A/N: Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! And as a treat, the next chapter in my story! This was the most monstrous, and glorious, chapter I have written so far. Reviews are always good, I can improve on my writing skills that way. Other than that, enjoy this big chapter!

Disclaimer: Wreck-It Ralph and the characters within them belong to Disney. My OC Characters and Games belong to me.

The Magical Bond Between Two Hearts

Chapter 6: The Date

"No this doesn't look right. Oh man!"

Lucy rubbed her chin with her fingers, trying to figure out what she had done wrong with the drawing she had in her hand. She glanced at Sophie, "What do you think?"

The bird gave no response, but somehow she could understand her just by looking at her.

"I know, I know. It's not as good as it looks." Lucy said giving a little giggle, "But I think it looks great."

She suddenly heard a lot of noise in the station. She turned to look, and realized that the arcade had been closed already for the past five minutes.

"Whoa, is it that time already?!" she exclaimed.

Quickly she put down her pencil and the pad of paper she had been working on, and stood up on the bench to survey the scene. Lucy could not contain her excitement, because she knew that today was the day. The day that she got to meet Ralph again. I hope he gets here on time.

Looking down at her feet, she began to realize that the light from above her shining through the window started to sink down. Sophie started to chirp as well when the light started to fade. Slowly Lucy raised her hand to the light that was left, like she had done everyday for the last 9 years. Lucy didn't know why she had done this everyday, but the light of the sun that shone through the window made her feel...safe.

"Please come back tomorrow." she whispered softly.

Just as she said this, the light finally shone its last rays of light through the window, and was gone; replaced with the electric lights of the station. Lucy let out a sorrowed sigh, lowering her hand. She knew that there was no going back to the life she had back home. She knew that she couldn't get home at all.

It was all gone.

A strange sound made her lose her concentration. "What's that noise? It sounds like...oh no!"

As she strained her ears to listen, she heard the sound of giggling girls. Giggling fan girls.

Only meaning that Archer was here. She jumped down from the bench, tightened the cloak around her shoulders, and pulled down the hood tightly over her face. She knew that whenever Archer was around, there was always trouble ahead.

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"Girls PLEASE! You flatter me too much! Just the way I like it." Archer gave his fan girls a wink.

As usual they swooned. Huh, typical fan girls.

"You are so cool Archer." said one of the girls, a blonde-haired lass.

"Yeah, I would watch you anyday." chipped up an auburn-haired girl.

The girls then proceeded to talk all at once in admiration to him. This made Archer proud of himself, wooing girls like them. Of course, the girls were from his own game and were easily seduced by his charms.

Archer was just about to comment on what he called his amazing archery skills, when something caught his attention in the corner of his eye.

"Ladies, ladies." he interrupted them, "If you'll excuse me, I think I need to go have a talk with a certain someone."

"AWW!" the ladies whined, "Can't you stay any longer?"

"Don't worry...I'll be right back." Archer replied in his irresistible voice. The ladies always love it.

The girls swooned again, and waved happily as he left them at the entrance to Tapper's.

Usually he would go shoot some rounds back in his game Flying Arrows before returning to his fans. This time though, he had spotted someone he had seen last night. A certain bad guy who had almost broken his nose at the DDR party.

His confidence suddenly heightened, as he walked over to the certain bad guy with a smug grin growing on his face.

This time he was certain to have his revenge.

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Out of breath, Ralph finally managed to walk into Game Central Station. The last few stretches he couldn't wait for the train to stop, so he tried to get out of his very small seat as fast as he could. It took a lot of his stamina and strength to get out, and usually he would take his time getting out. This time he was in a hurry, being almost late for his date.

"Made it!" he huffed heavily.

Ralph had stopped to catch his breath, leaning against the entrance to his game.

"Well, at least Surge is not here to stop me at the gate this time. I must be lucky."

At this exact moment, his thoughts were interrupted.

"Wreck-It Ralph."

