I still remember that day, around a year ago, the day that I had gone onto eBay.
Around that time a game that came out into Japan, and it wasn’t making it to America, so what I needed was a Japanese system. I’m terrible at modding things so I don’t even try.
Going to the best site, that I can come up with, eBay, I went online to find a good priced Japanese Wii. As I went through the auctions everything seemed to be a bit too pricey to me, until I came across one that came across my eyes one that peeked my interest.
What I came across was a little more expensive (an estimate of ¾ more if I recall) more than the cheapest that I came across. With the Wii it came with two Wii-motes, a Nunchuck, a Classic Controller, and the best part: it came with 20+ games, most I couldn't make out as they were strewn about. Now, like anyone else, I was suspicious as I checked out his profile looking through his past auctions, it even said he had a 100% positive feedback.
Thinking back now, I shouldn’t have done it, but I remember leaning back in my chair thinking it over. “It sounds a little fishy” I said to myself, but in the end, curiosity won over me. I went over to my “fun”-funds, seeing if I had enough to waste. Seeing that I did, I went back to my computer and went to auction, it was odd that I was the only one betting, considering the time was almost up.
Upon winning the auction, I preceded to the fill out, and after that all that was left was to play the waiting game, I always lost that damn game. A couple of days had gone by, as I went to my email to clean out spam, I noticed an email from my auctioneer, which is odd as I don’t usually get that from many people. I opened it up, and read:
To XXXXXX
Thank you for buying my product, I have been wanting to get rid of it for a long time. I’ve been putting it up quite a few times, but no one wanted it, thanks once again.
From XXXXXX
As I read that, I thought it was weird, I kept asking myself why anyone would pass up such a great deal when someone has such a great background. Then it passed as I thought “well, their loss.”
Almost a week had gone by, the UPS truck was pulling up my driveway and I came out and retrieved my package.
Upon opening the large box, it seemed very weird, in the box were two smaller boxes more than likely one for the Wii, the other for the games, its not that it was weird, I just didn’t expect it. Opening one of the inner boxes, I found the system itself, taking a quick look over it, it seemed to be in near perfect condition with a couple of smudges and a scratch, nothing that I couldn’t fix. Opening the second box, what I saw was what really took my breath away in shock.
In the box were the 20+ games that was promised, the weird part was more than half of them they were still in the original packaging plastic. Picking up a couple of games, I carefully looked them over, as I thought they were brand new games still in their seal.
Looking at the pile of games that were in the small box, I had a really bad feeling for some reason. Looking over the games, I saw a couple that I already had, I even saw some that I had been wanting that I just didn’t get yet. Going down the list, one used game caught my attention; “Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s Wheelie Breakers”. I easily recognized it as I already had an English version. For some reason, I was looking over it a few times, why I did, I don’t know, I figured it was that lightning bolt that appeared over the stadium, it just always caught my eye.
Worried about some kind of mistake, I tried to email my auctioneer.
To XXXXXX
Hey, XXXXXX, if you remember a week ago I had ordered something off of you from eBay. Now I’m not disappointed with my purchase, but there seems to be a mistake I had order used games from you, but I think you may have sent me some new games. It just feels odd that is.
From XXXXX
A week went by, after sending many messages and receiving no replies, I had given up.
So, taking out the games, I began playing. A few weeks had gone by, playing numerous hours on the Wii, getting bored, I got up to switch out games. While going through the box to look for another game, that game once again caught my attention. Picking up Wheelie Breakers, even though I completed the English version, I finally decided to play it.
Looking over the game itself, the disc was probably the best condition of all the used games, I knew people didn’t like the game, but come on. Booting up the game, I came across the “press a button” menu, at this time it was strange. Out of all the used games this was the only one that didn't have an already saved game on the system. So starting a new game, I used my name from my English version: Breaker.
Playing the game, it was how it was when you usually play this game. Completing both sides of story mode, I worked my way up through the cups of the tournaments. As I unlocked all the cards in the shop, I began buying them, in order to make any deck. After collecting 3 of every card, I noticed that it seemed that when you buy a certain number of a card the card then becomes “SOLD OUT,” so I decided that I probably should try to make every card sold out.
