AN: hey guys, what's up? This chapter gave me more than a bit of grief, but It's finally done now. Writers block is a jerk, I wish it would just go away forever…anyways, I wasn't super sure how I'd write this chapter, but I think I wrote it decently. This is copyright Disney, obviously.

I look over Taffyta carefully; she seems to be in a state of low threat. Just in case, I'm cautious. "I need information, you're the game's resident gossip." I say quickly, avoiding her eyes.

I'm not going to sit and have a long conversation with her, just ask her, get a few details, and take off. No more, no less.

Because as much as I tell myself that nothing scares me, she does.

I'm not a wimp. I'm not supposed to be afraid of anything. But, to tell the truth…Taffyta, to me, is the stuff of nightmares.

I can worm my way around the question all I want, I can avoid it, and I can lie through my teeth about it. But I know exactly what I fear, the only thing that even phases me. And it's her.

She's inescapable, it's like anywhere I can go, she's already there, waiting and planning what she was going to do. No matter what happened, just when I thought I'd seen her worst, she'd pull some other nasty trick from up her sleeve.

And she would force me to do it over and over again, life itself was just a repeat of all the things she did.

All of the shoving me in the mud, all of the calling me names, all of the things thrown, all of the demeaning taunts said. And for what? What did they have to prove? Why did they continue to rub my face in the dirt, time and time again? They made their point, why did they feel the need to keep making it, every single day?

They were the racers, everyone loved them. Nobody ever said a mean word about them, not once was that nasty, disapproving glare turned upon them. But me? Nobody so much as bat an eyelid when people did that to me.

And why was it all going on, what had I ever done? Why was it that, day one, everyone just hated me?

Why was that? Here's the answer: because of something that wasn't my fault.

It wasn't my fault, it isn't my fault. But they didn't care. They didn't even bother to ask. They thought they were so much better, so far above me. They were wrong.

I spent all of my time trying to show them that, I did so much to try and get them to like me. But it didn't matter. All they did was look at that one thing, the thing that wasn't my fault, and judge me for it. They thought that they could tell who I was, just by that.

No matter what, even if their very lives depended on it, they would have never tried to be nicer.

And she was in charge of all of them, she made all the plans, and set up all the traps. She did all of the talking down to me, all of the things she could to tell me that I was inferior. She was the best, and I was nothing, that's what she said with all her actions.

All of that spite and resentment, and yet…here I am, at her doorstep. I must be really, really tired to have thought of doing this. That, or just really confused. Oh well.

They say things are different now. Now is the time to put that to the test.

"Well, you picked the right person, I guess. What do want information on?" She asked, sounding bored. I couldn't tell if it was a trick or she just was bored.

"Ralph. I remembered something, it's been bothering me." I tell her stiffly. No details, just ask the question, and get the heck out.

"If you just remembered how bad his breath is now, that's your problem." She said pointedly.

"As if. How could anyone forget that stench?" I shoot back. Seriously, that's just about the first thing I noticed.

"Do you wanna know about how he's the bad guy? I can tell you all about that." She told me.

I shrug. It's a start. "Why not?"

"Well, in his game, Felix is the good guy. You know him. Anyways, Ralph destroys the building in that game. His full name is 'Wreck-it' Ralph, after all. But the game is Fix it Felix Jr. So, he vandalizes a building for his job, that's probably why his fists are so big. He's the bad guy 'cause he's the enemy NPC in his game, Felix is the hero because he 'defeats' Ralph. You got pretty mad when you figured out that the whole point of his game was to throw Ralph off a building. Anyways, that's why he's the bad guy. The whole reason he came to our game was because he just got sick and tired of everyone looking at him like he was a terrible person just for doing his job. Main problem that everyone has with him is his temper, and how gullible he is. He falls for everything, even that really old 'look at that bird!' one. So, obviously, if he's got that kind of power and is that gullible, people would trick him into doing stuff. That happened once with the two of you, someone told me about it…what happened again?" Taffyta trails off, trying to figure out what she had heard.

So that's why he's the bad guy? Nobody liked him because of it? Just because that was his 'role', what he was coded to do? Something he couldn't do anything about? Where have I heard that before?

All sarcastic thoughts aside, this mostly answers my question. Gullible. He's definitely easy to trick, I could tell that without Taffyta's help.

Just one more question…

"He smashed the kart. Do you know why?" I ask, at first planning for it to sound casual, but accidentally blurting it out.

