Last updated: 12/29/2013 18:31 (UTC-5:00)

. : : Disconnection : : .

Phase I, Level 2: Vanellope's Memento

. Present Time .

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..." Ralph murmured repeatedly as he hugged tighter and tighter, vaguely becoming aware that Vanellope had put on quite a few pounds, and was becoming increasingly rough around the edges. Forcing himself to open his eyes, Ralph discovered that the reason for Vanellope's sudden weight gain and sharpness was because she'd become a pile of bricks. He had to blink a few times to get his mind forming more logical thoughts. Once this correction was made, he ascertained that he was still atop the penthouse roof, he was holding the pile of bricks he had been standing on, and Vanellope was still gone. It had all been just a dream.

Part of him wanted to shut his eyes back up and return to the land of his dreams where Vanellope was still beside him, albeit also still furious with him. He wished that he could hug her again, if only in his dreams, and he wished, more than all these things, that he could go back to that day and tell himself to hug her like his dreams had auto-corrected. But that's not the way that day went, and he'd spend the rest of his plugged-in life regretting it.

The other part of him reasoned that he had no idea what time it was and he should get the roof cleaned up before the arcade opened, and perhaps try to get some proper sleep in his own bed – though he highly doubted any sleep he got would be of the restful sort. Resigning himself to follow this logic, he grabbed the bricks in one giant handful and tossed them off the back of the building for the bulldozers to take care of. It only occurred to him after he did this – and before they reached the ground with a resounding thud – that it probably wasn't the wisest thing to do. No matter that he didn't know the time... whatever time it was would no doubt be an ungodly hour to be making such a ruckus. The inhabitants of the penthouse would no doubt be quite unhappy with whoever aroused them from their sleep. Not wanting anymore bad fortune, Ralph took the quickest route to get down from the roof, and hurled himself off into his mud pile – which also made quite a loud 'thunk' that he didn't think of beforehand.

Bounding off to his house as fast as he could to avoid getting caught, he took a little more caution this time opening and closing his front door so it wouldn't make as much noise. As he made his way to the bathroom to clean off the mud and thus be rid of the evidence, he passed the large hole in his wall. The one that he'd made rushing off to Sugar Rush the day of the tournament. It now occurred to him that entering that way would have spared him the trouble of trying to open and close the door noiselessly. Yeah, he really needed to start thinking before he tried to be covert; he always seemed to choose the noisier, more conspicuous option under pressure.

Finally a bit less on edge after a relaxing shower, the clumsy giant tiptoed as stealthily as a giant could across the threshold of his bedroom until he reached his bed, and managed to crawl into it with relatively few creaks. As predicted, he spent quite a good while tossing and turning, unable to return to his blissful dreams where Vanellope now lived. He vaguely recalled Felix giving him a tip at some point on how to fall asleep, about counting spoons that jumped over the moon and cows that had a bit of a dish fetish or something or other... but since he had none of those he just gazed out his window up at the skylight – he'd designed his house just so he'd have a good few of it – when something caught his eye. There was a vase on the window ledge that contained a single flower. Oh yes, now he remembered… it hadn't popped up in his skewed dream of the events of last week, but it was a product of what really happened that day...

. One Week Earlier .

"But you already missed THIS race, my twentieth anniversary tournament!" Vanellope cried, "EVERYONE in the arcade was there! Everyone but... you."

Ralph was about to defend himself, and even opened his mouth to do so, but then stopped himself, noticing that she was making soft sobbing sounds.

He had been thinking what would be the best next move to try and fix this when... "Ralph, this is Gene, over." Ralph's radio chirped, its static ruining his chance to make amends with Vanellope.

Ralph pulled out the walkie-talkie communicator in his pocket and responded, "I'm going to have to call you back, Gene; I'm a little busy right now. Over and out."

"Wait! I've got an angry mob here, you can't just hang up! You need to get over here right now!"

"Look, Gene, I just can't right now, I'm busy! Over. And. OUT!" Ralph shot back, getting angry now. He already had Vanellope to worry about, he didn't need the stress from work too.

