Wreck-It Tecna

by Robert Teague

This story was written for the entertainment of Winx Club and Wreck-It Ralph fans, and no copyright infringement is intended. This story may be reproduced, provided no changes are made and you let me know.

Chapter One Arcane Arcade

Gardenia, Tecna decided, was a nice place to visit, but she wouldn't want to live there permanently.

Compared to the Magical Universe, it was primitive. Their internet was slow and intermittent and didn't have much in the way of bandwidth. Cars still rode on tires, instead of using levitation tech, and they used smelly oil-derivative fuels instead of fusion.

And, of course, magic was almost non-existent. That would change if their mission to find the last Earth fairy was successful.

She had decided to take the rare day off to explore, and learn what she could about the city. Love and Pet would open on Monday, and she looked forward to that. The Wizards of the Black Circle had yet to show their faces since the Winx arrived,
and she hoped they would continue to be no-shows. But she didn't really have much hope for it.

As she walked, she used her palmtop to mark places of interest with the local GPS system. She had to admit, that was one thing that worked well here.

Passing a building she came upon an open parking lot with a couple of businesses at the back, almost under the freeway. The sign by the street announced one to be Litwak's Arcade.

Arcade? A place people went to play games? That sounded interesting, so she marked it on the palmtop.

Since she hadn't done anything today except walk and observe, she decided to check it out. It might be a diversion, and she would get a look at how Earth people entertained themselves.

There were a few cars and a lot of bicycles clustered around the entrance, which she took as a hopeful sign it would have interesting things to see.

Going inside she was confronted with a darkened room filled with game machines making all kinds of noise and flashing lights. People were busy playing, or watching while waiting for their turn. Some were wandering around, trying to decide which one to play next.

"Can I help you, Miss?" came a raised voice from her right.

She looked to see an older man in a striped shirt behind a counter. There were drink and snack machines nearby, and she made a mental note to mention it to Bloom. It might make a nice sideline at Love and Pet while customers waited.

"I wanted to look around, see what kind of games are here," she answered.

The man smiled. "Be my guest. I'm Mr. Litwak, the owner."

"Tecna," she answered with a nod, "I'm new in town."

"I see," he nodded, "I hope you find something to your liking."

"Mr. Litwak, the soda machine took my money, and didn't give me anything," said a child in a whiney voice.

"Okay, Arthur, let's see what we can do about it," was the answer. He headed to the machine in question with the boy in tow.

Dismissed, the Fairy of Technology turned and wandered around the room, peering over the shoulders of players and trying to comprehend what they were doing. She realized these games were simple and slow, and she could literally run rings around everyone here at anything.

"Ten minutes to closing," Mr. Litwak announced, "Finish your games, but don't start another."

There was a collective groan, and the energy was sucked out of the room.

A large console caught her attention, so she headed for it. The last players got up and headed for the door, leaving her alone by it.

"Sugar Rush..." she thought, "Hm... seems to be a first-person racer." Looking over the game, she saw where it was all mechanical and solid, so prone to break down. In the Magical Universe, the seats and controls would be hard light, and the screens replaced with virtual reality eyewear. Looking in the screen, she saw the graphics were, by her standards, fair at best. She shook her head. Gotta start somewhere, I suppose.

Between the game screens was one showing nine racers, which she instantly realized were the avatars for the players. In the Magical Universe, the player would actually be doing the driving.

Suddenly she realized something was wrong. There was a strong bad feeling emanating from the machine. Was the programming breaking down? A virus? Something mechanical? Electrical short?

As a technical fairy, it was practically her duty to find the problem and fix it. Glancing at a clock, she saw where it was just six minutes to closing. Hopefully that would be long enough. If not, she would tell Mr. Litwak, and offer to come back and do the repair.

But first to figure out the problem.

She sat down in one of the two seats and wiggled around to get comfortable. There was a steering wheel in front of her, and a lever to her right with seemingly random letters and lines on the knob. There were three pedals on the floor, one tall and skinny, the other two fat and wide. A coin slot and a button marked START was on the dashboard by the speedometer.

She didn't have any local coins, but reached over and pressed START anyway.

"Closing time!" Litwak announced, "Everyone out!"

The customers headed for the door, except for one girl with glasses and brownish-blond hair.

"Mr. Litwak, I saw something weird," she told him.

"What was that, honey?" he asked, as he took the tray from the cash register.

"A woman with pinkish hair sat down at Sugar Rush, pushed the button, and vanished," she said.

He glanced at her, and saw she was being serious. As one of his regulars for several years, he knew she didn't make things up, But this?

"She couldn't have, could she?" he said, "Maybe it just looked that way. Maybe she fell off the chair. But I'll go see."

He put the money away, and wiping his hands followed the girl over to the console. As he hoped, nobody was there. If the girl HAD fallen off the chair, he might be looking at a lawsuit.

"See? Nobody's here. You must be mistaken," he told her.

"But I coulda swore..." She stared in confusion for a moment, then shrugged. "I guess you're right. See you later!" She headed for the door, which was clear now.

Litwak wandered around looking for the woman, but had no luck. He finished his closing routine, turned off the lights, and locked up for the rest of the weekend.

WIR/WC WIR/WC WIR/WC

The first thing she was aware of was the smell of sweets. Candy, cake, pie, every possible scent was coming to her, and threatening to make her sick. It wasn't as if she didn't like such treats, but in moderation. This was just overwhelming.

Sitting up slowly she opened her eyes and looked around. It took a moment for the scenery to snap into focus. Standing up slowly, she gathered her wits and took in the sight.

"I'm in Sugar Rush!" she realized. She wasn't as surprised as one would think. Digit occasionally went into her laptop to play a game, but she had never done so herself. "Then I was right; there is something wrong, and the game brought me in to help."

From the inside, the graphics were much better. The details were clear, sounds full. She touched a candy cane sprouting from the ground, and found it solid. VR couldn't do any better, and she was actually impressed. Digit had told her about the differences between inside and outside a game, and she wished now she had paid more attention.

But the smells! She was going to get sick if it lasted much longer. "Have to do something about that." She cast a minor spell on herself that gave her air and filtered out all scents. "Much better!" she thought, breathing deeply.

she took out her palmtop, but as she expected the GPS didn't work. The place she was in was smaller than the precision of the system. She did use the sensors to make a crude map of the area so she could find her way back to where she appeared, if it was important.

Just then a roar of voices and motors came to her from over a line of chocolate ice cream hills.

"okay, there's a goal," she thought, "Now I can find out what's going on."

She raised her arms. "Winx Enchantix!" and with a flash of light changed into her fairy form. She took off in the direction of the noise, gaining altitude to prevent being spotted too early, before she knew what the situation was.