AN: There's a Wreck-It Ralph character appreciation week event on tumblr, and the current week focuses on the human characters. So the other day I got to thinking about WIR, and then to the humans in the film, and then to Moppet Girl and then before I knew it I'd written all this. It's in a style I thought I'd never use again, but I started writing in it and couldn't stop! I've never written MG before or from any of the human's pov, but it was a good experience to try it out if anything else. Anyway, as always I thank you for taking the time to read this :)
The first time Moppet Girl played Hero's Duty was the first time she'd visited Litwak's arcade, and the first time she played it was the first time she knew she wasn't playing alone.
She'd played many first person shooters in many different places – some good some bad some great, one of the benefits she'd taught herself that moving from town to town provided her – and had looked forward to playing the newest game in Litwak's Arcade that she'd researched online weeks before she'd arrived.
Hero's Duty started off good, started off expected, straight into the bug destroying action as promised, but then she'd been surprised in a way she immediately suspected she shouldn't have been.
She'd recently started to ponder if she was already becoming jaded to action games even at her age, but then one of the non-playable soldiers had acted in a way she'd never seen a pre-programmed character act before. Mar…kowski, yes, that's what the blonde leader had called him, had acted in ways she didn't think a soldier ever should act: he dropped his gun, he ran away, he exclaimed things in fearful terror and then hid like a coward that had ended up getting her killed.
Maybe he was supposed to be an over the top comic relief character, but she hadn't laughed much at being charged to play a game that was cut short due to a bumbling character rather than her own unforged skill, and she'd hung up her gun in disgust and turned her back on it.
She'd walked away but couldn't stop thinking about it, about what it was she…couldn't put her finger on even though she knew there was something, and so she had looked for another game to distract her.
She'd been unceremoniously barred from Sugar Rush – those two guys would probably take all morning to get round just one track, she'd bet all her wasted quarters on it – and so, due to lack of options rather than due to choice, she'd put her money into a cabinet she'd never heard of before.
The first time Moppet Girl played Fix It-Felix Junior was the first time she'd played a cabinet game this old, and the first time she played it was the second time she knew she wasn't playing alone.
Within seconds she felt knew that something was wrong with it and, like Hero's Duty, that the characters were not behaving as they should. Except this time it was clearly obvious that something was wrong, and unlike humanity's last hope the gaggle of Nicelanders weren't making any effort to hide their strange behaviour.
Mr. Litwak had refunded her quarter, and informed her that the game would either recover or be put out to pasture, which she knew was just a polite way of saying it was going to be put to death peacefully and out of sight and out of mind.
It was easy for her to agree with this line of thinking – it was sad of course, but the game was old and everything has it's time. But there was another game she couldn't stop thinking about, because another unwritten rule of the world is that new things should be perfect from the start, and should last longer than you can stand them.
Despite Hero's Duty being an obvious rip-off, she'd played it twice more that morning.
And then then she'd played it twice more, making a quick detour home to raid the coin stash hidden under her bed first.
And then after lunch she'd returned and played it twice more again and then twice more again.
She'd progressed through the levels swiftly, her eyes sharp and her hands steady as she fell into the rhythm of the game and began to master it, but she never caught sight of the renegade soldier again.
Perhaps it was just a line of corrupted programming and that blip had immediately been smoothed out, and she was never meant to witness what she did.
Perhaps it was even a hidden bonus that she'd somehow, somehow unlocked, since this sequence had never repeated itself for her or for any of the other gamers she'd watched playing.
She'd watched the other kids play the game openly, standing at their elbow eyes fixed to the screen in direct challenge and she'd watched them surreptitiously, from halfway across the arcade looking out of the corner of her eye in case that was the tactic needed to bring the solider out into the open.
All her methods failed, and the day had ended with her pockets empty and her head ablaze.
The next day she was first through the door to the arcade when Mr. Litwak had unlocked it, and caught only the tail end of his welcome as she rushed to Hero's Duty, something about Felix and the gang and something else but that game could wait.
Just like yesterday she was the first to dump coins into the slot, and had lifted up her gun before the start button was ready to be slammed and the game could begin. The explanatory start-up sequence, now so familiar she could recite it perfectly, rolled across the screen and she started to play.
But nothing was out of the ordinary, and no sudden soldier appeared to disrupt their fighting skills and to shout granddad warnings about the violence in today's video games.
She played the game remorselessly that morning, and took particular delight in preventing the Sugar Rush boys from putting their own quarters down.
She fed the game's insatiable appetite with quarter after quarter and played game after game after game.
