Last updated: 12/29/2013 22:55 (UTC-5:00)

. : : Disconnection : : .

Phase I, Level 3: Replaced

. Present Time .

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! The shots echoed throughout the penthouse, startling its occupants. None more perhaps than Felix, who was unfortunately the closest to the source of the sound and hadn't the reflexes to cover his ears beforehand.

"What's wrong!?" He cried, perhaps louder than necessary, for he could no longer hear himself no matter how loud he called.

"There's something at the door." his wife answered – in a tone that said, 'Shut up or be shot.' - looking particularly dynamite in her bedclothes, muscles tensed and poised to kill whichever poor soul was at the door… Or perhaps she already had succeeded, for there was now dead silence.

"Honeybuns… there's no need to get so tense over a visitor, even if it's unusual to get one at this hour; bless my stars, you may even have permanently killed a character if they're not from this game! I thought we were working towards getting you a bit less trigger-happy, love…"

The sergeant softened her grip on her firearm then out of respect for Felix's wishes. They had had many a discussion on the topic; she had argued that she wanted to protect him at all costs, and he wanted her to relax and take life slow... without inadvertently taking the lives of innocent non-cy-bug characters. Yet she couldn't shake the foreboding feeling that this wasn't a normal visitor, and was one she needed to fear.

Brow furrowing in determination to protect, she explained, "I'm sorry, Felix, but… it just didn't sound like a normal 'knock'... and I'm not going to put down my gun until I investigate whatever's left on the other side of that door!" Ignoring her husband's protests, Calhoun cautiously approached the bullet riveted door and pulled it open with a creak.

"Jeepers! You killed him!" Felix cried, noting the crumpled heap on the floor – and obviously belonging to another game, unfortunately. The cadaver was of a taller and lanker build than that of a Nicelander, and despite the fact that it was quite obviously dead, it looked like it hadn't exactly been the perfect picture of health BEFORE his wife put it out of its misery. "What are we going to do!? This is terrible! My greatest fear has come true, and we've been the cause of an out of game character's permanent deletion!"

"Don't get your belt in a bunch, he was dead long before I shot him." Calhoun explained. Even if she didn't have an intricate subroutine in her code that allowed her to estimate the time of death within the accuracy of half an hour, she still would have been able to make that deduction – the thing looked like it'd been dead for days, so how did it end up here? She made a move to turn the body over so she could ID its face, when it suddenly reanimated itself and sat bolt upright – sending Felix further up the fright scale and landing him somewhere in between bed-wetting and near death experience.

Calhoun immediately resumed fighting stance, moving in-between the dead man and HER man – who was looking so scared she thought he might actually wet himself, or even pass out.

"You ver' mean lady! Why you shoot Zombie? Zombie on'y wan'ed ta 'liver a message." He asked in his usual lisp. One shouldn't complain too much about it though; truth be told, he spoke rather well for a being whose jaw was in extreme rigor mortis.

"Whah… what message?" Calhoun stammered, a little off guard that he'd survived three bullet wounds – which only seemed to be making his rib cage a little drafty.

"F'om Clyde, 'bout 'ur frien', Ralph!"

Felix's fright level immediately plummeted and he rushed past his wife to welcome his guest with a little more friendliness than bullets. "Oh, hi, Zombie! Ralph has told us all about you and the other Bad Anon guys! I'm so terribly sorry about those bullet holes, would you care for some pie?"

"Nah… Zombie no eat sweet t'ings, only spee' up decay rate. Coul' ya he'p me ge' my arm back?"

Felix cringed at the request and looked to his wife to help out; she obliged. It was then he noticed the appendage dangling from the front of his door, with a death grip on an ax that was now wedged in between the golden plates indicating their room number. He knew he could fix it, but he really wanted to just replace the whole door after a sight like that.

