The next day, after the arcade had closed, the group arranged to meet in Game Central Station before heading to Tappers.
Ralph and Vanellope came trudging out of Fix it Felix, Jr. Both looked exhausted from the task of keeping the players entertained while simultaneously keeping Vanellope alive. There had been several close calls.
Felix, on the other hand, was having a hard time keeping the Sugar Rush citizens unsuspicious of him. Taffyta in particular didn't really seem to buy his "sick" cover-up, but for now it was the best excuse he had.
As the three gathered next to the entrance to Tappers, they noticed Calhoun had yet to join them.
"Her game might be runnin' late," Felix said as he glanced around the station, trying to locate the sergeant. Finally he spotted her in the distance, trying to weave her way through the crowd as she headed towards them.
"Oh, there she is now!" Felix said, a smile lighting up his Vanellope-face.
Since the three of them were already near the entrance to Tappers, Felix turned to Ralph and Vanellope. "You guys go on ahead, I'm gonna go meet up with Tammy. We'll be right along."
Regardless, Felix knew Tappers tended to get crowded and busy quite fast, so he glanced up at Ralph and added, "Try to save us a good seat, Stinkbrain."
"What?" Ralph said, a mixture of amusement and confusion on his face at Felix's use of the term "stinkbrain".
"Just kidding, brother," Felix said with a slight laugh as he turned to go.
Ralph stared after Felix a moment before shrugging with a bemused laugh. He headed towards Tappers with Vanellope at his heels.
"I wonder who these so-called Code Experts are," Vanellope said as they neared the entrance.
"Me, too," Ralph agreed. "They better know how to fix this mess."
As Ralph and Vanellope passed through the archway that led to Tappers, Felix hurried towards Calhoun, accidentally bumping into quite a few legs as he did so. He was a bit distracted, however, due to mulling over what he had said only a moment ago. For whatever reason, without thinking, he had used Vanellope's nickname to refer to Ralph. He'd never said something like that before though, so it shouldn't have happened absent-mindedly, right? For instance, even if it had been intended as a joke (and it hadn't), he would have been more aware of saying it... right?
As Felix thought, he had stopped in his tracks, his eyes glazing over slightly as he stared into space. A light tap to the stomach caught his attention, and he glanced up to see that his wife was now towering over him, her foot returning to the ground after having given a ginger kick to the fixer's body.
"What're you doing up in the clouds, cadet? Someone coulda stepped on ya," commented Calhoun as she scooped Felix off of the ground, cradling him in her arms and beginning to march toward Tapper's. Though carrying him was normally a display of affection, she was all business this time. Not even a hint of romantic intent sparked from her actions. It was quite discouraging to the little man.
"Ralph and Vanellope are already inside," Felix explained softly as he pressed his face into her shoulder. Rather than the expected feeling of warmth erupting from her shoulder, he instead found that the armor that covered her body was ice cold to the touch. Just as she had been as of late.
Calhoun simply hummed in response, acknowledging the tidbit of information he had fed her. Silence blanketed the two; luckily the Station was quite boisterous, or else it would have been an incredibly awkward walk. As Calhoun entered Tapper's, the stuffy air gave way to a more comfortably warm temperature. The low murmur of the bar was peaceful when compared to the loud rumble the Station's patrons provided.
The two surveyed the crowd, scoping out their friends. They found them perched upon tall chairs at a long rectangular table way in the back of the room, sitting across from one another. They appeared to be in a heated argument. As Calhoun approached the table, their argument was more clearly heard.
"I'm of age now, so you gotta let me at least try one beer. I mean, I'm pro'lly only gonna be in this body for a little while! Might as well let me make the best of it while I can!"
"Vanellope, you're still a kid mentally. There's no way I'm letting you have a drink! 'Sides, you should really get Felix's consent before trashing his body."
"So Felix is allowed to get drunk in my body, but I can't get hammered in his?" Vanellope had been glaring daggers at Ralph, but she now dissolved into giggles at her unintended pun, mumbling the word "hammer" to herself in between bouts of laughter.
