Ralph Breaks the News

The kids were all huddled in the hallway while a seemingly intense conversation was taking place in the kitchen. Taffyta was at the head of the group, keeping close to the door without leaning against it in case one of the adults decided to storm out.

None of them were sure what was going on. The first thing they saw was a remorseful Ralph stepping off the train and then their clearly irritated parents dragging him up the apartment complex.

"What are they saying, Taffyta?" Crumbelina whispered.

"Shh," Taffyta hissed.

She focused her ears and cut out all other noises in the room as much as she could.

"Please, please, tell me you didn't just abandon that poor kid back in that shark tank, Wreck-It?" Tamora almost shouted through her gritted teeth.

Beside her, Felix was clutching his cap in his sweating palms.

Ralph ran one of his humongous hands through his wild hair. "I didn't leave her anywhere, Calhoun, I swear! She just said she was tired of Sugar Rush and its predictability."

"And you let her just up and ditch her game like that?" Tamora said.

Ralph held his hand up in defense. "I wasn't going to hold her back from her dreams! Not this time. You guys didn't get to hear how miserable she felt, and what kind of friend would I be if I let her stay in a rut like that?"

"The kind that prevents yet another perfect disaster from unfolding! For crying out loud, Ralph, she's just a kid! She doesn't know what's best for her!"

Felix spoke in a higher-pitched tone than usual, "You can't just let the child have what she wants!Good gravy, Ralph, what if the gamers hop onto Sugar Rush and find out their favorite little gal is missing? What do we do, then? We can't risk that game getting unplugged for good!"

"I know, I know," The taller man sat back in one of the small chairs. "But she said to me that her game was doing fine before she even jumped into the roster. There's no reason it won't be doing fine, now."

Tamora looked at him straight in the eye. "What kind of game has the little candy-muncher taken such a shine to that she would forgo her duty to Sugar Rush?"

Ralph didn't speak for a second. Lowering his eyes, he muttered his answer, "Slaughter Race."

Felix's jaw dropped and Tamora's eyes were dangerously wide. They both looked as if Ralph just shot them in the gut.

"That doesn't sound like a game meant for children!" Felix gripped his hair, looking more frazzled than Ralph had ever seen him.

"You better be kidding around, Wreck-It."

"Woah, woah," Ralph stated. "It's okay, her code's added to the game so she can regenerate."

Felix blinked his eyes and palmed his face. "Oh, Ralph..."

The big man made a gesture that showed he clearly didn't understand what exactly the problem was. Vanellope had finally found her calling. Wasn't that supposed to be enough? Every conversation they've shared recently had been nothing but Vanellope lamenting about how much she longed for adventure. How she felt as though she'd been missing out on what life had to offer her.

And now she finally found it. This was Ralph making a non-selfish decision for her, after he'd gotten her game unplugged and caused this entire escapade to happen in the first place.

"Look, I'm sorry, but... I thought I was doing the right thing!" Ralph said.

Tamora paced from one corner of the room to the next. "We're not the ones you owe an apology to. What about all the people she'd left behind?"

"They really wanted her back!" Felix said.

"You didn't get to hear them constantly asking for Vanellope to return home."

Ralph sighed, not knowing what to say next. After a few awkward minutes, he just decided it was best if he left. With Felix mumbling to himself about how he knew something like this was bound to happen and Tamora staring daggers at the big man, he knew he clearly wasn't wanted here. He would see himself out, then.

...

When Ralph opened the door, he was stopped by fifteen girls and boys that were a quarter of his height, all looking at him with somber eyes.

"Uh, listen, kids..."

Taffyta held a hand up. "Save it, Ralph, we've already heard enough."

She stomped off into the living room and seated herself on the couch, her arms crossed and her eyes narrow. Felix and Tamora stood beside Ralph, utterly speechless.

Crumbelina stepped forward. "So... Vanellope's gone for good?"

"She's not coming back to Sugar Rush?" Jubileena asked, sniffling a bit.

Gloyd hung his head and his arms wrapped around himself. "She was bored of us?"