"Sorry about that, Mr., uh, Zombie." Calhoun apologized as she yanked the arm – ax and all – off the door, "I guess it was your ax here that made the strange 'Thunk' noise which prompted me to shoot". She also guessed it was Clyde's ever insightful decision to send the un-dead to her door rather than any other Bad Anon member who might've joined the leagues of the undead after an encounter with her. He'd even invited her to see the psychiatrist doctor of his game, to be 'counseled on the need to relax and put the gun down from time to time'.

Reunited with his arm, Zombie relayed Clyde's message – with many a lisp - to inform the two that Ralph had run off from Bad Anon, and didn't seem like he'd be returning to Fix-It Felix Jr. The couple bade their undead guest goodbye then began to discuss what should be done in light of the message he'd just delivered.

"I say a stint at boot camp oughta straighten him right out." Tamora suggested. After all, she'd been able to persuade him thus far on the road to recovery in a rather military fashion.

"Look, peach-blossom, I know Ralph's been hanging out with your men a lot, but… he's just not programmed to be military. He may be tough on the outside, but I've been learning that he's really just a teddy bear on the inside, and trying to force him to get over it would only destroy him."

"Then what should we do, send him to a Build-A-Bear repair shop?"

"I… don't know. Maybe we just need to BE there for him; be supportive. We can start by going to look for him, and letting him know he can come to us whenever he needs something."

"What's all the ruckus about!? Cain't a gurl get any SLEEP 'round here!?" Kitty complained as she opened the door in response to the pounding upon it. When she saw the burly figure in orange and brown standing on her doorstep, she just put a hand on her hip and made a face like: 'This had BETTER be worth my time; or you're in for a WORLD of pain!'

"Kitty, I'm sorry to disturb your uh… beauty sleep, but I came to ask what you were talking about when you said 'serial number' a couple months ago." Ralph could tell by the look on her face that she didn't consider this worth her time, and if he didn't make his case, and make it fast, he'd end up like Zombie.

"I thought choo knew 'bout that already!" Kitty exclaimed, indignant. He blew her off before when she brought it up, how dare he suddenly care about it NOW, when she was trying to sleep!

"I know, I'm sorry, I was wrong; I should have heard you out." He stammered, though glad that his humility tactics seemed to be paying off – at least Kitty no longer looked like she was going to murder him… now it only looked like she wanted to beat him to within an inch of death.

"Look… I uh, I had a fight with… with the girl that day, and I thought you were referring to that – but I realize now that you weren't – And…" Ralph hesitated, not wanting to be so open and sincere with Kitty, but not having much of a choice if he wanted to soften her up, and he was already taking a gamble on her even having a soft side. So, here goes nothing… "I know she said that she… that she…" Okay, so this wasn't as easy as he thought… tears threatened to overflow the water ducts of his eyes as he recalled the painful circumstances of his and Vanellope's parting once again. It seemed there'd be no stopping them now, so he may as well press on. "...that she never wanted to see me again… but I'd give ANYTHING to see her, even just once more, if only to apologize… so please… will you help me?" When he wiped the water from his eyes he was pleased to see that Kitty indeed DID have a soft side... at least for a moment… then it was gone, her features contorting once more to express her rage.

"I done TOL' ya ta cherish yo' time with 'at adorable lil' cupcake! But did you listen to me!? Noooooooooo... You brought this on yo'self, fool! I oughta slap you silly, in the hopes of slapping some sense into 'at head o' yours!"

"I know! So could you just please slap me; then help me out?" Ralph blurted in frustration, then at once regretted it when he saw the look on Kitty's face. Kitty liked the sound of that offer.

"He wasn't at Tappers." Felix reported.

"I have my guys checking the upstairs units, and between me and the other Bad Anon volunteers, we've checked just about all the units on this level. I really hope he's not in my game; weeding through without disturbing the cy-bugs would be messy business – to put it lightly."

After Calhoun's debriefing, Felix was beginning to get rather worried – both for Ralph, and for themselves, should they need to go over the world of Hero's Duty with a fine tooth comb to look for him.

At that moment, Calhoun's communicator buzzed in, "This is Private Ryan. The upper deck is all clear, over."

