Error 500

~ ERROR ERROR ~ Link: http://derekthevaporeon.deviantart.com/art/Error-500-259848300

Error 500
Sometimes, when we explore the cyberspace, we have the feeling that something is about to happen. That 'something' could be hacker activity, spam, randomness, and even errors. We get around 404s and 500s, but I guess that's just an Internal Error because of data overload…

I learned this the hard way…

I've been a big fan of Pokémon (and I still am) since I saw the TV show and played the old games, such as Pokémon Red, Pinball, TCG… Still. My favorite Pokémon nowadays are Flareon, Glaceon, Lucario and Reshiram. My most favorite over all of them is Emboar. Well… he is still, but I don't think making fun of his Pokédex number is the same thing anymore.

One day, I was quietly listening to '15 minutes VG music' while browsing deviantART for Pokémon images, when suddenly, I got a message on my Windows Live Hotmail inbox (MSN was open for that moment). I clicked on the tab to open Hotmail. What happened next… was annoying!

'Internal Server Error'.

I hit my face with my own left palm and refreshed the page. I got that goddamn 'error 500' again about 3 or 4 times, until it finally got me into Hotmail, but it was kind of glitchy. Maybe the server was suffering of overload. It was a note from my friend, Michael.

'Hey Allen! I want you to try this game. It's Pokémon Black. Nope. It's not the one with GHOST. This is the original Black. You should try it at least onc-'. The rest of the text seemed glitch, but I shrugged and clicked the attached file to download that game.

I always wanted to play a Pokémon game on computer, because all of my Pokémon games were wiped out due to reinstallation of system thanks to a virus. After the download was done, I extracted the files from the RAR file the game was on. There was: one ROM of Pokémon Black (pkmn-black.nds), a save file of it and a MS Word document file (500.doc). I wanted to see the Document first, but the thought of it being a walkthrough with a weird document name made me to play the game instead.

I simply got the annoying 'Couldn't find save data' message whenever I opened it. I guess I forgot to input the Action Replay 'no$gba fix' cheat, which I had around the desktop just in case. I pressed F2, added the cheat and restarted the game. Now I was totally excited to play the game, but what I saw wasn't pretty normal as I have seen. All I could see was a white screen, which faded to black after five seconds. 'Maybe it's glitchy' I muttered. Suddenly, a message appeared.

'This is inevitable. Errors are inevitable.'

I tilted my head at the message, thinking that Michael hacked it for laughs. I pressed 'A' to continue. The message kept on.

'Errors are part of our live.'

'However, some errors are unforgivable and not worth of being in our lives.'

After this last message, I was taken to the Continue/New Game screen. The character (it was Touya/Blair/Hilbert/Whatever he is called) was in grayscale colors and the usual background with lines and a Pokéball was nothing but pitch black emptiness. The data on the card read:

You InternalGameError Badges: 0 Pokédex: 500 Time: 500:00

What the hell? What kind of place is named 'InternalGameError'? Why is his Pokédex and time 500 if he doesn't have any badge at all? And mostly, why is his name referring to me? Is Michael crazy? I did these questions on my mind while looking at the 'Continue' card. I shrugged it off and decided to start a New Game, but something couldn't let me.

'You made a big mistake. You can't start again.'

I was completely annoyed by that message popping out around 4 or 5 times when I clicked on it. After wasting my time, I decided to try 'Continue' to see his progress.

The season that appeared wasn't the normal "Autumn/Winter/Spring/Summer" words. It was some sort of glitch block. There wasn't music either, and the player seemed to be in a black void or something. There was nothing…

I tried to walk around, but all I heard was the famous wall bump noise. I gave up trying to find an exit and opened the menu. I decided to check out the Pokémon Michael had before. All he had was a male Emboar named 500. 'I guess someone is in love with the number 500' I giggled when I saw his name, but when I went on to check his stats, I stopped my humorous muttering.

His cry was a glitchy mess of random sounds and cries of other Pokémon and his sprite was a glitch jitter of pixels where his lower half of his body and his left arm used to be, along with some red pixels scattered on his torso, black mane and empty, white eyes. I checked all of his stats, which were all 500, his ability was 'Error', which described 'Internal Game Error' and his only move was Error with 500/500 PP.

I exited the entire menu by pressing the 'X' button and went to the bathroom to throw up. Then, I went to the faucet to wash my face. For a glimpse moment, I swore I saw my eyes all white and empty, and my right arm was glitched up, only to see myself okay after blinking. I returned to my computer, shrugging off after that weird moment, and I was welcomed by a message.

'This is the result of all the forbidden errors of life. You have committed a big mistake by coming here, you abuser.'

Abuser? Why would I be an abuser?

'Cheats. Perfection. Materialism. Uselessness. All these errors lead to nothing but punishment.'

I tried closing my emulator, but for some reason, my keyboard didn't respond. I say so because I also tried to hit the Number Lock button and the LED of the keyboard didn't turn off. All I could do was to see where will all this end up at.

'Now, for your punishment…'

A battle started in front of my eyes. There was still no music, but when the screen faded in, there was a grayscale, frowning male character similar to mine. 'Pokémon Trainer Me wants to fight'. My fear was fed up when I saw his name. 'Okay, Michael. Why did you and your sick mind named the Trainers like this?' I muttered as I saw the Trainer's name. He sent out a very glitch Kyurem named IntGamErr, which must have stood for 'Internal Game Error'. Its wings and arms were totally glitched and it was miscolored with random blue and red pixels around his wings. My trainer sent out the Emboar, his back sprite resembling his front sprite.

I chose 'Fight!', and the camera panned instantly on the upper screen. 'Wait… didn't he have a move?' I thought.

'500 knows why you are here.'

'IntGamErr understands 500.'

What was that supposed to mean? Anyways, when the battle options came out again, I chose 'Fight' again.

'500 used Error.' '500 took IntGamErr with him.' Emboar did an animation similar to Explosion, but the background was glitchy, as well as the explosion graphics. Additionally, the HP of IntGamErr and 500 went to 1 instead of fainting. 'IntGameErr endured the pain.' 'IntGamErr used Deep Freeze.' The animation seemed untouched. '500 fainted.' 'IntGamErr fainted.'

After getting a draw, the other trainer appeared and said: 'Errors always happens. You should know that.' Afterwards, the lights went off in my house, which also shut off my computer. After one minute of silence, the lights went back on and my computer turned on. After it was done loading, I went into the folder to find out the game was gone, except for the Word Document from earlier. I opened it and I saw this text:

'Now suffer your consequences.'

I got a call from my friend on my Android cell phone. I answered.

'Michael, what kind of game you did?'

'I will explain you when you get to my house, okay?'

'Whatever.'

I ran towards Michael's house, and he explained me that he actually hacked the game a lot. He hacked it to make some of the Pokémon from other regions available early in game and Victini to be accessible, even without the Liberty Pass. However, while he was working on this, he began to hallucinate about himself being glitched and dream about a glitchy Emboar and Kyurem. Then, I remembered the moment I saw myself in the mirror at the bathroom in my house. I told him about what happened when I played the game.

He was shocked and told me that wasn't meant to happen. His hack was supposedly a Halloween special hack which included glitch looking Pokémon and creepy looking Pokémon, such as a mummified Vaporeon or a vampire Lopunny. Then, we looked at each other and waved goodbye to ourselves.

It's been weeks since this happened. Michael is still working on his hack, while I… I'm just wishing and praying for god to remove these nightmares about that glitchy Emboar from me.