A.N.: WOW! What a great first chapter response! Didn't see that coming at all! Thank you guys!

Anyway, here goes the second chapter as soon as I promised. It got so long that I decided to publish this part here and the rest on the third chapter, which as you may guess will also be uploaded soon enough.

Again, I apologize in regards of any grammatical or narrative mistake. Constructive criticism and corrections will be well received.

ENJOY!

Chapter 2: Bad Guy Hunt

"Slow down Wreck-It!"

Ralph heard Calhoun scream behind him as he charged through the tunnel leading to Sugar Rush 2. But he wouldn't listen, not until he got into the game. He finally stopped when the sight of Sugar Rush's magnificent, candy-coated landscape came into view at the top of the rainbow bridge. He wasn't sure if the game looked any different since the colossal size of the world made it hard to tell.

Taking a moment to catch his breath, he waited for Calhoun and Felix to catch up with him. "I never thought you could be a runner," the sergeant said with a mocking smirk on her face. "Must be those new muscles." Ralph rolled his eyes at her remark.

"Be nice Tammy, he's just worried about Vanellope," Felix reminded her gently.

"Right, right, right, sorry," she said, offering an apologetic smile. "So, shall we head straight to the castle?"

"That's the plan," Ralph replied with a determined look in his eyes. He wanted every precaution on hand and ready, which led him to a question he still couldn't believe he was about to ask. "Calhoun? Did you bring any of your guns with you by chance?"

She walked forward a few steps until she was at his side, looking at him from the corner of her eye and jerking her thumb at her backpack. "Never leave home without them, but do you really think we'll need them? It's not like a candy-themed character in some colorful kart could do too much damage to us, right?"

Ralph wasn't so sure. "Bad-guys don't necessarily follow the same physical or psychological designs as the rest of a game's NPCs or the protagonist. I mean look at me and Felix. We have to be careful, especially if this bad-guy completely believes their original programming." In silence, the trio began to descend the Rainbow Bridge into Vanellope's kingdom.

"I just want to make sure the kid is safe," Ralph said, finally breaking the silence and turning to look at his friends, worry etched all over his face.

Felix couldn't help but beam with pride at his friend's caring nature. "Don't worry brother," the short handyman declared, stomping one foot heroically. "We'll make sure the new guy gets the message, right my lady?"

Calhoun chuckled at her husband's bravery, flashing him a proud smile. "Damn right short stack," she said, fixing Ralph with a determined grin.

Ralph smiled at them, once again reminded how lucky he was to have friends like them.

-0-0-0-

They walked all the way to thecastle, moving with precaution and watching their backs with each step. Funny how such a cutesy game had once again turned into a dangerous place in such a short time; Calhoun had even brought out her rifle, ready in case anything tried to ambush them.

But they didn't find one single sign of the expected 'bad-guy' or any kind of potential threat for that matter.

Reaching the massive doors of the palace, Ralph knocked as softly as he could and waited patiently. Not five minutes later, one of the doors opened slightly and the three of them had to look down to regard the ever-gloomy green majordomo of the palace.

"Mmmyes," Sour Bill asked them in his usual monotonous tone.

"Hey cough-drop, long time no see! How is everything?" Ralph smirked, trying to be polite to the tiny servant.

"If I'm correct, you just visited yesterday so I don't see your point…Wreck-It Ralph," Sour Bill told him, frowning at the wrecker.

"Right… well, we just wanted to check on Vanellope and-."

"She is in the throne room preparing her kart for the Random Roster Race, as usual," he interrupted him rudely while opening the door widely. "Go ahead. I've more important things to do." He said turned away and walked off into another hallway of the castle.

Ralph sniggered at the grumpy candy, long adjusted to his sour demeanor. "Well, that clears my suspicions of him being the new bad guy," he said as he walked inside.

"You really thought so, Ralph?" Felix asked. "I've always believed that deep down he cares for Vanellope just as much as we do." Felix took a peek down the hallway Sour Bill had walked off to.

They walked all the way through the central hallway of the castle until they reached the throne room, where they heard loud Japanese music being played. The elegant old 'salmon' room had been transformed into some sort of mechanic's garage, decorated with all kinds of candy pieces, scattered tools and spare parts all over the floor. It even smelled like the Kart Bakery, though it looked more like a cooking recipe had gone wrong in every possible way.

Right in the middle of all the sweet chaos, Ralph, Felix and Calhoun found the young monarch of the candy themed kingdom covered in chocolate syrup, icing stains and sugar powder, fixing what Ralph remembered to be the default white kart of King Candy, parked next to Vanellope's signature kart, the very one he had helped her build a year ago. She was under the aforementioned kart, humming along with the game's theme song.

Ralph cleared his throat to catch the president's attention and she clumsily hit her head on the chassis of the white kart, cursing painfully.

