A/N: Hey guys! For those of you still reading, thanks for bearing with me! I promise you, things are about to pick up with the plot and definitely get a little more interesting ;)
Also, this chapter is pretty short compared to the rest so far, but I just felt as if I needed to pace things a certain way in accordance with what is happening, and end it in a pretty specific spot. Don't worry, I'll try and get the next update out as soon as I can! ~ With love, CiciVal
Disclaimer: As you all know, I don't own Wreck-It Ralph lol. Yada yada, blah blah blah. Let's move on!
Chapter Five
The rest of that week passed by without a hitch. Ralph and Vanellope followed their usual routine of hanging out after game day, though now she went over to his game a few times. Taffyta, Candlehead, and Rancis even joined them a few times. Overall, things were settling down and everyone was happy.
That Sunday, Ralph woke up early to go over and surprise Vanellope with a visit to the castle. They had planned on trying some remodeling anyway, so he figured he'd head over there right away. Also, he was kind of hoping she would make breakfast for him again. One thing was for sure, people from Sugar Rush knew a thing or two about food. At least there was one perk about hanging around there so often.
He pulled himself out of bed and quickly took a shower (in what was probably the only one big enough) before throwing on his usual orange polo and half-strapped pair of overalls. Deciding to pass on the coffee, he headed out the door of his cozy cabin.
As it was still relatively early, there wasn't much of a crowd in Game Central Station yet. There were a few other early risers floating between games as well as the usual leftovers from Tapper's sitting on benches and stumbling back to their games. Tapper always made sure to send gamers home after a certain limit; if you consumed too much alcohol, the way it messes with your binary could actually make you game over.
Ralph shook his head at the few drunkards hanging around. One of them, who he glimpsed from a distance, looked suspiciously like Zangief, and was passed out cold on a bench. For a second he paused and thought about going over and making sure he got home safe, but he saw Surge materialize beside him and wake him gently before proceeding to talk to him. After a minute or so, Zangief slowly picked himself up and started wearily trudging towards his game. Surge followed closely behind, and waited to watch him enter.
As annoying as that hologram can be, Ralph contemplated, he does genuinely care about our well-being. So I guess I can be grateful for that. Maybe next time I see him I'll try to be a little more friendly.
After observing this small spectacle, Ralph eagerly made his way towards Sugar Rush. But when he got to the monorail station, there was one small issue.
There was no monorail.
Befuddled, he stood and scratched the back of his head, deeply furrowing. "Huh," he murmured aloud. "That's weird." Figuring that someone may be on it, he turned and sat down at a bench. Except, after about ten minutes, he began to realize that it wasn't getting back any time soon.
Hurriedly, he paced back outside the station to where the outlet plugged in and turned around to examine. At a glance, the first thing he noticed made his heart drop.
The lights were out.
The cheery, neon sign that normally beamed the words 'Sugar Rush' with pride, were suddenly dim. With a gulp, Ralph slowly backed away from the outlet. "No…" he whispered. Turning quickly on his heel, Ralph ran faster than he ever had before.
Skidding to a halt outside the Niceland building, Ralph unwittingly knocked into Felix. "Oof!" It was only with the sound of this exclamation that Ralph looked down and noticed Felix sprawled on his butt in the dirt. "Gee, Ralph," he said with a small chuckle.
His eyes widened and Ralph quickly extended a (rather large) hand to help his friend stand. "Sorry about that Felix. It's just, I'm kind of in a panic. You see, I went to see Vanellope, but the monorail wasn't there, and, and, the lights, and gone, and maybe unplugged, or shut down, and I need to find out, I have to see, I need to-"
Felix cut him off, looking flustered as he tried to process the flurry of words zooming out of the wrecker's mouth. "Woah, woah, slow down there Ralph. I can't keep up," he protested, hands held up towards him to try and tell him to stop.
"Ugh, there's no time Felix. I need to see what's going on. I'm going to the roof."
"O-Okay. Well then, I'm coming with you."
Ralph didn't respond, he simply ran past Felix, who spun around and followed closely in pursuit. As fast as their legs could stride, the two raced up the stairs of the Niceland building, passing by the penthouse, and climbed their way up to the roof.
"You know, Ralph," Felix suggested sheepishly through gasps of air as the two stood, huffing and out of breath, on the roof. "We probably could have just climbed up the building like we do during game day.
Ralph glanced at him, a faintly embarrassed look crossing his eyes, before placing his hands on his knees and continuing to catch his breath. After a few seconds, he straightened himself out, still feeling vaguely breathless, and nervously stepped forward towards the edge of the building.
"It's no use," Ralph huffed, crossing his arms and standing on tiptoe. "I can only get a good look at it when the Nicelanders are lifting me up."
The two stood in frustrated contemplation; Felix took his hat off and held it solemnly in front of him. Finally, he perked up with a smile, and firmly fixed his hat back in place. "How 'bout this, Ralph," he started, "You lift me up onto your shoulders, and I bet I'll be able to see the whole thing from there!"