He jumped expecting the Surge to be there. Instead, he got a good glimpse at a guy that he thought looked very familiar. He furrowed his brow in confusion.

"Um, have we met?" he asked the man.

The man then suddenly bursted out laughing, making Ralph jump again.

"Oh I'm sorry. We have met, but not formally." the man held out his had to him, "Archer from the game Flying Arrows."

"Ralph," he nervously replied taking his hand, "from the game Fix-It Felix Jr."

After shaking hands, he and Archer stared at each other for a minute.

"So...how do you know me?" he furrowed his brow again.

"You don't remember?" Archer implied. Ralph shook his head.

"We met at the DDR Party. Somehow you must have had a temper flare and almost broke my nose."

Now Ralph understood. The guy he saw before him was the one that was picking on Lucy that last night.

"Right, now I remember." Ralph recalled, "You were the guy that was being a somewhat showoff to everyone right?"

He saw the look on Archer's face turn into a scowl.

"Watch it big guy. I was just trying to warm up to you." Archer retorted.

Ralph felt his temper rising just by looking at him. However he was able to control it, for he didn't want to make a scene and get all beaten up before he met up with Lucy.

"Well, I would like to stay and warm up to you as well. But I have somewhere that I need to be." he walked around the man, trying to control his anger over him, "So another time perhaps."

"Yes, I think that would be best." Archer called after him.

Without a second thought, Ralph hurried away to find Lucy.

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Lucy gave a huge sigh of relief, seeing that Archer had not seen or noticed her at all. Now Lucy had gone back to try to draw in her pad of paper again, feeling a little more safer from him. Having pulled off the hood from her cloak, she was now transfixed on the difficult task before her. She was so concentrated in her work, that she didn't notice the big footsteps that came closer behind her.

"I still can't get this right. If only..."

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden tap on her shoulder.

"AHH!" she yelped. Lucy suddenly lost her balance, and fell to the floor.

"Sorry! Are you okay?"

Shaking off the sensation of hitting the floor so suddenly, Lucy looked up to see who was there that had said that. She gasped, a smile spreading across her lips. To her delight she saw that it was Ralph standing there with a worried look on his face.

"I'm fine. Just startled me is all." Lucy replied, giving him a warm smile.

Carefully she picked herself up from the floor, clutching the pad tightly, and stood to face Ralph directly. To her surprise she could see him more clearly than last night, when it was dark. Now in the bright, moving light, Ralph was a lot more taller than she thought he would be. Looking at his face she saw that it was more soft and warmer than before.

"You look...different from before." she implied happily.

She saw Ralph turn red for a moment. "Me? I haven't changed really at all. I'm still the same Ralph." he laughed nervously.

Lucy clutched the pad of paper tighter against her chest. For a moment the two of them stared at the floor with nothing to say.

"I wonder...should I ask him?" she found herself muttering to herself.

"Um...say. What do you have in your arms?" Ralph asked her pointing to the pad she was holding.

"Oh, this?" Lucy slowly held out the pad of paper for him to see, "I-It's my sketching pad. I use it to draw art." She felt herself blushing in embarrassment for telling him this, even though Ralph was the first person she felt comfortable in telling.

"You're an artist?" Ralph implied.

"Well...sort of." she sat down cautiously on one of the benches, "Do you want to sit down?"

She gestured to the seat next to her for Ralph to sit in.

"Sure...okay." Ralph cautiously plopped down in the seat next to her.

Looking away from him, she clutched the sketch pad even tighter to her chest. Her mind was racing around in circles, making her feel dizzy. It was only when she felt the pad pressing hardly against her did she realize that she was nervous.

"C-can I...a-ask you something?" she stuttered sloppily.

When she looked up again, he was looking at her expecting her to finish.

"May...may I?"

She then turned her eyes to what she was focused on: his big wrecking hands.

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Noticing that Lucy's attention was to his hands, Ralph turned to look at his hands as well.

"May I...use you..."

Ralph felt his blush darken.

