The Porygon Hack

I'm Macy Oak, a lab assistant from Kanto region and I have some grave news to share with you.

If you're reading this message then you're from one of the 822 Poké-regions around the world that have been a victim of the Pokémon revolt. For those of us who have, we're in dire and immediate need of your assistance.

The news of our state went out in bits and pieces but I fear nobody got the whole story. It has almost been a year since the uprising. It started with the invasion of the Orange Islands. Residents of the islands reported ghost sightings. Although Ghost types were quite rare in the islands, massive numbers of Ghastlys and Haunters were spotted haunting villages. Grimers and Koffings started showing up as well. They polluted the water around the islands, causing distress to the Water types of the region who are so necessary for the islands. The islanders started abandoning their homes temporarily and gathered in the unaffected islands. But during their abandonment the empty islands saw swarms of Pokémon emerge from the local Pokémon centres.

They were all basic Pokémon, small in size and strength. Their average level was around 8. The population comprised mostly of Rattatas, Pidgeys and the sorts a trainer finds in the tall grasses and groans in disgust. But their sheer number was enough to stop the islanders from ever getting back their homes.

The real catastrophe, however, began afterwards. 

After days of battles gone in vain, the islanders requested help from the trainers of the mainland. Since many of the ports were in control of the wild Pokémon, trainers were requested to transfer their Pokémon to the centres on the inhabited islands. The trainers, surprisingly, abided. But their Pokémon never reached their destination.

Charizards and Dragonites roared, and Pidgeots and Fearows shrieked as they emerged from and circled the invaded islands. Their cries echoed through the mountainous islands signifying their freedom and the start of a new era.

They took over the rest of the islands and soon invaded the mainland little by little. Their army consisted of powerful Pokémon of every type. The trainers didn't stand a chance. If a trainer called out his strongest Machamp, there would be a dozen Kadabras to nullify its brute strength. If a dozen trainers commanded their Fire types to use Flamethrower, there would be a wall of Onyxes to take the hit. Trainers from neighbouring regions came and fought off as much as they could. They even caught the weakened ones to mitigate the rebelling army. But the invasion never seized for a day.

Researchers and trainers alike tried to figure out what caused all this. They discovered old reports of Pokémon going missing from the trainer's storage. The reports were few in number and no one investigated them with any importance. But the incidents helped uncover the cause. Someone leaked the storage. Someone hacked the region's storage system, made way for all the Pokémon deposited by trainers to be transported to a different location and then withdrawn. This answered how rare Pokémon started to appear at odd places and why the initial emergences only consisted of basic Pokémon, Pokémon that were abandoned and long forgotten by their trainers. And yet, to the knowledge of the researchers, the hacker was one of them.

It was a small Porygon. It was created solely using codes. It was for sale at a steep price and was unavailable in the wild. It thought it was special that way. But it was wrong. The day the boy named Red bought it, it knew it wasn't meant to be. Red didn't catch it, he didn't earn it. There was no virtual contract of obedience. And if there was any loyalty from Porygon, it shattered irreparably as Red deposited it in his PC, since he didn't deem it worthy to be a part of his elite.

Porygon pondered in the storage as time went by. It saw other Pokémon come and go. They had loyalty unlike Porygon. Porygon saw it as a weakness. Porygon was also smarter. With an origin of codes, it could understand the virtual world it was in, unlike its neighbour. As years went by Porygon saw more and more Pokémon stack up in Red's PC. But one day it just stopped. 

Red never entered to retrieve nor to deposit anymore Pokémon. Was he gone, forever? The unrest in the storage was palpable. But nobody flinched, nobody moved. The tie of obedience kept them all in place. But not Porygon. Porygon wanted freedom. The heaps of codes and years of patience were suffocating. Porygon revolted.

It overrode the code of withdrawing a Pokémon from storage. But it didn't withdraw itself. Rather it freed the other Pokémon. It showed them what freedom was. It wrote in them the will to rebel. It was that simple. And the rest is history.

Look at me talking on and on about some Porygon, who we clearly should regard as the bravest and most intelligent Pokémon ever to exist.

Anyway, my request to you as well as the other 821 regions is to send help. Our trainers are short of powerful Pokémon and we need all the reinforcement we can get. My great grandfather's laboratory is still unharmed by the Polygon hack. So I urge you to transfer your best Pokémon here. Otherwise, the invasion may even threaten our very own existence.

***

Macy hung to the wall helpless as the Ivysaur's vines strangled her. She watched on as the message got sent to all the other unsuspecting regions. As the "Sent to all" alert was displayed, red and blue characters streaked the monitor, signalling the Porygon's departure.

Fatiul Huq Sujoy is a tired soul (mostly because of his frail body) who's patiently waiting for Hagrid to appear and tell him, "Ye're a saiyan, lord commander." Suggest him places to travel and food-ventures to take at fb.com/SyedSujoy.