"Ouch! How many times do I have to tell you not to do that when I'm working, Sour-puss?!" she said, peeking her head out from under the kart just to find a massive pair of feet instead of tiny green ones. Her hazel eyes looked up to find the smiling face of her giant of a best friend.

"Ralph!" she shouted excitedly, getting out quickly and glitching up to his head to hug him. "I didn't expect you to visit so early! Sarge! Hammer time! You guys came too! Boy, I'm sorry for the mess!" She jumped down to the floor and smiled awkwardly at them, remembering the last time Felix had scolded her for her manners. "I wasn't expecting you guys to come to the castle since you usually go directly to the Startling Line."

Calhoun shouldered her rifle, rolling her eyes while Felix smiled at her. "Relax kiddo, we didn't come here to play parent today," the Sergeant said, chuckling.

"Though I would say that this is no place for a mechanic's shop, Vanellope. What if you receive an important visitor-," Felix started saying.

"Anyways," Ralph cut him off, deciding to get to the point. "We came early because we wanted to know how you were doing after the game's upgrade." Vanellope looked at him, arching an eyebrow.

"Really? Well… aside from the fact that I got the default Royal White Marzipan kart back, I haven't really checked it out yet. I was just about to go out to lead the Random Roster Race as usual, but decided to change some parts of the new kart with the old one so my actual kart can go even faster. It's a miracle it didn't get deleted after the update!" She signaled both karts with a bright smile. "And I still got my glitch superpower so there's no need for you guys to be worried."

Ralph looked at her curiously while the Fix-Its exchanged looks with each other. "You don't know yet?" the wrecker asked.

"Uh… know what exactly? Can you be more specific, Stinkbrain?" she asked in her playful tone.

"The Surge Protector told us there was a new bad guy in Sugar Rush Van," Felix told her softly, frowning in concern.

"WHAT?!" Vanellope exclaimed wide eyed. "I didn't know that!"

"How can you not know that," Ralph asked, completely confused. "It has to be in your memory code!" Had the Surge Protector been mistaken?

Vanellope blinked at him repeatedly, leaning her head to one side while pouting in thought. She thought, and thought, and thought deeply but nothing came to her mind. "Nope, I don't have a clue what you're talking about chump. I don't remember anything about any new bad guy."

"Can the Surge Protector be wrong about this kind of stuff?" Calhoun asked her husband directly.

"I don't think so," Felix replied, though unsure himself. "But I do believe that since the game has just finished calibrating… maybe… maybe the new information is still getting uploaded into Vanellope's code and that's why she still doesn't know who the bad guy is. Vanellope will probably know the moment she sees them. That's how Ralph and I recognized each other the first time we got plugged in." He remembered how the first time he met Ralph, he didn't know who the big angry man was but knew deep in his code that he was the 'bad-guy'.

"Oh… you're right Felix. I completely forgot about that… guess it was a waste of time coming to the castle directly." Ralph scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment.

"I think it's cool to have a bad guy!" Vanellope chirped in excitement. "It'll make the races more interesting and fun! They could even be a new racer!" The prospect of a brand new challenge was too good to be true.

Seeing Vanellope jump with joy made Ralph feel all the worse for what he was about to say. "I hate to burst your bubblegum kid… but new bad-guys can be dangerous if not treated with caution. Most of them actually believe they are genuinely evil at first, so don't let your guard down, okay?"

"Oh relax you big oaf," Vanellope replied dismissively. "I've met some of your tough looking Bad-Anon friends and they're not as evil as they seem. Heck, they wouldn't even hurt a fly on purpose." She punctuated this statement with a leap into her kart.

"Yeah but this is different Vanellope," Ralph said, trying to keep himself from shouting. "You didn't know them back in the days when they first got plugged in. I've heard some scary stories about Bowser and Clyde's first days." Ralph's gaze turned to look at the floor as unwelcome memories returned to him. "Even mine were rough… my programmed temper was really an issue." He stared at his massive hands for a moment before he shook his head furiously, trying to brush the dark memories out of his mind. "Just trust me on this kid. Please?"

"All right grandpa, I'll keep my eyes wide open," she said, grabbing the steering wheel and starting her kart with a roar of its powerful engine.

-0-0-0-

Ralph, Felix and Calhoun looked at the crowd with a mixture of frustration and confusion.

"Jeepers… This is going to be a lot harder than I expected," said Felix, speaking on behalf of the three.

They were looking at a few of the new racers lining up with the rest of the well-known avatars at the Starting Line alongside the Jumbotron, expecting to identify the bad-guy among them since it was highly probable that they would be a new racer. But the task had proven more difficult than what they had expected since none of the new racers looked typically 'evil' at first sight.

Among the new racers, there was what looked like a banana-split themed racer girl, a marshmallow and graham-cracker boy, a cinnamon-roll themed girl, another strawberry cheesecake girl, a colorful jellybean themed boy with dreads, a geeky looking peppermint boy, a Hershey's chocolate girl, and finally, a jawbreaker themed boy. All of them looked cute and sweet, waving excitedly at Vanellope when she walked in front of them after parking her kart.

