Chapter 4: I'm bad and that's good!
'IT'S THE WICKED QUEEN!', 'BAD GUY!','ATARI HAVE MERCY ON US!', 'RUN FOR YOUR LIVES BEFORE SHE CURSES US ALL!', 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!'.
Citizens and racers alike ran away as fast as they could while screaming at the top of their lungs in utter terror. The new character's information had also been uploaded into the rest of the citizens' memories and if they were already frightened before, now the fear had completely overtaken them. Within the blink of an eye, the starting line of the Royal Racetrack was empty, leaving a stunned Ralph, Calhoun, Felix and Vanellope alone with the queen.
"Wow… They sure can run fast," Ralph heard Felix mumble behind him. He then heard the queen snort.
"How brave of them, to leave their princess to the bad-guy's mercy," the older Von Schweetz said sarcastically, a mocking smile forming on her lips. "Though I guess the right term would be 'bad girl', but you know how that sounds… not that I really mind." The dark queen giggled at the implied innuendo.
A few silent seconds later, Vanellope finally woke up from her downloading trance.
"Sweet mother of monkey milk, I HAVE A SISTER NOW!" Vanellope screeched in complete surprise and happiness, making her sister cringe a little at her high-pitched voice. Scratching her buzzed ear with her pinky, the dark queen smiled at her sugar high sister.
"Geez, you are one loud little brat, aren't' ya?" she said while putting her helmet on the seat of her kart and resting a hand on her hip.
Calhoun frowned deeply at her comment and once again raised her rifle, taking aim directly at her head. The older Von Schweetz instantly raised both hands, looking confused.
"Whoa, whoa! Easy space girl! What's with the hostility?!" Despite keeping her hands in the air, a smirk slowly crept back onto her face.
"State your business!" Calhoun demanded, getting a snort from the new queen as a reply.
"You do know that I'll simply regenerate if you shoot me, right?" she shrugged it off mockingly, maintaining a blank expression.
"We'll see how many times the program can regenerate you before I crash your code permanently," Tamora hissed, a malevolent smirk on her own lips.
Chocolette regarded her quizzically, but never dropped her devilish smile. "Well… only if you manage to shoot me first that is," she said to her in a daring tone, earning a growl from Calhoun who was on the verge of pulling the trigger.
"SARGE WAIT!" Vanellope yelled at her, stepping between them both. "Calm down! Just because she's a bad-guy doesn't mean she really is bad! Remember?" Vanellope's pleading eyes glanced at Ralph, who simply smiled apprehensively at her. Calhoun paused in thought, looking deeply into her imploring big puppy-dog eyes for what seemed like an eternity and finally gave up. She brushed her bangs out of her face in frustration, lowering her weapon with a sigh and cursing herself for becoming soft.
"Fine pipsqueak. Your game, your rules." She shouldered her rifle with a grunt.
"Thanks," Vanellope said and turned around to face her sister once again. "You aren't really bad, are you?" Her big eyes shone with hope.
Chocolette smirked at her after lowering her arms, kneeling down to her eye level. She gracefully poked Vanellope's pinky nose with a chuckle while wearing a thoughtful expression "Well let's see… I'm your green eyed older sister, dressed in black and purple, who also happens to be a beautiful queen who lives in a really scary looking castle and drives one big meanie of a black racing kart. What does that tell ya?" She looked straight into her eyes with a smug expression written on her features.
Vanellope glanced at every 'screaming evil' detail that her sister had just pointed out and pondered for a while, mentally comparing her with King Candy/Turbo and even the guys from Bad-Anon. She looked over her shoulder to Ralph who shrugged at her, not knowing how to respond to her statement. She had to admit, the queen did seem to have been programmed and designed based off every single evil cliché there was in the books, plus the addition of some seriously dangerous methods of racing. But then again, all the bad guys she had met had also more or less been programmed in the same fashion, and had still proven to have good hearts just like Ralph.
She remembered Ralph's life before their fateful meeting and how his own people used to treat him. Was her sister destined to go through the same social stigma as Ralph had? Were the Sugar Rushians going to isolate her sister because they were programmed to fear her?
Not if she had anything to say about it. She had to give her sister a chance and convince everyone else to do the same.
Making up her mind, she returned her gaze to her sister with a mischievous smile. "That now I have one cool big sister?" she finally said in an excited tone.
The queen looked taken aback for a moment, as if Vanellope had suddenly grown a third head.
