In this chapter, I did put in some characters from one of my favourite games - The Sims 2. They'll make some other appearances, and yes, in Game Central, they do speak simlish. Also, in this fanon continuity at least, Mr. Litwak does have a laptop with Sims 2 in his office. But mostly I just put them in 'cause I like Sims 2.
"Bully," Ralph grumbled as he walked through a small crowd of various characters, "Me, a bully. Fancy that."
He did a double-take at one dark-haired man in round glasses, who was wearing a blue sweater decorated with white flowers. His tummy was kind of fat, but the rest of his body looked rather fit.
The man was discussing something with another character, and word balloons appeared over his head. One of them had a picture of a green flying saucer, and then the next had a pacifier.
Ralph shook his head and went on to Sugar Rush to see the try-outs. After the incident where Turbo was outed and destroyed, that game had become almost like a second home to Ralph. He and Vanellope didn't always get along, often trading insults and the like, but she was a good friend and disliked all the frilly princess stuff.
Another thing he liked about that game was, nearly everything was edible. Maybe it wasn't the most nutritious stuff the game world offered, but most game characters didn't 'age' like humans did – at least not the player characters. Some of the ones in the fighting games, however, could turn into babies, something that always made Ralph chuckle a little. Scorpion once demonstrated that ability, but threatened to hit Ralph with a 'fatality' if he tried to burp or 'coochie coo' him.
Inside Sugar Rush, the race was about to start and several of the racers were doing some last-minute tune-ups on their karts. Vanellope saw Ralph and waved at him, before getting back to work on the mish-mash of a kart she and Ralph had made together. It didn't look like any of the others, imperfect but perfect for Vanellope. She still had the sprinkles in her hair, and the musty-looking clothes that she wore when they first met. Vanellope was no girlie-girl – she liked to climb candy cane trees and play in the chocolate mud, and could spit farther than any of the boys in her game. Officially she was a princess, but she never really acted the role and instead considered herself a 'president'. There were plans for elections, and Ralph was wondering who would be running for the position and when.
He decided to go off to grab some snacks, picking a few ears of popcorn that would pop the instant it was shucked and came in a variety of flavours, some cotton candy by the cocoa powder road, and then stopping by Moo Juice Meadow. He took a couple bottles and walked up to a black and white cow, spooking it a little.
"Uh, hey," Ralph chuckled, "Don't worry. Just here for the usual. Good ol' white milk. Preferably vitamin D milk. Good for the bones!"
The cow balked a little, but then sighed and walked up to a stool, pointed to it as if to say 'Fine, get this over with'. Ralph lifted up the cow, which was clearly designed to be milked by someone the size of Felix, positioned it over one of the open bottles, then tried to give one of the udders a gentle squeeze.
As he did, the cow let out a loud "MOOOOOOOO!" and milk gushed into the bottle. After the bottle was full, Ralph set the cow back down, and she bolted away. The giant then went to look for some chocolate cows, and found some grazing near the fence. They took one look at him, then held up a big sign saying "CHIKIN HOWS →".
"Aw geez," Ralph grumbled, "This is gonna be fun."
A few minutes later, Ralph got back to the track just as the race began, and sat himself down next to the lollypops and butterscotch candies, living candies which still hadn't quite gotten used to him becoming a regular visitor to their game. Ralph watched the action on the screen, saw one of the other racers get wiped out by a pie a la modé while Vanellope made her way to the lead. He smiled and opened one of the ears of corn, which popped and released a welcoming aroma of nacho cheese. Biting into the cheese popcorn, Ralph thought of what had transpired and what would happen if this Turbo decided to try what the last one did.
He didn't trust that Turbo, despite his being new to the arcade. The new Turbo was already being a bully to his fellow racers, and if Ralph had anything to do with it, that guy would not set foot into any of the other games – especially Sugar Rush. Ralph had seen what the other Turbo had done to this game, and he was not going to allow anyone else to hurt Vanellope.
As the race progressed, Ralph could feel something nagging him in the back of his mind. Had he done the right thing, or was what Clyde said true? Clyde had never lied to him, and he seemed to always care about the feelings of all characters – good and bad guys.