By lunchtime her arms were aching and her eyes were burning, but she still had money in her pocket and a question unanswered.
She played on throughout the afternoon and that question remained with her, stuck like a stone in her throat that was working down further and further into her stomach into her chest with every game she played.
That stone got looser, and that stone got heavier.
The afternoon wore on, and for the first time she quit a game before she could be defeated.
She'd roughly rattled her gun back into its holder and turned her back before Calhoun could appear on the screen again.
She didn't want to hear her words, and didn't want to see her face.
For the first time she'd submitted to defeat, and for the first time she'd started to seriously doubt.
Maybe she had imagined there was something more to what she'd seen, what she'd…participated in yesterday, and that tingle under her skin and nagging itch behind her eyes was simply the result of playing too many games and staring at too many screens, as her Mother liked to constantly remind her with that look in her eyes and that inflection in her voice.
She'd stood indecisive in the middle of the arcade, surrounded by sound and light and all alone.
She'd stood silently and almost motionless, working hard to convince herself of her stupidity.
Her hand was on the outside of her pocket counting the coins within it, while her eyes looked around the arcade searching for reasons not to play her game just one more time.
And that's when her sweeping gaze was caught by the restored lights of Fix-It Felix Junior.
And that's when she grasped onto this excuse and tore herself away and walked towards it. She'd passed a grinning Mr. Litwak, who'd winked and given her a quarter.
And that's when she played it and that's when she knew she was right.
It was a burst behind her eyes and a shudder through her fingertips, as she took control of Felix and led him through the levels.
She just…knew she was right about there being more than what could be seen, she just knew it.
The gameplay was nothing special and everything seemed fine, but there was a thrumming under her skin and for some reason her heart was racing. It was as if she was queuing for a rollercoaster in full knowledge of what was to come, or…or as if there was a thunderstorm a few towns over that was already raging out of sight that she could just feel, could taste it in the air and know that it was only a matter of time.
And then that time came.
As if to make up for her last Hero's Duty game, or perhaps to shame her because of it, she found herself with a fluid skill bordering on the obscene to allow her to progress through the levels of Fix-It Felix Junior faster than she would have thought possible.
And just, just before as she completed the twenty-ninth level she'd felt her mouth go dry and her stomach clench, a nauseous excitement that heralded the prediction flashing through her mind that this was it.
And it was.
The numbers three and zero flashed onto the screen and then everything changed, as a storm of new characters exploded onto the screen.
The bonus level began and oh these characters weren't part of this game, even a blind person could have seen that.
They'd materialised out of the nowhere they'd been living, and took a place in the game like they belonged there.
Or…or as if they'd been given permission to belong there.
The game was an instant success, a phoenix rising from the ashes, and word of mouth swept through the arcade and beyond, as queues of quarters she couldn't defend against lined up along the screen.
Truth was she didn't mind that she was surrounded by people instead of playing along – both states of play suited her just fine – and she was able to pay homage to another unwritten truth, which was that an underdog given a second chance to shine must be worshipped by the crowd.
And another truth was that part of her hoped that the jostling kids around her would question why these characters were suddenly there, would question it deeply and seriously and place her at the centre of their discussions, while the other part of her yearned with all her heart that this would never happen.
She wondered, as she finally stepped back from the cabinet and the next kid in line eagerly filled the brief space she'd left, if no-one had questioned these new characters because they simply didn't know. Fix-It Felix Junior was an old game, and it wouldn't be surprising if no-one knew much about it; from her superficial chats she'd learnt that only a couple of kids had played it before, and had always quit or been killed after less than ten levels.
Perhaps tomorrow, after they'd looked it up on-line, they'd be more suspicious and would start to question it.
But they weren't, and they didn't.
And her curiosity outweighed her fear.
The next day she asked around and a few kids admitted they'd checked out some sites, spoken to some friends, and there was no mention or record of bonus levels and characters at all in such a game.
They didn't know and they…didn't even seem to care.
Everyone just…accepted it on face value, that these characters had now become part of a different game and that was that.
That. Was. That.
She questioned those kids again and, when she saw the first murmurings of annoyance in them, went for broke and questioned them all. She interviewed them subtlety and straight on, deployed her tactics again but achieved the same result again: no-one knew why the bonus levels had appeared and no-one cared, and why was she so bothered anyway, the game was much more fun now it was retro don't you know.
And because it was retro it was cool, and because it was cool she knew that no-one questions a cool thing you just don't; you simply accept it and enjoy it and pretend you understand it.
She admitted defeat and walked away but not to total defeat, because she had one more target left to strike and her arsenal wasn't yet depleted.
