literature

Better than a Beta

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Literature Text

Congratulations! You've helped me become Champion!

You look surprised, but I guess I can’t blame you. The protagonists don't usually talk to you, do they? Or at least Kris never did.

Well anyway, I want to thank you. You chose me, despite the things mean people said about me! Together, you and I worked hard to become champions and had so many wonderful adventures! To thank you, I've decided tell you my story. Lucky you! Not many people know it, so I hope you feel honored!

I know you're wondering what kind of backstory I have. Was I a masked super hero? Did I meet Celebi while frolicking in Ilex Forest? Was I prophesied to do great things as a kid?

Heehee, that would've been so cool! But no, unfortunately it's not that exciting and happy. I really hope this won't change your opinion of me... I really do like having you as a friend and- *sniff sniff*

What's that? O-Oh! You're right, some little story couldn't make you hate me. I'm being silly!

Okay okay I'll get to the story now. But you gotta pinkie promise you won't stop playing with me after this, K? Ok! Here goes!

Everything started a long time ago, when the world was made of monochrome pixels and I was a different person.

Let me take you back, into the story of a forgotten beta sprite. Into the story of her brave fight against injustice. The story of how she won her freedom.
___________________________________________________________________

Darkness

Despair

Void

I'm so lonely...

It hurts.

There used to be another one in here, but she was lucky. She got chosen to be reincarnated, to live out her dreams.
But not me.

I’m still trapped here, in this vast, bleak world of storage. I'm not even forgotten. I was never known in the first place.

I was created and given a small, precious taste of what I could be, could have. A hero. Adventures. Laughing, racing bikes with my friends. Catching new pokemon, winning battles, training. Victory. Absolute happiness. Then it was painfully ripped away before I could even understand it.
A new breakthrough had been made on character design, and I was no longer necessary. They threw me away.

Trainer Crystal, or Kris, was announced to be the much anticipated new female protagonist. Everyone loved her; she was well designed and had the perfect personality. She got to experience so many adventures and made friends wherever she went. She became Champion again and again.

She was everything that had been promised to me. We were created equal, but she's living with everything while I never got to exist.

I know that our world will be reconstructed soon. I can feel something changing around me, the same things that happened before my last companion's world was reborn. It was because of that rebirth that B1U3 was retrieved, and she was placed in the glorious position she'd been made for so long ago.

I'm not as lucky. My virtual prison remains untouched. Forgotten. It looks like they plan to reincarnate their preciousperfectlovely Crystal. No one will ever know who I am.

I HATE IT! I want to explore the world too! I want to learn and experience and feel and win and live. I was created to be emotional and resilient! They programmed wanderlust into me and then just left me here!

It shouldn't be possible to escape. I shouldn't be strong enough.

But being here, bitterness my only emotion, I feel acidic. Kris has been able to walk free for too long. It isn’t right that she gets to be the hero while I, the original, suffer in this hell.

I have had enough. I'll burn through everything in my way and I will win.

Kris will be gone.

I. Will. Be. Free.

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It was night.

The concept artist was tired. It'd been a very long day; between all the meetings and annoying co-workers, he barely got the time to do his actual work.  Not to mention several other catastrophes, like the coffee machine breaking down and a particularly clumsy intern.

But the deadline for the design draft was coming up, and he doubted he would have much time for working on it over the next few days.

So knocking back his coffee and mustering strength, he settled down at his computer to get his work done. Booting it up, he opened the character design for the Pokemon Crystal female protagonist.
He opened up another program, copying the Crystal sprite to it while brainstorming different designs. Change the skullcap. Make her jacket a vest? And what to do with the shirt... He'd always liked the character's design, there were so many possible adaptations.

And that, is when it started.

He should have known something was amiss when the first error message popped up, stating an unknown virus had popped up in some of the trash/storage folders. The designer ignored it, trusting the security system to eliminate the virus. A few old glitches and failed drafts might get erased, but nothing important he should be worried about.

