OoO
"VANELLOPE!" Taffyta yelled as Ralph and Vanellope started walking on the rainbow bridge towards the castle, "RANCIS CRASHED, AND I JUST I JUST...HE'S HURT AND I'M FREAKING OUT!"
Vanellope slapped her forehead and let her hand drag down her face, "Oy...Taffyta, your mascara is running again."
"I know! I know!" the strawberry-headed girl said in a panic, "Just please come with me!"
Vanellope looked at Ralph and stuffed her hands into her hoodie pocket, there was just no talking to Taffyta when she was like this, even though she knew perfectly well that a little rest and candy would cure anything that was wrong with Rancis, it was part of the code afterall.
Ralph sighed, "Well Miss President, looks like your people need you."
"Sorry Ralphie, but definitely get me a raincheck for tomorrow!"
"You got it kid." he fist-bumped her and headed back out into Game Central Station as Taffyta grabbed Vanellope's hand and ran off with her.
For once, Ralph didn't get stopped by a Surge protector and he was pretty happy about that fact. He was looking around the station and saw Felicia emerging from a portal, "What the..I thought she went back to Fix-It Felix, Jr..." he walked towards her making it over there in a few strides since his legs were so long, "You lost, princess?"
Felicia jumped, shoving her hands in her pockets, "R-ralph, jeepers, you almost gave me a code attack...I thought YOU were with Vanellope..."
"She had a little problem she had to take care of, and I thought YOU said you were tired, went back to Fix-It Felix, Jr.?"
"OH um...yeah..guess I...just got distracted by all the games here! This is a much larger arcade than the one I'm from..." she rubbed the back of her neck nervously.
Ralph sensed her discomfort, "What's wrong?" They continued walking towards the Fix-It Felix, Jr. portal.
Felicia bit her lip and against her better judgement she answered him with a question, "Do you ever feel like you're not doing what you were meant to do? That you want to be something that you're not?"
Ralph's expression softened, "You have NO idea..."
He was about to say more when a cheer erupted from a few yards away. It seemed like Felix and Tamora had finally emerge from Fix-It Felix, Jr. to go continue their honeymoon in another part of the arcade. Her dad was with them and a crowd of characters had gathered around them and kept yelling them to do the Fix-It Family chant. Felicia ducked her head in shame, embarassed and jealous at the same time. She wanted that kind of attention too, not from other characters, but from her own family. Why were they always leaving her out?
She grit her teeth and clenched her fists, then started storming towards her father and brother just as they'd finished clanging their tools together and opened their mouths to chant, "DAD!"
"OH! Buttercup! You're here to see us, great! That's my little cheerleader." he waved.
Felicia grabbed the pink bow that usually resided in her hair, ripped it out and threw it to the ground, "I'm NOT your little cheerleader...I'm your daughter, and I'm a part of this family too."
Mr. Fix-It frowned, this had been such a happy weekend so far, what had gotten into his little girl? "I never said you weren't, hun! You've...been acting strange recently, are you feeling ill? Maybe you caught a virus?"
"No dad, you're obviously too blind to see what's really going on here, all caught up in your little Fix-It Family Funhouse. Is there any room left in that funhouse for someone like me? The damsel in distress?!" she threw her hands up dramatically.
"Felicia I..."
"QUIET! There's only way you're ever going to notice me isn't there, and by then it'll be too late. Go on and have your little family party, I'M OUT OF HERE!" she re-adjusted the strap of her bulging shoulder bag and started hopping away quickly.
Felix, Jr. looked over at Tamora, "We should go after her..."
"Mm." the Sarge agreed.
Mr. Fix-It shook his head sadly, "No, no... leave her be, she needs to let some steam off, there's no talking to her when she's like this.." he pulled his hat off and started trudging back to the portal of his own game.
"Yer old man is nuts, that girl is UNSTABLE and I know better than anyone what unstability causes." She slapped Felix's behind, "We're going after her...whether she likes it or not."
Felix blushed, he loved it when his wife took charge. Ahhh his wife, what a lovely title...he snapped out of his honeyglow and prompted saluted her, "YES MA'AM!"
"Wreck-It, you're coming too."
"But-"
"NO BUTS, SOLDIER, LET'S GO!"
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As it turned out, Rancis had wrecked into the ice cream mountain part of the race track and in her haste to find the President, Taffyta had left him laying facedown in the cold for far too long. When they'd finally fished him out he was sneezing, coughing, and running a fever.
Taffyta sobbed, blaming herself.
"Pfft, I'll take care of this!" Vanellope declared, "We just need to get him some vitamins from Dr. Mario to speed up the healing process if you're THAT worried..."
Taffyta nodded and wiped her eyes yet again.
"Allllllright. I'll be back."
Vanellope left Sugar Rush only to find something entirely more interesting going on in Game Central Station. And she knew just the guy to talk to get info. She followed Ralph as quietly as possible...
OoO
(I can't do this anymore...) Felicia thought to herself as she hopped furiously further and further into Game Central Station. When she was far enough away she sat down on a bench and sighed, then opened her bag to look in at the 3 viruses that were recently added, stolen from Dr. Mario.