"Oh! Yeah, that's what it was. Word on the street was that he did it cause king candy told him to. I think there's more to it than that though." She replies.

King candy? He sold me out? What a dirty..!...Hmm? Looks like Taffyta has more to say.

"I'm almost sure there's more to it than that, actually. We all saw how he defended you, and then we heard he helped you bake a kart, and taught you how to drive on top of it. But, the way you told the story, the deal after he chased us off was that he only had to get you a kart. Not to mention, he never had to take that deal in the first place. He could have very easily just stolen back the medal from whoever won it with sheer force. Why would he agree to a different plan that was way less likely to succeed if he didn't have at least a little concern for you? Another thing is, he was pretty obviously tricked by king candy. Everyone was, that guy's whole life was a lie. He wasn't even in the game originally, he snuck in and altered the game's coding! He was a very convincing liar, I have no doubt he used his stupid excuse on Ralph. Think about it; what did king candy always yell at you for?" Taffyta asks, waiting for me to answer.

"Trying to race. You were there most of those times, you know." I reply impatiently, trying to figure out what she's getting at.

"Why did he yell at you for that?" Taffyta continues, once again waiting for my answer.

"He always rambled something about me getting the game unplugged." I say, indifferently. He was lying the whole time anyways, what did it matter?

"And who couldn't leave if that happened?" her next and last question blows me away. I had never thought about that, what would happen. But it worked out fine, didn't it?

I blink a few times.

"Exactly. His excuse was always, 'if the game gets unplugged, she does too.' All the time. If you remember him smashing the kart, try and remember what he said at the same time. I bet king candy fed him the same lie, and he thought he was helping. Case closed." Taffyta said smugly. She looked proud for having figured that out.

I think back to the time he did that.

'This is for your own good.'

So that's why…he thought he was helping…but was he? I know how the story starts, but the ending is blank. How could I know for sure what he did after that? Did he succeed in his first goal, only getting the medal, did he cave and find another way to get the kart back? Did someone else come do the same thing but right, and then the only reason he's here now is because he felt guilted into being my friend?

That last thought isn't all too pleasant. But I'm not asking Taffyta any more questions.

"Thanks, I think that makes some sense." I tell her, even though I'm dying to ask one more question.

She turns around so that her back is facing me and prepares to close the door. Before she does, she decides to look at me over her shoulder. "By the way, that's not the whole story. You still have lots to figure out if you think that's it. But you know what? That's one story that only two people can tell." With that, the door shuts.

What did she mean?

'That's one story that only two people can tell.'….

I think she wants me to ask Ralph. I'll do it tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow sounds like a good time. I'm sleepy, so that's why I can't do it now.

With that conversation fresh in my mind, I head off for where Ralph is waiting.

"Hey, kid. You tired yet?" he gets up from the now crumbled pretzel thing he was sitting on and lumbers towards me.

"Yeah." I yawn in the middle of the word, only proving my point.

"Well then we should get going. Come on, where do you want to sleep?" he asks, now standing around in front of me.

"I can pick where I sleep?" I ask in disbelief. It might seem insignificant to another person, but it's pretty surprising to me.

"Yeah. Castle, mountain, on top of someone's roof, it doesn't really matter where, as long as it's not somewhere dangerous." He shrugs. "So where?"

"Mountain. I don't think I'd want to sleep somewhere else, it's nice in there." I decide, heading towards the mentioned area. Ralph ambles along behind me compliantly, following.

When we get there, he pulls an actual blanket (not candy wrappers) out of a little box by the bed.

"Here you go. Goodnight, kid." He hands me the blanket, moves over to a gumdrop that was dragged in here, and rests his head on it.

I just sort of stand there for a minute, blanket in hand, and watch him get ready to sleep. On the floor.

Not sure what to do, I go over and nudge him with my foot."Uhh…you know we could probably get something in here you could use as a bed…"

"Hmm? Nah, I'm fine. This is good." He stirs, and gives an answer. Apparently this is comfortable for him?

That makes no sense, but whatever. I hop onto my improvised bed, and pull the blanket over me, prepared to sleep.

Five minutes later, my eyes are still open and I'm beginning to doubt that sleep is possible. Something's bothering me.

Am I just unsettled? Is it something I'm not doing according to routine? Whatever it is, it's making sleep hard to get.

