I forgot to mention in my last A/N, yes, the room that they're in right now is indeed inspired by the Black Room from Assassin's Creed; if anyone wants a visual for this, it's fairly easy to find. (AC (and it's later versions) were probably some of the first games I could ever get into the story line of, so they're a pretty big part of my gamer identity, and will likely show up frequently throughout the story. Whether they will or will not be a prominent part of it is yet to be determined).

Also, to address a couple of my more critical reviews; I appreciate you taking the time to help me out with my writing style – I wasn't lying when I said all reviews are welcomed. I can work to improve on the length of my paragraphs, but as this has been my writing style going on six years now (at the hands of competitive roleplay, where more is better), you can expect change won't come easily. In short; bear with me. (Look, I can't even write an A/N that doesn't come close to two hundred words.)

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"Yeah, we'll be fine. I think it's time we got back to our game though." Tamora was the first to break from the shock, speaking quickly. They needed to get back and figure out some things from here… but what was there to figure out? It all seemed pretty simple now, really; they'd been moved from Litwak's, they were, by all rights, a privately owned cabinet. It wasn't as if they could devise some kind of plan that would get them back to the arcade, rather they couldn't devise one that wouldn't most likely end with them unplugged forever, and rusting away in the garbage.

"But you only just got here," A warm smile returned to the teenager's face, amidst an obvious concerned confusion. "I'm sure the others would love to meet you, but if you have to, I understand." The expression softened once more to just a smile, turning her palms face-up, before dropping them back at her sides. "Have to get situated and all that, right? Yeah, it's not easy being a new game." She concluded dutifully, letting her eyes rest closed and giving a nod to signify that she was quite aware of how they were feeling at the moment, which she really quite wasn't. Didn't she hear what Tamora had said?

"No no, we got moved here. We're not Playstation games at all, we're with a cabinet called Sugar Rush." Felix started in, and on receiving an even more confused look at his use of the word cabinet than his wife had gotten on mentioning wanting to leave, he clarified, "Like… an arcade stand-up. We came from an arcade." He concluded, and finally it was this that seemed to make a hit with the dark-haired girl. The smile completely dropped from her face and her eyes went wide as her mouth formed into an understanding 'O'.

"Oh! Oh wow, you guys have really come a long way then, haven't you? Alright, yeah, you're free to go if you want." It certainly explained why she hadn't noticed any pathways opening up for not just mentioned Sugar Rush, but the other two that the taller blonde had just earlier; they were plugged into the power strip, not logged into the system's memory. She'd originally thought maybe they'd gotten installed while they were all recharging, but that proving to be false, and she was so well acquainted with everyone here! Turns out her observation skills weren't wholly lessening after all... "You can stay though. We're having a bonfire tonight—would be a good chance to meet some of the others." And this it would be, for there was not a seemingly sad soul amongst the boisterous group of people around the fire, who only some had even managed to tear their attention away from the flames warmth and the people twirling and turning around it, and look to the new arrivals with curiosity in their eyes. It wasn't very often they got new arrivals anymore.

"I'd like to stay." Declared Vanellope easily, wishing to avoid her presidential duty—'hehe' her thoughts interrupted for a moment,—of addressing the replugging, and the unfortunate circumstances that came with it. The racers would be okay to wait until tomorrow at most, but until then she was interested in learning more about the situation. They'd lost their old friends sure… this would take time to get over. This didn't, however, mean that they couldn't be happy here either, and if Vanellope could come back with any good news, then she'd take it. If not… well, she could always remain optimistic. There seemed to be a lot of games here if that kind of portal they'd gone through was what she meant by 'pathways'; there were a ton of them! Probably more than thirty! Not a single one was labeled though, no, not like Game Central Station. 'How do they even keep track of who's game is who's?' Most likely trial and error, the confetti-haired girl decided.

