Last updated: 12/30/2013 14:08 (UTC-5:00)

. : : Disconnection : : .

Phase I, Level 5: Mission Improgrammable

. Present Time, At Litwak's Arcade .

"Kitty!" the dedicated, prompt, and of course fashionable and fabulous postal worker heard her name called as she traversed Game Central Station looking for some good gossip. "Who's wantin' ta know?" she asked as she turned towards the voice. A bright blue hedgehog in red sneakers greeted her gaze and needlessly answered her question, "I'm Sonic, the guy who nearly made you power-strip kill a couple months ago. I've been meaning to apologize to ya, but I just haven't seen you around".

"Well maybe you should slow down, crazy! I'm surprised no one's gotten hurt yet! But don't worry 'bout last time, you jus' ruffled my fur a bit. 'Sides you weren't the one I REALLY needed to pick a bone with that day… darn Ralph."

"What?" Sonic couldn't help exclaiming in astonishment, "Sure, he's a 'villain', but I've never known Ralph to be a bad guy…"

"I never said he was bad, he jus' needs to put that big ol' brain o' his ta work one o' these days! Can' believe it took him a couple months 'fore he finally came back ta me to find out what he was too THICK to listen to the day you ran into me!"

Against his better judgment, Sonic let himself get reeled into Kitty's gossip trap and couldn't resist the urge to press for more details. Kitty happily obliged, occupying Sonic's time for a solid fifteen minutes.

"An' so", Kitty wrapped up in summary, "Ralph an' Felix arranged a mission ta journey through the world wide web to dat IP address that the e-mail for the buyer of Sugar Rush came from."

"Whoah… I've got to get in on that action!" Sonic declared, for though he was the spokesperson for arcade safety, he was also the poster child for fast-paced adventure, and he wasn't going to let Ralph and Felix have all that fun without him. "Thanks, Kitty!" and with that, he was off like a flash to pay a visit to the Fix-It Felix game outlet.

"I still don't know, Dr., I just don't think this is the best thing for Ralph to do." an anxious Calhoun admitted.

"But your husband is with him, I'm sure he'll be fine with him by his side. Or do you doubt your husband?", Doctor McCalloc replied, fully in psychiatrist mode. As the resident doctor for the Fix-It Felix Jr. game, he'd taken on Ralph's case after the Bad Anon guys had finally convinced Ralph that it was a good idea to seek further, more regular help. If Ralph's wasn't such an interesting case, McCalloc may not have taken it on, for it was a rather demanding job, having to manage all the memory space for the game. It may not sound like a taxing job just by its title, but he was responsible for creating and resetting things in the game as needed, which also included fixing up KO'd characters so they'd re-spawn. Doing so in a matter of nanoseconds wasn't anything to shake a stick at, even for fancy-schmancy new games. Bet you didn't know that when a character flashed on the screen, it was because they were teleported to the operating room and back. He'd been lucky enough to avoid the occupation thus far, but game doctors occasionally had the unfortunate job of undertaker whenever a character from another game bit the bytes. The local code just wasn't compatible to save the character, and any glitch or corrupt/incomplete piece of code is not able to leave the game to return to their own game to get fixed. But it is time to digress, for despite all those morbidly fascinating details about his day job, the nighttime flexibility allowed him to work with Ralph for the past few days to prepare him for his mission, and recently Calhoun, after the whole 'gunshots in the night' escapade.

"Of course I have faith in him, but that doesn't mean that Ralph will be prepared for the emotional upheaval no matter how good his backup is."

"So Ralph is the one you doubt…?"

Ugh, though she was a prime candidate, considering her most tragic of backstories, Calhoun just didn't particularly like getting psychoanalyzed.

She was saved from having to answer when a blue blur burst into the room and braked right in front of her.

"Lieutenant! Where's Ralph and Felix!? I want in on the action, and you know I'll be a great addition to the team!"

"Whoah there, Sonic, slow down… for starters, I'm a sergeant, not a lieutenant…"

AIR! Sweet, glorious, dry, air! Ralph was awakened from his reverie by a slap of wind, but was subsequently reminded of his precarious reality when he was slapped by a wave of salty water and sent under again. A third slap rendered his interpretation of his current situation completely incomprehensible. That last one sent him back into the air, and he had to wonder if the people he had seen before spiking a white ball around where now making a game of him in a similar fashion. Too afraid to open his eyes, Ralph just let his skin do the sensing and figured the 'hand' that kept spiking him was too slimy to belong to any of those on the beach he had encountered earlier.

"My lands! Ralph!" Felix yelped, finally breaking from his in-depth conversation with the one called 'Jake' as a ball of orange popped up out of the blue.

"Oh dude, not cool… the water sprite's got 'im in her ugly clutches!" Jake informed, which only worried Felix even more.

"We've gotta do something!" Felix cried, pulling out his hammer and trying his best to run across the surface Jake had told him was actually 'Sand'.

"Whoah, chillax, dude. I got this." Jake assured with a self-assured shrug.

Dumbfounded, Felix stayed put as Jake grabbed a long oblong board thing and rushed into the 'Ocean' thing he described only moments ago. A chorus of "Yeah!", "Gnarly!", "Rip it!" and "We love you, Jake!" chants erupted from all the other 'Beach'-goers as he did so, and Felix had a hard time getting one of them to pay attention long enough to ask what was going on. When he finally succeeded, the girl replied, "He's totally like, a qualified lifeguard and all that, and it's his job to save us all from the sea monster with his wicked surfing skills!"