She grinned maliciously as she picked up the little yellow one. Its official title had been the 'Weird Virus' so there was no telling what it actually did. Blue was chills, red was fever, that was standard enough, but YELLOW...this was exactly what she needed to cause a little chaos.
She did a quick survey of the area. Good, even her outburst hadn't attracted any attention towards her, that was one thing she could count on. They were all still ignoring her. A bright sign flashed over her head, 'Game Central Station Power Core' and an arrow pointing towards it. It was large and circular, giving off waves of blue energy and surrounded by surge protectors. Felicia held the yellow virus gingerly in her hand and began striding towards the core, "Let's just see what you can do..." she grinned.
Little did Felicia know, she'd been followed.
She snuck past the surge protectors with relative ease, it seemed that invisibility was another of her superpowers, she thought with a roll of her eyes. Looking down into the pulsating core, Felicia prepared to toss the little guy in.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" an authoritative voice boomed from almost directly behind her.
Felicia whipped around to see her brother and her sister-in-law standing there, along with Ralph a few feet back, and Tamora did NOT look happy.
With a roundhouse kick to the face, Tamora successfully stopped Felicia from dropping the weird little yellow virus into the power core of Game Central Station. If it had gotten in there who knows what would've happened to all the games.
Felix cringed, he loved Tamora, but he hated to see his sister get hurt. She'd always been so delicate...
Felicia grimaced, sitting up weakly and wiping the thin line of blood that ran from her mouth down her chin, "This...isn't over."
"MY ASS it's not, know when to stay down, sister!" she was holding the yellow virus in her hand and she immediately clenched her fist, squeezing and killing it, ooze dripping from between her fingers, "You don't know what the hell kind of powers you're playing with..."
Felicia smirked, wobbling as she stood, "Say it to my face...come on, closer." she held up her fists feebly, egging Calhoun on to attack her.
"There ain't no glory in hitting a down woman."
Felicia stood up to her full height, which wasn't much, and started bobbing and weaving, "Do it, you know you want to! You know you hate me, you and your little Cy-bug friends, come on why don't you just make me shut up once and for all?!"
"Bitch..." Calhoun shook her head sadly, "I thought we could get along, I even hoped for it since I'm part of your family now but you, there's just something that ain't right with you, soldier..."
"Fine, have it your way," Felicia ran at her, palm open with a blue virus and she shoved it into Tamora's mouth, clamping her hand over it and forcing her to swallow it, "Thaaaaaaat's right."
"NO!" Felix yelled, as Tamora sunk to the ground convulsing in chills.
Felicia smiled smugly, "You should've finished me while I was down, but just as I thought, you're WEAK." she spat, "I bet my namby pamby brother helped make you this way."
Felix wrapped his arms tightly around Tamora rubbing up and down her arms trying to get her warm again, he glanced back at his sister with so much hurt in his eyes, "How...how could you...?" he was on the verge of tears.
Ralph clenched his fists, "What the HELL Felicia?!"
"Don't give me that," she said, glaring at him, "I've been wanting to do something like this for a long, LONG time..."
Felix brought out his magic golden hammer, tapping his wife gently, but nothing was happening, it seemed like this was something only medicine could fix.
Vanellope suddenly ran out from her hiding place behind Ralph and started kicking Felicia in the shins, "WHY YOU NO GOOD MEANY! What'd she ever do to you?!"
Ralph gasped, he thought that she was safely back in Sugar Rush...
Felicia laughed and picked up Vanellope by her ponytail, "She just kicked me in the face, little girl. What are YOU going to do about it?"
"BUT YOU'RE KILLING HER! LET ME GO!" the girl struggled in vain against the larger woman.
A gutteral growl sounded behind Felicia, "PUT. HER. DOWN." his voice fairly boomed through the station and Ralph couldn't resist smacking a giant fist into a giant palm.
"Oh I just wanted to PLAY with her, and I have a little treat for her too," Felicia crooned sarcastically, "I KNOW how much you like candy."
Vanellope stopped struggling for a second, "I'm listening..."
Felicia reached into her bag and pulled out the red fever virus. But before she could do anything else, Ralph bounded at her smacking the virus out of her hand and squashing it under his massive foot, managing to catch Vanellope as she flew up into the air, "You won't touch her. EVER."
Felicia shrank back slightly from his massive form, but couldn't have been too phased because she started laughing.
"What's WRONG with you?!" Ralph admonished, "I thought you were a good guy..." he had liked Felicia, he really had, but when she tried to hurt Vanellope, something inside him had threatened to snap. The 9-year-old was as precious to him as a daughter and he truly believed the only thing that could kill him was something happening to her...
"And I thought YOU understood that I wanted to be something that I'm not. I'm so TIRED of this stupid nice girl charade...tired of being RESCUED." she made air quotes and then reached into her bag and pulled out a red mushroom with white spots, one of the same ones that Ralph had helped her collect from Super Mario Brothers game.
"You wouldn't..." Ralph said incredulously.
