(F.Y.I: I haven't forgotten or abandoned my Wreck-It Ralph Pool Story, so don't worry! I just had this random story idea in my head and needed to write to it - plus, it helped me with my writer's block with the other story lol. I'll be back with an update on the pool story soon! :) Thanks for reading! )

It was another fairly average ending to another fairly average Friday of gaming for the group of friends in Litwak's Arcade. And although they all were tired at the end of their long day of gaming, Fix-It Felix Jr., his wife Sergeant Calhoun, Wreck-It Ralph, and Vanellope von Schweetz still gathered together as they always did on a Friday night to kick off the weekend.

They had met up after work from their respective games at their favorite middle place to meet: Tapper's Root Beer game.

When they had all gotten there, the four friends found the root beer game was packed already, as it often was on a Friday night. While Calhoun and Felix stood in line to order the cold root beer treats, Ralph and Vanellope sought to find a booth, barely able to find one big enough to fit all four friends comfortably.

When the drinks arrived and each had one in their hands, the four close pals began to discuss the happenings of their day-- Calhoun had lead her fearless team to another day of many victories in her first-player war game, Hero's Duty. The 8-bit game of Fix-It Felix Jr. had been busier than usual that day, leading to lots of wrecking and fixing for both the good guy and bad guy of the game, Felix and Ralph. And of course, in the desert-themed game of Sugar Rush, Vanellope had won many more races- which she decided to openly brag about.

"Ha! You should'a seen the look on the player's face when I crossed that finish line!" Vanellope laughed as she chugged her root beer. "It was priceless! I bet she regretted not picking me!"

Ralph couldn't help but smile at his little best friend sitting beside him. Sure, Vanellope tended to brag a lot- but considering how horrible she had been treated just a few years ago, the gentle-hearted wrecker figured the child deserved to be proud of herself once and a while.

"Yeah, I bet so too, kid," Ralph agreed, as he ruffled her long, raven hair a bit.

"Hey, hey, hey! Watch it, will ya, Meat Hands?" Vanellope protested as she ducked her head from under the wrecker's gentle ruffling and smoothed out her own hair again, along with the few pieces of random types of candy that it contained. "I don't want to lose any more candy pieces in my hair than I already did today!"

"What do you mean 'more', Short Stack?" Calhoun asked Vanellope curiously, taking a drink as she narrowed her eyes slightly at the child. "I thought those bits of pure sugar were practically glued to your head."

Vanellope eyed her ridiculously, her signature annoyed look ever present on her round face.

"Uh, no. They're just clips, see?" The child sassed as she unclipped a candy clip and reclipped it in place to demonstrate. "I lost a few earlier, and now I can't afford to lose any more of them."

The group was content in unspoken silence for a moment, sipping their cold drinks before the curiosity got the better of Ralph.

"So, how'd you lose your other clips earlier, kiddo?" He asked her, an assuming smirk appearing on his face.

"You veer off into a ditch or something and they flew off?"

In her place in the booth, Vanellope shrunk back a little, a look of embarrassment written in her narrowed eyes.

"Well...no. These boys came and pulled them out of my hair. Which kinda hurt," the child admitted, rubbing her head to prove her point.

"But, I'm fine," she quickly added nonchalantly as she took another drink of her root beer, eyeing the rest of the Friday night patrons in the root beer game.

At first, Calhoun and Felix were too shocked by the sudden revelation to even speak... whereas Ralph nearly choked on his root beer as he gawked down at the little girl.

"Wait, boys did what to you?!" the giant of a man finally managed to spit out as he looked at his kid wide-eyed.

"Pulled my clips ooout...," the child tried to answer him as Ralph suddenly pulled her head closer to him so he could examine it closer.

The child tried to pull away from his gentle yet firm grasp, but it was in vain as she then tried to reassure him.

"Ralph, everything's fine, really!" she complained as she wiggled about, twisting her face up. "My head even doesn't hurt anymore!"

"No, no! Everything's not fine," Felix found his voice, his own blue eyes wide in panic as he quickly got almost as upset as Ralph was. "That's, that's-"

"Yeah, I know- a pretty jerky thing to do, right?" The little glitch somehow pulled away from Ralph's examination and huffed back in her seat. "I didn't really even do anything to them...not really," she muttered as an afterthought with an half-lidded eye roll.

"Vanellope, w-why didn't you tell us...t-tell me this earlier?!" Ralph asked her desperately, his eyes wide and his face flushed in roaring anger.

It was clearly upsetting to the wrecker to find out some boys had tried to hurt his Vanellope, let alone without him even knowing about it.

"'Cause it doesn't matter anymore, Stink Brain," the little girl answered, again nonchalantly with a dismissive eye roll. "I'm not hurt."

