We take a short break from the action at hand to see what's happening elsewhere in the real world...

DISCLAIMER: WarioWare Inc. and Kid Icarus: Uprising are properties of Nintendo. Bomberman is owned by Hudson Soft even though Konami is in charge of all the latter's franchises as of March 2012, whilst Contra and Castlevania belong to Konami themselves either way. Wreck-It Ralph is a property of Disney. All other franchises mentioned (Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Final Fantasy, etc.) are properties of their respective owners. Keyla and Patricia are my online friend JapanAnimeGirl's OCs and are used with permission; the same goes for LovelyTekki's OC, Princess Cherry.


Chapter 6: A brief history of darkness

[Interlude BGM: Sector 1 (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)]

Somewhere on the other side of Earth in reality lies a decommissioned island base - and an artificial one as a matter of fact - off the coast of Bangkok, Thailand. This island was once built and intended for use as Purple Basilisk's base of operations during the aftermath of the Alien Wars, but due to Bill and Lance's intervention at his other base in Vietnam, the island became decommissioned and shut down, including but not limited to, its automated defense system. In short, everything seemed empty...until now.

Over the past two months following the end of World War III and Red Falcon's reign of terror on Earth, the only occupant on this island was none other than a humanoid alien soldier, who called himself Yellow Cobra. Although not much was known about him, he worked for Red Falcon as Second Lieutenant (whereas Purple Basilisk was ranked First Lieutenant); he led his men during the assault which Arctic Bomber herself unleashed against them in her blind rage as a reaction to the US soldiers of Delta Force getting killed (including Sergeants Mad Dog and Scorpion) while assisting the Contras, on Galuga Island. Only Yellow Cobra survived, but was left for dead. A few of his surviving comrades evacuated him to the decommissioned island base off the coast of Thailand, whereupon they recreated him as a cyborg. Yellow Cobra in return brought in a dead warrior, a human serial killer no doubt, who was once a hunter, then poacher, and now freelance terrorist with a penchant for killing every living animal he saw in the most unethical ways possible. On top of that, the evil middle-aged man was not above killing people he deemed as oppressors to his personal vendetta, be they park rangers or otherwise. He was incarcerated twice, but when World War III broke out, he saw the opportunity to break out an literally turned traitor to all the people of Earth by joining the Red Falcon Empire as an excuse to kill the Contras.

When last they crossed swords - or rather guns in his case - with him, he was on the verge of wiping out the Yoshis on Dinosaur Land in what he deemed as the greatest hunt in the universe, but it didn't take much for the Contras to pinpoint his exact whereabouts with Penny and Blaze's help, and eventually shut him down by destroying his illegally-modified weapons and anything he'd use to make his escape (including a stolen stealth helicopter he once modified to teleport him in and out of the underworld to evade capture). Apparently the Contras taught the Yoshis how to defend themselves and their home during their 3-day vacation after defeating Red Falcon and before the evil poacher arrived. His real name was unknown to everyone, for he insisted that he be referred to as Swampster the Terrible ever since the day he took his vengeance upon the unnaturally ravenous grizzly bear that killed his father during a hunt. Even so, he wasn't satisfied, for he wanted more glory than ever to be the greatest hunter in the world, his own motivations driving him to madness. He would then sell his services to those who are willing to pay him a hefty fee, be it a canned hunt, assassination on a target of choice, or flat-out poaching in general.

After the attack on Galuga Island to take out the last remaining Dastardly Bomber, Brain Bomber, Swampster too was left for dead like Yellow Cobra, only he had to have an alien cell injected within to save his life. He lives on forevermore as part-human, part-alien and is described by the Contras as "one sick traitorous bastard who may as well as Sniper Bomber's long-lost son."

"Whoa...where am I, and why do I feel so different all of a sudden?"

"You're in what used to be one of Purple Basilisk's two island bases," answered Yellow Cobra, "but I own it now. In fact, I own you, so you better be willing to do as I say, or I'll send you back to hell."

"What happened to Lords Red Falcon, Sniper Bomber and Axe Bomber, anyway?"

