by ~Miles-tails-prowler

Tom Lockheart was having the best day in his life, he just got a job at a local console repair company and he was able to make it down to Litwak's to celibate. Not even the storm outside could dampen his spirits... or so he thought. As Tom was fixing the last window on Fix it Felix Jr. a bolt of lightning hit a nearby electrical pole, knocking out the power. That wasn't what dampened his spirits however, no he was fully expecting the power to go out at any time and took it in stride. What dampened his spirits was what happened after Litwak's backup generator kicked in. Fix it Felix Jr. came back with an error message and wouldn't boot. Glancing around the arcade he saw that all of the old games were out of commission. Newer games games like sugar rush were booting just fine but the avatars were acting weird. If he didn't know better he'd say they almost looked shell shocked. That was when he noticed Mr. Litwak was talking and he listened in.

"-and until I can get a repairman in I'll have to ask you all to leave. I'll refund your money and I hope I can see you all again soon."

After everybody got their refunds and left Tom hung back and pulled Mr Litwak aside.

"Mr Litwak, I'm Tom Lockheart, I work for a local console repair company. I could take a look at your broken consoles, I've got my tools in my truck."

"That's great to hear, it saves me the trouble of calling anybody in. Since you're offering I might as well take you up on your offer."

With the go ahead from Mr. Litwak Tom grabbed his tools and got to work. His first order of business was to fix his favourite game: Fix it Felix Jr. Tom didn't recognize the error code so he pulled out his laptop to look it up. When he woke it up he realized he forgot to charge it last night and the battery was low. Just as Tom was plugging in his laptop three things happened: First, a second lightning bolt hit the already downed wires sending another jolt of electricity into the arcade. Second, the antique power bar's surge protectors failed to trip, allowing a lethal amount of electricity through the circuit. Third: An electrical ark came from the outlet he was plugging his laptop into, zapping him and stopping his heart. But that was only the end of Tom's physical body... and the beginning of his new life as a program.

This is his story.

Chapter one

When Tom woke up he knew something was wrong. He'd be stupid not to, what with the sky consisting of his desktop background and all. But that wasn't what he was worried about at the moment. No he was more worried about what he was happening outside...

"Tom, Tom! Can you hear me? Please wake up... Oh god, he's not breathing..."

Tom couldn't believe his eyes, there right before his eyes he could see his own body lying motionless on the ground, and he could see Mr. Litwak running in the direction of his office, presumably to call 911. Too shocked to move Tom watched as the ambulance arrived and the paramedics carted him off to the hospital. It was only then that he snapped out of his stupor. He was dead... and somehow he was reincarnated as a computer program. Tom realized that he now knows where you go when you die. Or at least where he went. Tearing his eyes off of the scene before him Tom finally got his first real look at his new home. Looking around he spotted what looked like a train station mixed with an airport with two trains and a cargo plane. Deciding that was the best place to start he headed in that direction... and instantly smacked face first into an invisible wall. The moment he did an alarm went off and a police officer appeared out of nowhere.

"Stop! You're under arrest."

"What? Why?"

"Don't play dumb! You just popped up out of nowhere and immediately start trying to access the internet and power control systems without permission and you expect not to be caught?"

"Geez, I guess that is kind of suspicious. Sorry, I'm kind of new here."

"Whatever virus, you're coming with me."

"Wait, I'm not a virus, I'm Tom Lockheart, your sysadmin!"

"Riiiiight and I'm Linus Torvalds."

"No seriously, I can prove it!"

"Ok Tom if you're really who you say you are then you'd know your password."

"Oh that's simple it's Crash Bash with capitals on both words."

"Wait, what? That's correct!"

"Do you believe me now?"

"You've got the sysadmin's password, even if I didn't I'd still have to give you access! Sorry for the trouble, I'll let you be on your way."

"Wait, before you go! What's with the Train station/airport hybrid?"

"Oh, uh that's our connection to the outside world, the first train goes to the power outlet which, according to reports, is connected to a power bar by the name of grand central station. The other two are connections to the internet, the train is Ethernet, but it's disconnected right now, and the plane is Wifi."