"You're not scared of me?" she asked, shocked. She knew she was supposedly programmed to be feared by everybody in Sugar Rush, so she found it quite intriguing that Vanellope, who was the game's main character and princess, seemed more thrilled to finally meet her than frightened. Was something wrong with her little sister's program?
"Nope, I actually think you're really awesome," The younger Von Schweetz told her with a toothy grin.
Chocolette blinked, silent for a moment before laughing maniacally at her little sister's words. "Oh my, you really are something," she said while wiping a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye. "Well you're damn right about ME being awesome brat! And don't EVER forget that!" She ruffled her sister's dirty bangs, finding her protagonist quite intriguing and adorably naive.
Vanellope instantly started to jump all around her in excitement, blurting fast and incoherent sentences.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! This is the coolest thing that has ever happened to me in a year! I have a bad guy and a big sister! This is so cool! You're so cool! Are you gonna live in the castle with me!? This is gonna be so fun! We'll have sleepovers every day, and we'll fix each other's hair and watch scary movies! Oh by Atari! Did you guys just see the way she drives?! It was all woooosh and vrooooooom, and 'I'm so badass, I don't follow the laws of physics, losers'! And oh my gosh, you gotta teach me how to drive like that! Please! Please! Please! Pretty please! Oh! And-!"
Rolling her eyes while chuckling, Chocolette quickly grabbed her jumping sister by her hoodie in a mid air jump, turning around over to face her. "Easy there sugar high grasshopper," she said, putting her down again.
"First of all," she said rising her index finger. "I don't know if you noticed, but I do happen to have my own castle so I'm not sure about the sleepover idea yet; second, yes I don't exactly follow any rules because it's not in my code to do so anyway, and no I can't and I won't teach you to drive like me."
Vanellope frowned at the last part.
"Awwwwww why not?!" she pouted, her most effective trick for manipulation that usually worked on anyone, even Tamora.
Chocolette flashed her an evil smile. "You're adorable all right, but that's not gonna work on me. Besides, what would my loyal subjects think of me if I started helping the pretty princess of my game?" The queen rolled her eyes at the obviousness of her statement, her voice holding the kind of taunting tone that only an older sister could pull off.
Vanellope huffed in annoyance, crossing her arms stubbornly and also rolling her eyes in the same fashion as her sister.
"Well I don't care what the rest of the racers think, you and I can hang out as much as we want!" she said in a manner not unlike a Felix good-guy style speech.
"Oh, I wasn't talking about your loyal subjects lil' sis," the queen said, looking at her with an arched eyebrow.
Vanellope tilted her head, furrowing her brow in a confused frown when suddenly she heard the distant sound of thunderous engines getting closer. Ralph, Felix and Calhoun heard it too and turned around in the opposite direction of the Royal Racetrack to see several approaching figures on odd-looking vehicles.
They heard them whistle and cheer loudly, sweetly cursing to the skies while jumping over the scattered and fallen grand stands, hitting everything in their path. The figures stopped a few miles away from them, while a thick cloud of sugary dust covered them for an instant.
"Dear sis… meet my Sour Racers," the queen said evilly when the sweet smelling smoke cleared, revealing a group of six not-so-friendly adult looking racers leering back at them.
"These are the Twizzler Twin Sisters: Zoet and Zuur." Chocolette signaled with her hand and a pair of twin girls who were riding neon pink and yellow motorbikes came forward. One of the sisters had a lightning bolt painted over one eye while the other sister had a broken heart painted on the opposite eye. They were sporting platinum Mohawk hairdos, and were dressed in black shorts and black tank tops with short leather jackets which matched their high-heeled boots and bikes.
"The big fella is Rocko "El Habanero" Gobstopper," the queen said, pointing to a muscular shirtless black bearded man who was on a big red skull-candy-shaped monster truck. He was dressed only in thorn black pants with red military boots, black sunglasses and a red candy wrapper bandana tied around his head. His muscular tanned torso was completely tattooed with different Mexican candy skulls painted all over it.
"Franknerd Puckertensky, our mad genius," she said, referring to a more lanky racer with spiral goggles, whose face and body were constantly twitching and shaking. He was giggling nonstop. He was on a silly looking neon blue boogie kart, made of lifesavers and rocky candy, wearing a blue top hat, and a striped blue and black thorn vest that matched his equally striped pants. He really seemed to be having a mental breakdown.
"Lady Razz Trollancher," the queen said, introducing a tanned girl with orange braided hair, sitting with her arms crossed on a long vehicle while blowing and chewing bubblegum. Her kart only had three jelly wheels and was half green, half orange, and covered in sugar sparkles. She was wearing a black and green racing jacket and matching flared leg pants on tall platform heels.
