Baby Steps

Felix woke the next morning with a minor headache and a slimmer of nausea in his stomach. Only half of what he would have experienced had he stayed any longer at Tapper's. His brain was pulsing sharply and when he got up out of bed, he was dizzy.

The first answer to his problem was heading to the kitchen and grabbing a tall glass of water. He drank it slowly but when he did, he felt slightly worse than before. If he drank any more, he was worried he might have amplified the clenching feeling in his gut.

"Jiminy..." He moaned and sat down at the table by himself. "What a night..."

He hoped and pleaded with any force that the information he heard last night was just his own paranoia filling in the blanks of the statements given by Tapper. That didn't stop the growing concern within him about the fact that Ralph and Vanellope still hadn't been back and it was already the end of the week.

Thankfully, that meant it was the weekend for him and the rest of the arcade.

...

The racers seemed to have lost interest in causing mass destruction in the apartment as all fifteen of them were either sprawled out across the floor or lazily hanging off the edge of the furniture.

Gloyd was fiddling with a rubber band, Swizzle was balancing a pencil on the tip of his finger, and Rancis was staring up at the ceiling while laying on his back. Taffyta was lying in the recliner with her legs dangling off one arm and her neck resting against the other. Sticky, Torvald, and Minty Zaki were taking up space on the couch, both sighing as loud as they possibly could every five minutes.

Felix was looking at the weather outside the arcade through the window of his apartment and the glass panel on his game console. It appeared cloudy and a slight drizzle was falling. Then the raindrops became heavy.

Hope that storm doesn't cut the power off here, he thought. The last thing they needed was a break in the Internet connection while Ralph and Vanellope were trying to get back home.

Although if the power went out, he'd have bigger problems.

"I'm so bored," Taffyta moaned.

Felix turned and looked over at her. "Well, what do you whippersnappers do on days like these?"

"We usually do an impromptu race with each other." Snowanna Rainbeau answered.

Felix thought for a moment. These kids had been cooped up in the apartment for a while now, and odds were they still had so much adrenaline left over from panicking about the unplugging of Sugar Rush.

Niceland may have not had a race track, but there could have been another option waiting for them. There was a wide range of 8-bit grass calling for a crowd of children to utilize and run over.

He grinned to himself and moved towards the front door and opened it. Looking at the rest of the racers, he said cheerfully, "Let's go out and get some fresh air. I've got an idea I think you kids will like."

Taffyta turned onto her stomach. "And what is that, Fix-It?"

"You won't know 'til you come out here with me!"

...

Despite the violent storm that seemed to appear out of nowhere outside of Litwak's, the atmosphere in Felix's game was peaceful. The weather never changed in his game, which made game-hopping more interesting the few times he'd done it. He was glad it wasn't as gloomy and gray over here. Otherwise, it might not have made these outside activities work.

"A game of hide and seek?" Taffyta said with disgust. "That's what we're supposed to find fun?"

"This isn't just any game of hide and seek!" Felix insisted. "Uh..." He scratched his head. "Let's split you kids up into teams."

"Boys against girls!" Adorabeezle said, jumping in the air.

"No way!" Gloyd protested. "There isn't enough guys to match you girls!"

Felix pursed his lips together. "How about seven each?"

"But that leaves one of us out." Minty Sakura said.

The handyman smoothed his thumb over his hammer. "Alright, then how about five and five? Then you can take turns swapping each other out."

Half of the racers crossed their arms and nodded briskly. "Alright then, I guess it beats sitting inside all day."

The racers that weren't apart of this round sat on the side and watched as one of the players from one team counted to ten. The way that this game worked was that the ones hiding in various placed within the respected boundary of the grass would move from one place to the next while they were being searched. If the one watching out for them saw them while they were making their escape, then the game would turn into a speed chase.

Felix piled several loose bricks on the corner of the grass square and marked it as a safety spot. The team that got all of their players to the safety zone received one point, and the team that caught all the players beforehand received one as well.

It was a comforting thought that he'd managed to have them all tiring themselves out after a few days of waiting aimlessly for the next day.

