N0 R34S0N
November 15th 2009
Hi, my name is Turquoise and I was a Xbox developer back in 2001, when the first Xbox was created to compete with the latest two consoles -- which being the PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo GameCube. However, I retired a long time ago (five years after the original Xbox's discontinuation in the console market). I remember a project going on around the building of a game called I think...: Overpower Outbreak. The game was aiming for a fall release of 2005, it was a game created by a certain someone I knew and was also based on a TV series also called by the same name. It ran through 2 seasons and a movie coming up the following year (aka 2004), the people who worked in Jetix told us if we could partner with them to make a game to promote their upcoming movie (in case if you don't know Jetix is a kids program launched by the Walt Disney Company back in Feb. 14th 2004, this block appears in Toon Disney to compete with CN's Toonami block also).
So...we agreed and helped them to make the game. If I'm not mistaken, we started development on this game in 2001, the game's development took us 4 years to make because the PS2 sales were really off the charts than how many Xboxs we sold with a total of 24 million units and we're trying our best to compete with them. However, the director of the game had a disagreement with the co-director also working with him (I didn't remember their names but I think they were named...Bob and Jolt). Their fight took a wrong turn when Bob stabbed him straight towards his forehead, not to mention the game was 90% complete...and he screwed up big time! The cops came and sent him to jail for 2nd degree murder. Everyone on the team was traumatized, so was I.
Months passed and the game was finished but once we finished it, we couldn't release it to the public somehow. They told us that they didn't want to release the game right away to associate with the co-director's murder. I see what they mean but the game, and by how it looks so far, looks so good. The environments of the stages were vivid, the character can also speak when the player doesn't touch the controller for a while, and great music. The fact that they didn't want to release a game that'll bring a new generation of gamers is honestly surprising to me. But I won't complain about that. It seems to me that the game has a lot more than it actually has in general but they're hiding something from us. So I took a copy of the game while no one was looking and went home, I went inside, and turned on the Xbox console and inserted the game. The game starts off with our 13 year old protagonist: Grey - he has black hair, light brown skin, two black lines as eyes, black pants, and somewhat Sonic-inspired looking socks and normal shoes. It was 32-bit too with a 2D pixel style-like gameplay.
As far as I know, Overpower Outbreak has stunning visuals for a 2001 video game so I pressed "Play" on the Xbox controller and started bringing me to the first level. The 1st level starts off with an cutscene where Grey was heading to his bed, about to sleep due to having a great long day with his friends until a man in an business suit named Aaron (who's supposed to be an antagonist of the game's story), appears in his dreams, telling him "there's more to this world than your world, wake up." Then he disappears off of Grey's sight. It had me worried thinking what the director of the game was on when he made the dialogue, but that didn't matter. I continued playing.
The first stage was called "DR34MS" in a way with numbers as one of the letters of the name. The premise of (Overpower Outbreak) seems to be based on the director's perspective of wanting our hero of the game to see our world more than his world, "That's dark" I thought. But as usual, I kept playing. The game started to play out normally once I've started moving Grey. After a while, we were midway towards the end of the level, the level starts getting dark and shows the antagonist again.
Aaron: Why must you not listen to me...GREY? As his glowing left eye glitters through the darkness. "My job here is to make your life a living hell, and what do you do? Foil my evil plans or to save the day or ignore me? You sad, sad little boy...What do you have to say for yourself?"
For a while, Grey looked up at him slowly with grief in his eyes and actually said a word in which I thought you couldn't in-game.
Grey: ...WHY? Why are you here, why are you in my dreams? I want to sleep peacefully!...G3T 0UT! The screen shook as Grey told him to "get out" of his head. He gets out of his chair and starts walking up to Grey saying, putting his arm on his shoulder.
Aaron: "But...do you have a reason why?" Grey starts to think, deeper even. But the more he thinks, the more the screen becomes static as Grey thinks. Then once the static stopped, pure silence entered the room with a black screen with text saying 4 words:
Grey: I H4VE N0 RE4S0N...
I've noticed that the spelling of the game changed too, but it didn't seem to bother me at this point because this, I thought, was serious. The TV screen then fades back to the game with Grey being shown up close to the screen.
Grey: ...I JUST D0 1T.
Aaron lifts his arms off disappointingly at Grey and turns behind him, laughs at him too behind his back. He keeps laughing but as he laughs more and more, his voice starts to slowly get bitcrushed and distorted. Then he turns back at Grey fast and yells his name, which shows his name in red color. He tells him that his entire purpose of why he's doing this to him is to "wake up" and to see that his world isn't real, including himself. This made Grey in total underwhelming denial, crying excessively on the floor as Aaron smiles at him. This can be argued that Grey's entire pixel life in the game is unreal, the friends he made weren't real, his own parents aren't real (which they aren't shown in-game), and...himself. I felt bad about the kid and decided to pause the game to take a break. But it wouldn't. He then sees the "P4US3" text up on the screen, jumps at it, destroys it, then he looks at me with his red eye glowing brighter and more menacing than before.
Aaron: I WoULDN'T ALL0W TH4T 1F I W3R3 Y0U. WH4T? D0 Y0U TH1NK I C0ULDN'T SEE Y0U? GR3Y C4N, I C4N, N0W Y0U'LL SEE US T00.
Grey: N0, I W0N'T ALL0W TH4T!