"Ralph! You started this business, you promised them an answer for Sugar Rush after the tournament, it's YOUR responsibility to handle this, and I'M going to hold you FULLY responsible for the damages these no-gamers are inflicting on my penthouse! Good day!" There was an awkward pause as Ralph braced himself for Vanellope's reaction, but then Gene radioed in one last time and corrected, "...I mean, over and out!"

Ralph wished he had just turned off the stupid thing when Gene first radioed, or even before coming to Sugar Rush in the first place. But then again, he always got yelled at after he'd turned it off in the past; work could be so demanding.

Dreading the moment of actual eye contact, Ralph slowly, sheepishly, turned his head to meet Vanellope's red-eyed gaze – and he couldn't help but wonder if the redness was from her tears, or if it was from a burning, angry desire to stuff him into a cupcake again.

"What 'Sugar Rush promise' was he talking about, hm?" the dreaded question came.

"Well... a-about that... As you know, I'm head of the H.E.R.O. – Homeless Employment Relocation Opportunities – operation, and your game, being a class Chickadee – that is, games with little to no chances of death – and, well, with the whole rule that if you die outside your game you die permanently – but then again, you already knew that – that is, well... they'd all been hounding me to get into your game and I had told them WAY back, back when this all started, that since you'd just exterminated a Cy-bug invasion and had a MAJOR software reset after Turbo's removal... and with you not being used to your presidential duties and all, I'd said that it needed to be quarantined for the time being until its stability could be assessed. They kept coming back and pestering for a definitive date, so I had told them - way back then, you know - that I'd reconsider when the game had its twentieth anniversary. Then I just sort of, kind of, well... forgot about it... If I'd remembered, I would have talked to you much sooner, I swear!" Ralph took a deep breath at the end of his nervous rant, since he'd been too nervous to breathe during it. It had taken so much out of him, he had to kneel to the ground before the lack of air made him dizzy.

Ralph braced himself for the angry words and shouts he expected, but they never came. Instead, Vanellope remained utterly calm during her next words, and that irked him a thousand times more than yelling.

"Glad to know that you think of me only as a business associate, and an inexperienced one at that." Vanellope gently stated in a monotone voice that was so unlike her, it gave Ralph goose bumps. She nonchalantly hopped down from her kart, reached into the front pouch of her teal hoodie, and pulled out a piece of hard candy. She closed the distance between Ralph and herself and held the piece out for him to see. "You probably don't remember what this is, do you?"

Ralph eyed the item, which appeared to be a simple piece of candy. Upon closer inspection, he found it to be shaped like a flower of rather petite stature; he was afraid that if he took hold of it with just his finger and his thumb, he'd crush it into sugar crystals. It was a pretty little thing, with a delicate green stem, curled at one end, and blossoming into brilliant red petals at the other. In the center and at the edges the red color was flayed with a pure white sheen. It was the first time he could recall seeing such an item. Too stunned and fearful to utter any audible response, Ralph only shamefully shook his head to indicate thus.

"It's called a Peppermint Poppy, and it's extremely rare; only three were ever coded. Since you don't remember it, it goes to show you don't remember the circumstances in which we found it, or what it means – what it... meant – to me." Vanellope paused a moment and gazed lovingly at the exquisite flower, then held it out to Ralph, presumably for him take possession of it.

Unsure whether or not he should take it – and what it would mean either way – Ralph just stared at it, unable to move.

When it became apparent that Ralph wasn't going to receive it of his own accord, Vanellope instead took hold of his hands with her tiny ones, placed the candy flower in his palms, and closed his fingertips around it. "I don't need this anymore." was all she said, and then she turned and walked away back towards her castle.

When he finally got over his stupor, Ralph stood up, meaning to go after her and sort this whole mess out. But before he took even one step, Vanellope turned back and uttered one last thing, "Oh, and by the way, I don't want to see you... ever again."

Perhaps he imagined it – indeed he was in such a state of shock he wasn't sure his senses could be trusted – but the last two words sounded like she was choking them out.

With that, Vanellope whirled back around and took off running at full speed.

And that was the last time he ever saw her.

. Present Time .

