First things first; it was time for a break. Sora's leg muscles were cramping so badly that he could barely get out of the connecting train, and Calhoun had said something about him needing them in this next one as well.
He collapsed into a bench and shed some of the heavy armour he'd been entombed in for the past few hours. Goofy obliged, and even Donald didn't argue, falling down beside him and immediately retrieving water from the cooler to his right.
"This is the first good idea you've had all day, Sora!" He'd already emptied three of those tiny styrofoam cups. "...want one?"
"Sure..." Sora could barely raise an arm to grab at the thing, but it didn't make any difference anyway. The moment his fingers wrapped around the cup, it exploded in a mass of murky green blocks, spilling water everywhere.
"...fine then," he didn't have the energy to be surprised any more. "Why does that happen to only me?"
"Gee, I dunno Sora!" Goofy added an enthusiastic note. "Maybe it's got somethin' ta do with how ev'ryone here knows Donald 'n' me, but not you?"
"That doesn't make any sense," Sora sighed. "You guys aren't video game characters... are you?"
Again, another bright blue mass of energy rippled down the walls of Game Central Station, causing a few commuting game characters to jump back in shock.
"Maybe in this world?" Donald shrugged.
"True. I guess rules change from world to world huh?" Sora shrugged. Even with that little tidbit though, the rules in this one seemed weird. Donald and Goofy seemed to be almost celebrities, yet he was unheard of, even treated as the bad guy. In a place he'd definitely never been before. Even Tron's world was more inviting than this.
"Welp, no point in just sitting around." Sora groaned. His stiff legs screamed at him, but he pushed the pain to one side and staggered back to his feet.
"This one is... Pac-Man, apparently." He nodded at the plaque above the entry tunnel, before looking to Donald and Goofy. Both of them just returned blank looks at him, to which he sighed. So much for reading the name first. What good did that do?
Even the train was ominously quiet. The little engine rode the rails silently, with only a little click as it hit the bumper at the end of the line. The trio jumped out to find another endless expanse of near pitch black. There was the occasional faded outline of a wall, near invisible against the darkness, but that was the only clue that anything at all was even happening here. If Sora focused, he could just about pick up a muted, whirring sort of a noise, but that could've been anything.
"...hello?" He called into the darkness. Something had to be here, right? Calhoun wouldn't just send him to some empty world, would she?
The farther they explored, the more his confusion grew. Only darkness and whirring, in every direction.
"Ugh, this is fruitless!" Donald was the first to complain, wrenching his wings towards the 'sky'.
"Fruitless?" Sora frowned. "W-what do you mean, Donald?"
The duck simply snorted at him in response.
"I think he means he needs fruit!" Goofy was the voice of enthusiasm, as always. "Hold on a sec, I'll getcha some! There was some back here somewheres!"
Donald facepalmed. "No, no, I didn't mean-"
"YAAAAGH!"
Goofy's cry resonated through the twilit labyrinth, clear as a bell. Suddenly the whirring intensified, and Goofy was practically galloping back towards them.
"Hay-lp!" He cried, clutching a bunch of pixelated cherries to his chest. "There's monsters!"
"Monsters?!" Sora sprung into action, instinctively drawing his keyblade. "Heartless? Nobodies?"
"I don't know!" Goofy charged past them both. "But it ain't friendly!"
Goofy ricocheted around the nearest corner, just as an enormous mass of red surged past the previous one. Several feet tall, with the body of a jell-o and wide, staring eyes, it nevertheless floated towards Sora and a Donald at an alarming pace. Sora shoved Donald out of the way, and took off in a different direction from Goofy, tearing down this pitch black labyrinth with its near invisible walls. No matter how fast his feet could carry him, the weird red alien thing kept up with ease. Already feeling his legs start to cramp up, he looked around desperately. There had to be a clue somewhere! A safe room or something that stopped them from getting eaten by giant, neon monsters would've been really nice right about now.
Sora flailed and fired a Blizzard spell behind him. The icy floor succeeded in slowing down his pursuer as he bounced off of a corner and staggered away down a different path, only to have to screech to a halt as Goofy rocketed down an adjacent path with a bright green one soaring after him. Despite looking like a tennis ball wearing a bedsheet, it was still terrifying.