Officially completing the game, this took me about a couple of months to do that (maxing out DP as well). Because I was finished with it, I wanted to do something big that I’ve never done before. I came up with an idea: beat both paths of Story mode, and complete all 4 cups, all within one sitting to finally beat the game.
Upon completing the credits of the Fortune Cup, something came up that I didn’t expect. A message came up, like those that would pop up for when cards would unlock in the shop. I couldn’t read Japanese but I recognized one symbol, it read “4,” I found that weird, but a pressed A in order to continue, and everything faded to black as usual.
As I was getting up to turn the game off, the screen faded back to normal. Instead of it being the main menu, my character was at the starting line of a race. As this had never happened before I had sat down, and waited for the starting countdown. A few seconds had gone by and nothing, I took the controller and saw that I could move.
So, Boron I began riding off, passing the starting line, when I noticed something immediately, my screen was nearly blank. I looked over the screen, and the icon which showed my life points wasn’t there, the icon that showed my deck was also missing along with my hand, the only thing that was there was the map and the lap number but instead all it showed was “1/” no indication of the number of laps needed.
Going through the track, I noticed right away that the track I was on was the one where you duel Rua in story mode. Aside from moving the bike, I couldn’t do anything else that you would normally do, even when going over the AP or DP icons nothing would happen. Looking over at my map I noticed that there was only the red dot that represented my character, and the track was eerily quiet.
Starting the next lap, I could have sworn that I heard something, of course there was no battling so it may have been part of the game. Going through the empty race track once more, I came across something else that was strange. Stopping so that I could “Check it out” I could see Satellite across the water, but it was different, the smog/fog that use to cover the city was gone and it looked different then I remembered from other times that I passed by.
Continuing through I reached the start of the “3rd” lap, that time I could have sworn I heard something, but I wasn’t so sure. There wasn’t anything that I noticed this time around, except for that is was just as emptied as I passed by earlier. It was about halfway through this track when something different happened.
According to the map, all the way back at the starting line a blue dot appeared moving down the track. The speed of the dot itself was moving faster than any other of the characters would, especially Jack, and it was closing in to my very own dot, closing the gap in-between us.
Coming up to the finish/starting line, the blue dot was near, that was until it started slowing down as it got close to my dot. Reversing my view, the blue dot got into my view, A strange, white motorcycle was behind me, and the one riding it had long white hair with a long coat blowing in the wind, but I couldn’t make out his face.
For one reason or another, the blue dot man wouldn’t pass me, he would just stay behind me. As I crossed the line, the screen changed again, this time everything was there, except that the lap icon reset itself to “1/”. The life point icon showed that the man behind him was wearing some kind of mask and had a scar over the left eye.
The duel started, I kind of felt a chill, having my dragon deck I quickly special summoned Stardust Dragon from my hand. I spun around, I was going to meet who ever this guy was head on, I had Stardust attack the man. The man reversed the damage to my monster with magic cylinder, then he summoned a monster I was shocked to see.
“Blue Eyes White Dragon” I recall saying to my self, but I noticed there was something being said, this was not new as the MC spoke in the game, I couldn’t make out what he spoke of. I was caught off guard and my opponent had his monster attack, with the combined damage of his attack and the reversed damage from earlier caused Stardust to be destroyed. I felt something, as once again that voice spoke, all could make out was “My.”
I came across AP, as I wanted to go on the offense, I summoned Red Daemon Dragon and I placed a trap card on the field. Coming across another AP I had RDD attack blue eyes, it connected as it destroyed one of the cards in my opponent's hand. I heard some laughing from my Wii-Mote, the masked man attacked with Blue-Eyes activating my trap “Scrap-Iron Scarecrow.”
“Stupid AI,” seriously, I had RDD attack once again, destroying Blue-Eyes White Dragon and destroying another card in his hand. “Hatred,” the voice came again, suddenly he activated a spell card destroying RDD.
Following the destruction of Red Daemon Dragon, we came up to the second lap, a lightning bolt appeared in the sky background, which I didn’t think this game had. I saw a couple of cards under his icon, I wanted to get rid of his cards so I summoned Black Rose Dragon.
At the time I summoned Black Rose Dragon, the man behind me summoned a monster of his own, Stardust Dragon. I gritted my teeth, he protected his cards, I quickly had Black Rose Dragon attack my opponents Stardust. I heard a laugh again, I ran into a trap, he activated his own Scrap-Iron Scarecrow. “Our future” he once again spoke.