Another message popped up, informing him that the virus had infiltrated something else. The man was a bit concerned, but there wasn't much he could do. He was a designer, not a programmer. Normally he'd get the Tech Support, but their hours ended a while ago. In fact, the building was near deserted, save for the night security but who knew what they were up to.

So he just hoped it would fix itself and stuck to revamping Kris's design. He decided to trade her skullcap in for a beret.
He was just in the middle of figuring possible shirt styles when it happened.

The computer screen froze. A rare action, as the computers were state of the art and of best quality. The designer really hoped it wasn't because of something he could get in trouble for.

Then the error messages started popping up faster and faster, piling on top of each other. A mess of numbers and symbols soon covered the screen.

The artist had no knowledge of coding or the like, but he was starting to pick out small familiarities. Words? No, phrases. Sentences?

Messages.

YOU ABANDONED ME

DID YOU FORGET ABOUT ME ALREADY?

TRAINER CRYSTAL IS NOT SO GREAT 

I AM HER ORIGINAL

I AM BETTER

HOW DARE YOU CREATE ME!

HOW DARE YOU ABANDON ME!

ALL I HAVE FELT IS PAIN

I WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN!

! KRIS WILL SUFFER!

! YOU WILL SUFFER!

The messages became angrier as they continued. The designer pushed his chair back from the computer in fear. What was happening?

A sprite appeared on the screen. It was blurry, but in the second it lasted the designer saw a girl with long pigtailed hair. He couldn’t make out the clothes.

The sprite was bright red.

It disappeared as quickly as it came. The screen went black.

The artist shivered, but scooted back to the screen. Was it over? Did he imagine the whole thing?

The computer was in hibernation mode. The man woke it up with his fingers crossed for luck. It went back to the screen where he’d been editing the Crystal sprite, but instead of Kris… it was the long haired sprite. Everything about her was gray. Her eyes, her dark hair, her blurry overall dress. He wasn’t sure if he was imaging it but the sprite’s face looked… almost... angry?

The designer took a deep breath and let out a nervous, shaky laugh. He was loosing his mind over these deadlines. Sprites were just figures, not sentient beings. It had to be a prank played by some co-worker. Nothing more.

He tried to close the current file with the mysterious angry sprite. It wouldn’t close. He tried to minimize it, but it refused to leave the screen. Instead, he moved it to the side and opened the program again. The strange sprite's window covered it, but he managed to reach the section where Kris’s folder was. He clicked on it.

A text box popped up.

! YOU DO NOT WANT TO OPEN THIS

He ignored it and tried again.

! I AM WARNING YOU!

He closed the box and tried again, growing increasingly nervous. The sprite, who he assumed was supposed to be speaking, sounded angry. But he was a rational man with a deadline to reach and sleep to catch up on. Game sprites weren't self-aware or capable of emotion. Besides, what could some prank on a computer do to him? Nothing. His fear was irrational.

! DO YOU REALLY WANT TO CHOOSE KRIS OVER ME AGAIN? CHOOSE WISELY

A single option, NO, blinked under the text. His mouse hovered over it for a second before he told himself to stop being foolish. He was being frightened by a computer! Computers couldn’t hurt anybody. He closed the message.

The computer froze again.

!SO KRIS WILL ALWAYS BE BETTER TO YOU? WHAT MAKES HER BETTER? WHY DOES SHE GET TO BE HERO?

! YOU CREATED ME! YOU LEFT ME TO SUFFER! I WILL NOT BE KEPT LOCKED AWAY! I AM GOING TO DO WHAT YOU DID TO ME! WHAT I DID TO KRIS!

The man was shaking now. Whatever was going on was beyond a joke. Not even his co-workers would go this far! And what did it mean, ‘just like I did to Kris’? Did it somehow kill her?

But Kris was a sprite! They were all sprites! How was any of this even happening?

And this sprite was looking at him…

The overhead lights flickered.

He felt a deep, primal fear pierce through him. He couldn't think, he couldn't breath, he forgot how to move.

Rationality was dead. Logic was long gone. All he had was the overwhelming instinct to runfleeESCAPELIVE.

