Brash Buster

Dark Side of the Wall

(First written from December 27th, 2023 to January 30, 2024)

  1. Dark Side of the Wall
    1. Glossary
    2. Foreword
    3. Story
    4. Afterword

Glossary

This section details various relevant parts of the story. Underlined entries have links to pages that explain them in further detail.

  • Agony: An evil force of energy that was part of a plotline by the writer “ch4s3man”. By the time of this story, the plotline wasn’t advancing to a conclusion, and none of my characters considered it worth pursuing anymore.
  • Ancient City: A location from the 1993 video game Mega Man 6, implied to be located somewhere in Greece.
  • “A world where everything goes”: Refers to how the setting of The Chaos Zone constantly takes creative liberties with the existing media it’s based on (primarily referring to how some characters who have no relevance in their home series can have a big impact in Chaos Zone), and how easy it is for a character in the setting to be incredibly powerful.
  • Beeto: A beetle-like creature from the 2014 video game Shovel Knight.
  • Beta Diablo: An empowered form of “Beta Devil”, an original character written by the user “Beta Shadow”. In this form, the fight against this character was one of the last times a large group of other characters (by different writers) gathered together.
  • Break Man GZ: An original character written by the user “TheHighTower”.
  • Central Highway: A location from the 1993 video game Mega Man X. The name “Central Highway” comes from the 2005 remake Mega Man Maverick Hunter X; the area is simply named “Highway Stage” in the original game.
  • Clockwork Tower: A location from the 2014 video game Shovel Knight, part of The Valley. The home base of Tinker Knight.
  • Dark Saktira CC: An evil doppelganger of Saktira CC created from the mysterious “Dark Mirror”. Several other characters by other writers had encountered similar Dark Mirror doppelgangers before this point; Dark Saktira is the only of these doppelgangers written by me. All of these Dark Mirror doppelgangers seem to be born from the original person’s doubts, and have a desire to kill whoever they’re a copy of.
  • Demyx: A character from the 2005 video game Kingdom Hearts II. In Chaos Zone, he used to be from another world specifically based on the Kingdom Hearts series, but somehow ended up in the main world of the story for unknown reasons. He has since become friends with Saktira CC, Tinker Knight, and Reverse Man.
  • Dr. Doppler: A character from the 1995 video game Mega Man X3. A scientist who created technology that would go on to be used by the villain “Isoc” in the Rockman X Giga Mission collectible card series.
  • Doppler Labs: A location in Chaos Zone where Dr. Doppler – as well as some of his creations – live, performing research to help friends and allies.
  • Dyna Man: A character from the 1990 MS-DOS video game Mega Man.
  • Fourth wall: A metaphorical wall referring to the divide between someone viewing a piece of media and the people/characters in the media itself. When a character acknowledges whoever is engaging with the media (such as by “talking” to the audience as if they were part of the media, or even just acknowledging that they’re being watched, read, etc. by people not in the story), that is breaking the fourth wall. Some characters in Chaos Zone are aware enough of the world they live in to “break the fourth wall” (Rika and Kogasa being two prime examples at the start of this story), and one character learns of the fourth wall and their own greater existence as a fictional concept during the story itself.
  • Gilgamesh: A character from the 1992 video game Final Fantasy V. A friend of Rika.
  • Kogasa Tatara: A living umbrella creature from the Touhou Project series. Chaos Zone discusses her having the ability to break the fourth wall, something she’s done several times by this point, including in attempts to calm down me, the writer. She prefers not to break the fourth wall, though.
  • Kong: A type of character in the Mario and Donkey Kong franchises, which seems to include various simians. The character who uses this term is not referred to by name in the story, but he does have a name: “Diddy Kong”. Diddy Kong is quite familiar with breaking the fourth wall, as characters break the fourth wall often in the Donkey Kong games.
  • Lady Blader: An enemy from Mega Man 4, a video game released in 1991. Outside Mega Man RPG Prototype, it’s known as “Taketento”.
  • “Limelight”: In the story, this word is used to refer to the phrase “a day in the limelight”; I was under the impression that this was a common pop culture phrase for when a piece of fiction gives special focus to a character usually not given much focus, but I am unsure if it is as common of a phrase as I thought it was.