"Wait, you can travel by power lines?"

"Yeah, it's how we meet other programs on our time off."

"But that's impossible!"

"It's not impossible, just dangerous, travelling via electrical lines means if we die we don't regenerate like we do on the internet and in our computer."

Suddenly a disembodied voice announces: "Attention all programs: This computer will go into power save mode in five minutes."

"Oh, sorry sir, I've got to go, you'd better head through the power lines to grand central station before the computer suspends or you'll be erased."

"I'm dead! I can't wake up the computer! When it goes to sleep you're never going to wake up again!"

"I hadn't thought of that, ok I'll sound an evacuation, you go on ahead!"

And with that the police officer disappeared and an alarm sounded. Tom boarded the train and waited for it to leave. Before long it began filling with programs, including the familiar face of the cop he met earlier. With just a minute to spare the last program boarded the train and it departed for grand central station.

After the reboot everything seemed fine, Vanellope still had her glitching ability, Sour Bill was still sour, the theme song was playing, the racers were racing... Satisfied that her game wasn't broken Vanellope breathed a sigh of relief, but her relief was short lived. Looking across the aisle at Fix it Felix Jr. caused her blood to run cold. Instead of seeing Ralph like she was expecting there was an error message.

"No, Ralph!" Vanellope cried, tears filling her eyes. "I've got to do something!" And with that she jumped into her car and raced off in the direction of Fix it Felix Jr.

Once she got to Fix it Felix Jr. her worst fears were realized, there scrolling above the entrance to Fix it Felix Jr. was the words "Do Not Enter" in blood red letters, indicating that Fix it Felix Jr. was indeed broken. And Ralph was nowhere to be seen.

"He-he didn't make it." She whimpered. "Ralph..."

Just as she was about to burst into tears Vanellope saw something that gave her pause. There was a large group coming out of the outlet a across from Fix it Felix Jr. that was headed straight for her, or more accurately Fix it Felix Jr. The man leading them was wearing a hat that had the logo of the repair company that came in to fix games every once in a while. As they drew closer she was able to pick up what they were saying...

"I never got your name." The lead man said to somebody that looked like a surge protector.

"It's Thomas, Officer Thomas." The surge protector replied.

"Ok Thomas, do you know if the debugger made it out?"

"Sandy? Yeah, he made it. In fact I think everybody made it. Why?"

"I've decided I'm still going to get to the bottom of what's happening in this arcade. Can I count on everybody's support?"

"Of course! You're essentially our god, your word's law."

Vanellope's heart started beating even faster when she heard there was a debugger in that group. Maybe they could help Ralph! Vanellope instantly bolted in the direction of the group.

"MynamesVanellopeandIwaswonderingifyoucouldhelpRalph!" she blurted out.

Startled, the lead man gave a slight jump and looked down at her. Kneeling down he asked "Sorry, can you repeat that?"

Heart still racing Vanellope repeated herself, a little slower this time. "I said my name's Vanellope and I was wondering if you could help Ralph?"

Brow furrowed in confusion the man said "I've played every game in this arcade but I don't know of any Ralph. Which game is he from?"

Played every game? Vanellope thought. What is he talking about? Whatever, it doesn't matter right now. "You know, Wreck it Ralph from the game Fix it Felix Jr.? I heard you guys talking so I know you have a debugger in your group. Please help him!"

"The wrecking guy? Huh, never realized the programmers gave him a name." He muttered. "Sure, I'll help, I was planning on fixing that game first anyway." Turning to the surge protector he asked for him to call Sandy. After a few moments the crowd parted and Vanellope was happy to see a man wearing the white coat and stethoscope of a debugger make his way over to the surge protector.

"Hey Thomas what's going on? There was an evacuation warning. Is everything ok?"

