AN: This wasn't planned, but was inspired by reading the film's creators reveal that the colour acid green is associated with evil, and an interesting tumblr post about Sour Bill and King Candy and what true evil can look like. So this happened, which is a bit darker and a lot longer than what I'd planned. It's pretty much finished, but I'm splitting it up to make it easier and less time consuming to read. (And it's certainly not taking precedence over A State of Flux, whose next chapter just needs a final proof read before I post it up in the next day or so). Finally, thank you for taking the time to read this - it's very much appreciated!


1: Base Layers

The Bad Anon meetings that were held weekly were treated as a big deal in the Arcade. Or, to be more accurate, their attendees were treated as a big deal throughout the Arcade.

They would stride or swagger or saunter to Pac-Man's tunnel and never say a word. Well not if they didn't want to. Not any more.

They would seek out eye contact with anyone around, and those they locked on to would be recognised with an indulgent smile and a slow nod. The bad guy would then sometimes half-heartedly lift their hand in acknowledgement, or in farewell, or in understanding that was frayed and twisted but still intact.

It would all depend on who was to receive the gesture of course. But regardless of who the character was, they would always watch the villain merge into the tunnel's blackness with an appreciative glint in their eye. They couldn't help being bad, they would ponder generously while feeling a profound sense of thanks that they were someone else. At least they were trying to keep their sick and violent urges under control, they would deduce graciously at the same time as wondering, with a delicious twist of guilt, just what those sick and violent urges were.

It was brave of the bad guys to seek help for the issues they could do nothing about.

It was brave of Pac-Man to allow the meetings to be held in his game.

It was brave of the other characters to offer up their well distanced support and paper thin understanding.

It was, in Sour Bill's beleaguered opinion, a complete waste of time.

Bill slouched against the side of Pac-Man's entrance and regarded the help booths that threaded down the spine of Game Central Station. The Station was only a quarter- full of characters milling around, so the Surge Protector had reduced its lighting to half-power. The Protector had also replaced Sonic's death-outside-your-game warning on the booths with his Evening Bulletin. The electric blue letters of the Bulletin burned like fireworks in the dull blackness, but the interest they promised fizzled out when read. Or skim read, in most character's cases.

Sour Bill considered them again and hoped the Pac-Man train would leave without him.

Calendar: 2013; April; Thursday; 6.54 post meridiem. (that's p.m. for those of you who still can't be bothered to remember)

Event In Progress: Not Applicable. (And it had better stay this way)

Upcoming Event: Bad Anon meeting; Pac-Man; 7.00 post meridiem; core villain programming essential pre-requisite for admittance, attendance and additional post meeting assistance. (Basically, if you're not a bad guy don't bother with it. But why would you? For fun? Curiosity? It's not a laughing matter you know - show some respect)

Current Atmospheric Fluctuations And Their Immediate And Subsequent Effects On You And Your Game: thunderstorm risk - low; subsequent critical electrical surge probability - low; temperature - average; humidity - low; possibility of rain - negligible. (I know you only pay attention to this weather report when the alarms go off, but it wouldn't hurt you to take a daily interest in it. Knowledge is power, and I certainly don't research them for the good of my health you know. …well actually I do, but that's beside the point…)

Sour Bill allowed his eyes to drift away from the nearest screen to follow M. Bison's stroll through Pac-Man's tunnel. Bill was still new enough to life outside of Sugar Rush for the Surge Protector's briefings to be almost interesting, and found their blandness nearly reassuring. They were certainly different to King Candy's evening ritual, which involved an explanation of the daily roster race, distributing candy, the roster race itself and then throwing more candy about. These briefings only varied with regards to the racers selected for the next day's racing, and even these had finite possibilities, but every inhabitant of Sugar Rush had hung onto their Monarch's words and screamed in excitement as if hearing them for the first time.

As close as Sour Bill had orbited King Candy, he had never been sucked into his night-time rituals. These had taken place behind closed doors, and Bill had been content to pretend they had never happened.

It had been four weeks since Sugar Rush had re-set and that world had shifted violently on its axis. Everyone had, to an extent, emerged from the realignment bruised, scared and disorientated, but ultimately freer and lighter.

Sour Bill on the other hand had experienced that seismic shift as just a soft rumble. Additional memories had been returned to him, but these had leaked back into him as a trickle, while everyone else's had flooded them like a wave. He had wondered, as candy and sparkles and reality tore like a vortex around him, why he was rooted in the eye of the hurricane, and why his head felt like iron and his heart resembled lead.

But he'd only wondered briefly, because when things had changed the first time around his life hadn't become much better, so what was the likelihood it would this time?

What was the point in bothering, when no-one would thank him for it?

What was the point in hoping, when he knew he didn't deserve it?

What was the point?

What?

The Evening Briefing pulsed, and the digital numbers flicked up to 6.55.

Sour Bill was preparing for his third Bad Anon meeting this Thursday, and his future in the Arcade felt like stumbling around a desert wasteland in the dusk.


Sour Bill had learnt that the Bad Anon meetings were originally hosted in secrecy.