  • Nuclear Smash: An Explode/Earth-type Ability where the user grabs the opponent and slams them straight into the ground with explosive force. If used in the air, both the user and opponent will be sent plummeting.
  • Overdrive Metropolis: A location from the 2008 video game Mega Man 9. Referred to only as the “Special Stage” in-game, the new name “Overdrive Metropolis” was invented for Chaos Zone.
  • Remnant Aviator: A minor antagonist in my writing for The Chaos Zone.
  • Reverse Man: A character from the 2018 gambling video game Pachislot Rockman Ability. In Chaos Zone, he’s a big fan of Demyx, and quickly formed a friendship with him.
  • Rika: A tech-savvy character from the Touhou Project series. In Chaos Zone, she’s aware of the fourth wall, but has never actually broken the fourth wall herself despite having the knowledge to do so. She’s also a friend of Gilgamesh, and a recurring joke in her earliest appearances (written around 2020) was that she often deprived herself of sleep for months on end.
  • “Rule 2”: Refers to one of the rules of the Chaos Zone forum thread that I write my stories on before eventually reposting them here (I am not the creator of the Chaos Zone thread, which is part of why I must adhere to these rules); at the time, Rule 2 of the thread forbid writers/users from controlling characters who were being played by other writers/users. For example, if I wanted to control what happened to Seija Kijin, I could not do that, as she’s not one of my characters, but rather a character played by – and thus “belonging” to – the user “RotomSlashBlast”.
  • Saktira CC: A character from the Rockman X Giga Mission collectible card series, built as a minion for the evil “Isoc”, modeled after creations of Dr. Doppler. In Giga Mission, Saktira was effectively killed soon after her debut, in an incident that a tie-in Giga Mission comic book from the same year suggested was a deliberate plan on “Isoc’s” part. While her body is usually solid, it can sometimes turn into a blobby substance, from which she can re-form into her normal appearance. At one point, the character is described as “splattering” on a surface; her somewhat amorphous body is what keeps her from dying from the experience.
  • Seija Kijin: A character from the Touhou Project series, who is played by the user “RotomSlashBlast” in The Chaos Zone. For a period of time, I had a strong feeling of hatred toward this character (particularly due to her being an “amanojaku”, a creature who seemed genuinely incapable of being a “good” person), and would represent it in my writing by giving a somewhat fictionalized version of myself – as the narrator – an irrational desire to kill Seija, to the point where I would try to “force” characters to do the deed; Kogasa would always break the fourth wall to keep me from doing this.
  • Smithy Gang: A series of robotic antagonists from the 1996 video game Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.
  • The Valley: The main location of the 2014 video game Shovel Knight.
  • Tinker Knight: A character from the 2014 video game Shovel Knight. He’s a skilled engineer who (by the time he’s introduced in Chaos Zone) spends his time making toys for children. He’s a friend of Saktira CC.
  • Unbeatable Air Man: An original character written by the user “Gamma”.
  • Uriah: A person mentioned in 2 Samuel, a book of The Bible. He was killed by a plan conducted by his king, where Uriah was sent out to the front of the battle while the other warriors avoided him, ensuring that he be targeted by enemy soldiers and killed. This story references Uriah as a way to represent the general idea of someone who is unwittingly set out by a leader to face a swift death.
  • Zero: A major protagonist from the Mega Man X series. Multiple doppelgangers of him exist throughout the Mega Man X series, and even the later Mega Man Zero series. These include:
    • A fragile copy of him seen briefly in the 1994 video game Mega Man X2.
    • “Zero Nightmare” (referred to in the story as “Nightmare Zero”), a copy of him created using Zero’s DNA in the 2001 video game Mega Man X6.
    • Omega, a character with a mysterious connection to Zero from the 2004 video game Mega Man Zero 3.
    • Nichts, a doppelganger of Zero created when Saktira CC’s body absorbed data from one of Zero’s weapons and was transformed (effectively killing her) in the 2019 collectible card series Rockman X Giga Mission and a tie-in comic book of the same name released the same year. Rockman X Mega Mission is an obscure piece of media, which is referenced in the story.

