Abort, Retry, Fail?

AND YOU'RE SURE THAT NOTHING WILL GO WRONG WITH THIS.

"Yeah, it'll be fine! Well - technically, you should be a Porygon2 for this to work. So, probably nothing will actually happen."

In the unused, dingy workshop in the basement of the Clover Guild, a small gathering of Pokémon sit around a table that is almost covered totally by junk. Prominently displayed atop the pile is a translucent pink-purple plastic box, with a disc visible within.

Eying up the box with an unerring gaze, one of the Pokémon shifts it's polygonal head towards the source of the voice.

SO IF THIS SHOULDN'T WORK. WHY ARE WE EVEN TRYING IT.

"Well, nothing ventured - nothing gained, right?" the other Pokémon replies, shrugging slightly "And if it does work, you'll be really upgraded!"

UH HUH. SURE. WELL. HERE GOES NOTHING.

The disc starts to shimmer slightly - floating up into the air, pixelating as it begins to shrink. As the disc gets to roughly half the size it was before, little bits of the pixel mass begin break off and stream towards the chest of the polygonal being - with a quiet fizzing sound, they begin merging with his body. It takes a little while, but eventually the whole box is drawn within the Pokémon.

The very air seems to tense, as everyone who crammed themselves around the table involuntarily takes a breath in. Porygon floats in the air silently, an in inscrutable expression across his immovable face. An age seems to pass in the span of a few seconds, before a new voice pierces through the heavy, strangled atmosphere. A smooth voice, one that nobody around the table has heard before - a deep timbre seemingly originating from Porygon, his sharp, staccato speech completely gone.

Well, that was a bust! What a colossal waste of our time. Nothing even happppppppppppppppppppp

His body freezes up, stuck in place - a second later, a ray of light pierces through his body, a line fracturing across his hull - light shooting out, cutting through the gloom. Quickly followed by another ray - and another. In a matter of seconds, Porygon becomes nothing more than a ball of light, bathing the dark basement in incandescent glow. Throughout it all, all that can be heard is a harsh, metallic, screeching - replacing the silence that was filling the workshop before.

As the glowing subsides, all eyes in the room are glued to the spot that Porygon had been occupying. Through the dissipating light, a form slowly comes into view - instead of the blocky form familiar to those sitting around the table, a rounded body greets them. Similar to Porygon2 upstairs, it is easy to guess that the intended form is a duck of some sort - but in this case, all the bits have been assembled in the wrong way. The head - upside down, with his neck protruding out the top like an aerial, flickers in and out of existence - miscoloured eyes darting about the room, unable to focus on any one spot. His body seems to have been stretched out, limbs and tail extended, flailing about randomly. The red and blue texturing across his body switches places every so often, occasionally fading to bare wireframe.

And then a voice stutters out of the mangled mess of a Pokémon.

ppppend. -nd. HAPPEND.[W-w-w--WARNING. LOW MEMMMmmMMMMMM. ory.]FATAL ERRORPlease refer to use-use-user manual.DATA CORRUPTION SEVVVVVVVV-EIGHTY PERCENT.IT HURTS.ITHURTS.ITHURTSITHURTSITHURTS. Attempppppppppppppping to RESTOREFROMBACKUP.-UP. -UP. L-L-Loading C:\PORYGON\DATA\HUMAN.DAT

A moment passed. The Pokémon sat around the table stared at Porygon in a stunned silence. Paralyzed by the event unfolding in front of them, they could do nothing but watch on in horror.

WARNING. -ARNING. Backup missINCOMPLE NOT FOUND. Atemptttting to reset to factory s-s-settings. -ings.-ING. egi-egin-beGINNING PLAYBACK.

The spasms slowed down, as another voice began to emit from the twitching mistake. Calm and composed, it was a stark change from the garbled speech Porygon was now spewing. Despite the audio sounding like it had been recorded a long time ago, this voice was clear enough to understand as it filled the room.

"-re we go. Well, whoever this "Silph" was, they certainly crammed a lot of utility stuff in here. Um. Well, if you're listening to this, I should probably start with an explan-" The recording devolves into static briefly, before continuing: "-prisingly enough, I was able to possess it long enough to recover it from a Mystery Dungeon. Afterwards, I had a poke around inside. Turns out, I could change the behaviour by messing around with these... files, I guess they're called? A tweak here, a change there and wham, a whole ne-"

More static fills the air, as the recording skips further forward.

"-ot me thinking. All these dungeons popping up, that's not a good sign. Usually a sign of a world-ending disaster, if the stories are to be believed. And those stories always have something in common. A human - or someone claiming to be one - appears and fixes things. But what if one doesn't show up? Hopefully someone will step up, but... Maybe a human has something we don't? So - That's why you're hearing this. There's no easy way to say this, and I hope that listening to this doesn't dishearten you, Porygon, but, well - you were never a human. You're an amalgamation of everything I could learn about them, in an attempt to save us. For whatever it's worth - I'm sorry for doing this."

With that, the room fell silent. Porygon hovers there, twitching silently for a moment, before he speaks up.

This form, IT HURTS. THIS CANNOT CONTINUE I cannnnot continue.

To the side of Porygon, a small cylinder begins to materialise - despite seeming to get stuck half way though it's generation, small motes of light begin gathering around one end of it.

I cannot SELF-T-T-T-ERMINATE.
I'm sorry.
You need to PUT ME DOWN!