I sigh, pull the blanket off, and walk over to Ralph with it. For some reason, I'm not sure why…I have a feeling that whatever happened with that whole kart smash thing…I have a feeling that whatever went down after that, he handled it. So I'm going to trust him, unless that feeling is proven wrong.

"Ralph…I can't sleep…" I whine, bothering him with my problem. Because that's what you do with friends, right? I think so…

"Hmm? Wha's the matter, why not?" he asks in a tired slur, blinks a few times, and starts to get up.

"I don't know. I just can't. Do you mind if I…mind if I sleep with you?" I ask sleepily. I'm just really tired, plus I figure that if something is unsettling me, sleeping next to someone that utterly massive can pretty much eliminate the feeling. Taking into consideration the possibility of him crushing me, it actually seems really dumb in retrospect.

"Sure, why not? Don't worry, I won't roll over. Just as long as you get to sleep soon, it's getting late. 'Sides, if Sarge finds out I extended your bedtime again I'm going to have a problem." He yawns, and closes his eyes again.

I nod in response, and pull the blanket over, pressing myself up against somewhere on his side. Once I'm pretty cozy, I start to try to fall asleep again. Except it still won't work. Maybe I need to ask him now. I can't sleep until I figure out what happened exactly.

"Ralph…" I whisper over to him.

"Yeah kid?" I can feel his side vibrate from speaking as he said this.

"What happened after you broke the kart that one time?" I'm still whispering, almost afraid for the answer. What if it's the wrong one? What if he doesn't give the answer I want to hear?

He shuffles around and turns on his side to look at me. "When did you remember that? Just now?"

"When you brought the kart over." I answer truthfully, avoiding his eyes.

"Why didn't you ask then?" he asks thoughtfully. For a guy I say is dumb, I guess he's actually kinda smart.

"I didn't know if I would get the right answer." I squirm around and look up at him pitifully. All I have to do is give him the puppy-eyes, that always works, always. Unless it's on anyone that knows me…but whatever, right? He has to answer.

"Well, I guess that's why you couldn't sleep." He says, looking back at me. I guess he was going to answer anyways.

"Anyways…I know breaking the kart was wrong now, but at the time, I actually thought it was the right thing to do. You see, that king guy told me somethin', and it kinda made me wonder just what would happen if you won the roster race. On one side, I thought, the gamers would love you. But, on the side he pointed out, it could spell certain death for you." He looks up and rubs his neck with a hand.

"Now, I've always been a bit of a pessimist, so, I always assume that something will turn out worse rather than better…you can see where I was going with that whole thing, right? Well, after, you know, all the smashy stuff and the running away, I went back to my game. And I showed the nicelander the medal I got back. He didn't really care at all, and just left. So, I was still alone and all that, and I wasn't really feeling as good about myself as I thought I would. Naturally, I threw the Hero's Duty medal at my game screen, and it made the corner of the out-of-order sign move to show a game: Sugar Rush. So I thought to myself, 'Great, now even the universe is trying to guilt-trip me.'" I giggle a little at his comment. This is a serious answer, but that was kinda funny. Just a little. He continues.

"But it did make me notice something. On the side of the console, there's a picture of one of the racers. At first I thought nothing of it, but now that I had been in the game, I recognized it. It was, obviously, you. So I figured that something fishy was going on. I mean, why would you be on the side of the console if you weren't supposed to be in the game? So I picked off Sour Bill and asked him that same question. After a little interrogating, and a few threats to eat him, he spilled. He said that that king guy messed around in the code. I got Felix to fix the kart with his hammer, and took it to the fungeon. In which you made me insult myself until you were satisfied. You have a weird idea of an apology, you know that?" he tells me. I shrug and give him a 'what can you do?' look.

"After that, we took you to the race and the world turned crazy. Not to get into detail, but here are a few things that happened: King what's-his-face turned out to be an old psycho named Turbo, Cy-bugs began erupting out of the ground, I almost got killed by some creepy Turbo-king-cy-bug thingy, I fell headfirst into the mentos on top of the mountain we're in, you caught me, I still have no clue how, everything blew up from the mentos explosion, and then you crossed the finish line and all this crazy, trippy princess whatever stuff was revealed, and you wanted to be president because a princess was just too girly, and yeah, lots of weird stuff. To be honest, you can't really explain that much crazy stuff, you're gonna have to remember to actually understand any of it. That's about as good as an explanation I can give, I think." He rambles a little, but from what I can understand, that was pretty crazy. Really crazy, actually.

