Engaging with Bootlegs (Low Poly Yunaka TG/TF Short) (Patreon)

"I still can't believe someone tried to sell this as a legit game!" Josh laughed to himself, holding the cartridge up. "I mean, it's bad enough they used characters from 2023 on an N64 game, but it's not even the right series! Everybody knows there was never an N64 Fire Emblem game..."

The man had picked up the game online, having always used game collecting as an escape from his well-paid but boring job and life. He didn't usually get obvious scams like this, but he found this one so absurd that he couldn't help himself. But now that he had it... what to do with it? It would be a waste to just put it on the shelf without seeing what half-assed attempt they made at making a game!

He slotted it into his console still linked to his old CRT, booting it on as he leaned back, hoping to see some shitty model recreation of a Nintendo Switch game, quite disappointed when the screen remained as black as ever. Then again, it was silly to expect something as poorly thought out as this to have effort put into it...

"Well no use keeping it there. I'll put it with the-" he began as he grabbed hold of the cartridge, only for a sudden shock to blast through his body, every muscle alight with strange sensations as the world blurred around him. "GAHHHH~! W-WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE- KYAHHH~!?"

Then he was falling, falling into a void of numbers that seemed without end, Josh flailing and crying in panic until he finally hit what must have been the bottom, despite it looking identical to the rest of the strange realm.

"W-WHAT THE FUCK?!" he screamed, shuddering as he got to his feet. "What the hell is this place!? How did I get here!? How do I get out!? Where's my room!?"

He didn't know it, but he was still in his room, his physical form having been absorbed into the cartridge, and fallen to the very depths of its hardware. Josh shuddered, suddenly aware of the intense cold, looking down and turning bright red as he found his clothes dissolving into ones and zeros.

"W-what the- HEY!" He stumbled, his toes feeling oddly numb from the freezing climate, Josh barely able to steady himself as he did his best to remain calm. "Ok. If I look around I'm sure I can find a way out of this! I mean... there has to be! Just have to keep a clear head..."

He only lasted a few seconds before looking down at himself, shrieking in terror as he found the source of his toes’ numbness, the fact that they were being merged into a golden point. As soon as he became aware of it, the gold only spread faster, skin falling to a shiny, golden, blocky form that remained rooted to the spot, even as his upper body shook in terror in a desperate attempt to escape.

"OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WHAT IS- WHAT IS- OH FUCK NO IT'S SPREADING!" he cried, feeling as his legs grew increasingly numb, not only as they fell to the blacks and golds, but in any feeling whatsoever. They weren't cold like the rest of him, or even that hot, they were simply... there.

He grabbed hold of one, only to scream as he was shocked by electricity, the only way a human body could process holding something it was never supposed to encounter in reality. It was a mistake to even try, the energy coursing through his veins, veins that thinned further and further alongside his bones to feed the formation of the model’s wireframe.

He swore and pleaded in panic, only able to watch as his fingers twitched and pressed together involuntarily, merging into a big useless nub, only his thumb going unspared. Not only that, but it didn't even look like a hand anymore, more a facsimile, the skin on it losing so much detail that it was reduced to simply a vaguely flesh-coloured lump.

"Holy shit, holy fucking shit, this is fucked up! This is so-! I have to stop this! T-this is too freak-AHHHH~!" he wailed as the rising golden boots at last reached completion, the very top of them digging into the sides of his thighs and hips, the polygonal clothes merging with his flesh body. After all, Nintendo would never model anything beneath a character model's outfit...

It was then he noticed the texture at the top of the boots, or mainly the lack thereof. What was there was shoddy, poor quality, like it was never supposed to be seen as up close as he was looking at it now. It reminded him of a Nintendo 64 model. A crappy-looking N64 model... and with all the ones and zeroes flying around, was he... inside the game!?

"S-stop, please! I don't want to be a model! I'm a human being, p-please let me go, let me- KYAHHHHHHHHHHH GODDDDDDD~!!!!!" He wasn't prepared for the wave of purple textures that flooded from the boots, crying out in panicked protest as his thighs were swallowed up by polygons, his right wrist similarly falling as his mitten hand began to also spread its fifth generation influence. 

Josh almost lost his mind as the purple texture ran over his cock, his human body short circuiting from impossible pleasure as it was deleted from his "model", leaving only a flat purple texture in its wake. Everything touched by the spreading colour turned to polygons like some twisted Midas touch, his flesh turning to merely an imitation of clothes, with nothing but wireframes beneath.

Little details appeared to help bring the model together, the texture of lace just above the boots, a golden 2D belt around his crunching waist, reducing his tummy to an unrealistically curvy core, topped with a tiny belly button texture to hide what he no longer possessed. He felt every bit of it, even as his arm fell completely to the infection, his new polygon shoulder forcing his arm out to the side, the simple action filling him with a strange kind of joy...

Only his upper chest, left arm and head had gone unspared thus far, all of them moving as much as physically possible, as if it would somehow allow them to escape the inevitable fate that approached them. He watched as his nipples sank into the spreading colour, blushing as his chest swelled a small but noticeable amount, the bit of visible chest skin that remained soon obtaining a new texture, one that suggested the modelled bodysuit was containing a set of large, juicy breasts. 

It was both terrifying and humiliating, his other arm forced out to the side in what he realised was a T-pose, his only remaining limb falling the polygons all the same, Josh gasping in increasing panic as the textures began to climb towards his shaking head.

"S-STOP! PLEASE I SAID STOP! I'M NOT A MODEL I'M NOT A PART OF THIS STUPID GAME, GET AWAY FROM ME- I SAID GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM-" he screamed and wailed until he no longer had a mouth to do so, his wide, terrified eyes remaining a moment longer before they too were removed and digitized, reduced to flat pixels, imprinted on a face that, with the exception of the triangle poking out in the middle that acted as his new nose, was devoid of depth. 

His mouth was a simple black line, his eyes devoid of any thought behind their plain red pixels, his brown locks dissolving into thin red 2D strips, the thousands of strands merging into big chunks. Finally, 2D stars appeared on his cheek and in between his strands, while a black cape formed on his back, and at last there was silence.

Where Josh stood moments before was now a 3D model, one fitting for the console she now inhabited, in the shape of Yunaka from Fire Emblem Engage, only far lower in polygons and complexity than her normal appearance. Despite the lack of activity when it came to movement, Josh's mind was very much still active, cursing her fate and wondering if this was some kind of nightmare.

But there was another thought, one that felt... happy. At peace. If there truly was no way out... then what was she missing? Everything in the real world only seemed to torment her , with only her games offering an escape... and wasn't this the best escape from reality as you could get?

It was while he was grappling with this that a world of polygons began to load in around her, a dagger appearing in her useless mitten hand as the game script guided her to point it forwards, a crispy, compressed voice clip playing while her "mouth" switched between the "open" and "shut" textures.

"Hiya Papaya!"

No matter what feelings the new Yunaka model decided to have about her fate, it was clear that it was one that she would never escape from, the new code resting in the strange cartridge for all eternity... but perhaps not alone, even if she would never be able to act on the knowledge that others might find the strange cursed cartridge...