He walked to the screen and I was grabbed into the game with his arm showing through the TV and I was dragged into Overpower Outbreak, my body was formed into pixels as I warped to the game, booming laughter echoed while I was falling into the game and then a white flash shone through us!
...This is where things start to get crazy for me...
As Aaron took me in the game, he challenged me to fight him with all my might and told me if I defeated him, I'll be back in my normal world. If I lost, I'd stay here forever. This indicates that if I returned back to my world, poor Grey would have to suffer and die alone in the wrong hands of an evil man. So I accepted his challenge, but before I fought Aaron I tried to wake up Grey to see if he was ok. The game's text also went back to normal once I entered the game.
Turquoise: Hey dude, you alright?
Grey: Yeah I'm ok...what happened?
Turquoise: Ok so this guy, who you were RIGHT next to, brought me here and told me to fight him..pretty crazy, huh? And I need your help! If I don't win this fight, we'll be stuck here forever!
Grey: Why should I help you, my whole life was a lie...
Turquoise: Because with your help, we could fix this...even a new life for you.
Grey, surprised: Really?!
Turquoise: Yeah, and let's FIGHT THIS BAD GUY DOWN!
Grey: YEAH!
Once I've got Grey motivated into helping me fight Aaron, he gives us power-ups and weapons to fight. Sadly, the power-ups are unnamed since the creator of this game didn't know what to call them. So we used them anyway, Grey started to run towards Aaron and unleashed a powerful hit to his face and screamed loudly. Then it was my turn to fight him as well, so I told Grey to gimme a boost. I backed away for a bit, ran at full speed, jumped on Grey's hand then he lifted me to do our first blow on Aaron so he can get a taste of his own medicine!
Aaron: Oh wait, nevermind he stopped it.
Once he stopped me trying to hit him, he throw me back to Grey in a rough way, which it hurt but didn't bother me at the moment.
Turquoise: Ow...
Grey, reaches his hand to pick me up: Want some help?
Turquoise: Oh yeah >:]
We instantly got back up and strangely Grey has started using a new move I've never knew I could do nor anyone who worked on Overpower Outbreak. He used a move called "Ultrasender" then he jumps to the air, spins down like a meteorite, and smashes Aaron and the floor itself. I cheered and called out his name, I called again, he didn't respond. I ran to the damaged spot of the floor to see if he was ok but then I saw Grey being choked to near-death by Aaron.
Aaron: F00L, EVEN Y0UR D3TERM1N4T1ON'S A L1E T0 Y0U, Y0U R34LLY AR3 A D1SGR4CE T0 MY EY3S.
Grey: N-N-no I'm n..not, y-you a..are.
Aaron: Goodbye...Grey.
Before I could save him, he sliced him into half pixel pieces...his body parts flying through the air with me traumatized but for odd reasons, he has no blood (I mean of course, this game was meant to be a kids' game! It wouldn't be right if the main character of the game AND his own show have blood). Anyway, I yelled out his name in despair even crying over a video game character...until I had enough. I head towards him then punch his face hard, he starts attacking me with more of his so-called "gadgets". But I dodged all of 'em. Then did the one true final blow, slicing his head off. His body falls into the floor then disintegrates into little bits of pixels into the air. I picked up Grey bawling my eyes out until he as far as I am deeply concerned...dies.
Turquoise: I've won, but at what cost? I'm..so sorry you had to go through this...if only if I'd-
Grey: Calm down...
He says as I'm holding his soon-to-be-dead corpse on my arms.
Grey: There's no reason for you to cry. I know I'll be alright and you'll be too ;]
Turquoise: G-Grey?! YOU'RE ALIVE!! YES!
Grey: Yep, but you have to go without me...I know I won't live long enough here but I could save myself, there's not much time left, you have to...leave me.
Turquoise: NOOO, I CAN'T LEAVE WITHOUT YOU, NOT AFTER WHAT YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH!!
Grey: It's ok, it's how life works but here? Maybe my soul can somehow rest as ease in your world. I'll thank you for saving me, for now, goodbye, Turquoise.
Grey's body disintegrates into the air then vanishes while I yelled out his name until a white void sucked me back into the real world. I was back in my room, with my hands tight on the Xbox controller. It played a cutscene of Grey dying in his sleep during midnight (the clock on his desk shows it was 5:00am). The cutscene faded to black until a message popped up on my TV saying: "TH4NK Y0U F0R EV3RYTH1NG, TURQU01SE! -GR3Y''. And then the screen faded to black and the game I was playing ejected out of the Xbox console itself. A sensible idea myself I thought for myself would be to destroy the game or to shelve it. I've chosen to shelve it in my closet and didn't play the game again for a few weeks until I've calmed down what I've witnessed. Then I felt a gush of wind coming out of my console then heading off outside into the skies, indicating that Grey's soul will truly be in peace once and for all. Rest in peace, buddy.
December 24th 2009 - Christmas Eve
And that's why I've retired being an Xbox developer, you'll never know when an unreleased game you worked on starts to bring you in to fight them. To this day I still have the game and the original Xbox at home and it strangely plays how it normally should play and the game's state is back to normal. As expressed, I'll now move on in life and I'll never forget what Grey said to me back then bringing us far into the ending of my story. I now have a reason why this game brought me here...it brought me here to tell me never give up thinking because you'll always find a reason to solve your problems. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a "special" Christmas gift I'm gonna send to my son tomorrow Christmas morning;].
This is Turquoise, signing off.
Credited to GreyMan2000
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