"That leaves 'Litwak's Photo Funia' and 'Hero's Duty'." Calhoun mused to herself, "Guess we should take on Kitty at the photobooth first, and hopefully avoid a trip to 'Hero's Duty'".

"Really? 'Cause I was actually thinking a visit with the Cy-bugs would be a bit more pleasant." Felix responded sheepishly. That woman gave him the heebie-jeebies.

"What? I thought you liked tough women." Calhoun teased with a wink.

"I guess I do like an element of tough, but at least you're easy on the ears – not to mention the eyes."

"Alright, enough buttering me up; we're going to Kitty's photobooth first, so suck it up and take it like a man!"

"So long as I'm your man, Buttercup."

Really, sometimes her husband could be as sappy as an old oozing maple tree.

"Ralph! There you are!" Ralph turned as he heard his name, and saw a familiar handyman in blue approach, followed closely by his wife.

"All units may cease searching; target has been located, unharmed – minus redness on one cheek suspiciously shaped like a hand. Calhoun over and out."

Ralph self-consciously rubbed his reddened cheek – it still smarted – and tried to change the subject, "You guys searched for me?"

"Of course, we were all worried about you!" Felix responded, and indeed his blue eyes were brimming with concern.

Ralph took a moment to let that sink in – he'd been so caught up in his misery over Vanellope's disappearance that he really hadn't taken the time to consider how others might be reacting to his chaotic behavior. Before he had much of a chance to come up with a response, Felix continued, "And we just wanted you to know that we realize that you're going through an incredibly difficult time right now, but if you ever need anything, my wife and I will do our very best to support you."

The 'light-bulb' expression that exploded on Ralph's face made Felix apprehensive of what he just said. Something told him that Ralph wasn't going to cash in on his offer for the type of 'shoulder-to-lean-on' help he had meant.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Felix pressed as the threesome journeyed back to the game of his namesake.

"To be completely honest… no. It's going to be risky – maybe even more so than when we took on the Cy-bugs.", Ralph admitted, "So I completely understand if you two don't want to risk it; I'll just go on my own. And don't worry; if anything happens to me, I've got a bunch of no-gamers who are more than qualified to fill in for my position as the wreck-it guy".

Felix locked eyes with his wife's before responding, silently asking if it was alright with her to say what he was about to. Knowing his thoughts, she gave him a 'right behind you' look of reassurance.

"Well then I hope you also have a bunch lined up who are qualified to be the fix-it guy, 'cause you're not going anywhere without me." The short handyman smiled up at his best friend and held out a gloved hand, "Partners?"

He was quite pleased when the giant smiled back at him – the first smile he'd made in months – and took his gloved hand for a good hard shake. The smile suddenly faded as their hands shook, and before Felix could even ask why, Ralph answered, "Sorry... it's just, the last partnership I shook on was with… with…"

"Don't worry, Ralph, we'll get her back." Felix interrupted, knowing it was still too hard for his friend to say her name.

"Alright boys, I hate to break up your little love fest, but we've got a mission to plan and a lot of preparations to make before its scheduled execution in T minus six days, and we may as well get a jump start on it in the three hours remaining before the arcade opens." The sergeant – always the voice of reason – interrupted.

At that moment an announcement echoed over the loudspeakers, "Characters to your games. The arcade is now opened!"

The threesome looked at each other in surprise, the only times the alert got triggered early was when Litwak was doing arcade maintenance – which meant anything from hardware upgrades and software patches to out-of-order game removal and new game installation. Whatever the case, they had to part ways and get to their respective games pronto… and hope that whatever it was didn't get in the way of their plans they'd discussed earlier that night with Kitty.

. Present Time - In another part of town .

Vanellope awoke with the innate sense that something was direly wrong. First off, she could tell she'd been rebooted. That in and of itself wouldn't be too odd, as she'd experienced it before a handful of times when the arcade lost power or blew a fuse. But this time was different. She felt… dusty… like she'd been sitting on a shelf for a while. Had Mr. Litwak put Sugar Rush in storage? No, that couldn't be right; there was nothing wrong with the game, and even if something was, he would've had someone look at it before putting it into storage, and why the heck would he power up a unit that was in storage? Shaking off the feeling as just a side effect of an unexpected power outage, Vanellope locked into game mode as a quarter alert sounded. Back to work.

