Conspiracy: The Master Ball

Uh-oh.  Once again the familiar, paranoid mumbling from the cardboard box down the street is getting louder. In order to protect the ears of innocent bystanders, we’ve promised to publish another one of her rants – but it’s not like there isn’t more where it’s coming from… It’s all very interesting in many ways, so you may want to pop over to the boards to discuss it. Just be careful not to mention the words “Master Ball” while she’s around.

THE MASTER BALL

You know how we justify the sport of catching Pokémon with a variety of nonsense like “the Pokémon I catch are my friends” and “they have choice whether they’re caught or not”? Well, that’s how it used to be, for sure. Back in the apricorn times, it was entirely up to the Pokémon’s goodwill whether they were caught or not. But then someone went and broke the system by inventing something. Something purple.

Something by the name of the Master Ball.

Now, I don’t pretend to know how the internal technology of Poké Balls work, but on the outside the principle is simple enough. You use one of them red-and-white little balls and they contain whichever Pokémon you’d like to contain, provided the Pokémon is okay with that. There! You get your prize and ‘friend’ and whatever you wish to call it and the Pokémon wasn’t forced to it, so everyone’s happy. But then people get greedy. They have to have Great Balls and Ultra Balls. They demand Dusk Balls and Net Balls. They want Fast Balls and Timer Balls. Anything to better catch Pokémon with! Whether the Pokémon they’ve set their eyes on has a family in the wild or is just otherwise adverse to being imprisoned and lugged all over the world ceases to matter, and all that is really important is to get that click and ping of a successful catch.

But the Master Ball? That’s really the one Ball to rule them all. You know, when those were invented, the government tried to put a stop to them. “This can’t be allowed,” people said. Darn sure it couldn’t! “This completely ruins the sport,” people said. Master Balls were outlawed everywhere with unanimous votes. They were declared ‘cheating’ and most of the population was satisfied with that and forgot all about them. However, something like that doesn’t just up and vanish, no. Of course they’re still around!

Master Balls still surface every once in a while. Being sold at the black market for exorbitant prices, being given to young children in dark alleys under the disguise of it being “the best Ball, one that never misses”. It has to be children, because they hadn’t been born yet when the invention of the Master Ball shook the foundations of our society. They don’t know it’s illegal. Anyone with a brain would realize there’s something wrong, but of course the kids these days just happily take them. “But why, then”, you ask, “why would they give the expensive Balls away in the first place? Why not use them themselves?”

The Master Ball is the most illegal object to possess in most places. Being caught with one, or even being suspected for a connection with one brings you dire consequences. Just one person witnessing your perfect catch can bring you to prison for the rest of your life, and the lives of your children, and probably even their children! No, if a crook manages to get their hands on one, they never use it themselves. They give – always give, never sell, so there’s no transaction – it to a promising kid under some sort of disguise, and then they set to following the kid. The child will use the ball when something proves difficult to catch – children have no patience, I swear – and we all know which Pokémon are the most difficult to catch… Legendaries. The Gods of our world! These children, cheated into using the mind-shackling, slaving device by shady people, use their Master Ball to catch and imprison a god! Like those gods don’t have anything better to do but to sit in a purple ball and do some pre-teen’s bidding. After that, it’s just a matter of stealing the Master Ball from the children while they sleep and trading the Pokémon, its mind already fully imprisoned by the wretched Ball, and to trade it into another Ball to use in battles or for other purposes. It’s not like the child has any legal claim to the Master Ball, because legally the whole contraption doesn’t exist. The perfect crime!

But the most common case, and the case most kept under lids, is when the Professors do it. They’re scientists, of course, so their curiosity is explained. They have authority, so the children come to them for questions. At some point, some of them realized what an excellent chance they had to exploit this to get their hands on real legendary Pokémon to study. The temptation must have been too much for them, but they were careful to cover their backs. All these “starter Pokémon” and “Pokédexes” and whatnot that they give out… It’s all a ruse, all a test to see which kids are the best! The ones who are will receive the elusive Master Ball for their efforts, only to have it stolen by the professor later. Ground-breaking science has been made this way for years, but whoever knows about simply shuts their eyes and turns their head. The Professors are too valuable to get caught… And so they get to continue their cycle of exploiting children and stealing their catches. Why do you think the Professors have access to everyone’s PC accounts? They’re running completely rampant, I tell you!

And after all this, after evil influences on unsupervised, power-crazed children cause them to incapacitate our gods and stop them from attending to their respective domains, we keep wondering why the world is going downhill and why there’s more and more criminal organizations…

Written by An-chan