Sorry about the late update.
Anime Expo fucked with my internal clock and schedule.
Here's the promised chapter and another on this Tuesday!
Enjoy!
Chapter 11
Bitch Better Have My Soul Piece
"So Ashton took a piece of you from me?" Ralph held Ray in a death grip as they cuddled in his bed that night.
"Yeah..."
"You gave me a piece of you? Oh, Ray." Ralph nibbled on Ray's neck causing him to squirm.
"Ralph... stop it..." Ray cooed playfully.
"No"
"Come on..."
"But I like making you squirm."
"Well, I've got to get to sleep or I'll never get that part of me back. I have to protect more than just you, you know."
"Ok... Party pooper." Ralph joked as he went back to cuddling Ray closely. Ray fell asleep thinking about the missing piece of his soul and where it could possibly be now.
A splash of water woke Ray from his slumber.
"I'M UP! I'M UP!" He shouted as he took in his surroundings.
He was in a dense forest with a path etched into the ground. A small pond sat next to him where the water that smacked him must have came from.
His face didn't feel wet though. The water had evaporated at an accelerated pace.
"You know you snore, right?" said a 6'3, toned man in a tree.
"Huh? No I don't!"
"Yeah... You do."
"Prove it."
The guy pulled out a tape recorder and played the obnoxious fweeting sound that Ray made while he slept.
"Who are you?" Ray was not happy.
"I am Spartarainicus, but you can call me Steve."
"Ok... Steve. Is this where The Trial takes place?"
"Depends... Are you here to take it?"
"Yes."
"Then this place is what you seek." Steve hopped out of the tree and faced Ray.
"You must pass 5 tests we've created to pass the trial. I am the test of endurance. Are you ready?"
"Yes I am!" Ray took a fighting stance in front of Steve and charged him.
Ray sent a punch to Steve's chest, but he blocked it and sent a kick to Ray's side which was also deflected.
They fought for 10 minutes straight, neither of them giving an inch, but Steve slipped on a branch and Ray took that opportunity to send a jab to his side.
"Very good, Ray. You passed the test of endurance."
"How? That was only one jab."
"All you had to do was land one blow."
"Seems like you're just lazy."
"Shut up! This might've been the longest fight you'll have today, and the only one that'll involve your fists, so good luck!" He disappeared into thin air as Ray continued down the path.
Ray passed the test of Strength by destroying a mountain in one blow.
"Go punch that mountain."
"The fuck does that have to do with anything?"
"Just punch it!"
He sighed and turned it into rubble with his enhanced strength.
He passed the test of Courage by laughing in a lion's face.
"Go into the lion's den and retrieve my iPhone."
"You do it!"
"Bitch, I own you until you pass the test now go get it!"
Ray stalked into the cave where the lion was trying to unlock the phone with its claws.
"Gimme the phone."
The lion scoffed. "I will eat you."
"Pussy doesn't scare me. Now cough it up."
"No one gets the phone until I find out who Tayquan is."
Ray cackled in the cat's face. "Tayquan!?"
"He's been flirting with my girl."
"You're dating the test instructor? And you think they're cheating on you with a guy named Tayquan? Fuck this."
He snatched the phone and kicked the lion away.
And he passed the test of Perseverance by bugging the test giver to let him pass in 18 different languages(several of them made-up).
He walked into a hut at the end of the trail to find a woman no older than 25 with blonde hair and blue eyes.
"I'm glad you could join me, Ray. I am Gabrielle. I have the missing piece of your soul right here, oops!" The woman dropped the ball into a portal on the ground.
"What'd you do?" Ray queried as he walked over to the portal.
"I just prepared your last trial. Find the ball in the portal and it'll fuse back with the rest of your soul. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors!"
Ray jumped into the multi-colored portal and braced himself for a rough landing.
A pile of bricks a few yards from the Niceland Condominiums was his arrival point.
"The portal sent me here?"
"Hey! Get off my bricks!" a familiar voice shouted as 2 huge fists sprouted from the wreckage.
"Ralph?"
"Yeah... Who are you?"
"It's Ray!"
"Ray who?"
"You don't know who I am?"
"Look... whoever you are, I have a Bad-Anon meeting to go to so leave."
Ralph shoved Ray out the way and left on the trolley to GCS.
"Ralph living on bricks... Bad-Anon... Doesn't remember me... Holy Crap! I'm in the past!"
Ray sat next to the pile and pondered where he could start looking. "Where would it go?"
"It's where you left it... inside of Ralph." Gabrielle's voice rang through his mind.
"No one knows who you are yet so... yeah... have fun with that." She left as quickly as she came.
"All righty then... To Bad-Anon!" Ray threw his Blue Star II down and streaked towards Pac-Man.
Ray walked in just as Ralph was asked why he came to Bad-Anon.