"Dead, thanks to the insipid Contras and their friends. Fortunately, Sniper and Axe aren't too difficult to revive along with Volcano to bring back the Hate Bombers, but it will require venturing to a deeper section in the underworld to find something valuable that we can use to compensate for the loss of Dracula's Crimson Stone. Furthermore, transferring all operations to the underworld is an absolute must if we're to avoid an easy detection, which is why I've managed to recruit plenty of Earth's worst kinds of scum from the existing terrorist groups that pale in comparison to the Red Falcon Empire. It is fortunate that Lord Red Falcon's ambitions served as a magnet to attract them into recreating his legacy of war against the planet even after World War III had ended."

"In other words, it wasn't too difficult to bring 'em in. Heh heh, this is gonna be one helluva campaign, but I say our first order of business is to get revenge on the Contras, and I know just where they live in. And I'm gonna do it my way if I have to..."

"That's fine by me, something to keep them occupied while our preparations to rebuild the Red Falcon Empire are being completed. Legends indicate that no living thing on the surface, be it human or animal, could ever survive the evil realm's hostile environment for more than an hour, so I've implanted into each of our men, including yourself, a dose of Red Falcon's alien DNA in order to keep them alive indefinitely. There used to be the castle of the lord of hell known as Pandaemonium, but it is no more, thanks to the insufferable Contras' endeavors in our supreme master's defeat. Our best bet is to use a certain arcade cabinet said to have been banished forever to the underworld since 1981 as a portal to the realm we refer to as Polybius, located in the underworld's forbidden temple called Nethertainment, home to all the worst video games to have ever been created by money-hungry humans...or, so the Internet points out to us. It will, however, be our new base of operations due to its rather unpleasant environment rendering all non-demons dead in an hour."

"Ahhh, I've heard of Polybius once. Stories about how it had the power to derezz the human mind with its various psychological effects, causing all kinds of weak-willed victims to suffer from amnesia, night terrors and a tendency to stop playing all video games. It existed in Portland, Oregon in the US for only about a month in 1981, but now it's said to be long gone."

Yellow Cobra grinned maliciously. "Hmm hmm hmm...gone to them, but not to us! Historians these days had since claimed it to be part of a secret government experiment to brainwash the players with its subliminal messages, but enough history talk. Speaking of subliminal messages, even the Contras wouldn't dare to step in to Polybius without risking death upon themselves! We can revive the Hate Bombers there with its power, but it will be more difficult and time-consuming to do the same for Lord Red Falcon as the Crimson Stone is no more."

"Well, ain't that somethin'! No point in me standin' around any longer now that you told me about our plans, right? I'm so gonna have a lotta fun obliterating the Contras right on their home turf...but what about Purple Baslisk and his self-titled dynasty?"

Yellow Cobra scoffed in response. "Bah! That petty manchild couldn't conquer his way out of a paper bag if it gave him a snakebite to the nose! As such, he is of no use to us when all he wants is to run things his way rather than follow in Lord Red Falcon's footsteps, especially since he at one point committed mutiny against our empire. In short, terminate him and his minions if necessary. But it matters little if you get lucky or not, just as long as you don't come begging me for mercy. You'll get no sympathy."

Swampster had a smug look on his face, as though the last sentence didn't faze him one bit. "Hah, I never believed in that weakling term to begin with anyway."

"Well, what are you waiting for?! Get out there and stop the Contras!"


Nethertainment was indeed strictly forbidden to all the residents of the underworld, including criminals who would dwell there to avoid getting caught by the overworld authorities. Polybius and TurboTime were among the first games to have been banished there and Video Game Nightmare (located beneath Phoebe's old home, Video Game Dream) as well, then came the following games that were flat-out bad in general (be they arcade or home console), such fine examples including:

Atari 2600
E.T. the Extra Terrestrial
Pac-Man (based on Namco's titular arcade classic at first glance)
Squeeze Box (one of the unlicensed low-quality games said to have contributed to the Video Game Crash)

NES
Action 52
Cheetahmen II
Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Any unlicensed game made by Color Dreams and/or Wisdom Tree

Phillips CD-i
Hotel Mario
Zelda: Wand of Gamelon
Link: The Faces of Evil
Zelda's Adventure

The list of video games banished to both Nethertainment and Video Game Nightmare also included Rise of the Robots, Plumbers Don't Wear Ties on 3DO, Superman on Nintendo 64, Bomberman: Act Zero on X-Box 360, and even the games that were developed by Data Design Interactive (i.e. Ninjabread Man). TurboTime may not have been marked as a bad video game, but the reason it was banished was because of its main character's tendency to crash any racing game that he felt to have "stolen his thunder", which at one point led him to turning Atari Games' RoadBlasters into a wasteland by deliberately crashing it at Litwak's Arcade, leading both the game and his own to be put out of order for good. When the game was later brought to attention in Video Game Dream, Phoebe's father, the benevolent king, kept a close eye on it to see if the story was true. It didn't take longer than a day for him to banish TurboTime to Video Game Nightmare when he noticed Turbo game-jumping into an Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road arcade cabinet and crashing it from within.