The guy had Stardust attack my monster, taking out half of BRD health. He once again had Stardust to attack my monster, destroy it. “4 to 4” this I didn’t understand what he said, was he referencing what the game said before this started. I had aimed to get the next AP icon, but for the first time, he cut me off causing me to go into a wall.
After spinning out, I got myself back on the track, but not before that guy attacked my life points. “Desperation” this time, I was getting irritated, I was being mocked by a video game character. I summoned my own second Stardust, but this time the animation was different: his wings were drooping more, and didn’t seem to be flapping as fast, I ignored it and placed a trap on the field, and a spell to recover some life.
The two of us attacked each other simultaneously with both Stardusts, and as both attacks hit each other, both our trap cards activated, but my trap negated its attack and sent the damage at him, his trap stopped my attack, so the damage was sent back at my monster, in the end his Stardust was destroyed. As that he lost a monster, he lost speed, I passed him, my Stardust animation changed again this time its limbs and tail began drooping and his color was slightly faded.
“Pain of others,” okay, by now this guy was really getting on my nerves, he activated a spell card which destroyed the rest of Stardust’s life, the destruction animation seemed a bit more dreary then what it was.
Trying to get the upper hand, I quickly special summoned one of the Synchro’s in my hand, my second Black Rose Dragon. This time the animation was also different, a few of the petals were missing, and others looked like they were wilted. Using Double Attack, I had Black Rose Dragon attack the masked man, with no need of AP.
“Hesitation makes four” the voice once again came from my Wii-mote, he activated a trap, he must have placed it between my summon of BRD and its attack, it didn’t negate my attack but damage was sent against my monster, he did take direct damage. He just laughed.
We came across the third lap, “A door has opened” he spoke of he summoned a new monster
“That’s not right,” at least, the monster isn’t among the 126 cards available: “Rainbow Dragon!”
I remember the winged serpent dragon even had its own roar. Getting some AP the man attacked me, destroying BRD and its petals seemed to burn away.
“Damn it,” I can recall myself saying.
“…the others…” was what I could make out from what came from my hand.
As I was ahead of the man, I activated Nightmare steel cage, causing my opponent to not attack. Using Dragon’s Mirror I special summoned a dragon from my hand. My 2nd Red Daemon Dragon appeared, its appearance was different as well, it seemed like the red began reaching around its body, its wings seemed deteriorated. Having Red Daemon attack, he destroyed Rainbow Dragon in one hit, probably because of its weak defense.
We were coming up to the end, attacking once again, I reduced the person’s life points down to zero, but my attack didn‘t reach soon enough as he used a card to destroy RDD…spinning out, I took this second before he recuperated, using a speed spell to get the upper hand.
I then crossed the line, I remember the sudden change in the field, as the words “SURVIVE!!” came to the screen and the lap number once again reset to “1/”. The sky itself had become darker, the buildings around us seemed to become ruins, the side of the roads seemed to be covered in flowers.
I remember knowing it was odd, I looked up at the map seeing that the blue dot was once again on the move, which was too soon for him to recuperate. I could hear his laugh, coming from my hand.
The duel seemed to turn into a survival, looking at the life points, he was at an advantage since his life points reset back to 4000. Looking now, I realized his mask was gone…I could barely make out his face, it just seemed his one visible eye was just staring blankly ahead, as if at me.
Realizing what has happened so far, I needed to get ahead, and destroy more monsters. Crossing over a long path of AP’s, I spun around this time summoning Black Rose Dragon, destroying his trap cards on his field. Looking at Black Rose Dragon, there was a significant change this time: there were no roses, it just looked like a root and nothing more, its own body seemed to be barely moving at all.
I didn’t know what was going on, but at the time it was exciting, I had Black Rose attack this man directly, the attack animation seemed slower than usual if I remember correctly.
I looked up into the corner to see that he indeed took the damage, I was sort of relieved, that was until he summoned his own monster. He summoned Red Eyes Black Dragon.
