Armed with two portable phone chargers, some in-game incense and Pokéballs, the human makes the call to fellow humans. Together, they enter its automobile and drive at 30mph through its neighbourhood, careful, the driver too, not to miss any Pokémon on their way, and also mindful to cheat the Pokémon egg hatching system. Humans are cunning creatures, outsmarting the smartest of devices in order to exploit what they offer for what seems to be no benefit. At the end of each hunt, each human comes home empty handed, but with a digital archive full of animated rarities. Outside of the vehicle, many other humans can be seen glued to their phones, embarking on yet another day's journey, their young also joining them on their own phones, as offspring so little as just three years old have also joined the journey to be the very best, like no one ever was.
Today, after having spent almost an entire week on their phones, this group of humans is after one particular Pokémon: the ever so elusive Pikachu. This short yellow rodent, stubby in stature, is thunderingly charismatic. Armed with a cute looking face, do not let it fool you for innocence. Stored in its seemingly innocent reddened cheeks are thunderbolts, ready to strike out and smelter any who step in its path. If that's not enough to scare you, perhaps its five tiny fingers at the end of its short arms will. Like Australia's dropbear, the Pikachu has the capability to, in quite a cute manner, erratically claw at you. Luckily, we have sedated one today for the purpose of showing you its features up close. We found it gnawing on a powerline, and my team managed to catch it before a hoard of Poké-trainers rolled in. They are standing by now for its release. What you cannot see, photographed below, is the minute after this photograph was taken, wherein it blasted me to near death after its sedative wore off. You also cannot see its thunder-bolt shaped tail, which follows it swiftly wherever it goes. But what you can see is its tiny little ears, with a black tip on their ends. A mighty creature, so delicate in features.
After releasing it, we headed back to our campsite behind the field where multiple Pikachu sightings have taken place. This may have to do with the multitude of lures that have been used by avid Poké-trainers. The group of humans observed earlier mumbled harsh nothings to one another. It looks as though they are having an argument. "I'll uninstall, you all better do the same because I don't think either of us will catch one unless we start over!" one screamed. The others seemed to have follow suit. According to our cameraman across the field, he heard them saying something about creating new email addresses and accounts to start this process, a process that has only recently been discovered. This process states that if you abandon all starter creatures over five times, a Pikachu will appear. The humans separated. We followed their ringleader, watching him leave behind several starter Pokémon.
Surely enough, after abandoning Squirtle, Bulbasaur and Charmander five times, the human spotted the Pikachu we caught earlier. Unbeknownst to him, in a few minutes, this field will be teeming with them. But in order to allow him to retain his dignity, and to keep our camera crew safe, we chose not to notify him, and instead, watched him burn off all the calories months of Netflix binging have added to him. The human leapt up in delight with his mouth agape, and screamed, "I GOT HIM, I GOT HIM!"
The humans he came with quickly gathered around him, trying to look at his phone screen. He held it up; a modern day Lion King, and shook. "Throw it!" some yelled. "Quick!"
The Pikachu, after having thought that its first encounter with these abhorrent humans would be its last, stared in horror as it began to count down its final minutes of freedom. It thought to flee, but it was programmed, once found in the game, to withstand the throwing of three Pokéballs before fleeing. Unable to turn itself away from the group of frighteningly excited humans, it turned towards it potential captor, and decided that the only thing left to do, since this was not a formal Pokémon battle, was fight off his Pokéballs.
And surely enough, it did. The human threw the first Pokéball, and Pikachu swiftly tapped it away. "Shit!" he exclaimed. Another human said to it, "try again! Quick!" Pikachu almost had no time to evade the second, but did just in time. It frowned, and put itself in an attacking stance in order to try to intimidate the humans. But it was outnumbered, and more wannabe explorers joined its human rival, throwing bits and pieces of advice. One bit of advice stood out, "Use a Razz Berry!"
The human complied. He threw a Razz Berry in front of Pikachu. Pikachu hesitated for a while, and then went for the bait. Just as he did, the human decided to throw the third and possibly his last Pokéball with a twist. He placed his finger on the screen, waved the Pokéball in a circular motion, and it leapt up in the augmented air. He threw a curveball. "GREAT" his phone flashed at him.
Pikachu panicked. His world turned a bright white and then a deep, velvety red. He was trapped inside the Pokéball. He strained. He wriggled. He punched its inner walls and screamed and even thunderbolts, it appears, could not help him. He cried out in surrender. One of my cameramen shed a few tears. This is a sad moment for all digitalised creatures.
The Pikachu was then registered to the human's Pokédex. "Good work, bro!" "Well done!" "Awesome!" the humans cheered. As hastily as they were to find and capture a Pikachu, so too were they haste in leaving, and moving on to capture yet another. Pokémon all over the world now seem to be in danger of being ensnared in a Pokéball, forever indebted to a life of digital servitude towards humans who too are ensnared in the augmented reality joining the lives of Pokémon and humans alike.
And in the mere flick of a finger, in a mere miss, in a mere additional flick, in a few mere pieces of advice and a mere third try, Pikachu too seemed to be just a mere Pikachu to all present onlookers. The once elusive and highly desired Pokémon became just another Pokémon, and soon this game will be just another game.
*not actually narrated nor transcribed from any narration by David Attenborough. This entire article is completely fictional and hypothetical. Read in the style of David Attenborough's voice to achieve full effect.
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