Chapter 2

A New Hero

Ray's eyes snapped open as he dug in his pocket to remove the loud vibrating piece of plastic.

"Ugh... Hello?" He answered his phone, his voice rough from lack of use.

"Happy birthday, dude!" Chad yelled through the phone. "

Ow! I just woke up, you dumb ass... What time is it?" Ray asked his childhood friend.

"Like 7:20 I think?"

"7:20?! Shit! I gotta go!"

Ray hung up the phone and dashed to the bathroom to get cleaned up for his first day of work.

After showering, he ran downstairs into the kitchen to grab a granola bar, but on the way down he felt a draft. He was only wearing his boxers.

"Clothes!" Ray booked it back upstairs towards his closet and slid the door to the side.

He reached inside and pulled out a plain black t-shirt, a black Nerd 4 Life hoodie and a pair of black and white camouflage jeans.

When he got downstairs, he slipped into his Nike gun-metal dunks that were placed neatly by the door and pulled his messenger bag onto his shoulder.

"How bad is it gonna look if I'm late on my first day?! Time to pull out Gretchen." He ran outside to the garage and pulled out a street-modified bike with a motor attached. He started it up and sped off towards the arcade.


Ray pulled up 5 minutes later right next to Litwak as he was opening up shop.

"Am I late?" Ray wheezed out.

"Right on time and happy birthday."

"Thanks."

"I'll meet you inside." Litwak walked in as Ray locked his bike to a rack and tied a T-shirt around the motor. He didn't want anyone to rip it out while he was working.

Ray made a beeline for his new boss, but while his back was turned, the many characters of the arcade were eyeing him as if he killed someone. Obviously, they didn't like the idea of Ray working there.

When Ray entered the office, Litwak asked him to give him a minute to set up. Ray agreed and Litwak closed the office door.

"You guys need to show Ray the same respect you'd show me. He's my new employee and, he deserves respect. That means no glaring at him or doing weird stuff behind his back. Understand? That means you, Zombie."

"But you've seen his file! He's evil!" A character from Fix-it Felix barked.

"He was never evil and if you don't want to get deleted, you'll trust him. Understood?" Litwak replied sternly as the characters nodded. All but one.

"Where is Ralph?" Litwak asked Felix.

"He walked off when Ray walked in. He looked kinda red in the face."

"Again? Do you think he needs a day off?"

"I'm good!" spoke Ralph from offscreen.

"Just... give me a minute."

"Ok. We open in 30." He informed the wrecker as he left the games to get ready.

Litwak entered his office to find Ray eyeing a picture. "Whatcha got there, Ray?" Litwak inquired as he sat behind his desk.

"Just a picture of me from the first time I came to Litwak's, but I noticed something odd."

"Like?"

"In this pic, Ryu and Ken are in Tappers, but they're Street Fighter characters, right?"

"Are you sure that you're not still half asleep?" Litwak retorted skeptically. It was too soon.

"Your probably right." Ray stowed the picture in his wallet and leaned against the wall. The words the man from his dream struck him hard and he had a feeling the truth would come out soon.

"So what do I have to do?" Ray queried.

"All you have to do is work the snack bar and patrol the floor when you run out of snacks. Fair enough?" Litwak explained.

"Sounds good."

"Welcome aboard!" Litwak shook Ray's hand as he led him out of his office to show him around the snack bar.

Meanwhile, in Fix-it Felix Jr...

Ralph was sitting on his humongous bed, face cupped in his hands as he thought out loud.

"I do not like Ray like that. It's just a phase. I do not like watching him play my game. He's just another player. I do not put up more of a fight because it makes him smile. I'm always at my best. I do not think his smile is amazing and wonderful and... damn it. I think I do."

"Ralph! Game time!" Felix called from outside. Ralph snapped out of his trance at his best friend's call.

He had admired Ray from afar for a long time. Ever since he was 15 to be exact. Now that he was 18, it wouldn't exactly be wrong to like him, would it?

"I'll worry about my feelings later. Its wrecking time!" Ralph pumped himself up and got ready to greet the gamers with flying fists and bricks aplenty.

The morning passed smoothly with Ray selling out of snack by 11 allowing him to take his break early while Litwak called into his supplier. The entire time he had pondered his dream.

He didn't know if anything that guy said was true. It seemed like another overactive dream.

"If the games were more than games, maybe Ryu and Ken could've been in Tappers? But how would they get there?" Ray decided to scrap his thoughts as he played Fix-it Felix Jr. for the first time that day.

Seeing Ralph for some reason always made Ray smile. If only he knew.

He finished the first two levels easy, but by the third, it seemed like Ralph was speeding up his pace. Suddenly, a bunch of 0s and 1s ran across the screen. It seemed like only Ray saw them, though. If not, no one said anything.