The handful of villains that had, to put it bluntly, been forced and threatened and outright tricked into attending the first meeting had not done so graciously.

They'd slinked towards Pac-Man's tunnel embarrassed, bitter, and full of more rage than they could ever remember. They'd kept their eyes to the floor or blazed them in defiance at anyone who had the misfortune to look at them, and had entered the tunnel and sat on the train as if they'd just been told their plug was about to be pulled.

They had scraped through the first meeting in a conflicting storm of screaming and silence, and had vowed never to attend again.

In response, Bad Anon's founders had flexed their respective powers and insisted they continue attending. A couple more villains had been rounded up, and the second meeting had progressed the same way as the pilot had.

Stubborn and influential and powered by conviction, the founders continued to press all attendees into more and more meetings. Not everyone could be persuaded to join, but those that did gradually fell into a rhythm, and fought with less and less conviction against the weekly conference they had to attend.

After enough time had passed and enough meetings completed for the experience to become routine, the code chains responsible for the villains' confidence and superiority sub-routines had sparked. They'd untangled themselves and awoken from an enforced and uncomfortable sleep to burn brightly again.

Subsequent meetings saw members walk calmly towards Pac-Man's tunnel and emerge from it thoughtful and controlled, as they adjusted their situation to suit them.

Being part of a select group exaggerated their programmed conviction that they were elite, and it was now practically a badge of honour to go into therapy. It was a source of pride that they required something no-one else in the Arcade had need of and, for many, it was the most worthwhile thing they contributed too all week.

Other characters respected them for their acknowledgement of their limitations and their commitment to accepting it. Ralph had, after the Sugar Rush event had played out, told them that as a bad guy they were more fundamental to the survival of their game than they could possibly know. They'd swallowed it whole, and at the end of each meeting would heartily recite the Bad Guy Affirmation. They would then, in companionable silence before the meeting ended, drink in the words of the new slogan Ralph had suggested complement the existing one.

Bad Anon: I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be then me.

Bad Anon: One Game At A Time.

Bad Anon: Fight For Your Arcade, Not Your Game.

Some villains had been genuinely helped by Bad Anon, and treated their membership with respect. Wreck It Ralph never arrived late, always brought snacks when it was his turn and offered any new bad guy a discreet shoulder to cry, scream or rest on.

Zangief on the other hand lapped up the attention his status brought him. He hammed up the 'I'm a bad guy at peace with myself but can never truly be at peace so, when I'm crushing your head between my thighs and your teeth are rattling around the floor, please take a second to stop and think about how hard all of this is for me' something rotten.

During Sour Bill's first visit to Tappers he had, from a corner stool, watched Zangief coax, persuade and guilt trip everyone into buying him a drink. Bill hadn't yet figured out the bar's bartering system, and so hadn't ordered himself a drink or even enquired about the correct payment.

And he certainly hadn't asked Tapper just exactly what the deal was around here, for the last time he'd asked a question along that line he'd spent a week in the pitch black fungeon with only a chain and a scuttling thing for company.

Instead he'd selected a seat as close to the wall as possible, and settled in to silently absorb the bustle around him. Zangief had worked his way steadily around the bar and eventually stumbled up to Bill, and had immediately launched into his polished history of woe and hardship and self-sacrifice.

Bill had looked into the Russian's expressive eyes and almost felt sorry for him. Zangief could spin a decent tale and pepper it with the vocabulary and inflections needed to part people with whatever it is he wanted them to part with, but Bill remained unmoved. Zangief had registered this and cranked the rhetoric up a level, this time adding exaggerated hand gestures and facial expressions to the mix.

When Zangief had finally exhausted his store of speeches Bill had slowly raised one eyebrow, hopped off the stall and exited the bar.

It wasn't that Zangief lacked talent, but Sour Bill had been the Henchman to a master manipulator for years, and the Russian's attempts at coercion were like a brick to the face compared with the subtlety Bill had experienced.

Compared, Bill admitted blankly, to what he'd allowed to happen and to what had streamed over him on a daily basis.

What had streamed over him but never infiltrated him.

Maybe if some of those things had permeated Bill's rock hard shell and been absorbed into what passed as his bloodstream, he would have cared enough to stop some of them.

But they hadn't, and he hadn't.

If he'd been made differently things could have unfolded differently. But he was what he was, and each leader of Sugar Rush had ruled the way they saw fit. Bill knew these were poor justifications for his short list of actions and achingly long list of inactions, but he didn't know what he could do to elevate both of these tallies out of the blood red columns they wallowed in.

He simply didn't know.


King Candy had wiped his hands, locked the door behind him and adjusted his burnished crown.

Sour Bill hadn't moved an inch in response to the nod he received – an action that had earned him another silent gesture of approval – and concentrated everything he had on obeying King Candy's previously whispered instructions to him.

Bill covered his ears and didn't worry and forgot about the sounds behind the door.

Forty minutes later his eyes were still burning scorch marks into the ash grey bricks in front of him.


Bill had jerked and awoken violently from the nightmare and preceding shallow sleep he'd slipped into.