Meanwhile, Ralph inwardly groaned. When Vanellope made up her mind about something, she was going to do it, and there was very little you could do to stop her. This would all be fine and dandy, except it now meant that he was going to have to go along to keep an eye on her, and though he's made great strides in the past years, it by no means meant Ralph was a more social guy than he had been before Sugar Rush. He was somewhat curious however to see how the new games would react to him; he was hard pressed to tell which characters were protagonists or antagonists, so maybe the same rule would apply to him here,… though it was usually easy to tell who was the bad-guy in and from an 8-bit game. The game designers of the past really made no effort to hide who was the enemy… not that they usually had a reason to. Ralph could admit the games of his generation did lack a certain sense of direction. Sure, there was a little bit of plot to Fix It Felix Jr.; he was angry about his stump being moved, so he was determined to smash up the building put in it's place, and then Felix would come around to tidy up the mess. There was a storyline but if you finished the first level, you've seen one, you've seen 'em all. They have games now where you can spend forty hours playing a game and doing different things all the while.

He was ever so slightly envious of this.

"I assume that means you'll be staying then too, Ralph?" Felix questioned, though already knowing the answer. He himself wasn't exactly eager to leave yet though, but Vanellope might as well have been a lessened version of Tamora when it came to either of the girls setting their mind on something. If his wife wanted to leave, then they'd be leaving, but he would like to take a look around; he hadn't seen a place like this before! It was so calm and peaceful, and everyone around the fire seemed to be having a good time.

"Yep, I guess so." The gargantuan answered simply, going ahead, or rather being dragged by an arm by the same bounding teenager that had greeted them earlier on back towards the fire to start introducing everyone to the newcomers (or at least half of them). Obviously she'd made the assumption that the other two were not going to be tagging along; that or they were right along behind her. It was hard to tell. Meanwhile, Felix looked up to his wife, "Are you sure you don't want to stay? She's right you know. If these are our new neighbors we might as well get to know them." The blonde looked down to her handyman, all but trying not to take note of the pleading look in his eyes, like a kid asking for permission to get into the cookie jar. Her husband had always been a fan of anything and everything high definition; she didn't have a doubt it was what attracted him to her in the first place. It was a given that he'd like to spend time here… He'd even tried to spend time in Hero's Duty despite her less than polite discouraging of such for the fear that it could end like it had before. Only then, it would have been real.

She breathed out a huff of air, knowing exactly what was going through the fixer's mind. "Alright, alright, we can stay…" She admitted, shifting gaze back to where Ralph and Vanellope had disappeared to, where now characters all around the fire and some who weren't were all eyeing the two while Eva seemed to be chatting on about something, but for the most part the characters kept their curious eyes on Ralph. Vanellope might be only a fraction of a human world girl's height her age, and candy-coated, but Ralph… They'd never seen anyone from an 8-bit game after all, and not nearly anyone so… stylized like one. He might've been a pretty odd sight for those who were more proportioned to that of a human – not quite unlike how Calhoun is, for example, but none of the looks were out of malice or fear of this person. Meanwhile, Felix found it refreshing in a way that new games wouldn't be so inherently frightened of the giant like some of those to arrive after the Sugar Rush incident had. Back at the arcade, it seemed to be an inevitable fate for the wrecker.

"Well you know what, maybe if you didn't lock Chris in a room with a dog he wouldn't have been so inclined to snap your sunglasses, hm?" It was quite evident the conversation had changed from introductions by the time they'd made their way over, Eva playfully chastising a seemingly very much older than herself man, and who may be the very one to rival Ralph's height as he was quite tall, evident even though he was sitting at the meantime, his trench coats coattails fallen around his sides. His blonde hair was slicked back against his head, and like Eva, his eyes seemed to glow, but unlike hers, his seemed to emanate their own light, and where Eva's whites were colored dark, his remained white and the irises beamed red. It was fairly obvious why he may like to have sunglasses. Felix could have made the assumption that he was a bad guy, but he would be challenged to identify hardly anyone amongst the group, and chances were they weren't ALL bad guys. He supposed it could make sense though… the bad guys at the arcade had meetings every here or there, maybe this was no different.

"Maybe if Chris had a sense of humor—"

"I don't think getting ripped apart by a mutant would constitute a whole lot of laughs from anyone, Wesker."

"I thought it was funny." He concluded the argument with the teen, smiling slightly to himself as he seemed to remember. Chris had been so angry when he regenerated; it had almost been worth getting his sunglasses snapped. Almost. He wouldn't be able to get them back until his game got put in again, and if things went for his game as they had been going for the past year… it might be a while. He didn't exactly fancy running around, scaring everyone with his unavoidably intimidating stare, which Chris happened to know this, so he'd known exactly how to get him back. Between that or ripping up his trench coat, but that would have required waiting on Chris's part, and he was much too furious for that.

