Top Percentage

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When I first bought it, I played SoulSilver obsessively for weeks. I loved everything; the pokemon, the people, and the storyline. My beloved team consisted of Meganium, Espeon, Misdreavus, Ampharos, Vulpix, and Poliwhirl. I loved them all dearly, and thanks to my Pokewalker, I leveled them all up easily. Another source of amusement for me was the Pokegear. I loved that people you had met could ring you up and request a battle, or just rattle on about nothing. My favorite of the regular callers was, of course, the infamous Joey.

"Hey, you know my super-cool RATTATA? My RATTATA is different from regular RATTATA. It's like my RATTATA is in the top percentage of all RATTATA, you know what I'm saying?" he'd always say.

Then, one day, he called me for a battle. Well this was new. He'd never asked for a rematch before. As I remembered, he only had his rattata. Suspecting that his rattata had maybe risen a few levels, I traveled back to where Joey stood.

"I've been waiting," the text read. "Wait until you see how much RATTATA has changed!"

The battle music started and the screen split. To my surprise, Rattata had become a Raticate! I couldn't put my finger on it, but there was something different about its claws. They were yellowish and had a brick pattern, like they belonged to another pokemon, but at the time I didn't give it much thought.

As I expected, Joey's Raticate had grown to level 30. I sent out Espeon. Raticate attacked first, and used Dig. That was strange, I didn't think Raticate could learn Dig. Anyway, it was no match for my Espeon, who creamed him with Psychic. Raticate fell with a scrambled cry that was different to how I remembered it, but again, I didn't think much of it. The screen returned to the overworld.

"Oh, all right," Joey's text read. "But I won't lose to you again! RATTATA will be stronger next time we meet!" and handed me an Iron.

I giggled. Joey was still calling his Raticate a Rattata.

It was a few days later and I had beaten the final gym before the Elite Four. I was about to head into Victory Road when I got a call from Joey. He wanted to battle again. I thought it'd be some okay EXP, so I flew back to route 30 and talked to Joey.

The battle started and this time, I knew something was horribly wrong. Raticate was sporting an orange, fiery tail, like that of a Rapidash. In addition, the area around its new tail was a purplish-red color, like it was bruised or bleeding, and I could see grotesque stitches holding the tail on. What had Joey done to it? It was like he'd sewn a Rapidash's tail onto Raticate.

When the Raticate used Flamethrower, I realized with horror that that was exactly what he'd done. Raticate let out a scrambled noise. It sounded like it was in pain. "RATICATE was hurt!" the text read. Raticate's health went down by a quarter. Flamethrower didn't affect the user, so I was confused until I realized that Raticate was not used to using fire attacks, and its body was being damaged by the foreign attack type.

I didn't want to hurt the Raticate further, but I had to. I sent out Poliwhirl and used Surf. It was super-effective, and Raticate fainted. When we returned to the overworld, Joey said, "And yet another loss....no doubt about it - you're tough! Being beaten this often actually feels good now! Still, I sure wish RATTATA was stronger!"

"It's a Raticate!" I screamed at the DS. "Stop calling it that! Stop hurting it!"

Joey, of course, didn't hear me. Instead, he gave me an Iron.

I promised myself that I would never battle Joey again, even if he called me. A couple of weeks passed, and I had entered the Kanto region. I had almost forgotten about Joey when I received his call, inviting me to battle. I ignored it and continued down Route 5. After a few steps, however, he called me again. This time, when I picked up, I heard Raticate's cry. "WhEre are YoU goIng? ROutE 30 iS the oTHer waY!"

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