"IT'S A SUGAR RUSH!
Vanellope Von Schweetz is on the loose! Track her down, round her up, and return her safely to Shank's garage for your shot at $500,000 in in-game cash! But only a flawless run counts - so whatever you do, DON'T crash!"
Every Slaughter Race player saw the notification pop up in the lower left corner of their screen. Could it be true? $500,000? That was the highest reward any Slaughter Race mission had ever offered to pay out! And all you had to do was track down that little cartoon candy girl from Sugar Rush? Surely, a player would have to be stupid not to take advantage of this golden opportunity...
Vanellope finally came to rest under the yellowish glow of a streetlamp. A stitch throbbed in her side. She had tried to put as much distance as possible between herself and the garage.
She could have kicked herself. Her mind still reeled from Shank's selfish revelation. Man, she thought, I can't believe I let a stranger on the Internet lie to me! Who would have guessed?
Night had fallen, and the eternally full moon was up. Vanellope knew she had a good thirty minutes left to utilize the cover of darkness. If she could just make it to the game's exit point, she'd be home free. Just hop onto the nearest search engine and ride back to her log-off point, and then it was back to the arcade, safe and sound…
...And then what if Shank was right? What if all her fellow racers hated her for abandoning them?
No, they wouldn't, Vanellope told herself, gripping the lamppost through the sweat of her palm. That was just Shank trying to manipulate me again…
...Right?
The more she thought about it, the more it felt like there was something devouring her from the inside out. She had ditched her Sugar Rush friends with nary a word in advance. Ralph had filled them in, obviously, but they must have taken it so hard...and Vanellope had told herself they'd understand. Because Ralph had understood, after all. But how could she have let herself assume that? How could she have thought she wouldn't be missed? What on earth had made her dismiss six years of friendship in an instant?!
Flashbacks began to kick in. The chocolate junkyard. Rancis, Gloyd, Jubileena, all of them, tearing her hard-built Likkity-Split to pieces. Taffyta hurling vicious words at her, pushing her in the mud, under the sincere belief that she was defending the integrity of the game she called home...defending it from a selfish monster…
…And who had the real monster been then? Who had abandoned their game and their programmed duty out of petty impulsive selfishness? Who had upset the law of the video game community badly enough to become a curse word, despised by the entire arcade for it?
Vanellope dropped to her knees and stared horrorstruck at her reflection in the puddle beneath her. Under the streetlight, she could've sworn her eyes were a sickly shade of yellow.
The cackling voice screamed in her memory, the memory she'd been forcing herself to ignore for a month.
"Turbo-tastic!"
With a frightened gasp, Vanellope slapped her watery reflection into rippling nothingness.
Clutching the streetlight for support, Vanellope shook her head violently, trying in desperation to stem the imminent tears. But there was no stopping the dam from bursting.
They do hate me, she thought, as much as she tried not to. If I ditched me, I'd hate me too!
The glitches kicked in again as Vanellope's breathing collapsed into shuddering sobs. She clamped her hands over her tear-stained face, trying to block out the lamplight. She had no home in Slaughter Race, and now she was certain she wouldn't be welcome in Sugar Rush. All because she'd listened to a stranger and made a stupid impulsive decision, like the dumb little kid she was. She'd dug her own grave. How could things get any worse?
"Hey! There she is!"
Vanellope whirled around. Her whole body went cold. Two player avatars, one male, one female, were sprinting full-tilt across the street towards her. Both of them brandished stun sticks, their tips crackling with electricity.
"Knock her out, quick!" the female avatar squawked. "She'll be easier to kidnap that way!"
Instinctively, Vanellope glitched away in terror. She leapt over a chain-link fence and bounded off the lid of a dumpster into a cracked and crumbling parking lot, where two more players were mindlessly spinning donuts in their cars. One of them screeched to a stop.
"Check it out, dude! It's that Vanellope chick we gotta catch for Shank!"