"...I mean your hands!" she corrected quickly. "May I use your hands for a drawing?"

Ralph couldn't answer, he was too stunned and trying to contain the blood rushing to his cheeks.

"Y-yeah, sure." he stuttered.

She smiled, giving a warm chuckle. Then quite suddenly she took one of his big hands. This caught Ralph by surprise. What is she doing?

"Sorry if I startled you." she replied almost immediately, "I'm just studying your hands."

"What for?" he asked her.

Lucy remained quiet, still focusing her attention on his hands.

"Well I...tried to draw them before, from memory. But...for some reason it was much more difficult than I realized." she faintly smiled, "When I first saw your hands...I knew that they were different from the rest. I've seen other big hands before, but...they were not human hands. It made them easy to draw. But when I tried drawing your hands...it seemed like I was...unable to draw at all."

She slowly let go of his hand. Ralph's heart was beating so fast that he wasn't sure if he was still breathing. Carefully, Lucy placed the pad of paper in front of her. She took out what seemed to look like a writing utensil. Called a pencil I think. Flipping the pad open, Ralph noticed that her cheerful expression seemed to dramatically change. "It's as if she's more serious now." he thought.

"Now, um...just hold your hands still." she bashfully told him, "And don't move them, okay?"

He nodded his head without a word, his heart still pounding.

Then she began to draw. As she went on, her expression was now more serious than he had ever seen before. He almost thought that she was a different person than the girl he had met last night.

I need to know her. The thought was pounding in his mind like a hammer on a nail. I need to know more.

"Lucy?"

Her eyes looked up at him, her expression never wavering. Now's your chance!

"Where...is it that you're from?" The words came out slowly as if time had stopped.

Her eyes returned to the pad, she was quiet. Ralph almost leaned forward to listen, but remembered that he had to keep still.

"Shining Magic. That's the game that I'm from." she responded keeping her eyes on the pad of paper, "Shining Magic was my home before-"

She suddenly gasped, her big eyes widening.

"What? What's wrong?!" he asked worriedly

"Oops! I just made a mistake." she laughed happily.

She then flipped her pencil upside down, and scrubbed the paper with the pink stub at the end. He let out a silent sigh of relief. Her expression turned back to a concentrated one.

"-before I was exiled." she finished not flinching.

"Exiled?"

"Yeah. Nine years ago from yesterday I arrived here at Game Central...and I never left." She paused with her pencil stuck on the paper.

Ralph narrowed his eyes, "If you never left then...how come you go into other games?"

"Back in my game, if someone learns something new, defeats an enemy, or even explores a new place...we gain experience and grow." Her pencil moved gracefully across the paper again.

"Grow how? As in get powerful?" he asked.

"No." she bit her lip as her pencil pressed hardly against the paper, "We grow older. I was a kid when I came to the station. Now I've grown to what you see now, because I had explored other games."

"WAIT...you were a KID?!" Ralph mildly shouted. He didn't want to scare her with his big voice. He knew how loud his voice could get.

This time Lucy looked all the way up at his face. She was frowning at him, her eyes big and wide.

"Hold still, it's hard to draw a moving target." she told him sternly.

He realized then that he had moved his hands. Oh man, you embarrassed yourself! You almost blew it stupid!

"Sorry." he responded glumly. He put his hands back where they were.

"Hey it's okay." Lucy smiled, her frown completely gone, "It happens, don't worry yourself over it."

It was a long time before the both of them said a word. With one final movement of the pencil she held in her hand, she happily set down the pad of paper.

"Done!" she exclaimed, "You can move now."

He sighed as he moved his sore hands around from its stiff position. He felt a tug on his sleeve.

"You want to see it?" Lucy asked.

"Sure."

She extended the pad to him, the paper turned to him. At first he looked at it closely because he couldn't tell what he was looking at.

"Um...sorry the paper's upside down." Lucy responded and turned the pad right side up.

Ralph gasped.

"Oh my land!"