The licorice haired racer jumped into her racing car and started up the engine as the familiar countdown sequence began, then was off like a flash when the light turned green. No matter how dusty or rusty she felt a moment ago, the feeling left as soon as she started tearing up the track. As expected, she took first place and accepted her golden trophy. Now came her favorite part of the game, the part where she got to fist bump the lucky player and catch a glimpse out the window and over at her friend. Maybe this was why she felt dusty, she had nearly forgotten about her falling out with the falling giant from Fix-It Felix Jr. No matter, he was sure to come back begging for forgiveness eventually, and then maybe their relationship would be better than ever – or at least that was her game plan when she broke it off. If things didn't work out that way, well, then she guessed she'd be better off without him anyway.

Putting on the sweetest, most euphoric smile she could muster – just to show Ralph how happy she was without him – Vanellope whirled around to face the screen and fist bump the winner. The first thing that struck her as odd was his apparent age. He appeared to be much older than the kids she was used to seeing at Litwak's, but she'd heard of adults occasionally coming to the arcade to play some of the older games - "For old time's sake." they'd say – and now that Sugar Rush was past twenty, she might be seeing more older players these days. Speak of the devil, there were two more, standing in back of the guy, presumably of the same age group, one looking over his shoulder and hastily scribbling something on a notepad. Her eyes began to focus on what she could see over their shoulders, and the sight almost made her memory-leak.

'I have a feeling I'm not in Litwak's anymore.'

. : : Meta-Data : : .

. Developer's Notes .

I sincerely apologize at how late this chapter is, relative to my earlier postings. In short, there's been a number of things happening in "Real Life" – But I haven't found a good place to download a life just yet, go figure… - the biggest one being changes at work. I'm being moved into a different position, the process of which started about a week and a half ago, and will continue for the next few weeks as I undergo intense training for my new position. As such, I end up working way more hours than usual and being completely brain dead by the time I get home anyway. So I'm apologizing ahead of time, both for delayed updates, and sub-par chapter content. Hopefully things will be back to normal shortly and I can resume writing at a normal pace. Thank you all for bearing with me in the meantime; I'll try and find a way to make it up to you!

. Player Responses .

I wanted to thank those who have submitted reviews for the story thus far – you're what keeps me writing! I wish I had time to respond to individual reviews, stupid work… (don't get me wrong, I enjoy my job, it can just be so time consuming is all… and being salaried means no extra monies for the extra hours… I feel like introducing whoever it was that had that 'brilliant' idea of 'salaried' positions to Calhoun and Kitty and let them have their way with him… Right, on with the story!)

. Cheat Codes .

"Somewhere in between bed-wetting and near death experience" - One of Rizzo's lines in Muppet Treasure Island

"Then what should we do, send him to a Build-A-Bear repair shop?" - Yes, I realize that Build-a-Bear is just a shop, not a game that Tamora would be aware of, but I couldn't resist the chance to put sarcasm in her response to Felix's claim that Ralph was just a teddy bear underneath it all. BTW, this reference is added to the list of disclaimers of brands and characters I do not own.

"This is Private Ryan." - Yes, a reference to the movie by the name "Saving Private Ryan"

"The sight almost made her memory-leak." - A lousy pun (on my part) on the concept of wetting one's pants in the event of surprise. 'Leak' is an alternative word for it, and I spun the pun from that. A memory leak is a computer software concept where available memory is dwindled down due to a process not letting go of its unused allotments, and instead getting even more memory allocation for itself. This results in slower performance and can sometimes only be remedied by a restart of the operating system. Vanellope was only using her usual potty humor in her thought narrative to express her surprise, not to describe the actual event of a memory leak in her program.

"I have a feeling I'm not in Litwak's anymore." - A twist on the classic line from "The Wizard of Oz", where Dorothy says to Toto, "I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."