Soon, the race was over, but not before Ralph had finished off almost all the snacks he had picked. Vanellope parked her kart and ran over to Ralph, who held out the bottle of chocolate milk.
"Aww for me?" she yelled, swiping the milk and taking a long chug, "Thanks, Stink-Brain!"
Ralph wouldn't have taken that from anyone else, but with Vanellope, it was a term of endearment. He chuckled, still trying to shake that uneasy feeling.
"Who the heck was that guy?" Turbo mumbled, taking off his helmet to scratch his head.
Underneath the helmet, Turbo had typical mousey-brown hair, but the helmet was part of the getup, so none of the players would get to see it. It wasn't much to look at anyway. In fact, from the looks of the other games, Turbo himself wasn't much to look at either. There were so many cooler games, including some racing games with the most awesome-looking vehicles. One of them even had food-themed karts. His game – plain vanilla, and not even the edible kind.
"And why was I plugged in here?" he wondered, "Why would anyone wanna play my game?"
Then, he heard some strange 'boing boing' sounds, and turned to see a squat little basketball with big eyes, a long anteater nose and two legs – no arms.
"Hey," he said, "You part of my game too? I don't recall any little basketball men in my game, but I guess maybe this one's a special edition. Heh. Programmers."
The basketball/anteater hopped up to him and started talking in some weird gibberish, while various symbols appeared in a speech balloon above his head.
"Er, I'm sorry, fella, I can't understand ya," Turbo replied as he put on his helmet.
The creature spoke again, with more gibberish. One of the symbols this time was a giant exclamation point.
"Look, I can't understand you, like I said. Why are you here?"
The little basketball creature sighed and hung his 'head', so to speak.
"This is hopeless," Turbo muttered, looking at the creature, "And it looks like I'm hopeless too. Nobody will ever play my game – not with all those guys out there."
He went to the medicine cabinet mirror and looked at himself, then at the sink.
"Worst part," he whispered, "I'm supposed to be the good guy in this game. Instead, I'm bad."
A tear rolled down his cheek.
"It's my first day being plugged in," he lamented, "And already, everybody hates me. I don't even know what I did. Maybe I'm a mistake."
As he said that, Turbo heard the 'boing boing' again, and turned to see the creature leaving. Even the strange visitor thinks I'm a failure, the racer thought as he got into his bed and took a nap. Most video game characters didn't need to sleep, but they all could if they wanted to. Maybe if he slept this all off, things would get better.
Turbo was jolted awake by something jumping onto his bed. He saw a dark, round shape carrying a couple sticks with round things on them.
"Wha-who's there?" Turbo cried out, reaching for the switch on his nightstand lamp.
In the dim light, he saw the same creature from earlier, and he was carrying what looked like two candied apples, with the sticks tucked under his snout. Turbo let out a sigh of relief.
"Oh it's only you," he laughed, "What've you been up to?"
The creature of course answered with his now-familiar gibberish and dropped one of the apples onto the bed.
"That's... for me?" Turbo asked.
The creature nodded, then sat down and sucked the other into his snout. Some crunching sounds could be heard, and then he spat out the stick into the trashcan. Turbo picked up his candied apple and took a bite.
"Mmm, this is good," he said, "Thank you... whoever you are. Where'd you get it?"
The creature responded with more gibberish and one of the symbols looked like a car.
"Ah," Turbo chuckled, not quite understanding but not worrying too much, "And where are you from?"
His answer looked like a hammer, a wrench and a building.
"Not from this game?"
The creature just shook his 'head'.
"Well I hope the others in your game are as nice as you. Got a big scare today. Heh. Some big lummox started yelling at me about 'game jumping' and erasing memories. Really weird. But the others got a laugh out of it."
The creature's eyes grew wide all of the sudden, and whatever he said, he sounded quite surprised. His word balloon had the symbols '!?' in it, and then after a couple seconds, he hung his head.
"You mean... he's in your game?" Turbo asked.
The creature nodded.
"I'm so sorry."
The creature replied with a flurry of gibberish and symbols that Turbo couldn't understand, then hopped away, not looking so much frustrated as in a hurry.
"You sure come and go a lot, Fella," Turbo muttered.