At that point, I wasn’t surprised, I knew I had played games before where the AIs could use moves that the regular player wouldn’t be able to. The man preceded to attack me with Jounochi’s rarest card, with my withered Black Rose Dragon barely hanging in there, that was until the guy played double attack to strike once more, I remember seeing what was like pieces of its body hitting the screen.
“Life” the voice once again spoke up through the speaker, with the extra stored up AP he was able to attack me one again.
At that point I was on my last little life, down 7 monsters, and only taken out 3. Thinking it over, how could my perfect Power House deck not work in this game? I knew I was going to beat this guy one way or another, but I wasn’t going to reset the game at any cost.
Drawing a spell card, I activated it, special summoning one random Synchro monster from my hand, with only the one in my hand, I brought out Red Daemon Dragon. Looking at the summoning animation the once powerful Daemon with its head lowered down, its wings seemly completely gone, the dark part of its body seemed to be missing as it was filled with red, its claws hanging to its side. Placing one card down, I had my Dragon begin my counterattack.
“…help it…” I can’t put my fingers on what he said exactly though. He tried to attack me, I was able to dodge, he just laughed. Waiting to bring my AP, I was able to strike while my opponent began its attack, canceling its attack and destroying Red Eyes.
“Reachable!” he spoke playing a magic card, special summoning a monster from his hand.
The monster he summoned was Cyber End Dragon, I still remember its mechanical shriek. The man brought the battle close, having all three heads attack my monster at the same time activating my trap, though not negating the attack, it sent damage back at his own monster.
Little more than halfway through the track, I did something that really screwed me over, not looking where I was going I ran over one of his field spells Dark Hole, destroying the rest of Red Daemon Dragon’s life, with what seemed as dust blowing into the air.
“Hell!” He once again attacked me, but with Negate Attack, it was nullified. Looking at my hand, I saw my last monster in my deck. I needed to make the last monster count.
Coming upon the next lap, I was capable of summoning my last monster, my third and final Stardust Dragon. Looking at its animation, my breath was stolen. The color was gone, the wings were to the floor. It was as if it was not looking forward to what would happen to it, almost sorrowful. Of course the opponent would not allow me to wait, as it stuck at my monster, taking away more than half of its life.
Finally making it to the last lap, the track once again changed. The field itself wasn’t too different, but the sky had become lighter. Though it seemed as if there were wavy shadowy figures on the side of the road. My character's animation had once again changed. The white color seemed to have vanished and seemed to be somewhat transparent. Attacking my opponent's monster, I took notice of its life points. My icon’s image had changed as in itself the picture seems to have been disappearing. As I noticed this, I had also noticed that the background was getting lighter and whiter.
I tried to pay no more attention to it, as I had a duel to win. Coming across the long row of AP once more I was able to attack again, causing more damage to the mechanical hydra. The masked man attacked me as well, causing me to use my last defensive trap card in my deck to protect my remaining monster. When I used rear-view, which I hardly ever used, I noticed that a trail of red tears were coming for his now being transparent face.
I came up to what would have been my monster’s last attack. Using it, it connected with CED, destroying it for good. It was then that at that moment of destruction a new monster took its place. As that happened, Double Attack was activated, wiping out my last monster the shock messing with my speed going forward.
“Future,” laughing, as if knowing that at this point I had nothing left too beat him with. Looking back to see the monster, it was a long serpent dragon. It looked like it was a Rainbow Dragon. Noticing my character's facial expression, the trails of red was flowing more like a river at this time.
We were half way at this point, I had nothing left, I just had to make sure that I got first place and that was it. Continuing on, I had immediately noticed that the background had definitely gotten whiter, and the black shadows on the side were even more noticeable in their movements.
Looking once more at the life points, I noticed that my icon was nothing more than just an out line, but it too had the river of red in full color. But the facial image above it was still staring, and still seemed the same.
At this point, all I was doing was dodging, the monster behind his attack was like a large Synchro summoning animation, but purely black. It was simple to tell exactly when it was attacking and where it was from. The person was close to me, following right up behind me. I used a maneuver using my spinning animation to make him crash out, making sure that he would not cross in front of me.
Using my last speed spell, I gained one final speed boost, hoping that this would be all that I needed to win. Noticing that the blue dot behind me was still far away, I figured that I could still be able to beat it.