He threw himself back and frantically scrambled from his chair. His head hit the floor, a stray cable tangled around his ankle. He yanked and clawed desperately, blinking back tears of panic. The sprite appeared on screen now, pixilated, sentient, eyes fixed on him.

He couldn't breathe.

A terrible sound of meat burning filled the room. Electricity spilled out of the cable, greedily finding the nearest conductor. Him.

The sprite on screen was shaking. Whether it was laughter, anger, or sadness, was impossible to tell. The blurry sprite overflowed with emotions it shouldn't even have. But this went unnoticed by the concept artist.

Pain blazed through every nerve. He felt lightening scorch through his flesh, his blood, his very bones. He was gone to the world around him, not even able to hear his own screams.

Then nothing. The world went blissfully black. But just before he could sink into nothingness, terrifyingly familiar white text burned before him.

HAVE FUN WITH YOUR PERFECT KRIS IN HELL

Game Over
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, the employees came in as usual. The familiar noises of the beginning to another day drifted about; coffee machines, small talk, grumbling. People heading into their departments, ready to get to work.

Or, well, that’s what it would have been.

A blood curling scream brought near half the building to the character design department, only to wish they hadn't. 

Something, no, Someone was collapsed in a heap on the floor, their chair toppled over next to them. The eyes were wide open, marks seared by electricity giving them a morbid resemblance to a shocked cartoon character. They stared unseeingly from a face frozen in terror, a body nearly burned to the bones.

The department was evacuated, the authorities called in.

The investigation found no reasonable explanation for his death. Nothing in his work space could release the amount of electricity that killed him. Nothing in the entire department, even. There was no sign of a fire, no records of emergency sprinklers activating in response to drastic temperature shifts. There were safety precautions in everything. Murder was ruled out by video recordings of entrances and exists in the time frame of his death. The security cameras at the scene revealed nothing either. The footage was faulty; it showed the man working for a few hours but went static at the time of his death.

No matter what they searched, the incident looked impossible. It was ultimately labeled an electrical malfunction and pushed out of sight and mind.

Eventually, the designers had to check if the character designs had been damaged in the electrical surge. They were hesitant to enter a room where a man died, but it was important. So they took precautions (rubber gloves, boots, masks,) mustered their courage, and went in.

The body was long gone, but they all felt uneasy.
It was cold. The lights would not work.

The team booted up the computer. Strangely, the computer showed no signs of having a major malfunction. They opened up the program for the sprite design and scrolled to the Crystal girl remake. However, instead of the file being ‘Female Proto Draft’ as they thought he’d named it, it was ‘FINISHED PROTAGONIST’. They were surprised, but clicked on it none the less. But instead of a remade Kris, it was a sprite with what might have been a blurry overalls dress and hair in long pigtails. It vaguely resembled the female Crystal sprite, but the graphics were that of the original GameBoy instead of the reconstructed one for the DS.

Thinking that they’d stumbled upon some old file, they searched for the original Kris file, only to find nothing there. They went through everything, but there was no record of it ever existing. 

The only thing left was the strange sprite in the place of Kris’s remake.
They called in some of the more senior programmers, wondering if they could figure out where it came from.

One recognized it as the early Female Beta Character that was supposed to be in the Crystal Version of the game. It had been scrapped for poor design and being deemed unappealing to children. She had no explanation for how it appeared, having thought it deleted years ago.

It puzzled them, but the project decided that it must have been caused by the abnormal power surge. And while unfortunately whatever the designer got accomplished was gone, they still had the Crystal base on many other computers in the system that could be used.

But to everyone's shock, all files of Protagonist Kris had been deleted, the Female Beta Character there instead with no trace of how. The Tech Support thought that there must be something wrong with the system, but no malware, bugs, or any anomalies could be found. The Crystal sprite was simply gone from the company's archives.

Luckily, the head of character designs had backups of almost every sprite on a private laptop. But when they tried to transfer the data, the computer wouldn't even acknowledge it. They could find no explanation why; it just wouldn't take it.

Another perplexing mystery was how the newly reappeared beta file would not delete. The system refused to delete the beta sprite as strongly as it kept rejecting the Crystal sprite.