Foreword

This story is heavily reliant on playing with ideas of writing, such as how aware characters are of being in a fictional setting, how characters can be documented online, and even how the narration itself can succeed or struggle to portray things accurately. In particular, I attempted to communicate a character’s perception of the reality outside the writing in a way that feels like it’s almost breaking the medium itself by using glitchy-looking animated images and strange ways of playing with how text could be arranged on the Mega Man RPG Prototype website this story was first written on. I have included descriptions of what certain images are portraying for those unfamiliar.

I would also suggest reading the Ability list on Saktira CC’s page, as the story starts and ends with a fight scene where several named abilities are used, with only one in the ending fight scene being listed in the above Glossary.

Story

(The story opens in Overdrive Metropolis)

(The scene cuts to some time later, in the Clockwork Tower)

(The scene cuts to midnight, in Rika’s underground base)

(The scene cuts to a cave, the time 1:49 AM; each color without a picture next to it in this scene represents a different radio)

(The scene cuts to a few miles away from Ancient City, 12 minutes later)

(The following three images are Saktira’s own vision:)

(A distorting image of Saktira CC’s page from “Mega Man Knowledge Base”, a Wikipedia-like website focused on the Mega Man franchise)

(Flashing between 13 different moments in Chaos Zone before this story began, containing the majority of Saktira’s relevant appearances; the idea is that Saktira can actually see the website itself in this moment, instead of seeing the world the writing describes)

(A distorting image of a search engine, with “saktira cc” typed in the search bar)
(The scene cuts back to the third-person point of view used through the story before the above visions)

(It took three days until I wrote the next part of the story; the time that’s passed in the story itself is unclear)

(Saktira’s vision; Tinker Knight is saying “Saktira, please, calm down!” (the present event), which is her seeing Tinker Knight as normal; however, Saktira is also seeing flashes of websites with information on Tinker Knight, including screenshots from another Wikipedia-like site for the Shovel Knight series, a page on a website called “TV Tropes”, and the text file I use to write my stories before posting them on the Mega Man RPG Prototype website)

(The scene cuts to later, Saktira now in Central Highway)

(Saktira’s vision; initially it flashes between several segments of yet another Wikipedia-like site – this time for the Kingdom Hearts series, until it returns to a “normal” point of view with the image below)

(The scene cuts ahead)

(The scene cuts ahead; Saktira has been explaining her encounter with Dark Saktira to Kogasa)

(A flashback to long ago, in an incident where Kogasa stopped me from killing Seija by becoming a narrator; my text when I’m talking to Kogasa is brown, while Kogasa’s text when talking to me is teal)

(Dialogue from Kogasa from the present day)

(Another flashback, from shortly after the previous flashback; Kogasa is in Doppler Labs, in a sort of state of depression)

(Dialogue from Kogasa from the present day)

(The scene cuts to a short time later, back in Overdrive Metropolis)

(The scene cuts to some time later, in the Clockwork Tower)

Afterword

This story was sort of killing two birds with one stone: on the one hand, I was thinking about how little I developed Saktira CC’s character in her few appearances before this story, and wanted to give her some time to shine. On the other hand, the user “RedBomber” was introducing an interesting idea of letting other users confront “Dark Mirror” doppelgangers of their own characters, and while I was interested, I wasn’t sure how to make it interesting. But when thinking about both of these factors shortly after watching the 2022 movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, it clicked.

Having the story open in the middle of a fight with Dark Saktira was me deciding that the initial encounter between Saktira CC and her doppelganger would be best (for the Mega Man RPG Prototype website, anyway) if I skipped the initial “reveal” of Dark Saktira, since other users had provided similar reveals for their respective character vs. doppelganger scenarios, and it wasn’t the part of the story I wanted to focus on.

After the fight, I wanted to touch a bit on how Saktira’s appearances up to then were mostly in anticipation of large action scenes, and have her somewhat obsessed with being a vigilante taking down any threat, and finding herself anxious, obsessive, and maybe even a little empty when things became peaceful.

The big turn of the story was Dark Saktira gaining access to knowledge of the fourth wall: I was a bit obsessed with using the idea of the fourth wall as a plot point around 2020, and eventually I thought I had exhausted all the ideas I could with it, not wanting to explore it anymore…until inspiration struck from Everything, Everywhere, All at Once‘s existential themes, and I decided to see what would happen if a character learned about the fourth wall during the story, without being prepared for everything it implied. I’ll admit I kind of overlooked ideas such as Saktira questioning whether she truly “exists”, but I’m still happy with what was there.

The visual elements are something I’m especially proud of: I liked putting a twist on the internet-centered medium by having uncontrolled awareness of the fourth wall equate to rapid, glitchy visions of websites meant for researching the affected person, and people and locations around them.

Kogasa was probably the biggest source of fourth wall-themed writing before “Dark Side of the Wall”, and having already given her a conclusion to her own, smaller existential struggles (as seen in flashbacks), I figured she’d be the best person to help Saktira with what she was going through.

Finally, Dark Saktira was a lot more fun as a villain than I thought at first. Having her body be mostly destroyed at the start of the story and never fully regenerate gave her a distinct visual identity despite being a copy of Saktira, and I really enjoyed having her primal urge to destroy the true Saktira be masked by trying to talk her down.

Overall, while I feel the changes the story gave to Saktira’s personal life were smaller, I still felt like “Dark Side of the Wall” was a great way to breathe some life into her and explore a unique conflict.