"No, no, that's not it!" Ralph reassured them. "She just wanted something different. She knew all the secret passages, all the in-game secrets, the Easter eggs, and all that jazz. She just wanted something more exciting!"

Citrusella hung her head. "I thought she wanted to race with us."

Nougetsia went up to Felix, holding up a drawing of a game console on her notepad.

"What if the gamers don't like our game as much?" Candlehead asked.

"What if they think our game is busted again?" Snowanna said. "They're probably not going to give us a second chance after the steering wheel problem!"

They erupted in cries of uncertainty and panic, and began asking each other the same questions about whether or not they could survive without Vanellope's existence. That girl truly had made a big impact on the game's performance and the people's interest in it.

"Our game was so much more popular when Vanellope became one of us!" Rancis stated.

"It's not like we'll peak again!"

Crumbelina backed herself into the corner, saying nothing more. Her face was frozen in a combination of shock and disappointment.

Felix held his hands up. "Okay, everybody, calm down!"

The racers all turned their attention to him.

"Listen, I know this news is a bit unexpected, to say the least, but..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "There's no need to lose our heads. The game isn't completely lost without her."

"Yeah, for now!" Swizzle exclaimed. "But over time, the gamers will realize that none of us have any glitching superpowers, or cool abilities, or something to keep them happy like that!"

He slid onto the floor on his knees.

Adorabeezle was hugging herself as she was shaking. "We'll be gameless forever!"

"No!"

Then there was a loud thump that silenced all of them, and each of them turned their heads to see Taffyta standing on the coffee table, overlooking each and every one of the people in the room. There was a hint of determination on her face, along with a subtle notion of anxiousness and worry, but being as prideful as she was, she wouldn't allow that to surface. Especially not in front of the saddened crowd.

"Pull yourselves together, guys!" She commanded, folding her arms over her pink dress. "We've managed before without our wonderful president and we can do it again. If the players get bored of us, then we'll make things more interesting for them. We've got a few tricks up our sleeves that don't involve our codes being all jacked up." She looked down at Crumbelina, who appeared as if a cloud was hanging over her.

Then at Candlehead twiddling her thumbs and refusing to make eye contact. All of them didn't speak in support of her statement, or against it. They were all too devastated to say anything at all.

But Taffyta thought that was to be expected. It was the initial feeling people usually got whenever something close to them had been taken away. Over time, they would get over it. They would have to.

Stepping off the coffee table, Taffyta made her way towards the front door. Before she opened it, she turned back around to add a closing statement to her speech. "Let's face it, guys. We were never good enough for her. She's moved on and I think we should, too."

...

As she left out the front door, Felix stepped forward and was about to follow, as he normally did whenever someone he cared for hastily departed a conversation, but Tamora gently grasped his shoulder and shook her head.

"Let her go, soldier. Just give her a moment."

Taffyta traveled up the metal ladder to the roof, where she'd realized she could see a perfect view of her game. The screen was blackened out, still with the "Out of Order" sign attached to it. She was trying her hardest not to think about all the memories she'd built with her now lost friend behind the glass screen of that console.

Competing against each other on days when Sugar Rush was given a break from the players, throwing snark at each other, and that time when Vanellope invited Taffyta and the rest for a slumber party at the castle. It was hard to believe that a short time ago, they had been at each other's throats. Taffyta more at Vanellope than the other way around.

The pink racer never liked to dwell on things, such as the fact that she hadn't won a race against Vanellope in a very long time. But it almost seemed like an inevitability. Because deep down, she felt as if she only had herself to blame for Vanellope's departure. The more she thought about it, the sadder she became.

She heard someone climbing up the ladder and cleared away any of the remaining tears on the corner of her eyes. She wrapped her arms around her knees and turned her head away. "I don't feel like a lesson right now."

"That's okay, I just wanted to check on you." Felix said as he hopped onto the surface of the complex. "We missed you at dinner."

"Yeah, well," Taffyta scooted herself away. "I'm not hungry."

Felix set down the plate below him. "It's right here if you change your mind."

