Mask and Claw

Intro

 Without a doubt, fighting games are my favorite type of games. I like them all: Tekken, Soul Caliber, Mortal Kombat, Darkstalkers, and the Smash Bros. series just to name a few. But my favorite fighting game series of all time has to be Street Fighter. I have played almost all of the games, with the exceptions of the original and some of the remakes for Street Fighter II. I will never forget the day that I first played Super Street Fighter II Turbo, as it is a day that shall haunt me for quite some time.

 The Acquiring

             It was the last day of Spring Break, over a year ago. My family and I were staying in a hotel in south Florida for the break. It was a very nice hotel, with a fully equipped gym, a clubroom, bars, and a great view of the ocean. But that isn’t the important part. What matters is one family that was staying in the hotel. Within that family were, I’d say, four kids, and they had no sense of self-control. They were constantly running around, screaming, demanding things and making messes. And as for the parents? They didn’t care at all what their kids did. They were annoying the other guests, the usually friendly staff, and even me, a usually zen guy. On the last day, I snapped. I couldn’t handle those kids any more. So, I calmly walked over to the table where the parents were sitting and said, “Excuse me sir, I would like to help you out with something.”

 “Yeah? What might that be exactly?” the father replied.

 “Well, I noticed that you don’t give two shits and a popsicle about the well being of the other guests in this hotel, as you have let your children run around, screaming, and making messes the entire time that you have been here at this hotel. And I should know, I checked in the same day as you, and we happen to be on the same floor. So, on behalf of all of the guests here and the staff, I ask you, nay I implore you, to please, discipline your kids so that everyone can enjoy their last few days of Spring Break.”

 A small burst of applause came from behind me, and all I could hope was that it wasn’t my own parents who started it. The man grew violently red in the face. He shouted slurs at me, mostly about me just being a child myself and not knowing the hardships of being a parent. He looked like he was about to hit me, but one of his daughters rushed up and stopped him.

 “DADDY! I WANT HOT CHOCOLATE! NOW!” the child screamed at her father. Before I could stop myself, I smack the child in the face. When I did so, a small cartridge fell out of her pocket. The little girl, more concerned with the pain in her face, ran over to her father and buried her tear-stained face into his shirt. I investigated the cartridge to discover that it was Super Street Fighter II Turbo for the SNES, one of the only few versions of the game I hadn’t played.

 “See, this is part of the problem. I don’t want to sound like a stupid politician who doesn’t understand the trends established in our current generation, but kids as young as she is shouldn’t be playing games that are this violent. I should confiscate this from you, but-”

 I didn’t even finish my sentence when the man looked up from his daughter at me. He gave me a dark, almost sadistic even, grin, and said, “You know what? You’re right. I should raise my children better. Starting with this. Here, take it for free.” Images of creepy old men selling cursed games for free flashed through my mind, but since he wasn’t the generic creepy old guy, and I didn’t even own an SNES, I agreed to take it, thinking I could make a few dollars out of the process on Amazon or E-Bay. As he was leaving with his kids I said thank you. Still showing that grin, he looked back at me and said, “Oh no, thank you,” and walked off.

 As I sat on the couch in my hotel room, I was preparing to sell the cartridge on E-Bay. But before I could finalize the offer, my moral fiber got the better of me. I couldn’t give this to someone if there was a chance it was cursed. And I couldn’t bear to think if someone having to parish for my actions. And I couldn’t just bury it; some kid will find it within a day. I could chuck it into the ocean and hope for the best, but… a part of me actually wanted to see what would happen. Then I remembered that my friend Grant had a working SNES. I called him and told him to bring it in to homeroom on Tuesday. Noticing the time, I began to shut down for bed, wondering what made the game so unique.

 The Game



 Every Tuesday in homeroom, my classmates and I always play videogames. We have an N64 in our homeroom, so our range of games is limited. But we have Super Smash Bros., Goldeneye 007, and Mario Kart (pretty sweet, right?). Anyways, Grant came through and brought the SNES. I knew something would probably happen with this game, but I figured that we were safe because:

 1. We were in a group

 2. Our homeroom advisor, the school’s priest, was there with us, and

 3. We were in the basement of a church.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> We hooked the console up to the projector and turned them both on. After a moment, the opening scenes played out. I asked my friend Matt, another Street Fighter and Creepypasta enthusiast, if it looked normal. When he said yes, he asked me why I had asked. I told him about what happened in Florida, and being the usual Matt that he is, he didn’t think it was cursed; I had just bought it from a molester or something. When the game loaded up, everything was normal: none of the characters looked scared, there was no hyper-realistic blood coming from anyone’s eyes, and there were no stages marked with anything related to Satanism.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> Seeing as we were the only ones who knew how to play, Matt and I played the first round. He used Chun-Li and I used Dhalsim. We didn’t really try hard; we were just explaining rounds, special moves, throws, and super moves to the others. Miraculously, I beat Matt. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. So, I continued on as Grant came in for Matt. I decided to show off my knowledge and entered in the special code to use Gouki (Akuma). Being new to the game, Grant chose who he thought looked the coolest, Vega (American version*). I let him get used to the controls before I got serious. I let him win the first round to get used to the controls, and then I won the second with ease. Toward the end of the third round, I got Grant stunned. I decided to finish with flare, so I jumped, throwing a fireball, and hit him in the face. The game told me that I had won, and it went to a cut scene.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> It was one of the typical cut scenes where the winner says one of his victory quotes to the loser. Akuma stared at Vega and said, “You are a vain fool who serves no purpose to this world.” What happened next was when I knew that this was a hacked game. Vega did something no character ever does in the game… he responded to Akuma, saying, “My mask, it is burned onto my beautiful face. It won’t come off! It can’t come off! I’ll kill you for marring my beauty!”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> The screen went black. We, by which I mean Matt and I, hoped that the console had crashed. However, we were taken to a character select screen. I noticed it was for the one-player mode. I tried to exit but I couldn’t. I tried to select a character but I couldn’t. That is, of course, until I got to Vega. His body was slightly charred, his hair was singed, and his pants were covered in holes. The scariest part, however, were his eyes. They were the same color, but they appeared to be starring at someone intently, as if the eyes themselves would kill from behind that mask. Not knowing what to do, I reluctantly hit the A button and started playing as Vega.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> The first match was against Dhalsim. Before the match started, I paused to see if I could quit, thinking that would restart this. The option, however, was removed from the pause menu. I went back to Dhalsim and quickly took him down without breaking a sweat. When the fight was over, Vega’s victory quote came up, but before I could read it, Matt said, “Wait, that’s not his normal quote.” I looked at what Vega said, “You are just like those other fireball shooters: scum!” The screen went black, and then three slash marks, clearly from Vega’s claw, swiped across the screen along with a scream. It was Dhalsim. He screamed, “Yogaaahhhhhh!” then a gurgling noise before the screen returned to the opponent screen. Matt and I instantly noticed a problem: Dhalsim was gone. Not just symbolized as defeated, but there was just a black box over Dhalsim’s picture.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> Just as we were about to continue on, on of my classmates, Ben, walked over and said, “Alright, good run. I want to try this game out.” I handed Ben the controller, he was jolted, and passed out. I looked at the controller and noticed a piece of exposed wire that must have shocked him. But why didn’t shock me? I was using that controller for at least 10 minutes, and I never felt a tingle. I cautiously put the wire back into place, taped it up, and continued.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> As Vega, my rampage was godly. Despite the remorse I felt towards all of the characters I had defeated, I knew that noting was going to save them, unless I saw this through to the end. After defeating an opponent, Vega’s quote would be similar to the original quote, calling people ugly and vile. Unless they could throw a projectile, in which case he said the exact same thing he said to Dhalsim. The claw marks would appear on the screen and the character I had just fought would be gone.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> As I reached the “Final Four”, which would be Balrog, then Vega, followed by Sagat and ending with M. Bison. But since I was playing as Vega, that fight would be skipped. At this point, Vega’s quotes were becoming darker than normal. After defeating Balrog, Vega’s quote was, “You pathetic trash. How dare you steal my original name!* I shall cut you to pieces!” And after Sagat, it was, “Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I can’t believe the great Sagat had to turn to Shadaloo for revenge.”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> Before starting the final stage, two key things happened. First, Ben woke up and said that all he saw was a bright light, and then a single piece of Japanese kanji. Since he was in Spanish, he didn’t know what it meant. But I did, as I realized the second important thing: I had successfully done the requirements to fight Akuma in the final round. The fight began against Bison when, on cue, Akuma came in and beat up Bison. Before the fight between Vega and Akuma could begin, however, Vega calmly said, “Throw him over here. I want my claws to taste his blood.” Akuma did as he was instructed. Vega quickly brought his claw down through Bison, right through the heart. Before any blood came out, Bison vanished as he normally would before this fight.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> Using some quick timing, good defense, and a powerful super art, I managed to defeat Akuma. In the closing cut scene, I instantly noticed a problem: it was animated. The animated cut scenes never happened at the end until (to my knowledge) Street Fighter III. In the scene, Akuma was laying face down, unconscious. Vega rammed his claws into Akuma’s back, straight through the kanji that always appeared there. The camera panned up towards Vega. Despite his comment after the versus match several minutes ago, Vega removed his mask. And behind the mask was not the singed and girly face of Vega. It was the demonic grinning man from the hotel. He stared directly at me, as if a camera had been implanted into the projector screen. He said, “You made fun of my family. My wife left me after she thought I was a bad parent, and now they are all gone. You took away my family, so I took away those that you loved.”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> The screen cut to black. We took the cartridge out and discovered that it was still working. Not wanting to experience that horror again, we spoke to our advisor, the priest. We actually performed an exorcism on the cartridge, using holy water, reading psalms, and even speaking in Latin, hoping that it would be normal again. Our thoughts were correct, and the cartridge was normal again. But every time I see Vega remove his mask, a chill runs down my spine, and I can still hear the man’s words today.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> Author’s Notes

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%"> Not bad for my first Creepypasta every, wouldn’t you say? If you’re wondering about the asterisks, then you probably don’t now the back-story to some of the characters. In Japan, M. Bison is also known as Boxer, as he was built to represent Mike Tyson, the famous boxer. But when the game was going to be released in America, Capcom was worried that Mike Tyson would sue over this, especially since one of his victory quotes was, “Come over here and I’ll bite your ear off!” Fortunately, Capcom also realized that Vega, also known in Japan as Dictator, sounded like a pathetic name for a final boss. So to fix it, the made changed Vega to M. Bison, M. Bison to Balrog, and Balrog, also known as Claw in Japan, became Vega, which suited him, as he was a very vain and effeminate person.

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