I was coming up on the last bit of the track, at this point there were more shadowed figures as if they were all just watching me. At this time I could see the finish line ahead of me, the background behind it was white, as if there was nothing there, but what was surprising was what was at the starting line.
At the starting line, every character that you could face off against was on the other side of the finish line. All the riders themselves were standing by their motorcycles like in the character select screen from Yuusei to Jack, from Jaeger to the gold knight guy, from Ushio to Fat Albert police man. All around them, were a group of those shadowed figures that were along the road, as if they were all waiting for me to cross over the finish line.
Well I wasn’t just about to disappoint them, and lose my perfect winning streak on the game today. It was then that I was seconds from the end, I was going to win, I was going to show my awesomeness in front of everyone…but…
With one dark blast, my life points reached zero. I had lost, my motorcycle spun out of control, just in front of the finish line. Looking at my life point counter, there was nothing. Inside the emptied red box was nothing, as if the river of red was overflowed.
“All Gone,” the voice once said. At that point, I saw over to the map as the blue dot came up closer to my red dot. As the dot reached me it just disappeared, no one appeared beside me, behind me, or in font of me, all I saw ahead was the warmth white light that I almost had.
I then remembered what happened next, everything that was own my side of the finish suddenly turned black except for my character. What was remaining of light suddenly shrunk away, leaving, I could feel as if everyone was leaving me, going on to where ever they were going, I was left alone in the that lonely dark.
After a few seconds, I was about ready to turn off the game, I stopped as I saw what happened on the screen then.
My character’s motorcycle had burst into flames, engulfing him alive. He made no movement to even try to put out the fire, as if he wanted this to happen to himself. The river of red from his face was visible, as the sound of 3 monster destruction noises could be heard over and over again.
The cries continued for a little while, until they began to fade away themselves. As the sound of their cries disappeared, my character was all alone again… burning… crying. I couldn’t help it but feel a little sorry for him, and maybe a little bit for me.
It was then that the flames began to die down, the animation itself began to die down, fading away into the background of darkness. It was then that he disappeared that he was no longer visible. I was finally about to go off to finally turn off the game, as a lightning bolt once more covered the screen, becoming very bright.
As the light faded away, I came a little closer to the screen to see if anything else were to happen. Nothing happened, except that as the light faded, a part of it didn’t fade. As everything else was dark, I could see the reflection of my self in my TV, the light below my image once again read that word “4”.
The screen once again turned black, I once again waited for it to do anything else, but it didn’t. As natural, the game returned to the “Press a button” menu. Just out of curiosity I continued, and went onto the loading screen, but as I got there, a new message popped up, one that I have seen in many video games that I knew what it said.
“The game data has been corrupted!”
Seeing that, I knew exactly what that meant, and turning off the game I sat down thinking over what I had just played. A few minutes had gone by, and I wondered if this was what that guy wanted to sell really badly that nobody wanted. Going off to my computer, I brought up my email in order to talk to him, of what exactly just happened. Though to no avail, there was still no reply to my message to him.
A few months had passed, I still ended receiving no replies from him, even after sending another message to him. I had gone to see his eBay account only to find that it was deactivated. Going to the forums, I had found a topic about him, it apparently spoke of how he deactivated his account, and how during the middle of some his auctions he dropped them. Even some that already bought stuff from him were complaining about never receiving it, and the normal death threats against his life.
I had gone over to my Wii, never once touching it since then, those images once more coming to my mind.
Looking down, I saw that game. I never got rid of the game, it just didn’t feel right to me to just get rid of an already used game.
Picking it up, and looking it over once more I remember saying to myself, “Just what was happening?” My eyes once again went to that lightning bolt over the stadium, as that it seemed to still stick out to me. I was about to put it down as then my attention was caught, taking the box once more and looking at that lighting bolt, I saw it once more.
Behind the lightning bolt, I saw it, I saw that man’s face its same glassy stare that I never got out of my mind, only this time, it was no longer staring at me, as if there was no need to stare at me.
After a time, I spoke to others about this game, and about the image that I had found. People that had the game thought I was imagining it, many people couldn’t even see the image that I was speaking about. Then that is when I came here, to share my story, along with this writing. I had also placed the image that I had found on my box, perhaps someone knows...
* * *
[I give up - Owner]
