Little Trickster

"Okay, pipsqueak, we've been walking forever. Are we any closer to that stupid kart engine?" Ralph complained while they traveled through Sweetener Swamps. The scenery was a stark contrast to the bright environment of the game. It was dark, humid, and - in lack of a better word - swampy. Several taffy trees were dangling vines off their drooping branches. A few specks of light floated above the sugary water.

They were tiny, little fireflies.

If Ralph and Felix had started their journey on this side of the map, they would have thought it was nighttime. The air was thick and moist and Felix had removed his cap several times and cleared off the layer of water on his slick forehead.

"Calm down, Chumbo, we'll get there when we get there!" Vanellope squeaked as she climbed on the lower branches above the swamp. Felix had been watching her closely for the past hour, wincing each time she hopped from branch to branch.

"Vanellope, be careful!" He kept saying.

Vanellope rolled her eyes as she grabbed ahold of the hanging vines.

"Okay, Dad, I've been through this place a million times. I'm a tree-swinging expert!"

"Just know that I'm not going to hop in there after you." Ralph muttered. In response, the girl stuck her tongue out at him.

Throughout this trip, the banter between Vanellope and Ralph was much more tame. It was as if they didn't want to bother the little handyman with their bickering.

Something tugged at the back of Ralph's mind, however. He noticed that neither of them asked about the escapade that left Vanellope in a torn outfit and a broken vehicle. It wasn't necessary information, but this walking around in semi-silence was uncomfortable.

"So, Little Miss Sticky Fingers," Ralph began. "You wanna tell us what happened to your kart?"

He was expecting her to send him a snarky remark, but her face showed discomfort and she said, "Nothing."

"That didn't look like nothing to me." Ralph told her. "You break it yourself so you can con us into getting you a new one?"

Vanellope stopped walking.

"Oh, what's it to you, Bigfoot? You want your medal back, or what? 'Cause I'm not about to waste my time telling you about my life outside of my mountain."

Ralph gestured towards her and gave Felix a look that said, "See? I told you she was trouble".

"Okay, guys," Felix said. "We've gotten this far without any arguing, and I reckon we have a chance to get there before the end of the day if we all get along. Ralph, don't pester her. Vanellope, please be a little more polite."

His little lecture was told in a soft, patient voice. Ralph thought it was impossible to enrage that little guy. And he didn't want to figure out what it was that pushed Felix to his limit.

"Fine." They both said.

The path through the swamp was jagged and unpaved. It was like an out-of-bounds shortcut a player could have discovered if they steered off the track. But Vanellope assured them that it was meant to feel that way.

"Really gives you a nature-y vibe, don't ya think?" She said.

"I'd really hate to get lost in here." Ralph said. "It's way to dark to see."

"That's why I follow the fireflies." Vanellope caught one in her hand and turned around to show them. "See?"

Felix gazed down at it with fascination. There were no fireflies back in Niceland. Only ducks. His other enemy in his game. Ralph looked at the small insect and tried not to think about the mechanical bug that he may have brought to this candy land.

It should have died from the impact of the escape pod collision, right?

Vanellope lifted the firefly in the air and it landed on Ralph's cheek.

"It likes you, Chuckles." She told him. "Probably attracted to your bad smell."

"I don't smell bad!" Ralph protested, then looked at Felix. "Do I?"

Felix smiled. "Not that I've noticed."

Ralph noticed that as they traveled further, Felix stopped referring to him as "brother", or "pal". The time that they almost kissed still burned in Ralph's memory. If only Vanellope hadn't shown up right then.

Or maybe it was a good thing she did. It would have spared Ralph the embarrassment of being a bad kisser. Felix wouldn't have told him if he was, but Ralph's insecurity was heavily present there.

"That's because Felix loves it!" Vanellope said.

Felix rubbed the back of his head and said nothing more. Ralph stared daggers at the little girl.

"Do you even know where you're going?" Ralph asked.

"Of course!" Vanellope hopped on another branch. "After all, I know this place like the back of my- AH!"

The branch she'd been standing on disappeared right from underneath her and she landed straight in the middle of the swamp. Ralph barked a laugh.

"Guess I'll take that as a 'no', then!"

Felix leaned over the edge of the path. "Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" Vanellope was waist-deep in the muddy water. "I'll just make my way over to you and-" She struggled to pull her body out of it. "Hold on a candy-picking minute." She tried, again, but couldn't move an inch. "Uh, I seem to be in a pickle here..."