"You'll have to enlighten us, Wreck-It, since you're the expert on the matter," Calhoun said while sitting in her seat in the royal balcony where they and Vanellope usually sat.

Ralph narrowed his eyes at the racers, taking in every tiny detail of their wardrobes and kart appearances, looking for clues. But he couldn't find a thing.

"I don't understand… none of them look even remotely 'bad' to me. No dark colors, no dangerous symbols, no size differences… nothing! They're the same age as the cavities right there," he said with frustration, while gesturing at the starting line where the 'older' Sugar Rush racers were all lined up.

"What about that snob blonde girl who used to pick on the squirt? She's her rival, right?" Calhoun narrowed her gaze on Taffyta, who was currently chatting with the president.

"Her? She's been on good terms with the kid for a while now and she doesn't look any different to me," Ralph said, glancing at the duo as well.

"How about the green-haired one?" Felix asked.

"Too spaced-out to be a bad-guy," Ralph answered him.

"The blond boy?"

"Doesn't have the guts."

"The trickster orange one?"

"Harmless as a dove."

"The afro girl?"

"She's the kid's best friend in here."

"The colorful ones?"

"Look, none of them have bad guy material, okay?" Ralph said exasperatedly. "All of the older racers are here and none of them looks any different than before their upgrade. Believe me, I would know if someone was a bad guy."

"What about Turbo, Wreck-It?" Calhoun said with a raised eyebrow. "You didn't know it was him until he revealed himself thanks to the princess's glitch."

"First of all, Turbo was programmed to be a good guy so it's different. Never the less, I thought he was fishy even when he was pretending to be King Candy. And finally, how was I to know that someone who was supposedly dead could be still around and even be capable of reprogramming an entire game?" Ralph finished his diatribe with a roll of his eyes, Calhoun chuckling at him in response.

"Maybe the bad-guy isn't here, but they're hiding somewhere else?" Felix pondered, his eyes wandering all along the racetrack.

"Or maybe the old Surge Protector was wrong about all this and there is no bad-guy in Sugar Rush," Calhoun said, crossing her arms and legs and feeling slightly annoyed.

Ralph and Felix exchanged looks but had nothing to rebuff her statement. The Surge did say that sometimes things could escape from their control, so what were the odds of him being wrong this time?

Vanellope appeared in front of them with a glitch, smiling brightly with excitement. She was currently sporting her default white and teal racing jumpsuit with matching helmet and goggles. Felix had convinced her to changing into some cleaner clothes before they departed from the castle. She liked to call it her 'presidential suit'.

"So, did you guys find the big new meanie?" she asked them mockingly, her eyebrows arched.

"…Vanellope…," Ralph stated in a scolding tone.

"I know, I know! Serious business," she said while doing a Ralph-like mocking face, earning giggles from Calhoun and Felix.

"Did your code tell you anything about the new racers?" Ralph asked her, ignoring the snickers from the married couple.

"Yep, I checked their information and none of them is the bad guy. I guess he didn't show up at the race after all," Vanellope said with a shrug while signaling Sour Bill to bring the mike. "We should check the new areas in the kingdom later. Maybe he's hiding somewhere out there." Jumping to her mike stand, she began giving her usual pre-race speech.

"Good evening my fellow racers and sweet subjects," echoed Vanellope's voice through the entire game, the countless candy citizens cheering at the sound of her voice.

"Welcome to Sugar Rush Speedway 2's very first Random Roster Race! What an exciting day, isn't it?" A cheer from the crowd answered her announcement.

"As your president, I want to officially welcome our brand new avatars to our world and wish them the best of luck in this and later races of course," she said saluting the new racers who were in the back positions of the startling formation.

"The rules are the same folks: first nine racers to cross the line will be tomorrow's avatars on the roster. Power-ups are allowed but play nice, okay?" She earned a collective bunch of giggles and winks coming from her fellow racers at that comment.

"Right, right, so! Enough with the boring protocols and let the Random Roster Race commence!" She finished with a smile, quickly glitching to her kart at the front line.

The sound of starting engines roared in the atmosphere along with loud ovations from the candy citizens who were all watching closely with delight. Vanellope looked back at the royal grandstand and waved eagerly to her worried friends who immediately started cheering after her.

"Go show them who the boss is squirrel!", "Don't be too tough on the new ones Vannie!", "Bring the cup home kid!" They all shouted at her, getting into the excitement of the moment and forgetting for an instant what brought them there in the first place.

All eyes turned to the starting lights as they flashed into life.

Red…

Yellow…

Green…

GO!

-0-0-0-

Thank you for reading and please don't forget to leave a review!

The character you all have been waiting for will finally make her first appearance in the next chapter, so stay tuned!