Ralph raised an eyebrow, though a smile was slowly creeping up on his face. "See what I mean, kid? You're laughing at the word 'hammer'. I think I rest my case."
"Aw, that doesn't mean anything, brother," Vanellope protested, her laughing fit subsiding.
Upon being called 'brother', Ralph's smile fell. "Talking like Felix won't convince me either," he said, suddenly completely serious.
Felix noted that Vanellope was looking down at the table now, as if deep in thought. Calhoun was now at a stand-still beside the table. She dumped Felix into the seat beside Vanellope before moving to sit beside Ralph. Felix glanced over at Vanellope. She almost looked... upset. "You okay there, little miss?" Felix asked, comfortingly placing a hand on Vanellope's shoulder.
Her head snapped up and she turned to him. For a split second there, it seemed as if she was deeply troubled by something; sadness swam in her baby blue Felix eyes. But it vanished almost instantaneously, and an amused look quickly replaced it. "I'd be better if Ralph would just let me have a beer," she grumbled, a smirk playing on her face as she shot a meaningful look toward the wrecker.
"We already went over this, kid," Ralph groaned, seeming exhausted. "I'm not arguing with you about this again. What I said was final." He then looked over at Calhoun, as if noticing her for the first time. "What took ya so long, anyhow?" he asked her almost accusingly.
"A blasted cybug didn't make it to the beacon before it shut off. Had to track the mangy thing down and crush it like the pathetic creature it was," growled Calhoun through gritted teeth, her blonde eyebrows knitting together. She glared at a stack of napkins in front of her, as if she were once more looking at the sole surviving robotic bug.
An awkward silence soon followed, and of course, Ralph was the one to break it. "So, who wants to bet these Code-Guys stand us up?" he snorted, his gaze drifting lazily about the bar.
"Hey, now, have some faith," Felix quickly defended the unknown coders, frowning at Ralph's negativity. "I'd bet anythin' they're just runnin' late. The Station was jam-packed!"
"Sure." Ralph rolled his eyes. "Then why are we here before them?"
"Well, we don't know what game they're comin' from, for one," Felix pointed out. "Their game could be all the way on the other side of the arcade! Plus, they might've stopped to mingle with some buddies or side-tracked to get a snack or somethin' of the likes. It's not like they're expectin' to meet us, y'know."
"I guess," grumbled Ralph as he carefully plucked a napkin off of the stack that sat in the center of the table. He tore the little corners off, shaping the napkin into a large mishapen circle. He then crumpled the circle into a ball and tossed it behind him carelessly. The whole time he did this, he stared at Felix, as if doing all this with the intent of irking the fixer.
If that had been his goal, then he had been successful. Shooting a tiny scowl at the wrecker, Felix scrambled out of his seat, hurrying over to the ball of paper. He gathered it in his arms as if it were a wounded animal. He then rushed to a trash can, carefully dumping it inside. As he headed back to the table, he could tell from the way that Ralph's shoulders were shaking that the wrecker was cracking up at him.
"That wasn't funny, Ralph," Felix huffed as he struggled back into his seat. Whereas Calhoun usually went out of her way to help him, this time, she didn't even budge from her seat. When Felix managed to settle into the chair, he noticed that Calhoun's attention was somewhere else. He hoped that, rather than not wanting to help, she had simply been too distracted to even notice his small struggle.
"Hey, fellas," a familiar voice called from afar. Tapper shuffled over to their table, a large smile on his mustachioed face. "The Coders are here. Still want me to send 'em to your table?"
"Yep, send 'em on over," Ralph answered with a small nod. "And, hey, thanks a bunch for all of this, Tapper."
"Not a problem, Ralph," Tapper answered with a short dip of his head. "Oh, and before I go over there, why don't you all tell me what you'd like to drink real fast?"
After giving Tapper their beverage orders, the four watched as he hurried over to two rather short-looking men. He gestured to their table as he told them something, and the two short men nodded before starting over towards their table.
As they approached, Calhoun joked to Felix, "These two are right up your alley, short-stack."