She approached Mr. Litwak full of determination, mouth full of words pre-arranged into sentences of equal weight question and accusation.
But then her eyes landed on his face, and she'd felt her pace slow and her words constrict.
And then her eyes had lifted and his had lowered and they'd met neatly and locked completely, and she'd felt her legs stop moving and her words dissolve to dust.
They didn't exchange a word, but she knew that he knew and she knew that he knew that she knew.
No longer than five seconds did they look at each other, and her world only started again when he nodded slightly. She'd blinked but not moved, but that had been long enough for him to turn his head away.
She'd watched him move easily from game to game, with what she knew was a deliberate casualness because one hand was clenched and the knuckles burned white.
She'd kept her eyes glued on his back until he'd entered his office, and she felt a pang of sadness that he could suspect that she'd tell anyone, but one deep breath later she could understand why.
A day went by and then a week and then a month and still she didn't tell anyone.
And neither did she speak of it again. Not to the other kids, who played the games with the same love and attention they always had and not to their owner, who cared for them like they…well like they were alive.
The unproven truth settled painlessly under her skin, a foreign body given willing permission to dwell. To dwell and survive and…live, like the very characters who had generated it.
The first time Moppet Girl played Sugar Rush was the first time she'd played a racing game with no intention to win, and the first time she played it was the third time she knew she wasn't playing alone.
She'd taken her driver's seat the day after Fix-It Felix's rebirth, when the two boys had exclaimed in delight that another game had got a cool new character as well.
She'd elbowed her way to the front and watched one of them race a dark haired girl with candy in her hair, who drove a kart that looked like it had exploded in the oven. He must have done terribly in the mini-game, so she was sure he'd come nearly last in the race.
But he'd somehow driven almost perfectly, landing second place on his first try. In glorious disbelief his friend had then given him his go and, choosing the same driver, he'd raced again and come in first.
She'd paid close attention to…Vanellope, that was her name, during the winner's sequence as she grinned and held her trophy and fist bumped the screen emptily, because her driver was busy arguing with another kid for another turn.
She'd looked unblinking at the proud racer and couldn't see anything unusual but then just, just, as another kid barged into her and her gaze began to slip she thought she saw she did see Vanellope's own gaze flick to the side and her grin get wider.
She'd pushed the kid away and righted herself immediately, eyes locked back onto the screen, but the winner's sequence had ended and Vanellope had gone.
Perhaps it was just a trick of the light. Or her eyes, maybe she needed new glasses.
She suspected it could have been both, but she knew it wasn't either.
With calm certainty she waited her turn to drive and, like the majority of kids before her, chose the unexplained new character to drive.
She was a good driver, and used these skills to deliberately hold back and keep Vanellope in second place. She could have gunned it hard and taken those corners tighter she knew she could have; she knew she could be in first position but she held back to see what would happen.
And what she suspected would happen did.
Out of nowhere a power up box appeared straight in front of them, giving her no chance to swerve to avoid it like earlier ones.
Vanellope drove into it and was infused with her bonus power, that glitching teleportation no-one could stand against.
The option to use it pulsed harshly at the top of the screen, as if in challenge to her to dare not to use it, and she'd smiled wryly before pushing the button and sealed first place.
She couldn't help an exclamation of delight at winning though, Vanellope's joy was practically infectious, and she'd fist bumped the screen without a second's thought and forgotten to watch Vanellope's eyes slide sideways to look at something else. Or someone else, she could never be sure and, truth be told, she didn't want to know.
Some things are secret for a reason, and not all are meant to be uncovered.
She took equal turns with all the racers, but Vanellope remained her favourite.
A month went by and then a year then two then five, and still she didn't tell anyone.
Mr. Litwak grew older, and dropped more hints that he'd leave this place to her.
The gamers still played and the games kept running.
She'd played every game countless times by now and knew them intimately; she knew which ones she could easily pick up on at times like Sugar Rush and Fix-It Felix Junior and which ones kept their secrets held closely, like Pac Man and Hero's Duty.
All of them tried, but all of them failed to stay completely hidden from her.
Any life force can be seen if you know where to look, and can be felt if you know where to touch.
She'd played every game and handled every surface, transferring something of her own in exchange for something of theirs, ensuing everyone was in equilibrium.
Everything was balanced, and everyone was happy.
The games had their gamers and the games had their games, and she felt content because she knew more than the rest combined.
The first time moppet Girl played a game after she'd raced Vanellope to victory was the first time she'd felt like she belonged, and since that time she knew she'd never play alone.