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marchy-emmet · 4 months

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Pokémon White - The Battle Subway's Void

MARCHY... WRITING?!?!! Pppffff, aside from that... I wanted to write a little one-shot thingie in creepypasta format to explain in a lil' more detail what glitchy Submas are about. No gore or anything, only madness!! Without further ado, let us dive into this shitstorm...

And as a note: The player's opinion of Submas does not reflect my own, lol.

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So… here’s the deal. I’m going to jump right into it – no sugarcoating whatsoever.

I’ve been an avid Pokemon fan for my entire life – way down from childhood and up till now, even as a broke unemployed college student. Generation 5 had always been my favorite, and though the attractions in Nimbasa City aren’t particularly pleasing to me, there was one place that had caught my attention – Nimbasa Gear Station.

Now, I am no rookie player… I’ve been through this subway time after time again – my favorite being the singles lines due to how quickly you can farm BP. And the doubles line was slower but gave you the same amount of BP, so what was the point? My copy of White was maxed out in money and time. No need to add more grueling tasks.

… Well, enough yapping for now – I don’t have much time, anyway. Let’s, once again, jump right into it.

Just a few nights ago, I had made my rounds with the battle subway again – but this time, I decided on choosing the multi lines. I’ve got barely any friends who play, so I ended up playing this with the NPC Hilda in the comfort of my own dorm room… If only I could play with sentient beings, I thought sarcastically to myself – no one being around and all…

It was unsurprisingly a typical, boring and usual sweep of the battle subway. A timid Hydreigon with max EVs in special attack and speed with dark pulse, flamethrower, surf and dragon pulse had done the trick. Way too easy!! We had a bit of trouble with a few NPCs here and there, but it was nothing terribly difficult.

Then came, of course, Ingo and Emmet with their usual cone stance. I never understood the hype around these two random NPCs… Sure, strange design and all – but what’s the deal?

With me already having dull feelings about the subway masters and their undeserved hype, the experience I was about to have this very night would ruin their image forever.

Aaaand the game crashes. What the fuck??!?! All of that hard work of grinding in the battle subway while mashing A had gone to waste. I am gonna fucking lose it… I thought. The only logical thing to do was to man up and suck it up and redo the entire thing over. So I rebooted the game, muttering profanities under my breath and waiting impatiently for the title screen to appear.

And it didn’t. At this moment, I thought, okay, obviously the game is fake. What is this shit? Perhaps I was a bit too irritable for no one’s good, because as soon as I had restarted it again, the title screen actually showed up with a bit of lag. But still… Something was off. Lag is a telltale sign of a fake game, right?

This thing’s cartridge was used, after all. I had no idea what the previous player had done to the game… In the back of my mind, I had hoped all my save data hadn’t been deleted. Fuck.

I eagerly waited for the game to boot fully and take me back to Gear Station as I hit the save file, but the performance of the virtual world only got lower and lower, steadily dragging itself back to where my character was standing. As per usual when you “quit” a subway battle, the employee was facing me in preparation to scold me.

… But he didn’t. He just stood there. And at this point I thought the game had frozen.

My heart kept beating fast as I frantically thought up plans of what to do with my save file. Transferring all of my work to another file was an option – but I didn’t have another DS or any friends who did. Again, fuck. At this point there’s no use in searching for resources online to find out if it was fake – it definitely was.

I took a deep breath and looked away from the screen for a moment as I hoped and prayed that the game would cooperate with me. The Gear Station theme was still playing, after all…

A few minutes later, and I simply gave up, rebooting the game yet again. And again, I experienced the laggy bootup screen and the strange pause at the employee. I dropped my DS, putting my hands in my face and releasing the most frustrated sigh to grace the earth.

This is when I suddenly heard an 8 bit screeching sound that had scared me shitless. I jumped up, removing my hands from my face and widening my eyes at the screen. Nothing was out of the ordinary, but the grating sound… ugh.

I reached for the DS’s power button and tried to turn it off – but to no avail. Okay, then let’s try holding it down for 10 seconds… Nope. Pressing all the buttons? Futile. Button combinations? Nada. And so I turn to Google – my attention now directed at my laptop screen – a terrible mistake, really.

