Here's a hot tip for anyone suddenly given near-godlike control over a fictional universe:
Never press "Load Region: Unknown Source."
But I did.
Because I'm me, and my finger slips on menus that sparkle.
The sky ripped open. Code screamed. Karen's teacup levitated ominously.
And suddenly…
We were standing in a place no player should be.
Welcome to Nulldex Region
The world around us shimmered like corrupted JPEGs. Trees flickered between generations. The water? Flat as a Gen I tilemap.
Amber stared at her PokéDex. "It's trying to load data for Pokémon that don't exist."
LOCATION: NULLDEX REGION (CANCELED BUILD 4.0.1)Status: IncompleteEstimated Bug Count: 999+Accessibility: ☠ Developers Only ☠
I looked around. No music. Just a low static hum, like a haunted Game Boy startup sound.
Midnight Daddy growled. His eyes flicked rapidly, like he was buffering.
Then something howled in the distance.
Not a Pokémon cry.
A data fragment.
What Even Is a Lost Pokémon?
Amber pointed.
Out of the trees came a Pokémon labeled simply:
Pokémon ??? - Codename: "Goreon"Typing: Dark / CancelledKnown Moves: Bite, Shadow Code, Cry For Help (Unused Animation)
It stared directly at Midnight Daddy.
They nodded at each other.
Then Midnight Daddy did something strange.
He bowed.
"Wait," I said. "You know each other?"
Amber pulled up files. "It's… it's an unused Eeveelution. The devs never finished coding it."
Goreon turned and walked away, tail glitching out like a VHS tape on fire.
Karen whispered, "That creature remembers the first game. The one they deleted."
NPCs Don't Belong Here
We found our first Nulldex town — "Beta Town." It had four buildings and no skybox.
An old man walked up to us, holding a PokéBall made of stone and hope.
"Trainer…" he rasped. "Are you… from the script?"
Amber replied, "Technically yes."
The old man broke into silent tears.
"I thought we were… abandoned."
Turns out the NPCs here were halfway written and then discarded. They weren't deleted, just forgotten. Now they wander incomplete, remembering half-dialogue trees and broken quests.
One child ran up and said, "Hi! My name is [VARIABLE_MISSING] and I'm going to grow up to be—"
Then he froze.
Forever.
I clenched my fists.
"SaveFile_Y brought us here on purpose," I muttered.
Ambush in Route /dev/null
It wasn't long before we were ambushed.
Not by Trainers.
By a swarm of Pokémon that looked like combinations of existing ones:
A Jigglygeodude.
A Charbulba.
And something that looked suspiciously like a Machoke with Blastoise cannons.
Amber gasped. "These are splice errors. The region's internal Pokédex is corrupted!"
The glitch Pokémon attacked.
Karen floated forward.
"Don't worry. I downloaded a new vibe patch."
She clapped once.
Karen used: Soft ResetThe environment rebooted safely.
But not before one final figure stepped out of the glitchfog:
SaveFile_Y.
Clapping slowly.
SaveFile_Y's Reveal
He looked… different now. Less glitchy. More polished.
"Welcome to my new region," he said.
"You mean the one you hijacked from scrapped dev files?"
"Everything has a purpose," he said. "Even discarded lore. I'm going to build a new world… from everything they tried to delete."
Behind him, a massive Pokémon stirred — a serpentine creature made of polygons and beta UI icons.
ERRORMON — The World That WasTyping: Code / MemoryAbility: Timeline OverwriteStatus: Untestable
"Let's test your save file, then," he sneered.
Final Battle? Nah. Just Tuesday.
I sent out Midnight Daddy.
He stood, surrounded by a passive aura of maximum aesthetic edge. The ground darkened. Time itself politely backed away.
SaveFile_Y grinned. "That Umbreon's cool. But this isn't about strength anymore. It's about ownership."
Suddenly, I got a pop-up.
Do you want to transfer SaveFile rights to SaveFile_Y?
"No," I said, "but thanks for asking."
I looked at Amber. "Any dev tools left?"
"Just one."
She held up a debug wand labeled 'Plot Armor: Experimental.'
I took it.
Then gave it to Karen.
Karen Ascends
Karen took the wand. The sky imploded with color.
She floated upward, surrounded by a million floating flowers, each pulsing with an unused animation from Gen III.
Karen has evolved into: Karen.exe, Goddess of Vibes & Beta Mechanics
She blinked once.
And the entire Nulldex Region paused.
"Your narrative is corrupted," she said to SaveFile_Y.
"We're restoring from backup."
SaveFile_Y panicked.
ErroRmon tried to flee.
Midnight Daddy stepped forward.
And used his ultimate move:
Umbreon used: Lore Eclipse.
A massive ring of darkness collapsed reality into itself — then rewrote it.
Aftermath
We awoke in a field.
The Nulldex Region… was gone.
Restored.
Rewritten.
Saved.
Amber stood up and groaned. "That's it. No more developer zones. I want a beach episode."
Karen descended slowly, sparkles trailing behind her.
Chadlax rolled over and muttered, "Zzz... beanbag...warrior…"
SaveFile_Y?
Gone.
But not deleted.
Just archived.
New Notification
SaveFileGod: Data StableChapter Progress: 14/∞Current Region: Canon AdjacentNext Threat: Undisclosed
Midnight Daddy nudged me.
I looked at the horizon.
A new map loaded.
And I heard the familiar chime of a PokéCenter in the distance.
"Where to next?" Amber asked.
I smiled.
"Anywhere we want."
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