The avatars hopped out of their cars, brandishing crowbars and burlap bags. Vanellope screamed, then glitched clear across the street. She'd just barely rematerialized when a pair of headlights practically blinded her. She leapt out of the way just in time to avoid being struck by a tricked-out convertible; it screeched to a stop, plowing a mailbox out of the pavement.
"That's her!" the driver shouted. "The Sugar Rush girl! She's mine!"
Vanellope ran full-tilt down the street, trying to escape the mob. Her heart leapt to her throat as an earsplitting horn rent the air. A massive 18-wheel big rig came tumbling down off the nearby overpass, smashing to the ground and knocking telephone poles out of the sidewalk as it tore towards her.
Another glitch, and she shot to the side of a building, zapping up the fire escape in the blink of an eye. Clambering onto the roof, she struggled to catch her breath - then gasped again as the roof suddenly became illuminated by twin beacons from above. A pair of helicopters roared overhead, their searchlights trained on her, the wind from the rotors whipping her ponytail around wildly.
"Lower the winch, dude!" the player in the pilot seat shouted eagerly. "Let's see if we can snag her by the hoodie!"
Trembling, Vanellope glitched away over the rooftops and back down to the streets, faster than she'd ever moved in her life. Anytime she remained stationary for longer than a second, another player avatar made a grab for her.
Finally, she managed to shake them. Ducking into a dead-end alley, she hid behind a dumpster in an empty cardboard box. Shaking, trying not to breathe too hard, she fixed her ears on the sound of the players as they approached.
"I think she went up Bulger Street!"
"Maybe she's inside the blood bank!"
"Screw you all, she probably hopped on that bus over there! And I'm gonna get her!"
"Not if I get her first, you -"
The chatter died away as the mob darted off into the night.
Sweat drenched Vanellope's brow. She ran a hand down her face, trying to stave off the panic and collect herself. What was she going to do? Every player in the game was trying to catch her! There was no way she could outrun all of them!
She needed help. And there was only one way to call for it.
Fingers trembling, she snatched the BuzzzTube communicator from the pocket of her hoodie. She flipped it open and pressed the screen. Muted rings met her ear.
"C'mon, c'mon, Ralph," she whispered desperately. "Pick up, pick up, pick up…"
"...I got all these crazy thoughts bangin' around in my brain, guys. Feelin' like she doesn't need me, like I just gotta let her spread her wings and fly…"
Ralph leaned on the overhang that lined the roof of Niceland Apartments, staring aimlessly out at the world beyond the screen. Sugar Rush blinked excitedly against the darkness of the closed arcade.
Felix adjusted his blue cap. "Ralph, don't think of it like that at all!" he gulped. "You know Vanellope appreciates the heck out of you bein' there for her!"
With some difficulty, Ralph pulled the broken half-cookie medal from inside his shirt.
"Hard to tell sometimes," he sighed.
"Ralph, I know your heart's been dragged up five miles of bad road this month," Calhoun said, draining the last of her champagne glass. "But we gotta get to the bottom of this. I heard Litwak earlier today, Sugar Rush isn't even bringing in chump change anymore. The kids miss Vanellope just as much as we do. What happened to you two out there, Wreck-It? What the Samuel Langhorn Heck was goin' through your head?"
Ralph heaved a massive sigh. "I just wanted her to be happy," he muttered. "I always have… but all of a sudden, it's like I don't know how to do it anymore. It's like I can't stop arguin' with myself, arguing with the little voice inside me that says 'You made a mistake'..."
"We all make mistakes, Ralph," Felix said, patting his friend's gargantuan arm. "That's why they made the reset button."
Ralph blinked, watching the twittering lights of the Sugar Rush console. The war in his head felt loud enough to blow out his eardrums. Two voices, two powerful instincts, mutually exclusive, yet both feeling like the equally right thing to do.
Let her follow her dream.
Tell her she made the wrong call.
Why was it so hard to decide all of a sudden? What brought this all on?
"...Maybe I oughta sleep on this," Ralph mumbled, giving the wishy-washiest answer he could think of.