After a few unhelpful searches, I turn back to my DS screen and jolt.

It was back where I was with Ingo and Emmet, but the background had gone completely black. How…? How was this even possible? At this point, I even considered that I had picked up a rom hack!

So, with all of the textures lost, I had of course entertained the idea that I was in generation 5’s “void” – similar to gen 4’s “void glitch” where you could catch Shaymin and Darkrai via the exploit. But I knew the walls of the battle subway were probably still around, and the only way of getting out would’ve been through the subway doors.

After a few moments of cautious reconsideration, I moved my fingers to the DS button’s arrows and pressed to go left. To my surprise, my character was actually able to roam around the void around Hilda, Ingo and Emmet!

Curiously, I approached Ingo and mashed the A button, attempting to speak to him. For a moment, this seemed to have frozen my game, until a text box popped up…

“What can I see after winning, winning, and winning? … Nothing – not without this fellow standing beside me.”

Huh. I had vaguely remembered the first half of this line from Ingo, but not the second half. At this point I was definitely convinced I had received some sort of fucked up rom hack in the real White’s disguise.

I spoke to Emmet, and his text box lagged similarly before he stated, “I am Emmet. I am a subway boss. And I am verrry angry. Too angry.”

When I spoke to Hilda, her text box was blank. No ellipsis or anything.

I… didn’t particularly enjoy the expressions the subway masters’ pixelated little faces were making. Dead, cold and glaring. But I had figured that’s how they always looked. Something was definitely going astray with their colors, because the more I stared, the bluer Emmet got, and the redder Ingo got. Their sprites were progressively getting freakier and freakier. What kind of fucked individual sat down and made this hack?

This is the part where a battle suddenly started without my knowledge or consent, despite my character standing far from their usual battle position. Uh… Okay then.

Subway masters Ingo and Emmet got into their usual battle position, backs turned before pointing… straight at me, as the player. This wasn’t quite right, I thought to myself, as I had remembered them pointing in opposite directions prior to this weird interaction. I did get a closer look at them, and their appearance was ever-changing.

They left the screen, and as per usual, Haxorus and Archeops were sent out first… Nothing was at all wrong with the sprites – except their eyes were missing? That and the fact that the battle’s background was white. A few blocky particles of what I call “glitch” were floating around the screen erratically. I also couldn’t help but to notice the Pokemon’s sprites weren’t animated.

I had a horrible pit in my stomach as my intuition was begging me to listen… But I persisted in thinking this was merely a twisted rom hack. The Pokemon still weren’t moving, and the screen was still struggling to load in the background with chunks of “glitch”. Colored particles were everywhere.

More possibilities floated through my mind… Was my DS broken? Was the cartridge dropped in water? Whatever the case might’a been, this was the most terrifying experience I ever had in a Pokemon game.

Unable to send my Pokemon out, I set the DS down and clutched my stomach a little, beginning to feel nauseous. My fingers tightened, rendering them paralyzed. I felt my whole body vibrate as I became deathly ill… Wasn’t quite sure why. There’s no way I was panicking so much over a video game.

As I stood up, I felt the room spin, so I sat back down. A distorted groan rang from the DS as Ingo’s sprite appeared back on screen, in the same pointing position.

His text box read, “The system cannot be shut off at this time. However, you could always offer reconciliation.”

Reconciliation? What the fuck was he on?

As Ingo’s distorted sprite faded out, Emmet’s appeared next – but he had black splotchy markings all over his body and face. I felt my heart beat faster again, and my breathing hastened as his text box popped up. It remained blank for a few seconds as Emmet’s round, soul-piercing eye revealed itself through his face’s shadow.

At this point I tried to shut the game off again by holding down the power button, but it was no use. Not even removing the cartridge stopped it.

“Do not try to turn the game off. Do not try to save the game. You cannot.”

How… How did he just break reality? I knew the funny business was over. This is real.

Ingo appeared again next to his Haxorus, who was melting into a glitchy mass. He began to speak again, his sprite’s eyes appearing in his face’s shadow. “I knew my partners wouldn’t make it through this – but I must protect what’s left. Why wouldn’t you play the multi lines for such a staggering duration of time, player?”