But Ralph and Vanellope had both bristled, their faces knitting into scowls. Even Felix was staring, but he looked more shocked than angry, his Vanellope-eyes as wide as saucers. Calhoun frowned at her friends, a confused look rising to her face. "...Am I missing something here?" she asked, her voice hushed, seeing as the two short men were nearly at their table.
"Turbo," Ralph spat as he glared at the two, his shoulders raising slightly, as if he were ready to lunge at them.
"Woah there," one of the two short men said, lifting his hands up defensively. "No need to stoop to such name-calling, friend."
"Yeah," the other piped up, "we may be a lot of things, but we are no Turbo."
"You sure look a lot like 'im," Ralph commented skeptically, raising an eyebrow, though he seemed to have lost some of his hostility.
And indeed, they were almost identical to the infamous racer; their skin was just as pale as his had been, and their teeth were just as rotten. However, rather than bearing white racing uniforms, theirs were a dark blue. The two must have been twins, for they looked exactly like one another; the only tell-tale sign of who was who was the letters upon their helmets. The first man had a T upon his, while the other had an F.
"Yes, well, we are from his game," explained the first man, the one with the T. "The name's Ted," he introduced himself, before gesturing to his counterpart, "and this is Fred."
"Oh, hey," Fred suddenly said, his gaze snapping to look at Vanellope. "I remember you! You're that fixing guy!" He grinned widely, jabbing Ted in the side with an elbow. "Teddy, you remember this guy, don'cha?"
Ted nodded slightly. "Ah, yes, Felix, was it? Nice to see you again." He, too, grinned. "How's your game coming along? I heard you're still quite the popular lad, as is your game."
"Uh, actually," Vanellope began nervously. "I'm... not Felix. He is." She pointed at Felix, who waved slightly, a nervous smile on his face.
The twins stared in disbelief for a moment. Fred burst out into obnoxious laughter. "Yeesh, fixing guy, since when did you become a joker?"
"He... uh, she... she's not joking," Ralph said, a grim look on his face. "These two," he swept a hand in front of Vanellope and Felix, "got into a terrible car crash. They went flying through the air, slammed into each other, blacked out, and when they woke up, bam, they were in each other's bodies. That was a few days ago. They've been this way ever since."
Fred's laughter stopped abruptly, his eyes as wide as saucers. "A car crash?" he echoed, surprise tainting his voice. "Wow, ain't that—"
"Fred," Ted cut in, placing a hand against his counterpart's shoulder, effectively shutting Fred up. "Don't say anything yet." He looked up at the four, a curious expression etched in his face. "May we take a seat?" he asked politely, to which the four all nodded.
Fred and Ted helped each other into their respective seats; Fred had the pleasure of sitting beside Felix, and he stared at the fixer's 9-year-old-girl body for a while. Felix squirmed a bit, uncomfortable with the attention.
"Ted, this is some'a that freaky code shit at work here, ain't it?" Fred asked, finally tearing his gaze away from Felix.
"It definitely seems that way," Ted answered with a nod. "But before we jump to conclusions, Tapper did tell us you wanted our help. So why don't we hear from one of you four first?" He looked around at the four, waiting for an explanation.
"Well, uh," Felix piped up, edging closer to Vanellope slightly upon feeling Fred's stare burn into his side once more, "it's pretty much just as Ralph said. We had a feelin' that this whole body-switchin' thing here had somethin' to do with code. And Tapper told us he knew of a few fellas who knew quite a lot about code. And so... here we are." He gestured around them and then gave a tiny, satisfied nod.
Just then, Tapper swung by and dropped off the round of root beer they'd ordered, as well as a nonalcoholic version of the beverage for both Vanellope and Felix.
"Hmm," Fred murmured, taking a swig of his root beer and staring into space with a thoughtful expression on his face. Ted wore a similarly thoughtful expression, and neither of them said anything for a while. The other four waited anxiously for the twins to continue.
"Well," Fred spoke up finally, "It's no easy fix, that's for sure. Shit like this is real uncommon. Ain't that right, Ted?"