He hadn't found his shell covered in sweat or been terrified that his thumping heart would burst out of his chest, and he acknowledged that these actions probably should have taken place. His green casing had remained as dry as sandpaper and his encoded heartbeat had continued to pulse softly, and he contemplated what could possibly happen to ever make him scream.

The second, third, fourth and fifth nightmares he'd experienced during his second, third, fourth and fifth nights as a citizen of President Vanellope's reign had been similar.

After the second one he'd spent the rest of the night sitting on a bench in Game Central Station. The lights were dull, and the Surge Protector had scribbled something on his clipboard before zipping away abruptly.

After the third one he'd entered Tappers and met Zangief and catalogued all the things he didn't know. This task had been interrupted repeatedly, and still remained incomplete.

After the fourth one he'd visited Taffyta and asked if her dreams were just as bad. He'd been able to convince Wynnchel and Duncan that her screaming wasn't his fault, and had avoided her ever since.

After the fifth one he'd woken up Vanellope. He'd described his visions in razor sharp clarity and questioned her blandly if she remembered them as well as he did. Vanellope had blanched bone white, glitched violently and shouted at him to never enter her room again or she wouldn't be responsible for her actions.

Three days later she'd taken his arm and dragged him to Bad Anon for the first time. He'd not questioned her or even thought to resist her pull; he'd never doubted her actions and had promised to do what she said.

He'd entered Pac-Man's tunnel and ridden the train and tried to dissect the word 'bad' and failed to put the shards he'd created back together again.


His first Bad Anon meeting had mostly been spent in silence.

When it had come to the holding of hands and the reciting of the Bad Guy Affirmation, he'd informed everyone slowly and clearly that he didn't think physical contact on his part was a good idea. Everyone except Ralph had heartily encouraged him to join the circle and at least just listen to the words, to let them sink in, but Bill had simply looked at Clyde with doleful eyes and wondered how anyone could possibly participate with a straight face, let alone actually believe all of this.

Satan - Sah-teen - had tried to clasp his hand but before his fingers could make contact, Bill had regretfully informed him that he was poisonous, and that one touch would kill him. Satine had jerked back in shock and tried to work out if Bill was lying. Bill had mutely deflected all of Satine's peppered questions and then, with exaggeratedly raised eyebrows and a voice dripping with condescension, told Satine no wonder his game's plug was on the brink of being pulled if he was the best quality villain it had.

The spark had been lit, and Satine had jumped to his feet and roared. Everyone else had bellowed their two cents' worth, Clyde had made one failed attempt to re-establish order, and Bill had sat like a radioactive rock in the middle of a turbulent sea.

To show that Bill was just messing about - that he was just nervous and didn't understand what was going on yet poor stupid little guy - Ralph had abruptly lifted him up, glared sharply at him, and removed him bodily from the meeting to drop him heavily into the train outside.

For the first time in decades, Bad Anon had finished without the Bad Guy Affirmation being recited.

Ralph had immediately informed Vanellope, who had frowned in thought, narrowed her eyes in concentration and ordered, with a self-satisfied glint in her eyes, for Bill to undergo a full examination.


'You have,' the Surge Protector had concluded smartly as he removed his medical gloves with a snap, 'the most compressed coding mass I've ever seen. The code streams are so densely connected they're almost a solid, and describing its protective gateway as vitriolic would be an understatement.'

Surge had thrown the gloves into a bin and flicked a switch. The blindingly bright overhead lamp had cut off sharply, and the bank of monitoring screens had retreated into their humming standby mode.

'If it wasn't for the fact that you don't glitch, I would have said you were corrupted beyond all repair.'

Sour Bill had lowered himself slowly down from the hard plastic table, and regarded his examiner with dull eyes.

'Thanks for breaking the news so gently to me doc.'

Surge had regarded Sour Bill sternly and used a middle finger to push his glasses back up his nose.

'You remind me of a chemistry lecture I picked up through Mr. Litwak's unsecure broadband connection the other day: 'The Enzymatic Production and Subsequent Crystallization Reformulation of Malic Acid.'

'…malice?'

'…malic. It's an acid that produces an extremely sour taste when added to candy. Don't ask me why some of the players like it so much, what with spending all their pocket money on it just to complain about how awful it tastes. Crazy nonsense if you ask me. But it's not just present in candy though; it's in wine and unripe fruit and half a dozen other E Number concoctions.'

'…why exactly should I care about any of this?'

Surge had tilted his head and clasped his hands behind his back. 'Because, when I could finally unravel one of your code chains long enough to scan it before it snapped back into place, I saw that they were all identical to malic acid's chemical structure.'

'Oh.'

'It's like the programmers used those foul little sweets as inspiration when they created you. They decided to bypass its sweeter cousin citric acid and jump straight to the wicked stepmother.'

'…Oh.'

'Their packets even have the warning 'excessive consumption can cause irritation of the mouth' stamped in capital letters a cheerful mixture of hot pink, bright yellow and bile green.'

Surge had shaken his head.

'A temptation to consume legal poison. How about that, eh?'

Sour Bill had paused, opened his mouth, closed it again, looked blankly ahead and walked out of the room in silence.