Calhoun and Felix followed as he trudged across the roof toward the ladder. "Good idea, Ralph!" he squeaked. "And listen, bud, I won't have you sleeping in that brick pile on Christmas Eve, no sirree - we're gonna set you up in the penthouse tonight! And Mary, bless her soul, she baked me a special Christmas pie -" He proudly produced the boxed pastry from behind his back, complete with a red bow on top - "You are more than welcome to share in it, brother! Don't ever get to thinkin' that you're not wanted, because it's just not true!"
Ralph chuckled. "Thanks, Felix…" He still didn't have much of an appetite, even for something as tempting as pie, but he appreciated his friends' generosity all the same. It had been Felix and Calhoun's idea to retreat to the roof to give Ralph some time away from the festivities. Reflecting, it occurred to him just how lucky he was to have them in his life...
He smiled, a sad beautiful smile, turning over the half-medal in his giant hand. It didn't get any easier. But if there's one thing he'd learned, it's that nothing in life worth having was ever truly easy...
Just as they reached the ladder, a buzzing sound met their ears. Ralph pulled his communicator from his pocket and flipped it open. There was Vanellope's icon, smiley as ever.
"Hey!" Ralph said, hope filling his voice. "Vanellope's callin'! Must want to wish you guys Merry Christmas or something." He pressed the "accept call" icon. Vanellope's holographic face sprang to life above the screen.
"Hey, happy holidays again, kid!" Ralph beamed. "Long time no -"
"Ralph!" Vanellope interjected. Ralph suddenly noticed how frightened she looked. "You gotta help me, please!"
Fear gripped Ralph's heart. He'd never seen Vanellope this scared before.
"H-Help?" he gasped. "Vanellope, what's wrong?! Where are you?!"
"I'm in an alley somewhere in Slaughter Race!" she whimpered. "Shank is nuts, Ralph! She's tryin' to hold me hostage here!"
Ralph shook his head, unsure of what he'd just heard. "...Wait, wait, Shank? Wh-what are you talkin' abou–"
"She lied to us, Ralph!" Vanellope squealed, tears rimming her holographic eyes. "She lied the whole time! She just wanted to use my glitch power to make the game harder! I made a run for it, but she's got like every player in the game hunting for me! I gotta get out of here!"
Felix and Calhoun gasped. "Oh my land!" Felix said in a hushed tone.
Ralph barely had time to process all this. Shank? Holding Vanellope hostage? And after they'd both trusted her?!
He felt his teeth grit. Blood boiled in his temples. His giant fingernails dug into the palms of his fists.
Something seemed to tremble deep down in his code. He felt a surge of energy in his core. All at once, it was as if one of the arguing voices in his mind had been swiftly and permanently silenced. Only one instinct remained.
Save her.
"Okay, Vanellope, listen," Ralph said hurriedly, "whatever you do, don't move! Stay there, we're gonna hop on the Internet and come get you! You're gonna be okay, kid, I promise!"
"Bring my kart!" Vanellope yelped. "My kart from Sugar Rush! I'm gonna need a getaway car!"
Vanellope's hologram turned at the sound of clattering metal. A voice shouted "She's down here!"
"HURRY!" Vanellope squeaked. And with a beep, she vanished.
Ralph's heart pounded furiously against his chest. There was no time to waste.
"Calhoun, you got your cruiser?"
Scowling in determination, Calhoun reached behind her back and pulled her cruiser off her pack. It dropped to the roof and hovered in midair. "Always, Mountain Man," she said.
Ralph nodded. "All right, then, let's move!" And in one swift motion, he leapt from the roof, plummeting eleven stories and dropping to the pixelated ground with a massive THUD that shook the building.
"Oh my!" Mary yelped in the penthouse, struggling to grip the refreshment table. "This champagne sure packs a wallop, doesn't it?"
Outside, Ralph tore across the bridge toward the exit, Calhoun and Felix soaring behind him on the cruiser.
"It should still be in good condition," Sour Bill groaned as he wrenched open the gargantuan twin doors to the royal garage. "I took it on myself to flush and change all the fruit fillings."
Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun blinked as the sweet sunlight of Sugar Rush glinted off of Vanellope's icing-caked kart, nestled among the clutter. Everything was just as it had been before the game was unplugged - the hot mess of teal, purple, and chocolate frosting, the stripey Pixy Stix exhaust pipes, the multicolor Gummi Worm tires. And the signature emblazoned in cake icing on the passenger side: "Made by Vanellope AND RALPH".
Careful not to break anything, Ralph picked up the kart and tucked it under his arm. "Thanks for the tune-up, Bill," he muttered. But as he turned around, he yelped in surprise.
All fourteen racers were standing there in the garage doorway, their karts parked at the entrance to the castle grounds. Each one of their faces bore an expression of curious confusion.
"What's going on?" Candlehead asked, her eyes wide.
Ralph hoisted the kart more securely in his grip. "Vanellope's in trouble," he said quickly. "We gotta go save her, and there's not much time..."
Frightened gasps rippled through the crowd of racers. "Vanellope?" "Trouble?!"
"We're coming with you," Taffyta asserted without a moment's hesitation
Felix winced. "Ooh, kids, I don't know if that's a good idea! This Slaughter Race game sounds downright mean! What if you got hurt?"
"Vanellope's our friend," Taffyta said, her lip quivering slightly. "If she's in trouble, we're helping her! Besides, if…" She gulped. "If we'd been better friends to her in the first place, maybe she wouldn't have left…"
Ralph could almost hear his heart break at these words.
"Stand down, troops," Calhoun commanded. "That's an order. The Internet's a place that chews up children and spits 'em out like old gum. You kids are too important to take that kind of risk!"
"Oh, like you aren't?" Rancis insisted. "After how nice you guys were to all of us? We can't let you run off into a game full of explosions and car crashes by yourselves!"
"We gotta keep you safe, Mr. Felix and Mrs. Calhoun!" Candlehead said, her candle flickering wildly. "You're the nicest mom and dad we ever had!...I mean, the only mom and dad we ever had…"
A pair of quiet gasps escaped Felix and Calhoun's lips.
"Besides," Swizzle added, "you're goin' to a racing game, right? You'll need racers. We can hold off anyone who tries to get in your way."
Calhoun rubbed the back of her neck. She seemed to realize the futility of trying to change their minds.
"...This is no kiddie ride mission, y'know. Vanellope's in serious danger here…"
"A-doyyy!" Gloyd shouted. "Why do you think we're going?"
"All we need are some power-ups!" Jubileena piped up from the back of the crowd. "Those Slaughter Race goons have never seen Sweet Seekers and Ice Cream Cannons before! They won't know what hit 'em!"
Sour Bill gave a hint of a smirk. "Power-ups, eh?"
He pulled open a nearby cabinet. Dozens of spare power-up boxes spilled out. Ralph goggled as they hovered and rotated inches above the floor.
"Pick and...chews, kids," Sour Bill grinned. With a dry chuckle, he added "A little levity before we all probably die."
The Surge Protector smiled as he surveyed the bustling festivity of Game Central Station, characters coming and going beneath the twinkling golden Christmas lights and the glittering garland. Christmas carols wafted softly through the peaceful atmosphere. Nothing could disrupt this serene scene. "Finally," he muttered to himself with a rare smile, "peace on earth! ...Or our little corner of it, anyway."
VROOOOMMMM.
Game characters dove for cover as fourteen racers suddenly tore out of the outlet to Sugar Rush, tires squealing on the shiny floor of the atrium. At the front of the line was Ralph, mounted on top of Vanellope's kart and propelling it with his massive hands. Calhoun and Felix flew overhead on the cruiser, Sour Bill clinging precariously to Calhoun's armored leg.
The crowd parted as the bizarre convoy ripped through them, heading straight for the WiFi outlet. Splitting the "DO NOT CROSS" ribbons like string, they zipped one by one through the grounding prong and disappeared, the roar of their engines echoing up the power cord.
The Surge Protector gave a stuffy sigh. "I gotta learn to quit talking while I'm ahead."