"I don't want to be the bad guy anymore." Ralph stated as he put his hands on his sides.
To say that the villains freaked out would be an understatement.
Bowser threw up fire, Satine fell out of his chair and Clyde turned blue for a few seconds.
"Are you going turbo, Ralph?" Clyde inquired as he went back to his normal orange palette.
"What?! NO! Is it turbo to want something more from life?"
Ray froze when he heard that sentence and flashed back to the first day of his senior year.
"Why did that happen? And is that..."
Ray walked down an empty hall to his first period when he sees his boyfriend Dimitri picking on Chad.
"What's your problem? He didn't do anything to you!"
"Well he did correct me in class, so now I'm correcting his face." Ray pulled him to the side and whispered in his ear.
"What's with picking on my best friend?! I thought you promised to stop that!"
"Well you didn't have that problem with all the other nerds I picked on!"
"Well I should've! Ever since we started dating I've let you get away with a lot of shit and that stops here. We're done!"
Ray shoved Dimitri into the lockers and walked towards Chad.
"You okay?" He asked the Junior.
"I've been better. What was that all about?"
"Nothing. I'm going to class." Ray shuffled past the two and kept on walking.
"What was that?!" Ray heard someone shout from inside of Bad Anon.
"I just had a weird vision. It looked like a kid's love life falling apart."
"Weird... He saw that?" Ray thought to himself as he rode his codeboard to Tapper's.
He sat in the corner and waited for Ralph to enter knowing he frequented Tapper's a lot before they dated.
About an hour later, Ralph strolled in with a look of desperation on his face and headed straight for Tapper.
"I know you have to know something about winning a medal." Ralph pleaded to Tapper as he cleaned a glass.
"Check the lost and found. Maybe someone left a medal."
Ralph dashed for the box and Ray followed close behind.
After finding a mushroom, an exclamation point and Zangief's unmentionables *shudders* It seemed as if Ralph was out of options.
But a soldier from Hero's Duty brought forward one last-ditch effort.
"Hey, you could always try Hero's Duty. There's a medal in that game."
"You again?! Look I... did you say medal?"
"Yeah! There's a big, shiny one!"
"Thanks, kid!"
"It's Raiden! But you can call me Ray."
"Ray..."
As if from nowhere, Ray was pushed forward in time a few hours.
He was on a chocolate dune as Ralph and Vanellope sped past him.
He remembered this moment from when Ralph told him the story of how he got respect in Fix-it Felix Jr..
He pulled out his thunder blasters and broke the ground in front of him, separating King Candy and his royal guard from them.
"What is the meaning of this!?" The current king of Sugar Rush demanded.
"Shut up. I know who you really are..."
The rest of his guard froze like statues as the king stepped forward. "Very perceptive, young codemaster. Though I thought the current codemaster was an older gentleman."
"This isn't exactly my timeline. So you're the infamous King Candy aka Turbo. The nastiest virus in the arcade."
"Oh, you flatter me... now die." He chucked raw data at Ray, who dodged at the last second.
"I can't purge you now. I have a more important goal, but I can slow you down!"
Ray summoned his armor and threw a bolt of lightning directly through King Candy's crown. "Now I see why she hates wearing that thing."
He was disoriented for a second, which revealed his disguise temporarily.
"Static-"
Ray was pushed forward in time a few more hours before he finished the attack.
Ralph was holding up Sour Bill and threatening him with being eaten.
"And that's all I know. I swear. Now please don't put me back in your filthy mouth again!"
"It's not that bad..." Ray thought as he flashed back to his first kiss with Ralph. He threw the charged up attack at Diet Cola Mountain, denting it.
"Thanks, now stick around!" Ralph barked as he stuck Sour Bill to a lollipop tree.
"Better break her highness out..." Ray hopped on his board of choice and dashed towards the castle.
Ray slipped through the bars and broke one of Vanellope's restraints.
"What are you doing?! Who are you?!"
"I'm Ray and Ralph will be here any minute to break you out so you can reset the game."
"He didn't want me to race! He was just using me!" Vanellope barked back as she pouted.
"He only did what he did because King Candy warped his mind. You're a part of the game. Your memories are just locked until you cross the finish line."
"Whoa..."
"Now I've gotta go!" Ray shot out of the room as Ralph bursted in with her cart.
Again, Ray was swallowed up by time and placed back in the middle of the Cybug invasion.
"How do I get my piece again?" Ray asked the sky hoping Gabriel was listening. "I'm being tossed around the time line really randomly..."
"You need to kiss Ralph for the transfer to occur, but first you must save him from Turbo! It's your duty as a Codemaster!"
"Why do I have to kiss him though?"
"Don't question me, code monkey!"
"He might not like that... but ok!" Ray boarded his main transportation for hopefully the last time that day and spotted Ralph on Calhoun's hoverboard aiming for Diet Cola Mountain.
