Back in my day, EX stages meant something, I tell ya! We used to have four of them, all high and mighty with their buff-removing sync moves and AoE nukes as far as the eye could see. And no one could beat them at all in the beginning. You would throw your rocks and leaves at them, and then get killed by a fancy magic spell or a wave of gunk or a whole lot of rocks. But then someone figured you can make the bird one attack the snake, because birds eat snakes in the wild, ya see, and then suddenly we were all sacrificing snakes to the birds. And when the bird came down to eat your snake, that’s when you’d throw rocks at it. And then we figured out that rocks were really good at more than just hitting birds. You could hit anything with rocks! Except other rocks, because if there’s anything rock paper scissor ever taught us, it’s that rock doesn’t beat rock. Rock doesn’t beat paper either, but if you tied your rock to a dog then then rock can beat paper too. But you can only use one dog for every three rocks, otherwise you end up with too many dogs and then you just can’t throw enough rocks at the paper. But rock still doesn’t beat rock. But you can then just throw paper at rock and then you can beat rock. But then when you beat the big rock, the little rocks on the side still beat your paper, which was a real thorn in our side. Not a real thorn, because that’d be paper, but more like a rocky thorn, like a helmet that was pokey and hurt you when you touched it. But not like a hard helmet that protected you, oh no, we still don’t have that so hitting with your head was still not a good solution for the bird. That’s why we had to throw rocks at it, ya see. Anyway, so we figured out that we can throw rocks at everything except other big rocks. But you couldn’t just throw any rocks. It had to be a special rock that not everyone had. So everyone had to keep trying until they found that special rock. I remember when I first found that special rock. I was really disappointed because I wanted a puppy at the time, and everyone had puppies back then. But I was the only kid on my block without a puppy, so I had to play with my rock instead. But when everyone started throwing rocks at things, let me tell ya, no one remembers the puppy when you have a rock to throw. And so we threw rocks at all the EX stages. Except for rock, because rock doesn’t beat rock.

I remember back when the first new EX stage came out back in September of the year aught-one-nine. We had to say aught because Team Rocket stole our word for twenty at the time. Anyway, the EX was for this strapping young lad named Bartholomew or something or other. And you can bet we threw rocks at him too, as was the style at the time. And that worked just fine, but then people started using paper instead of rock. And then there was a big war between rock and paper, and I think aught-five people died. Or maybe they just went to bed. It was really hard to tell back then, because Bartholomew would make you fall asleep with his constant droning. Which is why we brought back the dog that we used to tie rocks to. But then we figured we can tie paper to the dog instead of rocks. Which was good, because paper is a lot lighter than rocks. But you still wanted only one dog for every 3 pieces of paper, because too many dogs would tear up the paper like how they would eat your homework. I remember when my dog ate my homework. Except it wasn’t my dog, because you’ll remember that I never got my puppy, but I did have a rock. So my rock ate my homework, but my teachers never believed me. They would have believed me if I had a puppy. Speaking of puppies, you could also use the puppy on Bartholomew, but then no one wanted to play with you for some reason, even though puppies were basically dogs and could do the same thing. But you still only wanted one puppy, just like you wanted only one dog. Too many will eat your homework.

The next EX stage to be introduced was young Flannigan. She was a strapping young lass with the hottest temper. That was still back on aught-one-nine too. We still threw rocks at her, as was the style at the time, but the rocks didn’t work so well. So we had to come up with all manner of fancy doo-dads to use instead of rocks. We had some very complicated pieces back then. My favorite was always to use rocks, because that’s all I knew at the time, but I couldn’t use my special rock. I had to use a different rock, the one that stops other rocks from blowing up. Oh yeah, rocks used to blow up back then. We called them blow-up-rocks, because they blew up. Now you could get rid of the blow-up-rocks first, but it took a lot less time to just let them blow up. And you can stop them with your own rock! But not the special rock from before. We were still throwing our special rocks, but that didn’t stop the blow-up rocks. And our special rocks didn’t stop the next EX Stage either, because now we couldn’t throw our rocks hard for some reason. No, you had to get a pig. Of course, we couldn’t throw our pigs either, except for my friend Charles who was a champion pig thrower. But pigs were a lot harder to find than rocks, because they had to be found on a farm with a horse. Just a pig wasn’t enough, you also had to have a horse. And the number of folks with both a pig and a horse was just not very high. Of course, at first you could also just build a sand castle, but you needed a lot of sand castles to make sure you had enough sand. And that worked for about 3 days. 3 glorious days in the fall of aught-one-nine. And then the tide came in one day and washed away all our sand castles. And everyone was sad because no one had enough pigs or horses. So we had to go back to throwing rocks at paper instead. And that worked just fine, it did, but only if you tied the rock to a dog. And only one dog for every 3 rocks. Because otherwise you’d end up with too many dogs and not enough rocks thrown. But now we had pigs too, and pigs also beat paper. But rocks could also beat pigs, because rocks beat everything. That’s why we threw rocks at everything back in the day. Except other rocks.

Then, the last of the old new EX stages came, in a long coat and a full head of luxurious silver locks. And you can bet we threw rocks at it, as was the style at the time. We would throw rocks at everything back in the day, whether or not it was a good idea. This time the rocks would sometimes get stuck and not work right, and let me tell ya, that got mighty annoying when it would happen for the 3rd fight in a row. There were ways to do it without rocks. I should know, I came up with one myself, because I hated getting stuck. Getting stuck is very bad, especially on the toilet. But it didn’t matter to most folks that you could get stuck, because throwing rocks was just easier, and it was the style at the time. It got so bad that people wouldn’t play with you if you couldn’t throw rocks, or threw the wrong kind of rock. That’s why I had to figure out way to do things without rocks, because rocks were getting really boring for me at the time. And they always seemed to get stuck, and getting stuck isn’t fun. After getting stuck for the aught-fourth time, I said screw it and just did it my way, without any rocks. And it was the most fun I ever had! Except for that summer of aught-one-six, but I digress. Anyway, we threw a lot of rocks back in the day.

Nowadays you young whippersnappers don’t appreciate the rich history of throwing rocks. You throw anything you want nowadays. And it all works, because now things die to anything you want it to. It doesn’t have to be rocks anymore. But I want you to know that many of us old curmudgeons will still be throwing rocks at things, because that’s how we did it back in the day. And we liked it. Except when we didn’t.

At least now rock can beat rock.