"There's more of them!" He exclaimed to no one, just as Donald charged down a different path, with a bright pink one in hot pursuit. He fell into a wall and stumbled, but Sora didn't have time to see what happened when the pink one caught him, because the red one had escaped from its ice patch and resumed the chase. Sora hurtled down hallways and careered around corners, but no matter what he did, he couldn't shake this thing off.
Suddenly his heart gave a lurch as Goofy's voice echoed through the labyrinth.
"Yaoo-!" His cry was cut short, and a bright green light swallowed up a section of the maze to the left. It ebbed away, leaving Sora alone with the red creature. He didn't have time to worry about what had happened to his comrades, because the thing was still wobbling after him at a dangerous speed. It was only so long before his legs would give out on him and-
"Whah?!" He yelped, as something grabbed him around the neck. Before he could even react to whatever it was, he'd been pulled out of the maze entirely, and into the blinding lights of a... staff room?
"What... the?" Sora's eyes were mere pinpricks, it was that bright. After a moment's focusing, he could recognise the familiar scowl of Ralph. Of all people.
A moment's more confusion, and he spotted Donald and Goofy, perched awkwardly in a corner of the room and covered in pink and green goop, respectively.
"Guys...?!" He noticed at last. "Guys! You're okay! What hap-"
Before he could finish his question however, a bright red mass surged into the doorway. Immediately did Sora's heart gave another lurch, but no one else in the room seemed to care about its appearance.
It blinked at him once, and then floated away again. As if things weren't confusing enough already.
"What's... goin' on?" Sora felt the need to whisper to Ralph, who just gave him a forlorn look in return.
"Just stay quiet." He hissed.
Sora deflated, and edged around a circle of chairs to the other side of the room where Donald and Goofy were. Ralph was sunk into one chair looking particularly morose, while there was a collection of other game characters that Sora didn't recognise in various spiky uniforms.
And then Zangief waved brightly at the three of them. Still dressed in his bright red spandex leotard, he seemed more than elated that the trio were there.
"Comrade Donald! Is fortuitous you are here, yes?" He called out, only to receive a whack to the back of the head from M. Bison to his left.
"Shut it, idiot." Bison chided. "Those good guys have no place here at BA, so don't you welcome them."
"BA?" Sora muttered. "Cid went to AA once? Maybe it's the s-"
"-all rise."
A deep voice derailed Sora's train of thought, and this time a bright orange mass flooded into the room. There was a hasty scraping of chairs, followed by the clatter of one falling over, as the circle of surly characters stood up.
The orange monster thing cleared its throat. "Ahem! Good morning, Bad Anon. How are we today?"
There was a smatter of hushed muttering from the circle.
"Good good," the orange thing floated on top of an empty chair. "Please take a seat, everyone."
More chairs scraped back into place, with Zangief picking his back up.
"Now, first things first, I've noticed a few new faces today, and I have to say that I'm a little surprised." The orange creature continued. "Would you care to introduce your-"
"Err, Clyde?"
Ralph raised a hand. The orange creature blinked at him.
"...yes, Ralph?"
"They uhh..." Ralph blushed furiously. "They don't belong here."
"Nonsense, Ralph." 'Clyde' dismissed him. "At Bad Anon, we turn no one away. All Bad Guys are welcome here."
"See uh, that's the thing?" Ralph grimaced, showing a lot of teeth. "They aren't Bad Guys. We just brought 'em in here to stop them making a mess out there."
Clyde's facial expression didn't change. "Well, I suppose that is a relief on some levels. I wasn't sure I was ready to hear how Donald and Goofy had switched sides. So you're just sitting in today?"
Donald and Goofy exchanged a look, before nodding back at Clyde. It narrowed its eyes and looked to Sora, however. "...you, I'm not sure on. What's your story?"