Ralph eyed him curiously; he stood in a determined stance: brow furrowed, mouth twisted downward into a serious frown, arms held off the body, shoulders back, legs apart. He looked like he was ready for battle. With a nod, Ralph carefully picked him up and lifted him towards his shoulder.
A little clumsily, Felix scrambled to this position and slowly stood. "Perfect!" He exclaimed, beaming. "I've got a perfect view!"
"Okay, okay," Ralph pestered. "Now tell me what you see!" Felix gave a small gasp. He saw Litwak standing with a few strange men, huddled around the Sugar Rush game cabinet. He carefully relayed the visual information to Ralph. The group was talking amongst themselves. Someone stepped forward and lifted his hand eagerly. He was handed some sort of small box, and proceeded to get down on his knees and unscrew a panel from the back of Sugar Rush's cabinet. Felix peered closely to try and see what he was doing.
"Why's he unscrewing stuff?" Ralph worried nervously. "You don't think they're wiping the game's data, do you?" He thought about what would happen if they erased all the memory and Vanellope didn't even remember him anymore. A nervous lump lurched in the pit of his stomach. And what if she doesn't like me?
"No, wait," Felix stammered. "They aren't taking away anything. It looks like...it looks like…" The man opened up the small box he was holding and took out a sleek metal object. It had a few wires sticking out of it, it seemed. He watched as the man carefully wired the object into the now open panel. "He's added something, Ralph! You don't think, could it be an upgrade?"
Ralph's stomach fluttered with hope. "An upgrade?" But the feeling was quickly dampened with the worries of Vanellope somehow forgetting him in the process or suddenly not liking him. He didn't wanna be stuck with some new, snooty Vanellope who he had no commonalities with.
The man screwed the panel back on and stood, dusting his hands off on his jeans. The group of men talked for a few more minutes, and managed to turn the cabinet back around to its normal position. Somebody walked around back and seemed to flip some sort of switch when all of a sudden, Sugar Rush's screen flashed on with its bright bold lettering. The words looked a little different - a little bit higher quality.
A black screen then pulled up with a loading bar of some sort, the word 'Updating' displayed above it.
"Jimminy jamminy, Ralph, it is an update!" Felix yelped. "You better get down there and wait for the loading bar to finish. Who knows when it'll get done."
With no other words, Ralph plucked Felix off from his shoulder and the two climbed down rather haphazardly along the window ledges towards the ground. When they reached it, Felix turned to him and lightly placed a hand on his arm. They met eyes, and Felix's were full of genuine concern and kindness. They both knew the possibilities of data loss or even upgrade failure, which could result in permanent damage of the game's hardware. Without even needing words, the two shared a silent exchange. Ralph nodded, and Felix slid his hand back from his arm. Wordlessly, Ralph turned and sprinted off towards the exit
The train moving out of Fix It Felix, Jr., and into Game Central Station could not move any slower. As soon as it creaked to a halt at his destination, Ralph practically rocketed himself out of the cart and barreled down the now slightly more filled walkway towards Sugar Rush.
He almost tripped as he forcefully stopped himself in front of the game's entrance. Looking up, he saw that the game's lights were of course still out. Suddenly his halted momentum of movement seemed to catch up to him and he let out a labored sigh. Trudging his way over to the closest bench, which was turned away from the entrance, he plopped himself down and tried to get settled for a long wait.
As he sat waiting, his tiredness finally caught up to him, hitting him like a train full force. After about an hour, he had eased from his primary alert posture into a comfortable slouch. Slowly, that slouch turned into a hunch, with his face held between his massive hands. He still looked back periodically to check if the Sugar Rush lights were on yet, but as that second hour went by, these checkups became less and less frequent.
Throughout the third hour, he leant back against the bench and his eyelids started gradually drooping. He nearly fell asleep a few times by the end of it, yet startled himself awake and frantically perked up to check the entrance only these rare occasions.
At around the beginning of the fourth hour, his eyelids fell closed and the warm darkness of sleep took him before his mind could react or even register what was happening.
A small hand gently jostling his shoulder slowly aroused Ralph from his deep slumber. He groggily blinked open his eyes and sat back up against the bench. The hand remained rested on his shoulder, but the tiredness still clawing at his body kept his mind from making him look up.
That is, until a soft, strange, yet definitely familiar voice stirred him from his half-sleep. "Ralph?" The feminine timbre curiously prodded. He jolted slightly and turned his head towards the girl. He blinked, squinting his eyes, at first unable to recognize the womanly figure standing in front of him. "Hey, Stinkbrain," she softly called as he finally adjusted to the brightness of the room. His heart skipped and his eyes widened as a faint blush traveled across his features. "It's me, Vanellope. Y-You do remember me, right?"