"Oh, my land!" Felix clasped his hands to his face. "We got to get you out of there!"

Vanellope was a bit less confident than she was bouncing on one branch to the next.

"Please, hurry! I don't want to be in here too long or else-" She looked behind her. "Wait. Do you guys hear that?"

The others turned their heads up and listened to the air. Then there was a small scream and when they looked back, the little girl disappeared from view.

"Vanellope!" Felix squealed.

"Oh, no," Ralph muttered and pushed Felix aside. "Stand back, Felix, I'm going in!"

"No, wait!"

It was too late, Ralph had already dove right into the bog and started fishing through it with his massive arms.

"Kid, where are you?"

He didn't know what his feet were walking over and he didn't pay any mind to it while he splashed and wandered about. Felix was looking in each corner, calling out for the girl, but was having no luck.

Ralph looked at him helplessly. "I got nothing!"

Felix dropped to his knees in agony. "Oh, golly, Ralph, I think she's... she's..."

"Standing right behind ya!"

Both of them turned to see her smiling and laughing her little head off. Her cheeks were rosy and her big eyes were teary.

"Oh, man, you two should have seen your faces! If only I had a camera!"

Felix got to his feet and glared at her. "Young lady, that was not funny!"

"The heck it wasn't!" Her entire body vanished again and reappeared in a cloud of blue pixels and staggered speech. "You were all like 'n...no, Vanellope! What are we g... going... to d...do? Ah!'."

Ralph dug his fingers into the earthy path and pulled himself out of the swamp.

"Man, you really are a rotten little kid, aren't you?"

"Come on, guys, it was a joke!" Vanellope wiped the tears from her eyes.

Felix turned towards the path, clearly unhappy with the girl. "Shall we go, Ralph?"

"Yeah, let's get out of here before this little degenerate pulls any more tricks!"

Vanellope was wondering why they didn't ask her about her condition. Well, they were probably too angry about the practical joke she pulled on them to ask her any questions at that point.

"Hey, come on, fellas! Where's your sense of humor?"

Ralph, who was still dripping wet from being in the marsh, said nothing to her.

...

They wandered out of the swamps and into the sunny plains, where fields of cotton candy were growing on the sides. It was pleasantly warm and breezy, with a few clouds passing over them. A red barn could be seen in the distance with a large windmill beside it.

It didn't seem like it was part of the racetrack. It might have just been a nice little addition to the game's environment. Ralph and Felix thought it was strange that they hadn't seen any other citizen of this candy dwelling. They might have all been hiding in the homes, or preoccupied with the races occurring that day. Ralph knew that in his and Felix's game, they wouldn't have done anything job-related on the weekends.

The game was just different in all senses.

"Okay, I've found it." Vanellope said.

They were led to a maze that was built with candy corn stalks as walls. Over the stalks, the engine was floating in the air, shining bright underneath the blue sky.

"Who puts a kart engine in a maze?" Ralph said. "Wouldn't you want to make it easier for players?"

"It's a mini-game, genius." Vanellope said.

"Ooh, a game within a game!" Felix said, beaming. "How lovely!"

"Now, be sure we all stick together," Vanellope said as she led them through the entrance. "This maze can be tricky to solve. The last time I was in here, I was lost in it forever."

"I heard that the best way to solve a maze is to keep making left hand turns." Felix said. "Pac-Man told me that one."

"Yeah, but what does Pac-Man know about real mazes? He's been circling around his for as long as he's lived." Ralph said.

"Well, this isn't just a maze." Vanellope told them. "There's traps and tricks waiting for us."

As they were walking through the beginning, Ralph decided to ask.

"So, what was that you did over by the swamps, kid? Y'know, the teleporting or whatever."

"Oh, that?" Vanellope waved a hand dissmissively. "That's just a little special feature of mine. Sometimes, it can be a real burden on my shoulders. Other times, it comes in handy."

"Never seen anyone have that kind of feature before." Ralph said.

"Is it like a superpower?" Felix asked.

"More like a super-problem." Vanellope sighed.

Ralph stopped walking.

"Why would it be a problem?"

Vanellope shifted her eyes as if she were trying to figure out how to answer this. A rumbling noise appeared from above. Vanellope and the others looked up to see what was causing the sound and the slight shaking of the ground.

"Uh oh..."

"Kid, what are those?" Ralph asked.