Taffyta really felt like she wanted to be alone right now, but for whatever reason, she didn't say that to him. Maybe she was too touched by all the kindness he'd given her to reject him. Or maybe she didn't want to be alone as much as she thought.

"Mind if I join you?" He asked.

Taffyta shrugged. "Go ahead."

They sat in silence for a while, both looking outside the screen of Fix-It Felix, Jr. to the lone cabinet of Sugar Rush. Once, it had two of them. But recently, the other had to be discarded because of an accident caused by a reckless preteen.

It was a scary thing to think, that her game was on its last surviving cabinet and in danger of being just a memory. It made Taffyta analyze everything in her life that she once thought was important, like only striving to beat all the other racers and keep certain people from racing just because they were different. It all seemed so insignificant now.

There was a sudden urge inside of her to wrap her arms around the handyman next to her, and travel downstairs to the apartment where she would do the same to Tamora and the remaining racers, never letting them go as long as Taffyta was still standing. As if keeping all of them physically close to her would prevent them from leaving her as well.

But all Taffyta could do was stiffen up and keep her arms around herself, like she always had.

"I don't mean to sound like a broken record," Felix started. "But I really do think that everything's going to be fine and dandy if-"

Taffyta groaned. "Don't waste your breath on that one."

"Oh."

Taffyta wished she'd just listened to the rest of his sentence and said nothing. "Look, I know you mean well, but this isn't something that needs sugar-coating. We all know what's ahead of us with Vanellope jumping ship like that." She rested her chin on her knees. "I think we should just be preparing for a super long vacation now. That cabinet's probably just going to collect dust."

She didn't mean to sound as pessimistic as she was, but she didn't have the energy to put on a good face.

"What about the thing you said about making the game more interesting?" He asked.

"I was just telling them what they wanted to hear."

"I'm sure there's a few thingamajigs we can find if we just go poking around."

Taffyta looked up at him. "And do what with them? It's not like we can reprogram every single track."

The last remark sounded more of a question than a claim.

"Well, maybe we don't have to reprogram it." Felix proposed. "Maybe we can just give it a few tweaks here and there."

It wasn't as if the team of racers hadn't thought of it before, and though Taffyta felt like being the voice of doom, she also felt like Felix's uncanny optimism was rubbing off on her. Maybe if they had thought of modifying the game before Vanellope's leave, then Vanellope wouldn't have felt like the game had lost its charm.

Well, Ralph already tried to fix that, and it led to this.

Taffyta stretched out her legs in front of her. "You know why this all happened, right? It's because we treated Vanellope like she was nothing but a piece of garbage. We made her feel unwelcome and..." Taffyta sighed. "she's probably gone off to find people that treat her more like family than we ever did. Maybe if I'd been nicer to her..."

"Hey, don't even think that for a second." Felix moved closer to her. "This isn't your fault. It's not any of yours. Vanellope was just tired of the same old routine, winning races and knowing Sugar Rush so well that she could probably walk it blindfolded."

"But why does she have to move to this Internet game of hers? How could she just jump into something so..." She made wild gestures with her hands. "big and unknown? Her entire life is back here in the arcade. She told me once that she wouldn't have traded it for the world."

Felix sighed. "I wish I knew. But I'm sure there's something about it that reminds her of home."

"I just wish she'd told us. It would have made me feel important."

Felix didn't have an immediate response to this, and Taffyta could see that he was silently agreeing with her.

"Oh, well," Taffyta said. "Guess there's nothing that could be done about it now. I just need time to process it all."

"Alright, sweetie," Felix stood up. "I'll let you be. But don't stay up here for too long. It's getting close to your bedtime and we've all got a big day ahead of us."

Taffyta nodded. "Okay."

Once he'd gone, she looked down at the plate he left for her. It was pot roast with steamed vegetables. Before she came here, she wouldn't be caught dead with a vegetable anywhere near her.

But now she picked up the plate and laid it on her lap, and began munching on the carrots and meat without complaining about it.

AN: I took the "Which Wreck-It Ralph Character Are You" quiz. Apparently, I'm Vanellope.