"I had to sound the evacuation, our sysadmin just died, if I didn't we'd never wake up when our computer when into sleep mode. Speaking of which, meet Tom, our sysadmin." As he said this the surge protector (Who Vanellope now realized was a computer's termination officer) gestured to the man that was leading the group.

The debugger's eyes widened and he sputtered "Tom? It really is you! I'd know that face anywhere!"

The man smiled and said "Well considering I trained to use you every day for 3 years I'd be hurt if you didn't recognize me! So, your name's Sandy?"

"Yeah, our names are based on the first letter of our program, command or signal name."

"Ah, that makes sense. You're Scanmem, and Thomas is the Termination signal."

"Right, now, where's the game that needs fixing?"

"It's Fix it Felix Jr."

Sandy glanced up at the scrolling "Do Not Enter" and frowned. "Tom, that game hasn't even started yet, It's going to be really dangerous. A game that hasn't started yet is unstable. The floor could disappear from under your feet, or you could get crushed by a building suddenly appearing."

"What do you suggest we do?"

"Normally I'd use an unmanned drone, but I didn't grab any when the evacuation started."

"Then we'll just have to go in on foot."

"Are you crazy? If we die in there we don't respawn!"

"Users never respawn in the outside world, that's just a fact of life out there."

"You mean if you deal with knowing you'll never respawn every day of your life out there?"

"Yeah, that's just the way it is. Now, do I have any volunteers?"

Several hands went up, among them were some programs dressed in SWAT gear, Sandy the debugger, some of the regular termination officers, and Vanellope.

Tom raised is eyebrow and said "Sorry little girl, it's too dangerous."

Vanellope snorted and said "Ralph's my best friend. I'm going regardless of what you say, and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

With an understanding look in his eye Tom knelt down to Vanellope's height and said "Look, I understand you're trying to help your friend, but like they said, if you die in there you're never coming back. If you try to follow us I'll have to stop you."

Suddenly the unmistakeable voice of Calhoun said "She can handle herself just fine civilian, let her come."

Surprised by the interruption Tom's head jerked up and he spotted Calhoun. Raising his eyebrow in confusion Tom said "You know her? Aren't you that Sergeant from Hero's duty?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"Nothing, just surprised you two knew each other."

"Yeah, well get over it. We've got a game to save." And with that Calhoun and Vanellope marched into the entrance of Fix it Felix Jr. After a moment Calhoun paused and called over her shoulder "You coming or what?"

Snapped out of his stupor Tom and the volunteers quickly headed into Fix it Felix Jr. and piled into the train with Calhoun and Vanellope. Now that they were all loaded the train plunged into the darkened tunnel on its way into Fix it Felix Jr.

As the train came to a stop in front of the platform it instantly became apparent that something was wrong. Instead of seeing the Nicelanders apartment building like everybody was expecting there was a giant bulldozer standing on end. Running around the bulldozer in the weirdest fashion were bulldozer sized bricks pushing brick sized piles of apartments. In addition there was a Ralph sized Nicelander sleeping atop a pile of brick sized apartment buildings. Ralph and Felix were nowhere to be seen. In other words, it was seriously messed up.

Sandy was the first to speak up. "Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a game this messed up!"

"Do you think we can fix it?"

"I don't know Tom, there's a lot of damage. Not to mention the fact we can't even find the main characters!"

"We have to fix it! This is Ralph and Felix we're talking about!" snapped Vanellope.

"Trust me, we'll fix it! I for one am not leaving until it's fixed. It is my favourite game after all."

"You keep saying that, just who are you?"

"I'm from the outside world. I just died."

"That's impossible!"

"Hey, I just saw my own body get wheeled away by some paramedics, I know it's hard to believe but it happened. Oh no, I just had a horrible thought... If I just died then that means Mr Litwak is going to need to replace the power bars before he can reopen the arcade!"

With that thought in mind the group turned to look out of the screen and saw Mr. Litwak on the other side of the arcade unplugging game consoles. With a new found fear in his eyes Tom turned to Calhoun and said:

"Your game is the newest, so its code room should have enough storage to fit us all. We can't go back to our own computer, please let us save ourselves to your game."