With that haunting scene playing over and over in his mind, Ralph certainly couldn't sleep now. Instead, he got out of bed and shuffled over to the vase, delicately plucking the Peppermint Poppy out of it. In the dim light from the arcade lights outside his window, it looked even more enchanting. He wondered for a moment if it might even be magical, if he might somehow harness it to bring Vanellope back. He brought the flower up to his nose to inhale of its scent, hoping it might whisk him off to where Vanellope was.

The pleasant smell of mint filled his nostrils and flooded over his senses, bringing images of times past floating through his mind. This was the same scent of the candy cane trees where he first met Vanellope, the same scent as the Mentos in the Diet Cola mountain hideout where he'd helped Vanellope learn how to drive – the memory was so fresh in his mind, as fresh as the mint he was smelling right now, he thought he could feel the bruises on his body from all her crashes as if he'd just gotten them afresh – the same minty smell the kart they built together emanated – among a whole slew of other smells – and of course the same smell the entirety of Sugar Rush reeked of for weeks after they'd saved each other from the Cy-bugs by utilizing every last Mento on the mountain.

Soothed by the minty memories, Ralph decided it would be a good idea to carry this flower with him at all times instead of keeping it in a vase on his windowsill. It made him feel close to Vanellope, somehow, despite the circumstances in which it came into his possession. He concluded it must be a little magical after all, if it could make him feel like that.

Now where to put it? He stuck it in the front pocket of his overalls – no good, getting thrown off a building to land right on your stomach countless times a day would no doubt crush this delicate little flower. He stuck it in his back pocket. There, now it would be safe, so long as he didn't sit down. No problem! ...Until the next Bad Anon meeting. He stuck it behind his ear. Too... unmanly. Suddenly struck with inspiration, he reached down into the collar of his shirt and pulled out a ribbon necklace that supported a sugar cookie on the end of it. With the way he landed in the mud with his neck craned upwards, there was a safe spot between his neck and his chest where even this fragile cookie had survived numerous falls.

He gazed for a moment at the cookie's inscription, "You're my hero", it read. He ran a finger over those words of icing, as if they too were magical and could give him the power to save Vanellope. "I don't deserve this medal anymore." he murmured aloud. Threading the cookie off its ribbon, he then placed it in an empty drawer of his desk. He gazed at it with remorse then closed and locked the drawer, throwing the key out his window for the bulldozers to collect.

Gently and deftly, Ralph knotted the ribbon securely around the tiny candy flower – the one memento of Vanellope he was permitting himself to have – and bound the ribbon once more around his neck. Not a moment later, the skylight suddenly shone far brighter as Litwak turned on the arcade's fluorescents for the day.

. 10 Weeks Later .

"Ralph! So glad to see you!" Clyde greeted as Ralph entered the circle for the usual Bad Anon meeting. It was the first one he'd been to since... He ran a finger over the tiny bump in his shirt at the collar of his neck, and a faint minty scent greeted his nose. Suppressing the memories that threatened to surface once again, Ralph made a forced, rather strained smile to greet Clyde back.

When it came Ralph's turn to share, he braced himself, knowing he'd be pressured for details of his feelings – sometimes these meetings felt like a trip to the shrink – and he wasn't sure he was ready for that. He'd made it this far though, albeit only because Calhoun made him promise to go – it's so much easier to agree to something when you find yourself staring down the barrel of a semi-automatic. Despite being forced to go, he knew Tamora and Felix had the best intentions for doing so. He hadn't emerged from his house in over two months, except for quarter alerts, and they were worried his withdrawal and depression might drive him to do something drastic.

He made it through his tale of his and Vanellope's 'falling out', and how he'd felt since her disappearance – how he still blamed himself for it all – with relatively few issues, though he needed a little prodding to continue from time to time when it got too hard and he felt on the verge of tears. When he had finished, the room was eerily silent, and he thought he may even have heard a sniffle or two.

His suspicions were confirmed when Zangief burst out in sobs. Of all the people there, Ralph had hardly expected Zangief to be the one to get so emotional and cry like a baby – but then again, he did wear that diaper-like piece of apparel…

"I've never heard a more moving story! Zangief is touched and troubled for you, Ralph. It is even more heartbreaking and poetic than crushing man's skull like sparrow's egg between thighs."