"The beacon! Codemaster! Wreck the code!" Ray donned his armor as he bolted towards Ralph.
"Code Card! Thunder Blasters!" Ray barked as he spawned the blasters to his hands.
He shot down all cybugs that got too close to Ralph with high-speed precision.
Ralph started to wreck the Mentos on top of the mountain before he was knocked away by a mutated Turbo.
"Get away from him!" Ray shouted as he shot at Turbo causing him to fall back.
Ray checked his gauntlet for his stats.
"Looks like he's a Big 4 member of the past... Nice! Why didn't I check this earlier when he attacked me...?"
"Who dares to stop the great Turbo from taking Sugar Rush for himself?" He bellowed, mildly disoriented.
"Cut the crap! I know the League gave you this power! Prepare to burn!" Ray charged Turbo guns blazing, but was thrown back by his claws.
He thought about using Code Summons or Fusion, but none of those options would work in this area. The bonds hadn't been created yet.
"Nngh... Ralph! I need you!"
"Why?"
"You have something I need!" Ray dashed over to Ralph, pulled down his scarf and planted a kiss right on his lips.
Ralph was startled, but melted into the kiss anyways.
As he pulled away, Ray began to glow.
"X Mode... I'm complete again!" Ray crushed the card and the generic-looking X's graced his armor.
"Let's go for a lift!" Ray grabbed Ralph and Turbo and jumped into the air.
"Ralph! Wreck the ceiling and stop this madness. I'll see you in a bit."
"On it!" Ralph dropped down as Ray got ready to end Turbo.
"X-Drive! Thunder Essence!" He charged Turbo and dealt a punch to his face.
"Never touch my boyfriend again!" Ray uppercutted Turbo as the beacon activated.
"Have a nice game over!" Ray shouted as he threw him into the light, hopefully eradicating his code.
"All is well..." Ray floated down to the track and his armor disappeared. At this point, Ralph was saying goodbye to Vanellope.
"Ralph!" Ray shouted as he ran over to him.
"Look... about the thing on the mountain. I..." Ray was cut off by a pair of soft lips.
"It's ok." Ralph whispered as he pulled him into a hug.
"Come here." Ray pulled Ralph behind the rafters.
"Well here's the thing. I'm kind of from the future, and I have to go back, but we'll see each other again. Just so you know, in the future, we end up dating. Something to look forward to." Ray took a step back and waved Ralph off.
"See you in 2 years!" Ray disappeared, not leaving a trace.
"Ralph? What was that? You were just talking to thin air." Vanellope stated from behind him.
"No I wasn't... Or was I?"
Ray woke up in Ralph's bed but Ralph was nowhere in sight.
"Ralph! Where are you?!" He ran outside to find no one in the game at all.
"GCS!" Ray teleported to the station to find everyone staring into a hole in the wall.
"RAY!" Sarah shouted as she ran up to Ray.
"Ashton broke a hole in the station and is launching an attack on Litwak!"
"What?! This must've been his plan! Let's go!"
"Codemaster! Kick it up!" They donned their armor and hopped out of the hole.
They came out right in the middle of the arcade.
"Where's Litwak?!" They got their answer as a cry was heard from outside.
"Let's go!" They ran out to find Shadow Wrecker attacking Litwak in the parking lot.
"Get back!" Ray bashed Ashton into a building and took a stance to protect Litwak.
"Ray... Where'd you go?"
"I had to find myself."
"That's deep." Litwak joked.
"Where's Justin?"
"He's patching the hole in the teleporter room."
"Let's send him back where he came from!"
Ray grabbed the unconscious wrecker and threw him back into the hole.
Just as they did, the hole closed and their armor disappeared.
"What? Why'd our armor go away?" Sarah queried as she walked into the teleporter room.
"Allow me to explain." Justin butted in from behind them.
"When Ashton tore a hole into our reality, he enabled the codes of the game characters to exist here, and when we closed the portal, your armor disappeared because it's code as well."
"Makes sense." Ray rebutted as he walked over to Justin.
"Is it possible to take game characters out without making a hole?"
"Well yeah... but why would you want to... ooooooh!"
"Yeah."
"I'll get to work on that right away."
"Ray..." Sarah threatened as Ray teleported into Fix-it Felix.
"Ralph!" Ray yelled as he walked into the hut.
"Babe! What'd I say about you yelling every time you come in the house?!" Ralph barked as he entered the living room from his bedroom.
"Sorry. I was worried about you." Ray replied as he ran up to Ralph and hugged him tight.
"It's okay."
"Now... Where are my Cheetos?" Ray inquired as he walked into the kitchen.
"Same old Ray..." Ralph thought to himself as he followed his love to the pantry.
"Ralph! Where the fuck are my cheetos!?"