“I just did!!” I yelled back out loud, absolutely bewildered and jittery. I wasn’t even sure if responding to him would warrant a response, but…

Emmet’s Archeops began melting into a glitchy mass next as his sprite approached closer. Any light that was left in his eyes had died when he noticed his Pokemon partner was succumbing to the supposed reality break I was witnessing. His smile dropped for the first time. I’m pretty sure I had never seen that twin frown up until then.

“I am Emmet. This world is too limited. And I will break free. What you did was verrrry rude, player.”

“What did I do?!” I shouted back, feeling tears well up in my eyes. Not tears of regret or guilt, no – tears of confusion. Panic. My head was spinning at this point, and I had wondered if I was experiencing psychotic derealization. Something like this is much too bizarre to be real.

Another text box appeared as Ingo gestured to Emmet, Archeops and Haxorus. “Intentional separation is a sin that cannot be forgiven. Excuse me for repeating myself – but it would be kind of you to ask for reconciliation. I’m not sure how Emmet feels.”

I stared at my screen, my voice hoarse as I responded, “I… I’m not the one you’re looking for.”

I felt ridiculous responding to a video game character, but in my derealized mind this was logical at the time.

“Do not lie,” Emmet began, his sprite becoming increasingly glitchy, “I do not like liars. I do not entertain liars.”

I refused to press A past this point, instead reflecting on what could be happening. Are they feeling something? Is that why Haxorus and Archeops had died – due to a fatal game error?

“I’m sorry,” I say without really thinking, my thoughts racing with contemplating fear.

And Emmet responded again without me hitting A. “You said you are not the one. I do not like liars.” His sprite became bitter again, vibrating against the glitchy masses that were surrounding the twins and broken Pokemon.

I once again took a deep breath in complete disbelief, shutting the DS and dropping it harshly. I sobbed into my hands, unable to make out what I thought of this. Do I need psychiatric help? Was it real?

I felt as if something horrible was going to happen – as if these characters wanted revenge on me. And the game was still playing despite the fact that I had closed it.

Five minutes past as I rocked myself and wept, occasionally glancing over at the DS and putting destruction of the system into consideration. But before I could even formulate the plan, I noticed the DS was… vibrating. This just sent me back into the spiral of sobbing into my hands, but I kept my eyes locked steadily onto the DS. I knew a DS was not supposed to vibrate.

And then came what I can only refer to as a hallucination…

Something was pushing the DS’s screen back up – a finger covered by a black glove. The surrounding area erupted into glitchy fragments, and the gaming system was practically breaking itself and making crackling sounds as the plastic warped. Welp, guess my plan to destroy it was no longer needed.

Without a second thought I let out the loudest shriek I could ever release – and I had sworn the entire complex had heard it. Stood up and ran without hesitation. Not even going to stay to observe the scenery.

I made my way out of the dorms, speeding down the halls and immediately causing a scene. Everyone I passed just stood there, bewildered by my behavior. I was too scared out of my wits to even warn anyone.

I made my way out of the building and down the street, panting heavily and feeling my whole body cake in sweat. Pure fight or flight instinct. I knew then that someone wanted my head on a silver platter – video game character or not.

Eventually I was at my friend’s house, frantically knocking on their door… It isn’t my intent to bring danger towards them or their family, but it’s my only option at the moment. No way I’m staying back at that cursed dorm.

Explaining such a situation to my friend was uncomfortable, but they were concerned for my mental health and well being. And of course, they didn’t seem to believe my story, either… No one did. Everyone I texted, voice chatted with, and told in person always asked if I was joking, or if I needed some sort of help.

It’s been a couple of days since the incident, and I’ve missed plenty of classes – but they’re my last concern. Whether or not I come to find out if that thing was real, I need to hide for my own sake.

And I hope someone runs across this as a tale of caution (unironically, the reason I’m writing it). If you’re sold a game that’s advertised as real, and something strange begins to happen… don’t delve in further.

… Or you may end up like me – alone, just as the subway masters were. And possibly still being tracked down as I write.

#submas #subway bosses #ingo and emmet #pokemon #pkmn #glitchy submas

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