Alicia—Thanks again for the song! And yeah, I seriously hated those racers for the majority of the movie. (I won't say anything else in case Jenna is reading this. She still hasn't seen the movie yet!)
Raccon Girl—Don't worry! Her time to defeat Taffyta will come soon! *insert sneaky laughter*
Jenna—I know, I would have been happy with being in ninth place, too. I mean, you would have won if it hadn't been for Taffyta's minions. And oh, speaking of Taffyta…you haven't seen anything yet. Be afraid. Be very afraid. And who doesn't love Dimentio?
KaylaKissesKangaroos—I'm glad that you think that I'm improving as a writer. It's always nice to have positive feedback. And we will get to individual point of views later (actually, in this chapter). But I hope you don't mind. Thanks for reviewing!
supersaiyon3goku—I hope you don't mind that I used it, haha. I couldn't resist! Anyway, thanks for reviewing!
Chapter Four
"Welcome to Game Central Station," a smooth voice announced when Alicia and Jenna left Sugar Rush on a train-like mode of transportation. The two girls looked around in amazement, even more impressed with where they were now than they were back at the Sugar Rush racing track. It was like they were in Grand Central from New York, only with so many cool places to choose from! Where could they go? Jenna was tempted to dash around until she located a sign pointing her to a Mario game, but she was stopped by a safety video of Sonic that was playing in a place where advertisements usually were.
"If you leave your game, stay safe, stay alert! Because if you die outside of your own game, you don't regenerate EVER! Game over!" The blue hedgehog winked at the nonexistent audience and flashed a thumb up before fading off of his screen.
"We'd better keep that in mind," Alicia whispered to Jenna, who nodded once. "So let's just take it one step at a time," Alicia added. "Let's find Pac-Man."
It had taken the girls a while to locate the entrance to the classic game, but they had found it, resisting the temptations to explore the other games. And there had been a moment of confusion when they couldn't remember if the villains met in the original Pac-Man or in Ms. Pac-Man. They decided to start with the first game, concluding that if they couldn't find any awesome antagonists, then the meeting was being held inside of Ms. Pac-Man.
The interior of Pac-Man was how it appeared to look to the players. The walls glowed a deathly blue while the ground was pitch black, free of the white dots that the protagonist would eat. The girls guessed that the dots were put away during non-gaming hours to make navigating around the maze easier for visitors. The only part of the game that was different was the box where the ghosts went after being eaten by Pac-Man. Inside, there was a spacious room with modest furniture, white walls, and doors leading to other rooms. "They all must live in here after gaming hours!" Jenna realized. "It's like an apartment for them!"
"I've always wondered what it was like inside of here," Alicia remarked, still looking around. One of the many mysteries of the fan girl universe had been solved. She mentally checked this off of her list of things to learn. (Now she was curious to know what it was like inside of the Pokémon balls…maybe a SSB character would happen to know.) Her ears perked up when voices could be heard in one of the other rooms. She and Jenna pushed open one of the doors so that they could peek inside…and they became witnesses to the Bad-Anon meeting in progress!
"Thank you all for coming," one of the ghosts (Clyde, the orange one) was saying. "Today we are going to be talking about our interactions with the protagonists of our games. And today we are joined by somebody new: GLaDOS from the new computer game section of the arcade!" A few claps were heard.
"I'm happy to be here," a robotic female voice declared. As emotionless as she sounded, she did seem to have more passion than Sour Bill did, and that alone made Alicia and Jenna tolerant of her.
"Why don't you start today?" Clyde suggested. "Tell us about a day-to-day conversation with the protagonist of your game."
"She can't talk," GLaDOS said, "so that makes our encounters extremely…one-sided. She does the listening and I do the speaking. In some ways, this is very refreshing. She can't argue with me. But in others, it can be depressing. I sometimes think she wants to tell me something, but there is a failure to communicate somewhere. I know it is with me, but I don't have time to fix it. The game hours need to be longer."
"What do you usually talk to her about?" Clyde wondered.
"Cake," the robot said without hesitation. "During the plot of the game, I promise her that if she can beat me, she will be given a cake. Of course, I have told her that I am programmed to be a compulsive liar, and many of the things I tell her during the climax of our game are lies, such as she was adopted or that she will not be mourned at her own funeral."
"Admitting to her that you are a compulsive liar is a step in the right direction," Clyde assured her. "But still, you shouldn't be so harsh with her."
"It's not like I insult her outside of the game plot," the machine whined. "And I am perfectly willing and able to make for her a cake!"
"They're going to make me hungry if they keep talking about desserts," Alicia whispered to Jenna, who shrugged as a way of answering. But as if to prove her point, Alicia's stomach grumbled.
"Was that you?" "Don't look at me, I just ate!" "I am a machine. My stomach does not rumble." After the voices inside debated for a few moments longer, the door was thrown open all the way, knocking Jenna and Alicia onto the floor. They met the gaze of the cross Clyde. Behind him were some of the other villains.
