds familiar. Any word on the type of Pokémon this new champion used?" Yellow asked, hoping to gain some insight on the type weaknesses of the new champion.

"Well, that's the thing. Nobody could identify this Pokémon. I haven't even heard about it, and I'm a Pokémon professor!"

"What did it look like?" Yellow pleaded.

"Well, it was gray, and square-ish." Professor Yew replied.

"Is that all you know?"

"I'm afraid that those details were the only ones that matched across the board. Each of the Elite Four claimed to see a different Pokémon than the other. According to their descriptions of that Pokémon, that is."

"This is troubling." Yellow exclaimed.

"It is troubling indeed." Yew agreed.

"Now how am I going to afford all these Max Revives!?"

"WHAT? That's what you're worried about?!" Professor Yew yelled.

"Actually, I'm worried about losing my title. I would head there right away, but I need to do some research first. I just ran across my own strange Pokémon that I can't explain."

"Send me a sketch of what it looks like and I'll see what I can find for you, Yellow."

"Thanks, Professor! I'll talk to you later!" Yellow smiled. One more thing out of the way. Honestly, though, Yellow was very frightened. No Pokémon ever won instantly, but now twice (or more) in one day it was happening everywhere. This was troublesome, and Yellow didn't know how to handle the news.

"I hope this doesn't turn into something I can't deal with." Yellow sighed.