Tamora was off doing a mandatory perimeter check in her game and Felix had the kids to himself. He sat at one of the picnic tables and watched them all work together or against each other. There was one little girl who decided to sit away from the excitement on the seat opposite of him, watching the fun.

She was dressed in pastel pink outerwear with a fluffy snow hat that had two dangling pom-poms.

"Little Miss?" Felix asked. "Don't you want to play, too?"

The little girl turned around and said nothing, but shrugged in response.

"Well, what do you want to do instead?"

Again, a shrug but no words.

"What's your name?" Felix asked, still getting used to everyone's titles. It was hard to keep track of with so many kids.

The girl pointed to her neck and Felix raised his brow in puzzlement.

"Got something in your throat? Have laryngitis?"

The girl just kept her finger pointing to her neck and shook her head at each guess.

"Her name is Nougestia." Crumbelina said as she approached the table. "And she doesn't talk. We're pretty sure it's not in her code."

The little girl in the snow hat nodded frivolously.

"Oh, well I've got a solution for that." Felix hopped up and hurried up to his apartment. When he returned, he brought a notepad and pencil. "You can just write what you want to say."

Nougetsia took the pencil and pad and started scribbling. She turned the notebook around to show him a picture of a hammer and a question mark beside it.

Felix grasped his only weapon in his game hanging off his belt. "Oh, you want to see how it works?"

Nougetsia nodded again.

He walked away from the table and beckoned the little girl to come forward. "I'll show you."

They walked closer towards the massive junkpile that was the place Ralph used to call home. He turned his head to ensure that he could still see the rest of the racers. He took a brick that had been snapped in two and placed the two halves at his feet. He knelt down close to them and Nougetsia followed suit.

"Now all I have to do is tap it like this," He demonstrated for her and the two parts of the brick came together. "... and that's all there is to it."

The girl scribbled away on the notepad and presented an image of a hammer along with an equals sign and a small picture of what Felix thought was a racing kart.

"Well, golly," he said, scratching his head. "I'm not sure about that, but I can try."

He carried a bundle of loose bricks and piled them right in front of her. He took his golden hammer and handed it to her. "Do you want to give it a try?"

Nougetsia looked at the object for a second and carefully took it. She sat cross-legged on the grass and began constructing a makeshift kart and tried hitting it several times. The bricks stayed in place but the kart was looking less like a drivable vehicle and more of a model that was put together by a kid.

Felix was sitting on his knees across from her, beaming at her consistent tries. She seemed very determined to build something, and that was something that made him feel proud. Perhaps he was starting to get the hang of parenting, after all.

Crumbelina had taken a seat on the grass beside the girl in the snow wares and held her head in her hands, sighing heavily.

Felix walked over to her and sat with his legs stretched out in front of him.

"Is hide and seek not really your thing?" He asked her.

"Huh?" She looked at him with confusion. "Oh, no that's not it. It was fun to play. I'm just not in the mood. Maybe I'm a little too tired."

"That's right, you had a bit of a rough evening." Felix sat back on his palms, thinking about how he should approach this topic. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Crumbelina didn't say anything for a few seconds, looking pensive like she was trying to put her thoughts into words.

"You don't have to." Felix immediately followed up.

Crumbelina waved a hand at him. "Oh, no, it's okay, I'll tell you. I had a pretty scary nightmare. Probably the scariest one I've had in my life."

Felix listened intently as she began to describe her dream. She said she was in a black void, floating in the air without any hope of reaching the ground or the surface above her. She saw a purple, rectangular shape as the only thing accompanying her and it had her name printed in digital lettering. It was her code. The wires that typically connected to each character's code were all missing and it was left a sparking loose object, spiraling further away from the rest of her game.

Then in this scenario, she began glitching. At first it had been once or twice, and then she began fizzing in and out until she no longer existed.

"And then I woke up." She concluded, hands wringing together as she relived the memory. "I didn't really know what it meant until I thought about it some more."

Felix didn't want to drive out more of the negative feelings, but he thought it was important for her to self-analyze it. "And what did you think it meant?"

Crumbelina hugged her knees to her chest. "I'm afraid, Mr. Felix."

He sat up and rested his hands on his legs. "Of glitching out?"