"I umm..." Sora coughed. "I-I'm Sora, and S-Sereant Calhoun asked us to ch-ch-ch-ch-"
Once again, his limbs began seizing. He rest against a table in the corner to try and steady himself, only for the thing to glitch and collapse shortly after. A bowl of fruit and several cups of what looked like fruit drink spilled everywhere from his efforts.
"...sorry!" Frustration forced its way out, despite him. He didn't have time to stagger back to his feet however, because something had already lifted him by the neck.
"I was looking... forward... to that orange drink!" Bison seethed at him. "Orange is my favourite... flavour!"
Both Goofy and Donald sprung forwards, trying to wrench Sora away, but Bison's trip held strong.
"H-hey, I said I was... s-sorry!" Sora clutched onto the man's hand, his legs dangling uselessly in mid-air. "Accidents happen!"
"There are no accidents. Only mistakes." Bison spat. "And you know what I think? I think you're the worst kinda mistake, you little vir-"
"-that will be enough." Clyde's calm voice broke through the uproar. "I'm disappointed, M Bison. You should know better than that."
"If you fools can't see that there's something wrong about him..." Bison growled, with Sora still dangling from his hand.
"We can't help what is in our code, M. Bison." Clyde's voice was low and dangerous.
"Yes, per-heps look inside heart, Comrade." Zangief placed a creepy hand against Bison's chest. "You are bad guy, yes. But not bad, guy. So put spiky small man down, nyet?"
"Besides, he already said he was sorry...!" Ralph chipped in, actually sounding invested for once.
"Bleeding hearts, all of you." Bison grit his teeth. He threw Sora to the ground, and lowered the visor on his cap as low as it would go. Meanwhile Sora gulped down precious air again on the floor.
"...well, that's all our time used up, I'm afraid." Clyde rolled its eyes. "So let's finish up with the declaration, okay? After me."
The circle of bad guys all stood to attention in near unison, and began chanting;
"I am bad,
And that's good.
I will never be good,
And that's not bad.
There's no one I'd rather be but me."
Suddenly the awkward atmosphere dissolved away, and left a room full of jovial, if strained, conversation. With the occasional nod at Clyde, the dozen or so Bad Guys started filtering out of the room.
"Okay, we'll meet again in two weeks." Clyde advised, before audibly sighing and floating away with the bulk of the crowds. Leaving just Sora, Donald, Goofy, Ralph, and a straggler Zangief.
"Am sorry Comrade Bison had to chokings you." He wrung Sora's hand. "He is nice man once you get to know h-!"
Suddenly an arm wrapped around Zangief's shoulder, and literally threw him across the room and out of the door.
"Get movin', Zangief." Bison adjusted his cap, before pointing at Sora. "And don't think I've forgotten about you... kid."
Bison stomped away, leaving just the four of them.
Sora glanced up to Ralph, who seemed even more sullen than normal.
"Hey uhh... thanks, Ralph. For sticking up for me."
"It's fine," Ralph dismissed. "Just maybe don't get yourself in trouble so much, huh?"
"He can't help it." Donald snickered, and got a warning look from Sora.
"Easier said than done, buddy. Trouble just seems to follow me."
"Yeah well... just be careful!" Ralph huffed.
"You got it." Sora chuckled. He waded into one of his many pockets and extracted the walkie talkie. "...Sergeant Calhoun? You there?"
There was a few moments of silence before a voice crackled back. "...that you, Sora? You're supposed to say 'over' when you're finished, over!"
"S-sorry! Not used to this! O-over!" Sora flailed back.
"Yeah, I gathered. Anyway, I take it that's you done with your checks? Over."
"Uh huh. Four games checked, with nothing serious to report. Over."
"Good man. Meet me at Game Central, a-sap. Last job's a big one. Being Wreck-it if possible. Over."
"Hear you loud and clear, over and out." Sora pocketed the walkie talkie. With a nod to his companions, the four of them made their way back.
Author's note:
Hey dudes. I thought Pac-Man would be a fun adventure for Sora, even if it just meant intruding on BA and getting gooped. We learned a bit more about Ralph and some other Bad Guys too, which is fun.
As always, feel free to leave some feedback if you had thoughts! Thanks for reading!