Chapter 10: Fortuna

"Well I'll be, you guys really are here!" Tapper exclaimed as he was walking towards Vanellope. "Long time no see, Schweetz!"

He happily greeted the girl with open arms, expecting her to run into him with a hugging embrace after haven't seeing him in eons.

Instead, she took a step back, refusing to acknowledge his gesture for a hug. "Uhh, hi mister."

Tapper felt uneasy about the way she was acting. "Hah, there's no need to be timid, Vanellope…"

After an awkward pause, she quickly climbed up to Ralph's ear to whisper, "Hey who is this guy, and how does he know my name?"

Never before has anyone invaded Ralph's personal space as much as Vanellope did. "Hey hey, not too close… and we'll talk about this later."

After Ralph put her down by the hood, he asked, "Hey Tapper, where have you been? Everyone in the arcade's worried about you."

Tapper responded immediately, as if he knew Ralph was going to ask that question. "Ah, I suppose that's why you came here, to look for me? Well, I've been spending the past day in a jail cell, but a few minutes ago, I noticed there were a couple of bars that were loose, so I broke them off, climbed out, and here I am."

"Let me guess, you were in there because of King Candy?"

"Indeed…" Tapper wanted to change the topic. "So what are you doing here with little miss princess?"

"Hah," Vanellope interrupted, still amused at the idea of being a princess, but slightly annoyed as well. "Why does everyone keep thinking I'm a princess? I mean, seriously!"

Neither Ralph or Tapper answered her question, but it gave Ralph the cue to ask, "Can I speak with you for a minute, Tapper?"

The bartender nodded after noticing the serious tone of Ralph's voice, and they both huddled some steps away from Vanellope, to which Ralph commanded, "Just stay here real quick."

"Well make it snappy, we've got somewhere to go to," She was a little excited and impatient for what was to come at the factory.

Ralph lowered his voice to Tapper, "So I don't know what's happening here, but Vanellope…" He rephrased his sentence, "She doesn't remember you."

Tapper looked down at the ground, contemplating more than anything, much to Ralph's surprise. Ralph thought that Tapper would be sad or in the least, in denial.

Ralph continued, "It seems that everything Graham said at the bar was right. I mean, I saw Vanellope glitch the moment I broke the door over there," He pointed to the fungeon door that was facing down on the ground some feet away from them.

"…Well then, I think I know what's going on here."

Curious as to what Tapper had to say, Ralph asked, "W-wait, what do you mean?"

"I've been thinking about this for a while when I was in the jail cell. Someone must've broken into the code vault."

Ralph was familiar with the vault as he said, "Hey I know what that is, there's one in my game too. Only protagonists know the password, right?"

"Well, at least that's how it's supposed to be," Tapper clarified. "The one who is programmed the most trustworthy in their game knows the password to the vault. Say, for example, Felix or Mario."

As they were talking, Vanellope was growing a little more impatient by the second.

"But as I was saying," Tapper continued, "Someone may have gone into the vault and locked everyone's memory – it's not possible to delete it, only suppress it." In the attempt to justify his claim, he said, "None of the oreo guards remember me, of whom I was pretty good acquaintances with. Sour Bill doesn't either, and of course, Vanellope as well…"

"Hey Ralph, I'm a little bored here! When are we going to the factory?" An anxious Vanellope interrupted in the distance.

"Just hold on a sec!" Ralph shouted back, "Sorry about that, the kid wants me to do her a little favor. Probably wreck a few things or something… So yea, what do you think we should do about all this?"

"I'm going to write something up on the 'help wanted' section of the bulletin board at Game Central Station. I need someone to find proof that someone broke into the code vault. After that, I'd be able to report it to the surge protector, and he can round up some people to search for the intruder."

"Sounds like a plan, do you think I should do something?"

"I don't know if this is asking too much from you, Ralph…" Tapper was a little hesitant, but asked anyway, "But do you think you can keep Vanellope company? She's technically a glitch at the moment. And from what I've been hearing around, glitches are looked down upon by everyone in every game."

After a short pause, Ralph answered, "I guess I can do that…I mean, I kind of need to hold up my end of the deal with her anyway."

"Thanks, Ralph," Tapper said with genuine appreciation. "So I'll see you later, then. Keep Vanellope safe, you hear?"

Ralph nodded in response.

Tapper took a few seconds to wave at Vanellope, who was kind enough to wave back. As he was walking away, Tapper turned around to say to Ralph, "And if you ever see the king again, be sure not to believe anything he says."

With those words said, Tapper ran off to head back to his game.

Vanellope approached Ralph as she commented, "That guy seemed nice. Tapper, was it?"

"Yeah." Ralph responded, eyeing Tapper who was running in the distance. "Now let's head to that factory."

"Finally! Let me lead the way."

They spent the next hour venturing towards the kart factory, having to be stealthy around Beard Papa, who was snoozing inside the security booth.

They slinked with success up to a durable door with an antagonizing picture of Vanellope's face on it. It was decorated with a circle-slash and the words: "NO GLITCHES".

"Alright, do your thing, knuckles. Bust it open." Vanellope pointed at the door, folding her hands in excitement.

Ralph pointed at her accusingly after having observed the door, "What's this? You're a full on criminal aren't you?"

"Hey, we shook on it." Vanellope responded, folding her arms.

Ralph sighed and took a quick jab at the door, breaking it into several pieces.

"Thank you, Jeeves." The girl saluted as she ran inside the room.

The room was dark, only lit by a glowing red button.

"So you never told me what we're going to do here."

Vanellope ran towards the button and stomped on it, lighting up the room. "You're gonna help me make a kart!"

Surrounding them were various pictures of karts, with a colorful "SELECT YOUR KART" hovering over each one.

"What, me? No, no no. Look kid, bad idea, trust me. I don't make things, I break things."

"Well, looks like you'll be stepping outside your comfort zone then, Gladys." She said as she was looking at which kart design she wanted.

"Ooh, this is a good one." She ran quickly towards a sleek red and light colored kart.

And then that fateful time between Vanellope and Ralph occured at the mini-game.

Hi. Yes, I know I said I'd be going full steam ahead on this fic, but a few things happened that got me doing busywork...

nightmaster000: I think for this story in particular, I won't be giving any character spotlight on anymore minor characters. It'll make the story a little too broad to be focused? (is my reasoning)

JustSomeAverageGuy: I JUST LIKE ELLIPSES OKAY, lol jk. Thanks for critiquing my work. If anyone wants to criticize my work, feel free to do it (y'know, so long as it's justifiable)

kairi's friend: I WOULD use that if I found Tapper's reaction to be more...emotional.

For everyone else who commented: I'm sorry if i didn't respond! I just, don't know how to respond to it, honest! but I appreciate everyone's comments.