The twins' eyes both widened at the sound of a racing game. They had never been in one, save for Sugar Rush. When they went in that sweet little game they were greeted by some racers, and they had both heard it was ruled by a king named King Candy, but they had never met the king in person. Pff, what king would want to meet a couple of homeless twins who lost their own retro game and their only other family, Turbo?
"Racing.. Game..?" Ted starts, his response a bit delayed.
Tapper nods, and says with a smile, "Yep, you boys were originally from TurboTime, right? That ooold racing game from the beginning of this Arcade?" Tapper begins to wash out some beer mugs with a rag, then continues. "I'm sure if you could get the approval from the people from that game, you could go over there and race with them."
"We could.. Couldn't we?…" Teddy mumbles, suddenly having a flashback of racing in his own car against Turbo and his brother Ted on TurboTime's simple oval racetrack. He even remembered the dust Turbo would kick up with his car almost purposefully to get in the twin's faces, throwing them off as another one of his tricks. Turbo was a smart, but very devious racer, he always had another trick up his sleeve, whether it was just blowing dirt in the twin's faces and on their cars with his engine, puffing his car's exhaust to throw them off, or even getting the crazy idea to go crash his car in RoadBlasters to take it down… Turbo was just full of ideas, too bad most of them weren't leaning toward "good" in that sort of sense. He was quite the dirty racer, but the twins still loved him. Would this Gamecube game be anything like the good ol' days?
The twins' thoughts are interrupted by Ralph calling out Tapper, "Yo, Tapper, can I have another drink?"
Tapper replies, "Yes, Ralph, just a minute." He turns toward the twins, who not both have a bit of a dreamy look in their eyes, "I'll have to talk to you two later, I have work to do."
Tapper goes back to make some more root beer for his customers.
The twins just look at each other, each of their mouths slightly opened, and, reading each other's minds, they get up, and leave, still imagining all the wonders they might experience to be able to race again. Slightly trotting into a jog naturally, they reach the motherboard rug with the chairs all over it, and they plop down on the nearest empty two-seater one.
"…A racing game," Ted starts, the sides of his mouth breaking into an open-mouthed grin.
"Finally, another racing game not made of candy," Teddy says to nobody in particular, him grinning too, seeming to show off his yellow teeth.
"Outside of the arcade, though," Ted finishes, his grin shrinking. "How would we get there?"
"Didn't Tapper say something about them coming through the shorter gates that lead to the socket in the wall? I think that's where they came from- must have, if they're not from anywhere in the arcade, at least. That's the only gate- well, gates- that could possibly lead out of this place."
"I mean, well, what if the Mario and Luigi and all the rest of them don't like us? What if they don't let us race with them?" Ted asks nervously, sitting up and staring his brother down with serious and worried eyes.
Teddy sighs, but replies flatly, "I'm sure they'll have mercy on us- I'm sure if we tell them how much we've lost and never had for a whole bunch of years, they'll let us for sure!"
"I guess you're right, but what if we die in their game? We wont regenerate, would we?"
"No I guess not, but what do we have to lose? We don't really have anything but ourselves."
"I guess you're right, if only Turbo was here, he'd want to race again too…"
They both fall silent, just listening to the sounds of many people from all the different games heading toward new ones or just hanging out in the station as they explored their thoughts. Greif washed over them once again when they thought of Turbo, of if only they could have talked him out of crashing RoadBlasters before he did all that.. Now he's gone. Gone for good. And both of the brothers felt partially responsible.
The twins didn't know how long they had just sat there in silence, but eventually, Teddy got up.
"Well, I don't think we should just sit here and wallow in our own sorrow, Ted. Let's at least walk around- I feel like walking."
"Okay, Teddy, good idea," Ted says, getting off the uncomfortable chair and his brother walked off. Ted followed him, but oddly enough, they both subconsciously told themselves to investigate the gates at the end of Game Central Station. Curiosity got the best of them and they eventually turned toward those gates' direction and started walking a little bit faster.