"Uh, thanks... I think...?" Ralph said in response to Zangief's... interesting comment.

Acting quickly to smooth over the tension, Clyde hurriedly piped in, "Thank you for sharing, Ralph. I think I speak for all of us when I say we sympathize – and in many cases even empathize as we have tragic back stories of loss that drove us to evil in our code – with you. The first step to healing is to simply let it all out. Is there anything else you need to let out during your time here tonight? Maybe –why- you blame yourself for what happened, even though there was nothing you could do? I think we all were quite shocked when the Sugar Rush console was unplugged without even so much as an 'Out of Order' sign."

"Well... I suppose part of it is because I regret not spending more time with her, and not truly cherishing the times I did have with her." he responded, not vocalizing the part where he thought, 'Like the time I spent with her when she got this flower... I wish I could remember it.' as he clutched the flower pendant he wore.

He should've listened to Kitty when she warned him he wasn't cherishing the time he spent with Vanellope, and she'd even done it later the day of the tournament, like she knew they'd fought or something.

. The Evening of Sugar Rush's 20th Anniversary .

"Ralph! Yo, Ralph!" Kitty called as she hustled over to where Ralph was showing some new recruits for H.E.R.O. around Grand Central Station.

'Ugh, as if today hasn't been bad enough.' Ralph thought in dismay, pasting a fake smile on his face to greet this nuisance – er, neighbor. "Can I help you, Kitty?" he asked, unable to completely mask his annoyance.

"Don' choo take that kinda tone wit' me, mister, or I'll teach you the meaning of discipline!" Kitty exclaimed in her usual smug tone. At half his height, one would think she might show a little fear talking all high and mighty like that, but nothing phased Kitty. She was what Ralph might have imagined to be one of those 'Gospel Black Mammas' he'd heard some of the kids in the arcade talk about. Like one of those members of society that everyone both loved and feared – especially the kids, for she didn't care if you were her kid or not, if she caught you doing anything 'un-Christian', you were in for a whoopin'. Indeed, even the new recruits were already cowering in fear and beaming with respect for this lady they'd only just met.

Despite Ralph imagining her as a black woman, she was actually blue and ethereal in appearance, much like Surge, and also in uniform, though hers was of the postal variety. She carried in her messenger bag various data packets down the CAT5 cable of Litwak's photo booth, delivering peoples' images to whatever e-mail address or social media medium they specified. She'd never admit to it, but Ralph was sure she also went through Litwak's e-mail, since all the e-mails she delivered were sent from his account. If you wanted the latest arcade gossip, Kitty was your girl. No one was quite sure how she did it, but she was somehow able to get internal gossip from other games too, that she couldn't possibly have gathered from Litwak's e-mails. No doubt about it, this girl game-hopped for her information, although no one had actually seen her do so, and one of these days, he was going to find out how.

Resisting the urge to snap back – goodness knows he was in a grumpy enough mood to do so – Ralph apologized and asked her what she wanted in a nicer tone just so he could get this over with.

"I just wanted to warn you that you may want to cherish yo' time with that sweet lil' friend o' yours a lil' more, you won't be able to much longer – "

"I know!" Ralph cut her off in a sudden burst of rage, not wanting to recall the events of his and Vanellope's fight and her decision to end their friendship, let alone reconcile the fact that it seemed Kitty had been listening the whole time.

"You do?" Kitty asked in confusion, "Then I went through that horrendous ordeal to verify the serial number for nothin'!?" she raved, though Ralph didn't pay much attention, he didn't really care about the details of any 'ordeals' she may have had putting her nose where it didn't belong.

Stomping off in frustration, Kitty made her way back to her photo booth, still ranting and raving about her 'ordeal', not noticing a speeding Sonic the Hedgehog that was crossing her path. "Watch out!" Ralph called, watching in surprise as she narrowly escaped her would-be attacker by leaping over him and landing on all fours… as a cat. So that's how she did it... He'd keep a wary eye out for felines from now on.