What he saw was a perfectly detailed drawing of his own hands.

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From the way he sounded, she thought that something was definitely wrong with it.

"I know. Its bad isn't it?" she glumly muttered hiding behind the sketch pad.

"No. This is amazing!"

"What?" She poked her head from behind the pad.

She saw that Ralph was smiling. Not frowning, but smiling.

"This is really good!" he commented, "You're a really good artist."

"You...you think so?" she shyly replied.

Ralph put his hand upon the paper. That was when Lucy noticed for the first time that he had teeth, and he was grinning. But when she looked at his toothy grin, she couldn't help but smile at a missing tooth within his grin.

"You know," she put down the sketch pad, turning her head up to Ralph, "no one has ever said that my art was good before."

She suddenly felt something warm come up to her cheeks. What is this? I've never felt this feeling before. Curiosity struck her as she tried to figure out this new feeling.

"Lucy?"

She jerked her head up quickly realizing that she had drifted off in her thoughts. The curious feeling she had was still there, no matter how much she tried to shake it off.

"Would you...like to go somewhere with me?"

Lucy found herself gasping as Ralph extended a hand out to her.

She couldn't find the words, she couldn't find anything. The question rang through her mind like a gong and took ahold of her. She couldn't shake the curious feeling she had. Where does he want to take me? To a game? Is it somewhere that I've been to before? The curious questions nagged at her, making her indecisive of what to say.

"G-g-go somewhere? W-with you?" she stuttered.

"Yeah." he replied, "Well...s-since we're friends I thought...well I-I could take you to someplace you've never been to before. I-If you want to."

Lucy remained silent looking at his outstretched hand. She had never ever been asked by someone else to go someplace with her. It was unthinkable that someone would ever do that.

"Then again...perhaps it's time that I started to try. To try to trust others again."

She took his hand in one swift motion.

"You know...I've never really been to the game Sugar Rush before. Maybe...we could go there first?" She found herself smiling up at him, holding his hand in hers.

As the two of them made their way across the station, Lucy couldn't help but feel very happy to be going with someone else. She held Ralph's hand tighter. It was going to be a great day after all.

Just then they had reached the entrance into Sugar Rush. Peering closer, she realized that she could not see anything inside. It was a dark tunnel. And she remembered now that the dark scared her more than anything. She let go of Ralph's hand with her mind full of fear. He turned to her surprised of her sudden movement back.

"What's wrong? I thought you wanted to go to Sugar Rush." He took a step closer to her. Lucy shook her head furiously and step back from him.

"I can't. I...I just can't!" she sadly told him. The fear had now taken over her whole body, pushing her back away from the entrance all together.

"Why not?"

Lucy glumly looked down taking care not to let Ralph see her face. She knew even though that this was their second meeting, that Ralph worried about her being unhappy. But...she had to tell him why, it was a risk worth taking.

"I'm...terrified...of the dark." she slowly explained. For a moment she couldn't breathe, waiting for Ralph's reply. Instead there was silence, and when Lucy looked back up at him, she saw to her surprise that his hand was extended out to her once more.

"Then...let me help you." he replied in a warm voice that Lucy had never heard before. A whole new feeling she had never felt before had suddenly welled up inside her heart. Without even realizing it until it was too late, she sprinted to take not his hand, but his arm instead.

"Don't let go then, okay?" she faintly responded, her face pressed against the lower part of his big arm.

From out of the corner of her eye she saw Ralph smiling down at her, his cheeks having turned a bright red. "Don't worry, I'll make sure we get there in one piece."

Lucy grabbed on tighter to Ralph as they both made their first step into the tunnel that lead into Sugar Rush.

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"Where are we going exactly?"

"To where Lucy and that ape of a wrecker is going Garren!" Archer quietly scolded.

They snuck past each of the characters that were on their usual business during closing hours at the arcade. And a big crowd it was that day. Garren who was following Archer's lead, feared that the obsession of revenge was starting to get to him.