"Well why don't you just try to die yourself then? They'll regenerate that way too, won't they?" A darker skinned woman had been sat next to him only now deciding to speak, her short brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and... surprise, surprise, a gun at her side. Though, both her and the blonde man's styling was fairly similar so it was probably safe to say they were from the same game. He gave her a quizzical glare.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to die? You didn't even fight me for that ending round. You had to use a live-action scene." The two continued to bicker whilst Tamora leaned over to the just shorter than herself by a sliver teenager, with quite evidently, a question ready for her.

"I'm sorry, a what tore who apart?" She asked.

"A dog," She paused, her hands rising, preparing for maximum gesturing as she further elaborated. "Probably not the kind of dog you're thinking of though; the dogs from this game are nasty little things… nasty, as in, they're mutants who's head splits apart into one big mouth, and it's really kind of gross. They're the last way you'd want to go, basically." She'd had the personal displeasure of seeing one before during a visit to the world of Resident Evil Five, and having it bare it's entire glory at her in the meanwhile. Luckily Sheva had been along quick enough, lest she not even be here now. Their system was same in the way of that of an arcade that when you die outside of your own game you fail to come back. You can still exist if it happens in the mid plane, but you can't enter any games afterwards, so it was a kind of pathetic existence in any way.

"You're from that game?" Felix continued the questions, having found themselves sat around the fire as well, Vanellope joining the song that had only stopped momentarily for the introducing before getting back on track. It wouldn't be totally wrong for someone to assume Eva belonged to Resident evil; she was part of a game with… similar enough traits. She also looked like she could play the part judging by the other two were still bickering about who's side was more powerful, even though a campfire song was returning in full swing around them.

"No, they're from Resident Evil. It's good from what I can tell, buuuut…" She trailed off for a second, before putting a hand to the side of her mouth motioning that only they should probably hear what was about to be said, as she leaned in, "You want a Real survival horror, my game's the way to go." She nodded again, flashing a deviously toothy smile to the four. Whether or not she really thought her game was so much better than the other or not, was somewhat hard to determine, but Calhoun chuckled at the confidence, assuming it to be mock.

"So, survival horror, huh? Mine was an FPS." She started, suddenly a whole lot more interested in the teenager than she had previously been. She knew she was a fighter of some kind judging by the shot-gun strapped to her thigh, but that could have been for anything else, could've been for decoration for all she knew… would have been odd, in the latter case, but some game elements just didn't make sense. She was curious too; they didn't have a whole lot of survival horror games back at the arcade, much less horror at all. Survival… of course, but horror? No, not particularly. Had there been one? There were other shooters besides Hero's Duty, but nothing slasher or with excessive amounts of blood she thinks… Litwak's was a family place after all, anything excessively violent wouldn't have made it through the doors, much less as a successful game in the arcade. Likely not, that is.

Eva was about to say something when a giant outline of light opened up in the sky, quickly unfolding into a size that well matched the main screen from Sugar Rush, the one to watch the race through only twice as wide, and suddenly everyone was paying very close attention to it, those dancing around the fire coming to a screeching halt, and the song they'd been singing just as frozen as they, as they all watched. Suddenly a title and loading page opened on the left half of the screen with the words 'Dust Bowl' written very clearly across it, to which Eva responded by getting to her feet, all eyes either turning to her or all other persons returning to their previous activities. Clearly it wasn't meant for them, after all. This must be how they tell who's game is going up next.

"Well, looks like you're going to get an example."

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Well, say what you will, I think this was a nice improvement so far, even if the lack of detail almost made me keel over. Also, yes, things are going to start speeding up soon enough—I still have a lot of things that need to be established first, but after that we can really get moving.

(Also, as for Eva thinking her game is better… this doesn't mean I think my game idea is any better than resident evil five; in fact I really loved it. One of the first Resident Evil games I could play, including one of the ones I couldn't being Director's Cut. It still kind of freaks me out, even if the voice acting and graphics are both so hysterically bad. Look up a let's play and watch like five minutes in, you'll see what I mean.)