. Present Time .

Something stuck out to him as odd as he recalled this encounter. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, but the fact that she had said 'serial number' didn't make much sense to him in hindsight. What had he and Vanellope fought about that involved a serial number? He remembered their fight all too vividly and a serial number was NOT part it.

Ralph's eyes widened as realization suddenly dawned on him. Had Kitty known about Vanellope's abrupt departure all along?!

Much to the surprise of all the other Bad Anon members, who were becoming worried during Ralph's silent reprieve in narrative, he stood up and announced that he had to leave immediately.

"But, Ralph!" Clyde called after him, "We haven't said the Bad Guy Affirmation yet!"

Ralph ignored him as he ran off through the blue tunnels of the PAC-MAN game; he didn't feel like he could truthfully say "There's no one I'd rather be than me." anyway. Besides, he had a cat to catch.

. : : Meta-Data : : .

. Player Responses .

Sakura Scout - Thanks for the ideas! Yeah, it's that noun after the "Programming" part that has me stumped…

Guest – "How are are Vanellope and Ralph in this story?", you asked. This is a loaded question. "How" could mean that of a simple "How do you do?" to which I'd have to respond that they're doing well, considering the circumstances… being in the clutches of a crazed fan-writer whose currently subjecting them to the worst tortures one could possibly face. But I think the more likely "How" that you meant was that of a relationship – if this is not the case either, I apologize for wasting your time with the following response: the nature of their relationship is on my agenda to explore in this story. We're all already familiar with the brother/sister type of the movie, and I plan to explore a few others – you may have already picked up on the slight father/daughter dynamics they've been having in these beginning chapters, a classic 'daddy doesn't show up to lil billy's ball games' plot point – but as to which ones I'll focus on, you'll just have to wait and see. As for which one will be the final winner in this journey… well, we'll BOTH have to just wait and see; I have yet to discover where the characters are taking me on their adventure…

Others – Thanks for the compliments! I hope to keep writing further chapters you'll all enjoy!

. Cheat Codes! .

I had originally imagined Kitty to be an actual cat, but then I decided she needed to be able to do everything a human can do. I was thus torn between making her a cat versus a human... I had posed this dilemma to my beta players, and one by the name of CraftyKeronian had the glorious idea to give Kitty the ability to be both! The original suggestion was to split the character between their 'avatar' and 'actual' form, but as I toyed with the idea, it evolved into what you see here - a human who has the sneaky ability to get what she wants by morphing into a cat. Either way, the concept started with her role as an 'internet data transferer'. Most high speed connections start as a Cat5/Ethernet cable from the device to a router or modem, and of course 'cat' = 'kitty'... And With data delivery as her role, I imagined her as a postal worker, analogous to Surge and his job as a security officer because it's his job as a surge protector.

"Stuff him into a cupcake again" - refers to when Ralph wound up in a cupcake and coated in a green shell of icing when he was chasing Vanellope to get his medal back.

"Peppermint Poppy" - I chose this item to serve a few symbolic purposes in this story. Poppies are often associated with eternal sleep / death, and Vanellope giving Ralph the poppy marked the death of their friendship. Poppies also serve as a memorial flower, and here Vanellope had treasured it as a good memory she had with Ralph. Now it serves as a token for Ralph to keep Vanellope in memory. The 'peppermint' modifier was selected because one: everything in Sugar Rush must be made of candy, two: I like to alliterate, and three: the smell of mint would have been present in key events of their friendship that Ralph remembers, as specified in the story.

"It's so much easier to agree to something when you find yourself staring down the barrel of a semi-automatic" - This line was inspired by the line: "It's easier to be sure you love someone when her father inquires with the barrel of a gun", from the song "Deathbed" by Relient k.

Litwak's Photo Booth - Like one of those 'check in' photo kiosks that allow you to take a photo of you (and your friends) at an event or location, sometimes with 'special effects' on the screen. You can then e-mail the picture, or post it to facebook, twitter, etc... Yes, I know, this relatively new technology will probably be obsolete by 2017, but I can't predict the future; kinda stuck with the present to work with. :P