"It's true," Ted said with a nod, "only heard of one, maybe two other cases of it in all the years the Arcade's been open. And those could easily just be rumors… only seen one case of it with our very eyes. And in that case, the two people that got switched were both from the same game." The grey-skinned racer glanced knowingly at his brother.
"And that's us!" Fred declared with a laugh, slapping the table in amusement. "Happened the same way it did with you two, actually. Ain't that a coinkidink."
Felix and Vanellope exchanged glances before turning back to the twins. "You two switched bodies?" Vanellope piped up. "How come? When?"
Ted glanced around the bar and lowered his voice a bit. "It was back before Turbo got our game unplugged," Ted explained, his expression turning more somber.
"We got ourselves in a real bad crash," Fred continued, gesturing at Felix and Vanellope, "like you two. Funny thing is, we didn't even notice when it happened. Just kept on drivin'." He chuckled at the memory.
Before they could continue, Tapper came around again to ask if they wanted anything to eat. After some food had been ordered, Calhoun glanced at the twins. "So how did you fix it?" she asked.
Fred peered down into his nearly-empty root beer mug as if he expected it to refill just by looking at it. "A lot of fiddlin' with the code," he said. "We found Turbo Time's code room and figured out how to get us back in our proper bodies through a lotta trial and error."
"Figured out some stuff about code, too," Ted added. "Not as much as Turbo, probably—the obsessive freak—but enough."
Felix stared up at the twins, hope shining in his Vanellope eyes. "So, then, you could get us back in our proper bodies, right?"
"We could," Ted said, though he looked a bit hesitant.
Ralph shot Ted a look. "Are you saying you won't?" He asked, a bit of a threat in his voice.
"Look, pal," Fred interrupted, pointing at Ralph with his root beer mug still in hand, "This stuff ain't easy for the person doing the code fiddlin' or the person gettin' their code fiddled with," he said. "It's risky to tamper with code, and it hurts like hell if something goes wrong."
"And it could be especially tricky since you two are from two different games," Ted said. "We're just warnin' ya, is all. But honestly, if everything goes well, it'd be a lot better than the side effects of staying switched." Ted stared at his drink in order to avoid the gazes of the others.
"S-side effects?" Felix squeaked.
Tapper came over and dropped off the food they'd ordered, and the twins were grateful for another excuse not to make eye contact as they accepted their meals.
"The exact effects vary from person to person," Ted said while Fred dug into his food, "so there's no telling what'll happen. But basically the glitch itself starts to take over, and…it can get pretty nasty."
Vanellope's eyes widened at the thought of being taken over by a glitch. Even before, when she hadn't fully been in control of her own glitch, it wasn't as if it controlled her.
The group lapsed into silence as the twins' words sunk in. Calhoun noticed that Felix hadn't touched his drink, and was just halfheartedly poking at his French fries. She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. Felix glanced up at her and smiled.
The rest of the meal was somewhat awkward. Not much was spoken. 10 minutes prior to the arcade opening, the group got to their feet, shook hands with the twins, determined that they would be back next Wednesday, and shuffled out into the station, squinting, the transition from the dull lights in the bar to the bright lights of the Station a bit disorienting.
Vanellope and Ralph bid a somewhat glum farewell to the couple before heading off to Fix-it Felix Jr. The two hesitated a moment, eyes locked on one another. Finally, Felix muttered quietly, "I'll see you later, Tammy."
He turned, starting toward Sugar Rush. Before he could take even two steps toward the game, he felt someone's arms snake around his waist. Calhoun pulled him into a tight embrace. "Good luck, cadet," she whispered. Felix's heart fluttered, and right as he was about to ease himself into the hug, his wife pried her hands away from him and got to her feet.
Felix could only watch as she sauntered to her game. He hadn't expected her to spare a glance behind her, and when she did, he felt honeyglows begin to beat down on his cheeks.
And then she was gone, safely within her own game. Felix stared at the archway of Hero's Duty for a few seconds before letting out a small, love-struck sigh. His spirits extremely high, he trotted toward Sugar Rush, a newfound skip in his step.