Bad Ending: Hidden

☢ WARNING! ☢ WARNING! ☢
This is the sequel of Bad Ending ([link])! If you didn't read it, maybe you won't understand!

Bad Ending: Hidden
Wishing for a Good Ending

I saw the cartridge behind a shelf. As red as fire. And full of dust.

I take that, and read the two Japanese words on it: 血 赤, Blood Red.

I remembered when I played that hacked game, and I started trembling again, even if lot of years has passed. I think that game signed my childhood.

But anyway, I was curious again.

...Too bad I lost my Game Boy Colour, and I gave my SP to my cousin. What a loser, uh?

I put “Blood Red” in my bag, wandering of what I could do.

At school, I told about that game to my best friend. After my story, she asked me if I could give her the cartridge: she is the most curious girl in my class, and she wanted to end the game with a Good Ending.

I gave her the game and a block notes, asking her to write how to end Blood Red good.

After two weeks, she gave me back the game. She looked weird.

I instantly read what she wrote.

“The game weren’t as dark as I thought...it was normal! End it weren’t easy, anyway: I don’t play Pokèmon for a long time, you know!

My character, named like me even if he weren’t a girl (eh eh) defeated the rival Faggot every time, even if my party wasn’t very powerful...

After the end, it started the story you told me…the killed mom, the thief, and bla bla bla…

But when I had to choice to help or not the assistant of Prof. Oak, I choose “no”. Not even ME knew if I was right or not.

And then, it happened.

I just get out from the Lab and the screen cut red, and then black.

When the overworld came out again, I saw Sarah on the ground, surrounded by red things and without the head.

After some seconds, some words appeared.

They were: ‘You’re not brave enough. You don’t deserve to continue. Bad ending.’

Don’t make me play again with that thing. It was scary, damnit!!”

I was a bit disappointed, but now I wasn’t the only one that wanted to see the Good Ending: Sarah’s curiosity was at the maximum, even if she told me that only some days after.

A week passed, and the game was still in my school bag, incomplete.

One day, my best friend’s boyfriend, a great Pokémon’s fan, asked me if I could give him the game. Who knows, maybe he would end it!

It gave me back the game and the block notes only one week after.

“My party, when I defeated John, my rival, were composed by a Blastoise, a Gengar, a Raichu and an Alakazam. But when I came out from the Lab, I noticed that I had no Pokèmon.

I couldn’t go away from there, so I came back in the Lab, and there I talked again with the assistant. He said that he could give me his Pidgeot.

I went out again, and there I asked Pidgeot to fly to the only place I could go, Lavender Town.

When I came there, Kaze, my character, went automatically to the Pokèmon Tower. It happened just like you: I followed the red Ghost until we reached the last floor, and then the battle started.

‘Raticate’s Ghost wants his revenge!’

I thought that everything was ok, but it wasn’t. Just like when you reach for the first time Lavender Town, and you can’t see the Pokèmons in the Tower, Pidgeot was too terrified for move.

‘Raticate’s Ghost uses Kill’

The screen became red, and some words came out, white.

‘Too bad you didn’t have a Flying Pokèmon…Kufufu…

Bad Ending.’”

Bad Ending, Bad Ending, BAD ENDING!! How could I finish that nightmare?!

But now I knew something more: I had to bring a Flying Pokèmon in my team before fighting the Champion, and I had to choose to search for Gary, or else I could die before the adventure started.

I continued to bring the game to school for a month, I think, searching for someone that could end it. In that month, my cousin gave me back the Game Boy SP.

For make sure to end the game with Flying Pokèmon and to make sure that my friends would end it quickly, I restarted BloodRed.

I was ready to hear Oak’s strange message, but something else appeared.

“When will I stop feel pain?”

Red’s sprite came out. He looked bored.

“Come on, will you make me win, today? Or I’ll die again?!”

The SP fell on the ground. I made it fall. It was like Red was talking to me.

…It wasn’t possible!

“I’m sick to change my name again and again. Hurry up!”

I renamed him like the first time I played, and I did the same for Gary. Then, I had to choose my started, and I selected Charmender again, and renamed him Axel.

I thought that Red, at the beginning, was asking me to don’t change anymore his life.

It’s a strange thing to think…Pokèmon’s character, or Pokèmons themselves, change their name again and again…there are a lot of Reds, of Garys, of Golds, Sapphires, Blacks in the world, but maybe almost anyone has a name like another…Oh, I went offtopic…

But then, I understood a thing. “My” Red’s life changed when I made he die. He deserved to win, not to lose. Especially against someone like Gary.

No, I had to make Red win. It was MY duty.

I defeated without any problems Gary the first time, when I came to Lavender Town. I was very, very scared, there.

There, Gary’s Raticate will try to kill me, I thought.

I shocked my head, making my bad thought go away. Maybe, I knew what to do to create a Good Ending.

I just lost against my rival. That’s all.

Just like when he killed Charizard in my previous game, he didn’t believed it. But when the options of “YES” and “NO” came out without any sense, I selected Yes.

Red just stayed where he was, until Gary finally stopped congrats himself. When it happened, he turned to my character and watched him for a while. I was thinking that something bad could happen, but…

“I’m sorry…it’s not your fault after all.
I had to expect something like that…Now I know I can win, too!”

The screen faded away, and when the black background went away I discovered that I was in a Pokèmon Centre. My party were ok.

When I went to Pokèmon Tower, Gary wasn’t there. A young woman approached me, and said that he ran away after the battle.

I felt suddenly good, like my work was done.

I continued the game, I defeated Gary.

I had only to pray that what I did was the right choice.

The credits scrolled, and then some words appeared. The background was light blue, and words black.

“You did it. I’m happy for you, trainer.
Was it really this hard? Kufufu~”

And then, with my great surprise…

“Good Ending.”

I didn’t believed in my eyes. I read those two black words one time more, and one more again.

A tear dropped.

The nightmare was over. That stupid hacked game that scared me a lot when I was a kid was over. With a Good Ending.

I selected happy the “Continue” button, ready for completing the Pokèdex without any fears.

But…

The game started in a place…Yeah, now I remember. The place where Gary stabbed himself the first time I played.

What was happening?

Gary was there, completely alone. But he was surrounded by something.

I looked for a while, when…when I understood that it was blood.

The SP fell from my hands in the bed where I was playing. I almost screamed.

That was the Good Ending!! Why was he dead?!

The screen changed after a while (I was starting thinking the game was frozen), and appeared on Red.

He turned to me after a few second, and said some words.

“Being the never-defeated Champion was MY destiny. And now no one will ever boast of defeating me.
No one.”

I was crying again. But this time not for joy. Just like last time, the screen became red, and some words came out.

“Good Ending…is dead.”

…No, there’s nothing I can do, I thought. I can’t choose his story at all.

And now, I don’t know if the real monster was Gary, and not Red.

Gary were completely mad because of his Pokèmon’s death, and because he never won. But at the end, he repented.

Red, for the only time he was defeated, became an assassin without scruples.

…I WAS that monster, after all.

I turned off the SP, and when I switched on it again, I noticed that it was frozen on Red’s face.

His eyes were as red as blood.