They looked like a flock of black birds, circling ominously above the maze. In their talons was an individual candy corn. The others thought that it was harmless since they were already in a field full of them, but once the birds dropped the candy corn to the ground, a violent explosion could be heard and felt. They began dropping those candy corn bombs in random spots throughout the maze, but not consistently.

There was a one-minute long break in between.

Felix, who had a fear of most birds, began to sweat profusely and tremble in his steps.

"You good, Felix?" Ralph asked. He knew about the ruthless ducks. He watched them take down Felix all the time.

"Y-yeah..." The little man stuttered.

Vanellope went ahead.

"Alright, guys. If we want to do this tactfully, y'all have to listen to my strategy." They huddled together while a nearby candy corn bomb detonated much too close for comfort. "See the colorful dots on the floor?"

The men looked down at the rainbow paths. Each one was a different color of the rainbow and begun with purple and ended with red.

"When one of them is about to get bombed, it glows."

She demonstrated by pointing to a green dot that emitted a brighter green color and a candy corn fell on it.

"So, whenever you see a glowing dot, don't move forward. Far as I know, those crows are the biggest challenge in this maze."

"Got it." Felix said.

"Lead the way, shorty." Ralph told her.

They did as she suggested, but even if they dodged the bombs when they fell atop of the candy path, they were still affected by bombs landing in the stalks, too. The force of the explosion knocked Felix back against the wall of stalks.

"Felix!" Vanellope said.

The little man felt dizzy, and shook the haze out of his head.

"I'm good! I'm all g-"

The leaves of the candy corn stalks extended outward and wrapped around him. He squealed as he was pulled in through the wall.

Ralph tried sticking his hand through it, but he couldn't. It became solid even though he could clearly see spaces in between the stalks. "Where'd you go, buddy?"

Out in the distance, they could hear his high-pitched tone saying, "I'm alright! I appeared in another corner of the maze!"

Vanellope looked up at Ralph. "Well, looks like it's just you and me, big guy."

"Stay where you are!" Ralph called to Felix. "We'll come to you!"

They did well in avoiding the weapons in the beginning, but as they advanced further, the bombs appeared more frequently and more violently. Then the birds swooped down with their sharp beaks pointing out.

"Do gamers seriously do this for fun?" Ralph asked and swatted at the animals. "Shoo!"

"Eh, they're probably better at it than we are." Vanellope yelled over the commotion.

She didn't mention anything about killer candy corn stalk leaves, or the birds trying to attack with their actual bodies. When Ralph pointed this out to her, she mentioned that she'd only been at this maze once and the surprises she found then were even worse than their current predicament.

"Pretty sure the whole game is against me." She said, at half the volume that she did whenever she talked.

Ralph had to focus his hearing a little closer to understand her.

"Why?" He asked. "You're just another racer, aren't you?"

"Not exactly. I'm a little special."

Ralph hopped out of the way of a glowing red dot.

"How so?"

"I'd rather not get into it right now. All that matters is that I'm going to be a real racer once this is over with."

She ducked from an incoming attack from the crow.

"You were pretty shook up about me being gone for good, Chuckles." She teased him.

Ralph scoffed and looked away. "'Course I was! It meant I wasn't getting my medal back."

"Yeah, but you still did what you promised you wouldn't do and jumped in after me."

"Yeah, well..." Ralph's face turned red. "You may be a pain, but I'm not heartless. I wasn't about to let a rotten little kid drown, no matter how spoiled you are."

Vanellope grinned as she hopped over an incoming crow. "It's nice to see people so worked up over me, for once."

Ralph was caught off guard by her statement, but he disregarded it and said, "Don't let it happen again. Next time, you're on your own."

...

Felix stayed standing in his position, with his hands folded together and his teeth clenched. His heart was beating out of his chest and beads of sweat were falling down from his forehead. He'd never hated anything or anyone in his life, but if he had to choose something to live without, it would be birds.

When he climbed higher and higher above that apartment building while the gamer's passed each level, he couldn't get distracted. If he even looked down for a split second, a bird would come speeding his way and knock him off the tall structure.

It was already bad enough that he was allergic to them, which was something he couldn't tell if it was actually embedded into his code, or just because he already disliked ducks.

Their bills were sharp and their eyes were black. Truly evil creatures.

These ones may have been crows, but it was all the same to the handyman.

"Uh... nice to see you, too." He said, softly, as a bird came down towards him. He jumped up and manage to avoid it while fighting off his anxiety. He hoped that Ralph and Vanellope would get back to him, soon. He popped his two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

Jiminy Christmas... he thought. What I wouldn't give to be strong and tall.