"I'm not about to let a bunch of civilians die on my watch. Vanellope, go back to Sugar Rush, I'm going to save these people."

Sensing the urgency in Calhoun's voice Vanellope did as she was told without arguing. Tom, Calhoun, and company all headed to Hero's Duty's code room. Once there Calhoun punched in the universal cheat code and everyone started saving themselves. After a few moments they hear Mr. Litwak say "That's odd, I guess i'll leave that one till the end." Curious, Tom, being one of the first to be saved, goes to see what got Litwak's attention. He instantly spots the message on screen that reads "Update in progress, do not power off or unplug your console." Breathing a sigh of relief Tom returns to inform the rest of the group that they are no longer have a time restraint.

Mr. Litwak felt horrible as he went down the isles of his arcade unplugging his games. A safety inspector had arrived shortly after Tom's death and taken a look at his wiring as well as his power bars and declared them all in violation of current safety standards, and told him that if they were working properly Tom would still be alive. Mr. Litwak had received a fine and been told he couldn't reopen until the problem was fixed. But he didn't care about that, he was hurting too much from the fact that somebody had died in his arcade due to his mistakes. As he got to Hero's duty he saw a message declaring the game as out of order while it performed updates. Muttering under his breath he skipped that machine and carried onto the next one. After he finished with the other machines he came back and found Hero's duty was done its updates so he powered it down and unplugged it. Now the electricians could get started on rewiring his building.

One month, a whole bunch of safety inspections, and a memorial service later and Mr. Litwak was ok'd to plug his machines in again. Now was the moment of truth. He knew that his older machines wouldn't work so he plugged them into a power bar in the corner so that a different technician could look at them later and prepared to open his doors. Looking out he could see the giant lineup, they were responding to the grand re-opening advertisements. His arcade was the most popular because it had a whole bunch of old games. He knew he was going to have a whole bunch of disappointed customers since the oldest functional game was whack-a-mole (1976), followed by street fighter 2 (1991). everything in between had decided to give an error message. That was a huge number of games, but he needed the money so that he could afford to get his games repaired. As you can imagine he was astonished when all of his customers stayed, despite most of his games being broken. In fact one of his older customers came up to him and said that the entire gaming community came as soon as they heard that his arcade was open because they knew how much it was going to cost him to fix their favourite games. As you can imagine he was touched.

As Hero's Duty was booted all of Tom's fellow programs were thrown into their new roles. Tom and Sandy were assigned to be scientists that the player can save along the way. Kevin, Karl, Kasey, Kameron, Karin, Kathrine, Katie, Kathy, Kaden, and Kaleb from the Kill team (The programs wearing swat gear) as well as officer Thomas and the rest of the termination officers were assigned to be security officers who survived the attack (the Termination officers on the earlier levels, and the Kill team on the later levels) and everybody else was assigned to do their normal behind the scenes jobs.

"Whoa, that was weird. I was eaten then came back so many times, not to mention the times the players shot me by accident. How do you guys ever get used to respawning?" Tom groaned after a long day of dieing.

"You don't Tom, that's how Ralph took my armour, I was too shell shocked to do anything about it." Markowski replied.

"The wrecking guy was in this game during gaming hours?"

"Yeah, he almost destroyed the arcade when he accidentally let out a Cy-Bug."

"Geez, how did you guys stop it?"

"We didn't, Ralph did. But that's a story for another time. Right now we have to save Ralph and Felix." Calhoun replied for Markowski

"Right, LPD* and ETF** on me!" Tom called causing the aforementioned programs to follow him. "We're going to collect Sandy and give fixing Fix it Felix Jr. another go. If anybody else wants to join us they are free to."

Calhoun, Markowski, and Kohut joined them and Tom collected Sandy. Once everybody who was coming was there they headed off to grand central station. What awaited them took everybody off guard.

*LPD = Laptop Police Department (the termination officers)

**ETF = Emergency Task Force (the programs dressed in swat gear AKA the kill team)