"And last but not least, Patcher 'Warhead' Roger," she finished with the last racer, whose eyes were hidden under the thick and puffy body of a huge, green afro. He was on a green and yellow rocket shaped kind of kart, smiling while balancing a cherry bomb on one hand. He was wearing black shoulder pads with spikes, fingerless green gloves, and black and green dotted pants with no shoes. His kart didn't have any wheels, floating in the air instead.
"ALL HAIL QUEEN CHOCOLETTE THE DARK!" the six of them chanted in unison, fist pumping into the air.
Vanellope gasped at them, eyes going wide in excitement.
"WOW! More racers! This is so cool!" She shouted earning confused stares from the Sour Racers.
"They're mini-bosses and they're supposed to appear randomly at each racetrack to prevent the player from wining," Chocolette explained to her while Vanellope glitched and teleported quickly, checking out all of them out and their karts while babbling again.
"Look at this guy's kart! It's so big! Oh my Atari I have never seen candy bikes before! Why are you shaking? Why are you laughing? Can I have some gum? How does your kart run without wheels?! Why does your kart only have 3 wheels?! Oh look at this!" Vanellope went on and on as the other three of the Core Four watched, flabbergasted as the kid got recklessly close to the other bad-guys.
Chocolette suddenly whistled loudly, regaining Vanellope's attention. The young president looked back at her sister, peeking out from Warhead's massive afro, feeling slightly embarrassed.
"Oops, sorry," she apologized while jumping back to the ground, grinning innocently. Chocolette lifted an eyebrow at her.
"Right, well, I didn't make them appear in this race because I honestly thought that it was going to be too much for you and your sweet racers to handle," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, earning hurt looks from her Sour Racers.
Vanellope pouted with a frown, feeling her own ego hurt.
"Excuse me, but do you really think these clowns of yours could stop ME from winning," she said, earning a couple of 'heys' coming from behind her.
Chocolette laughed heartily at her sister's prideful demeanor. "If I remember correctly, you didn't win today dearie," she said.
"Well ga-doi! You took me by surprise! Really unfair! I wasn't mentally prepared for a challenge like that, you cheater!" She said and blew a raspberry at the queen, who chuckled in response.
Ralph, who had been watching everything quietly, let one barely audible snort escape, which the queen heard. She turned to look at the source of the laugh, noticing him fully for the first time with wide eyes. Ralph's eyes bugged too when their eyes met, feeling a new warm sensation course through his whole body. Their eyes remained locked for a whole minute until she smiled deviously at him with a mischievous new spark in her eyes.
Turning on her heels, the queen marched her way towards the wrecker, swinging her hips as if she were a model strutting down a runway, ignoring the stunned faces of Calhoun and Felix as she crossed in front of them. Ralph's mind went blank as she stopped a few inches away from him, confused by her sudden approach.
"Well hello there big guy," she said in a seductive tone, both of her hands planted on her hips, smiling as she shamelessly checked him up and down with her green eyes. "Are those muscles of yours for good or for evil?"
Ralph fell backwards, completely taken aback at her forwardness and feeling his pixels turn red. 'Did-did she…no…no way! She did NOT just openly flirt with me!' His brain refused to believe it. "Wha-what," he barely blurted out, earning a playful giggle from the dark queen.
Felix gasped and smiled at his fallen brother, noticing the infamous "honey glows" on his cheeks for what was probably the first time in his friend's existence.
Vanellope glitched onto Ralph's shoulder, grinning knowingly from ear to ear. "This stinkbrain here is Ralph! Wreck-It Ralph actually, from another game called Fix-It Felix Jr.! He saved me a year ago from a psycho called Turbo who had taken over our game for 12 years and is now my best friend. He is also a bad guy!" She finished her introduction with both arms gesturing openly to Ralph.
"You're a bad guy too?" Chocolette gasped in delight, her narrowed eyes never leaving his roughly handsome features.
Straightening up at once, Ralph dusted himself off and cleared his throat. "Thanks for the introduction, president booger-face," he said, giving Vanellope a reproachful frown. She only grinned wider at him.
"I'm Ralph… and yes I'm a bad guy too… nice to meet ya… I guess," he said doubtfully, scratching the back of his head with one big hand.
"I wouldn't just say nice, but my sister is here," she teased, batting her eyelashes while her green eyes shown seductively, making him even more flustered than before.
