Facing the Creator in Pokemon The Last FireRed: A Battle I Had to Win

Before going down the underground path (which connects Cerulean City to Route 6 on the way to Vermilion City), my team had already changed. I had replaced Pikachu with Lycanroc, which evolved from Rockruff. That Rockruff was an unexpected gift from a mandatory event in the game, where I had to save a kid whose Pokemon was being taken by an Aqua Grunt near the start of Route 5.

I made that replacement simply because Lycanroc had Stealth Rock, a setup move that I personally found very useful since it dealt small damage every time the opponent switched Pokemon. I actually learned this kind of setup from this game itself, and at that point I was a bit disappointed that I hadn’t encountered any Pokemon with Toxic Spikes that I could catch yet.

And the underground path was exactly where I ran into the author of Pokemon The Last FireRed. At first, I thought he was just a normal NPC blocking the way, until the NPC introduced himself as Romsprid, the author of the game. I paused for a moment, feeling a bit surprised and genuinely interested in the way the author chose to leave his mark inside the game like this. I assumed there would be a battle, but I didn’t think I was about to be pushed into a fight where losing wasn’t really an option.

The first Pokemon that appeared was Type: Null. The name itself confused me, and my first instinct was to use Roar with Lycanroc after setting up Stealth Rock, just to push it away and see what was behind it. I could see that the author only had two Pokemon, and I was also doing this just to squeeze out some extra damage from Stealth Rock.

The next Pokemon was Marshadow. At that moment, I knew this fight was not going to be easy, but I still wasn’t sure whether it was truly mandatory to win. I wondered if maybe losing would still let me move forward.

The battle turned out to be almost completely one-sided. My Pokemon kept falling one by one, while the damage I dealt was barely noticeable. Even though the opponent only had two Pokemon around level 30, the pressure was intense. Based on my previous experiences in the Cerulean Gym and the Pewter Gym, I used my Pokemon mainly to try to wear down the Dynamax form, simply because I couldn’t see any better option at that moment.

When Marshadow finally went down, the author’s NPC still had a full-health Type: Null, while I was left with only a single Pokemon (Clefable) with very low HP, even though its Dynamax form still had two turns remaining. I thought about using a Potion, only to realize that items couldn’t be used at all. The game just didn’t allow it. That was when I truly felt helpless. I thought that if I lost, maybe the game would still let me pass, and at worst I could just come back and try again.

And I did lose. My entire team fainted, and I was sent back to the Pokemon Center in Cerulean City. That was when I realized this was a battle I had to win in order to move on.

So I tried again. I still had three Sitrus Berries left, and this time I rearranged my team more carefully, giving Sitrus Berries to both Lycanroc and Clefairy. With what I had observed before and the experience from the first attempt, the second battle went much better. In this attempt, Cinderace’s Fire-type Z-Move managed to deal enough damage for Marshadow to go down much earlier. This time, I only lost four Pokemon, and I didn’t even need to use Dynamax at all.

During this second attempt, I finally realized my mistake from the first battle. I had panicked at the name Type: Null and failed to notice that it was still a Normal-type Pokemon, meaning Fighting-type moves were effective against it. When Marshadow went down and I still had Breloom and Clefairy standing, facing only Type: Null, I knew I was going to win this fight. I sent out Breloom to finish off Type: Null and defeated the author, with only two Pokemon left alive.

I was very happy that I won, but the feeling wasn’t light at all. I was exhausted, really exhausted. The first thing on my mind wasn’t moving forward, but avoiding being dragged into another battle while I was in this state with only two Pokemon left. I ran all the way back to Cerulean City to heal, simply because I didn’t want to take any more risks. At that point, I couldn’t help thinking that if just two Pokemon had already pushed me this far, I had no idea how I would deal with a full team of six. For now, I don’t know the answer. Maybe I will find out later.