"Archer, why can't we just go to Tapper's. I'm sure the fan girls would love to see you throw some more darts." he tried to convince Archer.

"NO! Something must be done about those two!" Archer scowled.

The two of them had been secretly spying on Lucy and Ralph for a long time, and Garren was really tired from sneaking around. The both of them had followed the two to the entrance to the go-kart game called Sugar Rush, where moments before they had entered the dark tunnel to the game.

"And I'm going to be the one to do it!" Archer finished.

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

Garren muttered worriedly.

Reluctantly Garren followed his archery hero into the tunnel.

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Lucy held her breath the whole time through the dark tunnel. Her eyes were squeezed shut, thinking that it would keep out the fear of getting lost. She clutched Ralph's arm so tightly that she almost thought she would hurt him. Instead Ralph had let her hold him tightly, and told her that he would not let go of her even for a moment.

"Ralph...you're so nice to me. I just hope we make it through in one piece."

It felt like hours went by when a light pierced through her shut eyes. Curious, she opened one eye slightly.

"There's the end." she heard Ralph saying.

Cautiously Lucy opened up the one eye a little more. Sure enough, there was a light that lay just ahead of them. She sighed in relief, having made it through. Her arms loosened on Ralph's arm as they made their last few steps out of the tunnel into the open.

"Welcome to Sugar Rush." Ralph said in a booming voice.

Shielding her eyes from the sudden bright light, she beheld before her a massive landscape that stretched out as far as she could see. "This is...candy! The landscape is covered in candy! Everywhere I look there are treats and sugary things."

"This place...it's...it's so amazing!" she felt herself choking on the words. That was when she realized she was almost crying.

"Are you...okay? You have tears in your eyes." Ralph was now looking down at her.

Realizing he noticed her in tears, she quickly let go of his arm and rubbed the tears away from her cheeks.

"I'm okay." she replied smiling, "It's just...so beautiful here."

"Well come on, let's go down to the race track!" Ralph raced down the long bridge leading down to a path that lead on through what looked like a candy-cane forest to the race track beyond. Lucy wanted to follow him, but hesitated to move down the steep bridge. "A race track? From what I've heard of this place, there must be go-karts. And not only just karts, but candy go-karts!"

Now more than anything did she want to go down to the race track. She wanted to see the karts, maybe even race in them! Without realizing it she ran down the bridge so fast that her cloak had come undone and flown off of her. At the end she ran right into Ralph knocking her down from her feet, taken completely by surprise. Looking up at Ralph she saw that he was taken by surprise as well. The both of them laughed aloud at what had just transpired.

With the help from Ralph, Lucy managed to get onto her feet again after her stumble.

"Whoa!" Ralph gaped in awe.

"What?" she asked confused.

It was after Ralph pointed out her missing cloak did she realize that the cloak had fallen off of her. What Ralph saw was that without the cloak, he saw her in a short, long strapped golden dress that she had made herself with the materials from her home.

The materials she used to make the dress were of magical properties that she had forgotten the names of. The only material name that she could remember that was used for the dress was Fauridian. She did not know what it meant, but as she was standing in front of Ralph, she could not help but feel embarrassed for him to see her like this.

"My cloak!" she shouted having found the right words.

"It flew away as you ran down the bridge." Ralph replied, "But...I, well...I kind of like you without it." he turned away from her, but she caught him turning red again. She still couldn't figure out why, but she knew it meant something.

Lucy extended her hand to Ralph as he turned to look at her again.

"Come on! Let's go to the race track!" she said cheerfully.

A smile came back across his face, taking Lucy's hand in his. Excited Lucy pulled Ralph by the hand (but to only move him a little until his feet kicked in) along across the pathway that lead into the candy trees ahead, heading towards the Sugar Rush racetrack. For the first time in her life, Lucy could not wait to see what adventures she and Ralph were going to have that day. And she knew without even talking to him, Ralph felt the same way.

A/N: What adventures await them? Find out next chapter! See you then!