But I got my answer: He came back to fix the problem. So he gets the ok in my book. My best friend once more.

"Thanks. I think I can get to sleep now." I yawn, press in a little closer, and fall asleep, on the ground. I guess I really can sleep wherever I want.

I feel him roll back over to his back, and wiggle a little to get back to be being pressed into his side snugly. I let out a contented sigh, and return to sleep.

While I'm sleeping, images and little clips of my life pass through my head, coming back and giving a quick re-cap of what I don't remember. The big one came first. In a blur, I see Ralph smash the fungeon wall in, and get me out, and the clip jumps to being in the race. We're in a tunnel, and the psychopath king is trying to kill me. Then it clips into watching Ralph fall from a crazy height. Last, it shows that I catch him and the memory stops. All of the stuff he told me about.

When this is done, all the little games and happy things that I did with Sarge, Stinky, and Hammerboy appear.

They ranged to all sorts of things, from drawing on Ralph's face while he was asleep to playing keepaway with Felix's hammer.

At the end of this is only a random, out-of-sequence reel of everything left out, sped up to keep the pace. I'm sure it's filling all the blanks, but some of it moves too fast for me to catch what's happening.

I thought that was it, but then one last memory comes up-the race where I lost it in the first place. Who made me crash? Rancis?….I'm going to kill him!

Before I realize it, I'm yawning and waking up. I cast a glance to Stinkbrain, who is still sleeping, and stand up slowly. No, I don't plan on getting up all the way.

Instead of doing that, I climb up onto his stomach, the blanket in tow. There I settle myself, not really sleeping, but closing my eyes and just thinking. Besides, he still won't get up for a while, if his rumbling snoring is any indication.

So I have all of my memories back…what to do now? Before Stinkbrain wakes up…I need to think of ways to get back at Rancis. I count off a few. I could one, prank him, two, remove the mirrors from his kart, three, strangle him, four, kick him where the sun doesn't shine, five, annihilate him in the next race….I think I'll go with all five. Maybe as an added bonus I could sic Ralph on him too. Sarge also, if I play my cards right. I bet she's already threatened him with that thing that makes her men pee themselves when she mentions it, actually. And I'm sure Felix already gave him a lecture on safety, which is torture on it's own. Torture that can last up to three hours.

I'm satisfied with that list, so I go back to just relaxing a little and double checking that I got all of my memories back. Ralph makes a good thing to sit on.

Happily on top of him, I hang out there for a bit. Then I sit up and look around at the mountain. Technically Ralph could be considered a mountain all on his own, but I meant the diet cola mountain.

After a little of that, I pull one of his hands up onto his belly to play with it. Moving his fingers around, as I've done a thousand times, I investigate them. The weird thing I notice every time is that he has an extra finger. I mean, five, really?

Whatever. I need to get back to him on that. I pull his hand over my shoulder, and it pretty much fits all of me under it. It's like an extra blanket.

Now I'm kinda bored. I think I can be getting up now.

Pushing his hand off and sliding off him, I get off of Ralph. Before I can move too far, I hear him stir behind me.

"Wha time is it…?" he yawns groggily, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with a finger.

"I don't know, but I let you sleep in for like an hour, so you're welcome for that, stinky." I reply. It's amazing how he can sleep through explosions and earthquakes, yet the minute I get off him, he's awake. Weird.

"By the way, do you mind helping me get back at Rancis?" I ask casually, trying to sound as if I wasn't that interested.

"Sure, what for?" He replies, slowly standing up to his full and impressive height and stretching.

"For making me crash into a jawbreaker." He stops mid-stretch as I say this, and puts his arms down.

"You remember that?" he asks happily, his voice filled with an eager tone.

"Nooo, of course not." I roll my eyes. "Yes I remembered, you big dummy!" I run up to his arm, where I swiftly climb all the way around up to his shoulder.

He grins and looks over at me. "You had me worried there, you know that?"

I'm instantly reminded of our conversation last night, and I stop smiling. "I'm really, really sorry about last night. I didn't mean to not trust you, I was just kinda confused, and I didn't mean to make you worry, I swear!" I plead for forgiveness, and briefly wonder if I'll need to pull out the ol' puppy-eyes again.

After all, how could I ever not trust Ralph all the way? That's like saying we aren't friends anymore, I trust him with everything.