"What are you doing here?" Eggman asked, placing his hands on his hips. "This is reserved for the Bad-Anon session every Thursday!"
"From what we understood, all of the games are open to the characters when the arcade is closed," Alicia challenged. "Besides, we're new to the arcade and we NEED to explore. We don't even know which game is next to ours!" This was partially true. She remembered Ralph saying that Sugar Rush was located next to the Whack-A-Mole, but she couldn't remember what other games were near the candy-themed game.
"Perhaps I can be of assistance," GLaDOS offered, moving towards them and away from the other members of the meeting. "I apologize in advance, Clyde, for leaving the meeting in a rush. Perhaps we should continue another day?" She didn't wait for a response, but Clyde nodded his approval. "In the meantime, I can help you two out by showing you where the exit to Game Central Station is," she coldly told the two racers. "You'll be pleasantly surprised, I should think, when you realize that Jenna gulped and peeked around her, hoping to get a glimpse at her absolute favorite video game villain of all time…
And there he was! Bowser was sitting right next to Satan, and they appeared to be having a quiet conversation. The devilish foe wasn't happy about the intrusion on the meeting, and Bowser kept glaring at the doorway, also annoyed. Jenna realized that she had one chance to make a better first impression, but she had to act quickly, because GLaDOS kept pushing her and Alicia out of the room—
"OH MY GOSH, YOU'RE BOWSER, I TOTALLY LOVE YOUR WORK!"
Awkward silence was in the room, broken when GLaDOS huffed and succeeded in getting Jenna and Alicia out of the room. Jenna was in such a state of shock and embarrassment that she didn't try to fight it. And she didn't see how the king of the Koopas was reacting, and part of her didn't want to know. "Why did you do that?" Alicia hissed once they were sure that they were out of the villains' earshot. "You never did that around Jafar or any of the others on our last…adventures!"
"That was different," Jenna explained in a whisper. "I don't know if I will ever get to see him again! Remember the amount of screen time he had in the movie? He barely had a line of dialogue!" Alicia couldn't argue with logic like that.
"Keep moving," GLaDOS ordered, and Jenna and Alicia obeyed. They weren't exactly experts with the two Portal games, but something told them that the robotic woman that they were dealing with was someone who they did not want to be on bad terms with…
The gold coin felt heavy in Lulu's pocket, but she ignored it as her Galaxy Glazer struggled to keep up with the Swift Twist. "So, I was thinking…" Lulu said after she and Black had been driving in silence for a few minutes.
"Did it hurt?" Black joked. Lulu shot her a pretend glare, but laughed.
"If only nine racers are needed each day, why didn't the creators of Sugar Rush only create nine racers total? Wouldn't that have made things a lot easier?" She wondered.
"Maybe, but it wouldn't have been as fun for the gamers or for us. Imagine this: you have a favorite character from your favorite game. Every day you go to the Arcade, see that that character can be accessed, and you have the time of your life playing as him or her. And then you go home and go to bed, but you're hoping that you can still be that character tomorrow." Black paused for breath and pushed some strands of hair behind her ears. "That's what makes the racing in this game really personal. We don't just want to race. We want to make the people outside of our world happy. And, between you and me, the characters in video games have favorite players, just like the players have favorites amongst us."
"I'm guessing Taffyta and King Candy are pretty popular," Lulu muttered, scowling at the thought of having the stereotypical "popular girl" gaining more popularity.
"Well, they have their fans. We all do," Black explained. "Some people even choose to race as me, and I think I can see why. The programmers thought that there was too much 'happy goody', and they created me to look…not 'happy goody'," Black said, smiling a little. "I think they did a good job. Besides," she added, a sneaky smirk appearing on her pale face. "Some of the game players like girls that don't dress like candy canes." She noticed that Lulu was being quiet again, and she sighed. "Sorry if this is boring you."
"Oh, no, no, it isn't!" Lulu corrected quickly. "You've just given me a lot to think about. And now I can sort of understand why this Vanellope friend of yours wants to race so badly. And I totally agree with you: you are unique compared to Laffy Taffy and her clones."
Black laughed when she parked her car. They had reached their destination: the tallest of the mountains. "Welcome to Diet Cola Mountain! This is part of an unfinished stage," Black informed Lulu. "A little while ago, Vanellope found a way to get inside, and she and I have been crashing here ever since. How cool is that?" Lulu was about to answer her, but a shrill voice rang out, silencing her and freezing her in her tracks.
"Halt! Who goes there?"
Oops, I forgot to mention this in the last chapter, so I'll mention it here: Black Licoricetwist belongs to Raccon Girl. (And her speech in this chapter is one of the most thought-provoking things I've had to write in a while...I think.)
And yes, I'm putting GLaDOS in here. Shoot me if you must, but I adore the Portal games and couldn't resist putting her in here.
Ugh, my dad is being such an asshole right now…and I'm too tired to bitch about it. This chapter probably sucks, but whatever. The next one will be better, I think.
Review, please! :)