Suddenly, he had a feeling that the game knew the normal path gamers took, so he chose an unorthodox play style.

He started by moving directly under Ralph. Like clockwork, a pie appeared and gave Felix the ability to fix all the windows at once.

In the game, Ralph was thrown off. Gamers never went directly under him. That is why he always focused on the sides. The wrecker realized he left the middle practically unguarded every time he fought the builder. Ray really knew his stuff.

Felix was just as confused. That seemed like a really stupid move, but it worked out in the end. He also realized that Ray had seen something he shouldnt have been able to see.

By the end of the game, Ray was sweating up a storm. The game was never usually that hard. He bowed to the screen in respect not expecting Ralph to bow back. But the wrecker did and right in Rays face.

"Whoa... No more cold pizza before bed."


As the arcade closed, a group of super villains from several games in the arcade met in a secret server in GCS. The room had a round table with 4 characters in black cloaks seated around it. A huge hologram projector sat in the middle with a dark figure wearing his own purple cloak staring down at the villains.

"Today we shall restart our assault on Litwaks. I'm counting on you... Signing off."

"Yes, Lord Demonfang." The characters chanted as the figure disappeared.

"We all know the plan. So who goes first?" One voice inquired.

"I will and Ill send my general to make sure it all goes smoothly." Another voice added.

"Is everyone ready?" The third voice queried.

"Yes. Lets get started!" The fourth person barked and as they disbanded and a shadowy figure emerged from the darkness.

"Shall I begin, Heihachi?" the figure spoke.

"Yes, General M. Bison. Begin your attack on Game Central Station and show no mercy." Heihachi replied as he removed his hood revealing his asian features and the scowl that was permanently etched on his face. The man was never happy, even outside of his game. He dismissed his general to carry out his task as he summoned a dark portal to his own game.

"This isn't going to work..." A similarly cloaked figure to the side of the room groaned.

"Why do you say that?" M. Bison inquired.

"Because the arcade just got a power boost to security..." The figure replied as he revealed his own gauntlet. "I get the bulletin just like the rest of the order."

"I still don't trust you. Youre just like the rest of them."

The cloaked figure gripped the warriors neck in an instant. "Dont you ever fucking compare me to the rest of those do-gooder ass codemasters! I don't serve you so I don't owe you an explanation."

He dropped the red clad Street Fighter and walked off in his own dark portal.


"Later Ray! I'll be back before the school years over!" Chad shouted as he left the arcade.

"Later Chad! You better!" Ray shouted as he closed the door.

"Good job today Ray! I could barely tell it was your first day on the job."

"Thank you, sir. I'm gonna head home now."

"Wait. A package came for you today."

"A package? Who sent..." Ray started but was cut off by Litwak.

"I dunno. No return address." Litwak held out a silver box with a red ribbon on top.

"Okay." Ray opened the box and saw a futuristic brace in the shape of a wristband and about the size of an iPod touch with a touch screen and a card-sized slot on the side. "What is it?" Ray queried but before he got his answer he heard a call from the Fix-it Felix Jr. game.

"Mr. Litwak! Were in trouble!" Felix's voice shouted from the console.

"Is it the league?" Litwak inquired as he walked towards the machine.

"Yes sirree! The barriers have been activated but Sonic, Mario, and Ralph stayed behind to help those who didn't make it back to their games."

"I thought wed have more time... I'm on my way! Ray, go home!" Litwak dashed for a door next to his office marked Employees Only and went in.

"Whats going on?" Ray inquired as he ran towards the room.

Deja vu hit as he stared through the door.

It was a plain white room with a computer terminal on the right and a translucent pad in the center.

"I assume you had a dream about a room similar to this one?" Litwak inquired as he entered some digits into the computer. "A man told you about the arcades secret?"

"How did you know?" Ray inquired as he entered the room. He felt a tingle, but that passed almost instantly.

"The man from your dream was the first Codemaster. He's the one who gave you the gauntlet. I'll explain in more detail later but right now I have to go save the arcade." Litwak hopped on the pad and evaporated before Rays eyes.

"I can't let him go alone... He seems way too old to do this by himself." Ray thought aloud as he walked to the screen.

"Then why don't you help him?"

"Huh?" Ray turned around and saw the man from his dream last night.

"Do you want to help him?" The blonde man asked him as he approached the keyboard.

"Yeah, but he asked me to stay here. I don't really know if I can help at this point."

"Put your gauntlet on and step on the pad. I'm going to upload you into the GCS. I think you're ready."

Ray complied by clicking the gauntlet on his arm and hopping onto the pad.

"So the characters in the games are real?" The young man asked his elder as he stood on the pad.

"Yes. As real as you and me."

"And from what I've heard so far, the league is bad?"