To this day, even a game character who died outside their own game can be descended to the Polybius cabinet within Nethertainment in the underworld if they had been bad their whole lives. No innocent soul would dare imagine how horrifying it would be, like one time when Vanellope's rightful position was restored after the Cy-Bug incident at Litwak's Arcade, she jokingly sentenced the Sugar Rush racers who had been mean to her to be executed, sending them (especially Taffyta) bawling in tears. Rumor has it that whenever a troublemaker dies inside their own game, they would get a quick view of Polybius before regenerating in the digital realm, its brief tour being enough to show them what would happen if they don't change their ways prior to dying outside their game. So far, Turbo was the first game character ever to have ended up in Polybius after dying at Diet Cola Mountain in Sugar Rush due to having ruined both his own game and RoadBlasters at Litwak's Arcade back in 1987 and surviving to take over the candy go-kart racing game by stealing Vanellope's throne (all the while disguising himself as King Candy to conceal his real intentions). Needless to say, Polybius was so unbearable that just about nobody - as in nobody in the digital realm - would ever want to go there should they happen to perish outside their own game(s), not even game villains like M. Bison from Street Fighter, Willy from Double Dragon, and perhaps the Shredder from Konami's two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade installments. However, there are quite a few villains who simply don't care what happens as long as they feel they have the power to rule over all, such as Shao Kahn from Midway'sMortal Kombat franchise...or, so the residents of both Game Central Stations in Litwak's Arcade and Blaze Bomber's Diamond Arcade World have witnessed.

[End BGM]


Right after the Cy-Bug incident was neutralized along with Turbo's reign in Sugar Rush, the Core Four devised a plan to deter video game villains from going down the same path Turbo did (which was a bit ironic as Ralph is a villain himself in Fix-It Felix Jr.). The felon who caused trouble outside his or her own game during and/or after hours would be given three choices: remain in the game but go super easy on the players for up to 6 months without ever giving a slight increase in difficulty; go straight to the Fungeon in Sugar Rush in glitch-proof chains after hours for up to 6 months; or be magically transformed into his or her chibified self in the shape of a bowling pin to be put in Sugar Rush's bowling alley called Sugar Bowl-O-Rama, on the opposite end of the lane alongside the other pins. The felon(s) would then be bowled over by the kids' bowling ball-sized gumballs time after time in a Bowl Over event similar to that of ten-pin bowling for up to 3 months to serve out their sentence. It may even take place during a game session as a bonus chance for extra time in the next race, assuming the player won first place in the last one.

Ralph, Vanellope, Felix and Calhoun made it clear after Purple Basilisk summoned Vaati to take over Disneyland and turn the first six Disney Princesses into stereotypical damsels in distress, that as soon as they and their allies finish changing the princesses back to normal and defeating Vaati to save Disneyland, Vanellope would sentence the Basilisk Dynasty and the video game villains who sold out to its leader to be magically transformed into bowling pins for all the innocent children and the princesses to bowl over at Sugar Bowl-O-Rama whenever the namesake event is in session, as a divine punishment for disgracing the aforementioned maidens' well-respected image with Mosquito Bomber's Personalterfier. Only Vanellope had the ability to change the chibified wrongdoers back to normal, provided they truthfully confess to the evils they wrought upon the innocent. She kept it all in mind as she helped Ralph and co. in their mission to rescue Snow White...

TO BE CONTINUED...


Alright, so perhaps this foreshadowing chapter wasn't meant to come off as super-exciting, but I figured it was time I added in a key element that will come into play later on in my Game-Jumping Adventures series, particularly Polybius itself. Speaking of Polybius, I got the inspiration to mention the urban legend in the form of the "arcade game" itself by having read some Wreck-It Ralph headcanons on a titular Tumblr page that mentioned the supposedly evil game, though I came up with Nethertainment, a strictly forbidden place in the underworld, on my own.