And his mind wandered over to Ralph and how strong and tough he looked whenever he destroyed things with his bare hands. Felix closed his eyes and relished in the comfort that image brought to him. It relaxed him and made him feel something else.

Something that only could be described as excitement within his belly.

If he stayed with that image for too long, he would have missed the bird whose sharp beak was about to impale him. Felix hopped out of the way just before that happened and turned back to look behind him.

The bird drove upwards and circled back around towards him.

Felix looked down at the hammer in his hands, and decided to throw it. If it couldn't fix this situation, at least it could defend him.

The hammer crashed against the bird and the wretched creature shook its tiny head, still flying in the air. It stopped chasing after Felix, decided it was done here, and fled.

That was the most useful thing he'd seen himself do during this entire trip. But he saved the victory dance for later.

He popped his fingers in his mouth and whistled again.

...

"I can hear him!" Vanellope said. "He's down in this corner!"

She pointed towards the left side of their position.

"Ow!" Ralph plucked a crow that was poking at his head. "No, I heard it from over here!"

He gestured to the right. A crow came over and jabbed right into his hand.

"Jeez! What do we have to do to turn these things off?!"

Several more of them rained down right above him.

"We have to get the engine!" Vanellope said. "That's what resets the maze!"

Ralph could see the first part of the kart much closer to them than it was at the beginning. It was a couple of walls over, where if he climbed over this wall and jumped to the one adjacent, he could grab it.

He looked down at Vanellope and thought of an idea. She was smaller than Felix and possibly lightweight. And he had enough strength to throw things at far distances.

But it might have been too risky. The crows were still throwing down bombs and there was no telling what could have happened to her if she didn't reach it. He wasn't about to make that wager.

However, once his eyes met hers, he could see she was thinking the exact same thing. She was looking at his arms and giving him a smirk.

"Think you can launch me over the hedge?" She asked.

Ralph shook his head. "No, no, no, bad idea. You'll get hurt."

"Please, Ralph, I'm a lot tougher than I look." She hopped into his open palm. "Plus, if anything happens to me, I'll just respawn, right?"

"What about your weird teleportation thing?" Ralph asked. "Can't you use that?"

"It's called a 'glitch', Ralph. And there's no telling what that can do to this mini-game."

That statement by itself raised more questions within the wrecker. But at her insistence, he decided it was enough for him. He connected his palms together with her tiny body in them. "Ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be."

Taking in a deep breath, he lifted her high into the sky. Holding her arms out, she grabbed the engine and landed against the ground quite roughly. But she stood up and dusted the dirt off her clothing. "Got it!"

The crows stopped and vanished into thin air. The damaged candy corn stalks reset into their default appearance. And the overgrown leaves stopped moving.

"Yay! We did it!" Vanellope's voice rang through the maze. "It's mine! I can finally get a real kart!"

"Good job, kid." Ralph said and smiled as he appeared in the wide open path before the endpoint. He could hear little steps approach him from the left side.

"What'd I miss?" Felix said and turned his attention to the bouncing little girl holding the engine as big as herself.

Ralph chuckled. "The grand finale, my good man."

Vanellope walked over to them, dragging the object behind her. "Thanks, Chuckles. And Hammer Time."

The big man actually kept his grin on his face and winked at her when she said it.

Felix was clearly happy with Ralph's good deed.

"Well done, Ralph." He said.

The wrecker's face turned red for the hundredth time that day. "Aw, it was a team effort. I can't take all the credit."

Felix didn't want to embarrass the big man further, but he couldn't deny the fact that Ralph had become irresistibly cute when he was trying to be modest. Not that Felix saw any reason for him to be.

He knew that the big man didn't receive a lot of praise for his actions before today.

And to show how much Felix appreciated him, the little man hopped up when Ralph turned back towards the main road, and planted a warm kiss right on the wrecker's cheek.

Ralph touched the area where Felix pecked and locked eyes with him.

"Sorry." Felix said, his hands behind his back and his eyes looking at the ground.

"Don't be." Ralph said. He had the honey-glows. Felix admired how it looked with the setting sun shining down on his face.

"Hey, Dumb and Dumber!" Vanellope said far ahead of them. "We going to get a move on, or what?"

And all of them walked off with a huge smile on each of their faces.

AN: Such cute fluff :3