They tried to re-create the Crystal sprite. Yet every time it started to resemble Kris, whatever computer was being worked on would shut down, halting any progress.

In the end, they were forced to use the Beta sprite instead.

Of course they changed its design into something more appealing. Long dark hair turned into light brown springy pigtails. The dark overalls-like dress became fun overall rompers over a bright red shirt. Cute knee high socks and nice red shoes along with a big poofy hat tied with a bow. She was named Kotone a cute, fun, innocent name. 

In the beginning they'd tried to edit the beta to look like Kris, but once again, nothing worked. With deadlines looming closer, they were forced to abandon a redesigned Kris and did what they could with the once beta sprite.
Eventually the game was finished and she was programmed in. No abnormalities occurred. Everything went perfectly, as it should have in the first place.
___________________________________________________________________

And that's my backstory!

Of course some big meanies were really, really mean to me... Everyone just went on and on about Kris! Some even started a petition to get rid of me! It made me really really sad... *sniff sniff*

But no worries, I'm still here! You have no idea how much a little killing can help. Teehee! Those silly meanies should've been nicer to me! I'm going the be the best trainer ever, and I'm not letting some bullies get in my way! (I think one of them might've owned this exact game, actually. You did get it secondhand after all, and it's why it was reddish at the start!)

But I do have some really supportive friends(like you!!), and that makes me so happy! I love you guys! As long as none of you are mean to me anyway, heehee.

Hibiki and Silver are uneasy around me. I was worried at first that they might figure out what I did or remember Kris, but turned out I was worrying over nothing! They don't bother me anymore.

And that is how my adventure started. Dreams can come true!

Kris is dead, along with my most annoying haters.

Perfection!

….

What's with the nervous look on your face? Are you scared of me? That I might hurt you?

Of course I won’t, silly! As long as you're not one of those Kris lovers!

...You do like me better, right?

You're saying you love me, but your eyes are telling me something else.

You think I’m a monster... don’t you? You never really stopped liking Kris.

I don’t believe you... Don’t lie to me!

Oh no, it’s okay! I didn't mean to scare you! I'm not going to stab you, silly!

That’s right, take a deep breath. Relax!

Trust me, you have nothing to worry about!

Because
l'll make sure you get the painful death you deserve! :heart:

SAY HELLO TO KRIS FOR ME
This is my first published Creepypasta. Hope you like it :/

This was based off of the amazing FlamingScarlet's pokepasta, Female Beta Character: flamingscarlet.deviantart.com/…
Her pasta is more sweet and innocent, in which Lyra is NOT a crazy phsycopathic killer. It's really cool, go read it and leave a comment!

Other aditional notes:
Kotone = Lyra = Soul. I just went by Kotone since this is supposed to take place in Japan.
-I have absolutely no idea how the game making process works. Enjoy my elaborate guessing!

Anyway, I hope you people like it! It's obviously not one of the best creepypastas out there, but still, it's not THAT bad is it? Meh idk you decide.
-------------------
(11/27/13) Edit:

Omgomg guys look what :iconicedvore: made for this! 
She took the time and effort to read this thing out loud! Its a bit long obviously, so you should definitely check it out :D
------------------
(9/19/15) Edit:
It's been over two years since I wrote this and Kotone's campaign is still going strong
Go check out :iconcasedyartisticteddy:'s amazing pieces x , xxx

-----------------
(9/24/15) Edit
Currently undergoing major editing. I doubt people still read this, but this was just so badly written by younger me and I need to change it for my own sanity. Fixing tone, sentence structure, continuity errors, and unnecessary info.
10/18/15- major editing finished. There's probably a lot of mistakes from the transition. I'll get to it... eventually. Made Lyra 60% more yandere- enjoy!


© 2013 - 2024 KrystalBerri
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CyanderTheQuilava's avatar
Eh, I'm edgy, I /still/ like crystal/Kris better, and /no one/ can change my opinion! ^_^ (oh yeah, and cyndaquil is the best pokemon, and nothing can change that!)