"Again, yes. Extremely."

"Who's in the league?"

"Well, for now that question will have to wait. UPLOAD IN 3... 2... 1! Virtualization!"

A flash of light erupted from the pad and Ray disappeared into thin air. Ray felt like he was falling, but as his mind played tricks on him, his clothes changed.

His hoodie became a dark blue muscle shirt, his pants became more metallic and his shoes just turned blue. As his descent into the identical room inside the station broke his trance, he was getting used to the new clothes.

"Why did my clothes change? Not that I mind."

"No time! Youve gotta take out the general they sent." The man's voice echoed from the piece of tech on his arm. A hologram sprouted from the gauntlet.

"It looks like they sent M. Bison. He's just a general, but his bio shows that he's also the final boss of 2 different Street Fighter games."

"I knew that already. I've beaten him before. Wasn't exactly the easiest fight. I never could get Ryu's combos down."

"I thought they'd start strong. Come on!" The door on the side opened and Ray dashed through it.

He ended up in a giant train station where all kinds of video game characters were running from a battle happening on the other side of the platform. A bunch of heroes and villains were unconscious on a wall next to the safe area.

Sonic, Mario, and Wreck-it Ralph were holding off these weird robots that reminded Ray of Combot from Tekken while a man in golden armor was swinging a laser cane at M. Bison next to them. Sadly, their attacks were barely making a dent in the fighting force and more were joining the fray.

Ray was so happy that he was seeing some of his favorite characters from the arcade in person, but wished that it wasn't at a time of crisis.

"You've gotta get in there!"

"How am I supposed to help? I don't have any special powers like they do." Ray rebutted as he stared down the army of robots with mock fear.

"I know you have powers you don't want to use, and in here you don't have to. I've given you access to a new power that's sleeping on your left arm. All you have to do is awaken it."

"Really?" Ray beamed as he looked down on the gauntlet.

"Yes. All you do is tap into your gauntlet for your code word and your armor should appear."

"How do I do that?"

"You'll figure it out. Now go!"

"Alright then!" Ray dashed towards the fight.

"A little help?" Sonic and Mario said simultaneously as they fell back to back. Ralph smashed a few robots out-of-the-way as he reached the duo.

"I got em!" Ralph scooped them up and ran towards Ray.

"Thanks, big guy. We were almost licked. Thank the programmers for my one ring rule..." Sonic sighed and dropped his last ring on his lap while Mario dropped a fire flower into Ralph's pocket.

"Get them to safety, Ralph. I can handle this." Ray shouted as he flipped over the wrecker.

"Right!" Ralph ran towards the group of frightened game characters as Ray stared down the robots.

"Is he gonna fight for us? He's evil!"

"Gene... Talk shit about Ray one more time and my fist will connect with your mouth repeatedly until you're toothless." Ralph growled as he glared daggers at the minuscule Nicelander.

Ray began to knock down bot after bot with swift kicks and punches that were way to flawless to be improvised. One bucket of bolts grabbed his arm, but he spun him into 2 others on his left. 3 others shot lasers at him, but he barely dodged and landed face-down on the floor.

Litwak turned from his fight when he heard Ray growl at a robot as it picked him up and held him.

"Ray! Get out of here!"

"No way! I'm not letting you fight alone! As long as someone needs my help, I wont ignore them!" Ray was chucked into an archway and landed harshly on the porcelain floor.

He braced himself on the wall to help regained his balance.

"Why is he fighting for us? He barely knows us..." a random game character thought out loud.

"This place is a part of me. I protect what I love. I will fight for you, all of you. Even if its to my last breath..." Ray coughed out as he took a fighting stance in front of the bots.

"He really cares about us." One character whispered.

"That ass whooping he just took kind of drives that home."

"He could have left us to be deleted, but he didn't." Another character gasped.

"And all we did was glare at him and sabotage his high scores."

"You did what now?" Litwak glared at the bunch as he dodged a jab.

"They did what now?"

"I trust him."

"Me too."

Suddenly, Rays gauntlet flashed.

A voice echoed in his head. "Son of data, you have been deemed worthy of the name Codemaster Ray."

Ray saw a word scroll across his gauntlet screen as he faced the army of supercharged bots.

Ray threw his arm out in front of himself and shouted, "Codemaster! Wreck the code!"

Ray's gauntlet sparked as rings of 0's and 1's poured out and surrounded him resulting in armor uploading onto his body. It was blue, made of a flexible, high tolerance metal and the helmet had a retractable visor.

"Whoa... I've never felt this strong. It's like a dam burst in my body. No holding back now!"

The bots charged him but he was ready. He ducked a punch from one and backhanded its head off. Two more tried to trip him but he jumped up and kicked both of them across the room. The 3 robots from before shot their lasers at him, but he redirected the blasts into a group of bots next to him.