'Oh sweet Konami, is she one of those bad girls who are programmed to act all flirty?! It doesn't help that she is REALLY beautiful. Stay cool Ralph! Don't let her affect you, you don't know her and that's why you can't trust her just yet! She could be dangerous! Really dangerous,' he gulped in thought while backing slightly away from Chocolette.
Felix quickly took his cue to introduce himself, taking his cap off of his head. "And I'm Fix-It Felix Jr., ma'am, from the game Fix-Felix Jr. too! And the lovely lady over there who you just 'pleasantly' met is my dynamite gal and wife Sergeant Tamora Calhoun Fix-It, lead character from the game Hero's Duty. We are all Vanellope's friends here. It's a great honor to officially welcome you to Litwak's Arcade." The short handyman cordially bowed with a bright white smile.
"So you three aren't from our game: figures much," Chocolette said, glancing at Calhoun from the corner of her eye, who was watching her with a judging glare. Just then, the dark queen realized something the short good guy had just mentioned. She looked at him with a confused expression and turned her eyes to Ralph again.
"This short one is the good-guy who is supposed to beat you up in the game?" she said, pointing at Felix with her thumb, making Felix's brows form a straight line. "Either he has one helluva strong super power under those gloves or you're not as strong as you look, big guy!" She glanced at both with doubt, hearing a chuckle escape from Calhoun.
Feeling his own temper starting to rise, the no longer 8-Bit handyman crossed his arms over his chest and allowed his hero's pride to take over. "Well excuse me ma'am'! But in our game…"
"…Felix…," Ralph tried to interrupt his incoming outraged good-guy speech.
"…Ralph wrecks a whole city with his bare hands, terrorizing the poor citizens of Niceland, while…"
"…Felix…," Ralph tried again, to no avail.
"…I'm supposed to fix his mess quickly with the help of my trusty golden hammer, given to me by my pops! And…"
"FELIX," Ralph shouted, stopping his blabbering in mid speech. "She is just messing with ya!"
Felix quickly looked over to Ralph, who was smiling in amusement, and then to Chocolette who seemed to be holding back her own laughter. However, Vanellope and Calhoun did not even try to hold it, both laughing openly at his outburst.
"Oh," he finally said, feeling his own embarrassed 'honey glows', only to then snort in indignation while putting his cap back on stubbornly. "Never been fond of the Bad Guys sense of humor." An angry pout formed on his lips and he stared at the ground.
Snickering, Chocolette glanced over her shoulder to look at the Sergeant. "And you're his wife? You're a softie deep down then, aren't ya?" the queen said smugly, earning a piercing glare from Calhoun.
"Watch your tongue queenie… you might lose it one day," Calhoun threaten her in through clenched teeth.
Suddenly, they all heard the faint sound of police sirens in the distance, getting closer. The Sour Racers gasped in unison with worried eyes.
"BOSS! The cops are comin'," Razz shouted to the queen, bursting her bubblegum.
Chocolette rolled her eyes, looking slightly annoyed for the first time. "Just when I was starting to have some fun," she said sighing. "Oh well, I think it's time for me to make my exit".
Chocolette walked away from them and towards her kart, while her racers started their vehicles' engines.
Vanellope jumped off of Ralph's shoulder, looking sad.
"Wait," she yelled, rooted to the spot where she'd landed. "Where are you going?! Why do you have to leave so suddenly?!" Chocolette just kept walking without turning around as her racers started to leave one by one.
"It has to do with me being not allowed to participate in the Random Roster Races, I guess, so I bet the guards from your castle aren't very happy with my unexpected visit," she said, jumping in her seat and staring her kart with a thunderous roar of its pistons.
"Don't worry sis, we'll see each other around plenty," she said, strapping on a pair of purple goggles. She then glanced back at Ralph with a teasing devilish smile. "And I really hope to see you around plenty too… big guy!" She finished with a wink as the tires of her kart squealed loudly. She laughed maniacally and sped away, followed by her racers as she disappeared on the horizon as a black and purple blurred flash, leaving a gaping red faced wrecking guy behind with his brain frozen.
-0-0-0-
I have to admit, it took me more time to come up with the names for the Sour Racers than with the rest of the chapter XDU
I'll upload some of the concept art of this chapter soon on my Tublr and DA, so please check them out!
Again, my apologies if you manage to find any grammatical mistake! _ I'm doing my best into double-checking everything before uploading but I'm not perfect!
Don't forget to leave a review!
Stay Sweet