"Of not being... anything anymore." Her voice became low. "What if our game never gets fixed? My whole program is meant to be a go-kart racer in Sugar Rush, and now I'm just kind of winging it 'til I have our game again." She squeezed her knees tighter. "If I'm not a racer then what am I supposed to be? Just some rotten kid?"

Felix bit his lower lip as he thought about what he heard the other night. "Um... well, you know, just because your code says you're a racer doesn't mean you have to be one. There's a whole lot more to your candy-coated self than that, Crumbelina. Just take a look at Vanellope! She's supposed to be a princess, but she chose to go against that and became a racing politician."

Crumbelina lowered her eyes. "But... I'm not special like her. I don't have any other real option here. She gets all the good stuff: superpowers, being a leader, and the kids all pick her. I haven't gotten picked in years! I'm starting to think maybe I should look for something else, in case our game doesn't get rebooted."

"You are special, Sugarcane," Felix told her. "There is no game without you and the others. You don't have to have Vanellope's features to be important."

A small half-smile appeared on her lips. "Thanks, but... we still don't have a game, or a home."

Felix laid his palm on her tiny shoulder. "Well, you do now."

Her expression lit up a bit but she still seemed uncertain, and honestly, Felix was feeling exactly the same way. With Tapper's cryptic words and Ralph's insistence on doing whatever it was that made Vanellope happy despite how dangerous it could be, even he was having trouble assuring himself. The people he cared about going Turbo was something he didn't think he had to worry about after Ralph's misadventures.

And now it seemed that Vanellope was willing to travel down that path against her better judgement, or that of everyone else's. Felix wouldn't know what to do if he found out that she actually considered leaving Sugar Rush for good. He didn't want to think about the consequences of that decision.

Maybe he wouldn't have to, because Ralph was sure to return with Vanellope any day now.

"Vanellope is coming back, right?" Crumbelina asked, shaking Felix out of his daydream.

He put on a smile as real as could possibly be in that moment for her. "I'm sure she is, Little Lady."

...

When he and the two little girls returned to the rest of the crowd he found them doing some playful roughhousing with each other, tackling each other on the roughened up grass.

All of them were erupting in the familiar sounds of cheers and laughter. Even Taffyta seemed to be in her element, chuckling with red cheeks and teary eyes. Felix hadn't heard such noises of pure happiness coming out of her mouth since she first arrived here.

"Did you guys have fun?" He asked them.

"Yeah!"

"You too, Taffyta?"

The pink-clad racer crossed her arms and looked away. "Yeah, I guess it was pretty alright."

"See that, kids?" Felix said, his hands on his hips. "Trying something new aside from racing isn't all bad."

They all murmured in agreement, giving each other a jovial nudge with their elbows.

Felix stretched his arms. "Well, I reckon it's about that time I get us all sitting down at the dinner table." He searched through the entire crowd and his smile faded as he realized something that caused some panic to arise in his chest. "Wait a minute, we're missing a few kids."

Each of them looked around at each other, trying to figure out who could have been left behind during the games. Felix counted the number of heads over and over again and he kept reaching the number twelve. Three of them had wandered off while the game was still taking place.

He looked through his mind for their names. The two girls that looked like they could have been twins with different styles and the one girl racer who had the signature piece of her uniform at the top of her hat.

"Where are Citrusella, Jubileena, and Candlehead?"

The others began searching the grassy area, calling out the girls' names.

"They probably wandered off into the forest and forgot we were still playing, or something." Taffyta said, nonchalantly as she stood in the same spot and watched everyone else survey the area.

"Well, we got to go get 'em and make sure they're home safe." Felix said.

"Yeah, Taffyta," Crumbelina said. "You could be a little more helpful."

Taffyta rolled her eyes. "Fine, but I doubt something bad happened to them. There's nothing but good in this game."

They could have still been in hiding and not realized the kids had changed the game they were playing. But when Felix traveled through the forest and around the lake area and the dump without finding them, he felt the nerves build up in his chest again, thinking that they'd somehow slipped out of this world altogether.

That meant that they were now wandering Game Central Station, possibly going through another game tunnel to make things more exciting for themselves. And didn't realize how much of a risk they were taking by doing so.

Oh no...