Ralph and Litwak just watched this massacre from their positions on the battlefield with open jaws and wide eyes. His destruction of the decoys took about 2 more minutes before he ran up to the last bot and punched a hole through its chest.

"I had no idea he was that strong. The gauntlet is only used to unlock potential, but this is ridiculous!" Litwak thought to himself as M. Bison Psycho-punched the elder codemaster into Ralph.

"Mr. Litwak! Whats your damage, dude?!" Ray growled as M. Bison walked up to him.

"You've defeated all of my Combots. Either Wily has gotten soft in his upgrades or you're hot shit!" He spoke as he took a fighting position opposite Ray.

"What's a final boss of your caliber doing messing around in an arcade like this?"

"Why else? Absolute power! Destroying this funky little arcade is just a stepping stone set by the league. The power is limitless!"

"Why would you want to destroy your home? Its kind of awesome." Ray inquired as the uniformed baddie charge him with a fist full of energy. He dashed towards him and threw a thunder charged punch.

Their fists collided causing a shockwave, pushing them back a good foot from each other.

"My only goal is to serve the league and get stronger." He droned as he deflected Rays change ups as if they were pillow-soft. Ray had a hard time reading his opponents movements while on the offensive.

"This makes no sense. Ralph is a bad guy like you. Why would he protect the station while you'd rather destroy it?"

"Ray! He's being controlled! You have to defeat him before he'll go back to normal." The blonde man shouted from the gauntlet.

"But how? My attacks aren't doing a thing." M. Bison took this chance and charge kicked him into the wall. Codes began flowing into Ray's helmet as he crashed to the floor.

"Each Codemaster starts with their own unique weapon. It's the individual's job to make it legendary." A box materialized on Ray's belt. The top flipped open showing only one card in the box. Ray pulled the card out and stared at it.

It had a picture of an ordinary looking katana surging with electricity.

"Code Card! Lightning Katana!" He slid it through the card slot on his gauntlet and it began to glow. "Realize!" He crushed the card and the sheathed blade appeared on his side.

"You're no match for me!"

"Maybe not, but that's not gonna stop me from trying!" Ray unsheathed the blade, charging it with electricity. The villain charged his hands with energy and clashed with Ray's blade.

The lightning fast punches and slashes echoed through the station. M. Bison finally showed signs of exhaustion, but so did Ray.

"Finish it, Ray!" One character shouted.

"Go, Codemaster!" Another resident of the station cheered. Ray readied his blade to strike the League Member.

"Take your best shot! Im not afraid!" M. Bison taunted and threw his hands up.

"Thunder Wave!" Ray stabbed the ground and sent a weak shock to the villains feet before he charged him.

"I can't... Move... Anything."

"Okay then!" Ray ran at the red clad warrior. "Finishing Move! Thunder Max Cleaver!"

He slid under him using the heel of his boot to stop his motion and slashed him up his back.

"He was right... You are tougher than I thought." M. Bison crashed to the ground in a heap. The katana converted back into a card and slipped into Rays box. His armor also disappeared into code and slipped into his gauntlet.

"Way to go, Ray. I knew I made the right choice." The blonde man congratulated Ray. The station was full of cheers and applause. Characters were throwing their hats up and hugging each other in relief.

Suddenly, a black card rose from M. Bison's back. It had a picture of a purple computer chip with a skull drawn on it.

"That's new..." Litwak commented as he accompanied by Ralph approached Ray and the unconscious fighter.

"That must be what they use to possess characters now." The elder codemaster stated as the card disappeared with a gust of wind.

"He should be fine now that he's not possessed. Looks like you won this round, Codemaster." Ralph grinned as he pat Ray's back. The teen grinned back and fell into Ralph's hand.

"Thanks big buddy. You know you're kind of cute when you're not behind a glass screen. Night night..." Ray chuckled as he passed out. He was exhausted.

"He'll be okay too. He just took a serious beating and the conversion to code is strenuous on you the first time." Litwak explained as he had Ralph carry the new protector back to the teleporter room.

Meanwhile, Ralph was cherry red. His crush that he thought would never like him was sprawled across his palm asleep and just called him cute! He wasnt sure what he meant by that, but it was possible that the man in his oversized hand actually liked him back. Better take things slow. Test the waters.

"Wait... Code Restore!" Litwak pressed a button on his gauntlet. Codes started leaking out of it and began fixing up the station.

Benches respawned in place, the walls became smooth and free of dents and kiosks fixed themselves. As everyone went back to their normal routine, a man standing on the rafters held the card that was once sticking out of M. Bisons back.

"Looks like things around here are getting interesting... Lets see how things play out, Codemaster Ray." He pulled out his black gauntlet and teleported away into blackness.