Felix huffed, slightly disgusted at her expression.

"Oh, it does to matter, Sugar Pie!" he told her as he shook a gloved finger at the child from across the table. "The fact that they didn't really hurt you or that you're not in any pain right now does not make what they did to you ok." He eyed her with concern. "What those boys did was-"

"-completely and unacceptably not ok!" Ralph finished by growling anger.

"Calm down, ladies," Calhoun, the usual level-headed one of the three adults, told the men as calm as she could manage. "Vanellope obviously ok," she tried to reason with her husband and his bad guy colleague. "There's no need to go into 'game over' mode."

But Ralph was already too far angry to reason.

"Oh, wait 'til I get these hands on those brats," he growled under his breath as he clenched his big, strong fingers on each massive hand into two intimidating fists.

He quickly let his fists release, however, to worriedly pulled Vanellope's head closer to him again to further examine it, to make extra sure the child was really ok- much to the glitch's whining protest and pouting.

"Oh, I don't think you'd have to worry about defending Little Miss Fire Ball here, Wreck-It," Calhoun said with a smirk as she eyed Vanellope knowingly. "I've already taught Vanellope well enough by now to know had to handle any jerk that dares mess with her, guy or gal, didn't I, Speed Demon?"

Darting her head out from under Ralph's overprotective hand, Vanellope returned the devilish smirk to her grown-up female role model.

"Oh, yeah, I got them back pret-ty good," the child confirmed, a devilish tent in her eyes. "Trust me, guys- those boys regretted ever messin' with this Queen of Revenge!"

Smirking, Vanellope then reached her glass of root beer over to the army lady to toast to, which Calhoun returned with her look of approval of the glitch.

But Ralph and Felix still were not letting this matter go until they got more answers. Satisfying ones, at least.

"But who were these boys, Vanellope?" The fixer asked, going into detective mode by beginning his flood of questions. "Did you even know them? Are they fellow racers from Sugar Rush? Were they-"

"What? No!" Vanellope quickly answered, seeming shocked by his questions in accusation of her game mates. "My citizens under my rulership would never do anything like that!"

"They all did at one time, though," Ralph gulped worriedly, although he was now finally convinced that Vanellope was physically ok. He decided to stop fretfully examining her head and switched to softly stroking her hair instead.

"Well, yeah, they were mean to me, once," Vanellope admitted as she stopped inching away from Ralph and allowed him to rub her ponytail. "But they are all my friends now, Stink Brain; none of them would ever think of hurting me.

"Besides," she added with a smirked up at him, "I'm the president of the game- everyone in my game knows better than to mess with me now!" She held up a tiny fist of her own to prove her next point. "I'd throw their butts in The Fungeon for committing season against me!"

"The term is 'treason, Vanellope," Calhoun corrected the girl with an eye roll as she took a drink- wondering why the programmers even made the young glitch the entire leader of a game.

"Whatever," Vanellope waved her off her correction. "Point is, it wasn't any of the Sugar Rush racer boys that pulled my clips from my hair!"

"Then who were those boys, Vanellope?" Felix repeated his question, but this time with more mystery than concern.

"And why were they trying to pull your clips out of your head...and hurt you?" Ralph added, voice still full of concern as ever.

Vanellope, now tired of the whole conversation, rested the side of her face with one hand and traced her mug with her finger with the other hand as Ralph still ran his huge fingers through her ponytail.

"How would I know?" she answered. "All I know is that these particular boys were mean to me before the reset, too. They used to come into Sugar Rush and would harass me- never really bullying me like the Sugar Rush racers did, but ya'know, just being really annoying by calling me names and taking my things," she explained. "Now, even after the reset, they still sneak into Sugar Rush from time to time, sneaking up behind me and pulling my ponytail or taking my hair clips from my hair. It really annoys me more than it does -or has- hurt me." Vanellope rolled her eyes once more as she took a sip of her root beer. "Stupid jerks."

As Ralph and Felix exchange confused and vexed glances, Calhoun, on the other hand, just smirked openly at Vanellope's explanation.

"Well, well," the woman remarked while sneering, again knowingly. "Sounds like those boys might be being 'mean' to you for another reason then, Candy Head."

Turning to raise an eyebrow at Felix, Calhoun saw that he just eyed her back curiously and blankly.

Ralph, however, narrowed his eyes at the sergeant with a look of anger. He did not like where this was going. He took another drink, holding the glass with one large hand and continued to protectively stroke Vanellope's hair gently with the other.

"And what other reason could that be?" The wrecker growled at Calhoun with an eye roll. "Those boys are obviously just stupid jerks-"

"-Who all may very well have a little crush on Vanellope," Calhoun interrupted him with a smirk.