"Did you honestly think I just wanted them for as souvenirs for my garden? For a villain you sure are naive..." she took a bite and swallowed hard, "Delicious."
An 8-bit sound rang throughout the station as Felicia's form flashed and doubled in size, "Yes..." she began shoving the other red mushrooms from her bag and into her mouth as fast as she could, barely even chewing. Her clothes stretched to their limits and tore in multiple places as her form grew so huge that she almost touched the top of the ceiling.
A wind seemed to pick up out of nowhere as all the power that flowed in and out of Game Central Station was diverted to the growing form of Felica. She held out her arms, absorbing all the raw power. Blue streaks of electricity ran up and down her form. "Just a few more of these and this place'll blow up like an overinflated balloon..." she grinned.
Surge protectors by the dozens started running at her, abandoning their clipboards, affixing their tiny hands to her any way they could trying to suck some of the power down, but it wasn't helping very much.
Ralph looked up at her towering form, she was even taller than him now.
Felix's voice wavered as he looked over to his friend, "Ralph, you've got to DO something!"
"ME?" He pointed at his chest, eyes widening, "She's YOUR sister!"
"I know but she's gone mad! She doesn't care a whit what I have to say! She poisoned my wife, and tried to hurt Vanellope! Please Ralph! Be our hero again..."
"Hero..." Ralph clenched his fist over his heart, he loved that word. He knew he'd always be a villain in his game and there was nothing wrong with that, but his friends needed him now, and maybe he could even help Felicia, he knew better than anyone what it felt like to want to be something that you're not, that you could never be. It was a demon he'd faced months before and he was ready to pay it forward.
He set Vanellope down several yards away from the core, "Kid, you really should get out of here, go someplace safe, this could get messy..."
Vanellope just looked up at him, hands clapsed behind her back, "And miss you kicking butt? NEVER! YOU'RE THE COOLEST RALPH!"
He smiled, a warm feeling blossoming in his chest at her praise, "You're such a good kid you know that?...for a stink brain anyway." He palmed the top of her head gently and went off to try to knock some sense into the beast that Felicia had become.
"KNOCK 'EM DEAD, JERK FACE!" Vanellope yelled after him, "Or erm, at least unconcsious."
Felicia was laughing, she seemed to have reached the peak of her power and Ralph came and stood next to her, craning his neck to see her face.
Off to the side a orange blob hopped next to Felix and Tamera, "Oh thank the Mod!" Felix reached out for his friend, "Q-bert, go get Dr. Mario!"
" %#?!" he replied and hopped off in the opposite direction.
Felix held Tamora's head in his lap, brushing back her hair and whispering encouraging things to her, "You're alright love, help is on the way..." he only hoped that Ralph could stop his sister and her crazed ambition.
"HEY!" Ralph yelled up at Felicia, "DOWN HERE!" that was weird. It was usually the other way around.
Felicia looked down, "Well if it isn't my old friend Wreck-It Ralph. Not doing much wrecking now are you, I might just have to take your job away from you. You'd be better suited to being the damsel in distress, yes I think so." she put a finger to her chin and laughed hysterically at the mental image she'd just conjured up of Ralph wearing pink and screaming for help.
"Very funny, look, can't we talk about this? You don't really want to destroy this place do you? Your game is hooked up to the station too. And what about your father?"
"I don't care, Ralph, that game is more like a prison than a home to me...all I ever do is get rescued day after day, just sitting around painting my nails and gossiping. I want my role to MEAN something. Nobody really cares about the damsel in distress, they're just another pretty face! I had hoped to meet some REAL villains here but you all just think you're SUCH a bunch of good guys, don't you? I'm bad and that's good? What a load of bull hockey," she folded her giant arms and shook her head, "Even if I have to die, I'm going to leave a mark on this world..."
"You're being so SELFISH! Don't you care about anyone other than yourself? Look at your brother, he's heart broken. Do you know what Calhoun even means to him?"
"Nobody ever cared about me, not even my dad! I was just his obligation, someone he had to rescue everyday. Who wants a daughter like THAT? I just want things to be fair..."
"Yeah well, LIFE isn't fair. I KNOW you're not really a bad girl, Felicia, so please, just...just let it go."
She sighed, "Words, words, words, and here I thought we were going to have a real battle...what a disappointment you are! Well I guess there's only one way for that to happen..." She turned her massive frame, sure enough Vanellope was still there, watching intently. Felicia smirked and began thundering towards her.
Ralph's eyes widened, "NO! I TOLD YOU SHE'S OFF THE TABLE!" he ran after her but he was too late, she scooped Vanellope up easily holding her tightly in a giant hand.
"LEMME GO YOU BIG BULLY!"
"Struggle all you like sweetie, but if this is what it takes then SO BE IT." Felicia turned and headed for the the Fix-It Felix, Jr. portal, "You want her? Come and get her." with a few steps she was gone, zooming down the tunnel into the game.
"Dammit dammit DAMMIT!" Ralph paced in front of the tunnel waiting for the next train.
That's when he realized there was someone else he should be talking to. Someone who could help him stop her...
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To Be Continued...