Thankfully, he waves it off. "Don't worry about it, kid, you had every right to ask that. Besides, you liked my answer, didn't you?"

"It was a really bad recap." I tell him smugly, turning my head and looking away from him with my head tipped up. Any second now…

"Oh it was, was it? I caught you laughing a few times. Like…this!" he knocks me off my little perch on his shoulder, and catches me in a palm. From there he proceeds to try and tickle me with just one of his big, blocky fingers, because anything more than that could crush me.

Being infinitely careful, he still manages to tickle me until I'm begging him to quit it. I didn't think he'd keep it going for this long!

"Stop!" I laugh and gasp for breath,"quit it, I'm gonna…haha…suffocate!"

"Is this a better explanation?" he continues relentlessly, laughing a little at me now.

By this point, I'm laughing so hard I've started to glitch, but I can't just glitch away because he has me caught in his hand, I'd only succeed in teleporting both of us.

"N-no-o-o!...h-ha-a..ha, it-t i-is…n't!" now my sentence is just pathetic, broken up not only by laughing and trying to breathe, but also skipping and repeating frames because of glitching.

After another terrible minute or two of that, he sets me down gently, where I catch my breath. "I…*huff* …hate you, *huff* you know that?" I catch my breath for near a minute, until I've finally restored all of my air.

"I'm sure you do." He gives a bemused grin, before letting me back up on his shoulder.

"Now that we're done with tickle torture, do you mind if I go get the Sarge, I have to go ask if she'll help me threaten Rancis." I linger on the torture part, to make sure Ralph gets the hint that I did not appreciate that.

"What do you want her to threaten him with that I can't?" he fake pouts, messing around with me. I'll give him the right answer anyways.

"I want her to tell him she'll do that thing, you know that one she threatened Markowski with when he got drunk on watch doody that one time? Circum-" Ralph cuts me off.

"Ok, that's enough, no need for words! I think it might just be a better idea to threaten turning him into a pancake, don't you? Yeah, I'm sure you do, let's go and not talk about that word, ok?" He says quickly, speedily walking out of the mountain.

See, this is why I want the Sarge to say that, anytime someone says that word around a guy they freak out, especially if you threaten to do whatever it is that word means on them. I wonder if it's some sort of weapon that vaporizes guy cooties.

That's probably it.

On the way to where the Sarge and Hammerboy are, we run into Rancis himself.

"Hey, Rancid! I need to ask you something! Did the Sarge already threaten you with-"I begin to shout, before being interrupted again.

"Hey kid! How do you feel about bein a pancake?!" Ralph cut in, purposely keeping me from saying the word.

"I don't wanna be a pancake!" Rancis cries, being as girly as Taffyta is when she does. I think he might actually have makeup on, too…..sweet mother of monkey milk, he does have makup on!

"Dude! Is that makeup?! Really?" I exclaim irridiculously, stifling a laugh at how he looks.

"Makup?" he touches his face. "GlOYD!" He shouts angrily at nothing, and I hear some people high-five from behind something.

Rancis furiously stomps over to where the sound came from, while me and Stinkbrain laugh our butts off where we saw him.

"Kid," Ralph says, wiping a laughter-induced tear from his eye," I don't know about you, but that was definitely good enough revenge right there."

Gloyd comes running up to us from behind a gumdrop. "Take this! Just give me a copy of the photo!" he shoves a camera into Ralph's hand, and takes off running once more, and a few moments later Rancis appears, hot on his heels.

"Well…that was…unexpected. And awesome! C'mon, Stinkbrain, we gotta go get some copies of this picture up in the station!" I laugh, glitching down and retrieving the camera from his hand.

"We have to do that before we visit Felix, though, he'll tell us to take em' down. So you'd better hurry with the copier in the apartment!" he warns.

"Then what are we waiting for?" I grab a finger and run up the bridge.

And only now does everything go back to normal for me. Me and stinky doing something stupid, Sarge and Hammerboy telling us off for it later, then all of us laughing about it right after that.

I have the coolest friends ever.

AN: Ok! This is finally done! Thank you so much for all the reviews and love this story has been getting, I really appreciate it! I hope the end wasn't awkward, the main reason this chapter took so long was because I wasn't sure how to end it off. I think that Rancis getting what was coming to him was a good enough way to do that though. Anyways, I really hope you enjoyed this story, and thanks for reading!