Felix wasn't sure if he should be relieved by the 'Bikini'-clad party-goer's reassurance of Jake's skills, or just more worried at the notion of a 'Sea monster'. He watched anxiously as Jake duck-dived under the oncoming waves to get out far enough where Ralph was disappearing and reappearing among the 'Waves'. Soon Jake was using his boardy-thing to maneuver over and under rolling water, all the while garnering points that appeared over his head and incremented a high score box in the sky. Finally, he was close enough to Ralph to reach out a hand to help his friend up onto the board. Unfortunately, a wave knocked them both off then, causing a few numbers from the high score to fall down from the sky into the hungry waves below.

. Present day, In another part of town .

Seeing Vanellope crying by herself, Jubileena ventured over and hugged her friend, though they were both sobbing sugar crystals by this point, having spent their moisture on all their prior tears. After a while, the citizens began to calm down; this was the longest they'd been plugged in for quite a while. The cherry-topped racer sniffed back the last of her tears and asked hopefully, "Do you think maybe… we're plugged in permanently now?"

"I-I don't know" the princess-turned-president replied, forgoing royal decorum as usual and unashamedly wiping the snot from her nose with her taffy sleeve. "Even if we are, I have no idea what we should do!" Trying to think what Ralph would do in this situation had only caused the likely reality that she'd never see him again start to sink in, which had only led to more tears.

"Hmm… I don't think any of us do", Jubileena reasoned, "but maybe we should at least find out what the state of the system is from the Muffin Man".

"The Muffin Man?" Vanellope questioned, absolutely baffled as to what he had to do with all of this.

"Yes, the Muffin Man. You met him once before… before we were… un… un-plugged!" the red-faced girl responded, bursting into tears once more as she choked out the tail end of her statement.

Hugging her good friend to calm her tears before talking, Vanellope pressed, "Yes, I know who he is, but why should he know anything about the system?"

Sniffing and wiping her tears, Jubileena answered, "Don't you know? Every game's doctor is able to, and responsible for monitoring the system and handling all the data for it. That's why they're doctors; they know your code - and everyone else's - inside-out. We all forgot about him when King Cand-I mean, Turbo- locked away our memories, but the Muffin Man was released from the 'Fungeon' when you reset the game. Even if you didn't know about him personally, I thought you knew that all games had a similar doctor and what their job is…"

Feeling suddenly a bit violated at the new found knowledge that her code was completely handled by someone else, Vanellope admitted her previous ignorance to the fact and consented that the idea was a good one. "Will you go with me?" she asked, and soon they were off to Cherry Lane once again.

They never made it that far. The caramel-drizzled doctor rushed by them in a blur, and the two had to grab a candy kart on their pursuit to catch up to him. When they overtook him, they had just cut him off at the threshold to the rainbow bridge.

"Muffin Man, we have some questions for you!" Vanellope declared in her most regal of tones.

"Forgive me, Princess, now isn't the best time." he stated in exasperation, clearly vexed with the sudden interruption.

"Then allow us to give ya a hand and THEN answer our questions, dummy-head!" Vanellope snapped back.

Apparently in too much of a hurry to argue, the doctor replied, "Fine! But stay behind me!" in a huff, then proceeded to lead them up the rainbow bridge and out of Sugar Rush.

"Sorry to drag you with me on a sudden trip to the outside." Vanellope whispered to Jubileena, who looked beside herself with worry.

"Naw, it's ok; what are friends for?" She replied with a somewhat forced smile.

Vanellope made a mental note to dig into the royal reserves to reward her friend handsomely for her bravery… if they came out of this alive and stayed plugged in long enough to do so, that is…

. Back at Litwak's .

"Ralph! Thank goodness you're alright!" The handyman cried with relief, embracing his friend as best he could with his tiny little arms. His weighty friend was also quite wet, and slimy, he noted with only a hint of disgust. All that truly mattered was that he was alive! Felix couldn't imagine how distraught he'd be if he lost his best friend to an out-of-game death. Apparently Ralph was also just as shaken, for he returned the hug and didn't speak for a while as his teeth chattered with the cold.

"I don't know how I can ever thank or repay you for saving him, sir." Felix addressed Jake as he approached.

With a head toss to shake the water out of his hair – which resulted in a chorus of squeals from the fan-girls – the lifeguard shot back, "Don't sweat it, dude, it's my job. So just hang loose, bro... t'cha."

Still struggling with the language barrier, Felix just smiled and nodded as Ralph regained himself.

Ralph wiped his eyes as best as he could, though the rest of him was just as soaked with salty water. He tried to speak a couple times, but his lungs protested as water clung to them, restraining his ability to talk.

Seeing his troubled recovery, Jake piped up, "Looks like you're not from this game since you didn't reset after the rescue. You may wanna get back to your own game and get yourself fixed up. Then come back for some surfing lessons; I hold them every Friday!"

"Ah yes, good idea." Felix conceded in regards to the former, though he was sure Ralph wouldn't be too happy about aborting the mission like this; not one bit. But when all Ralph could do was sputter in protest, even he had to admit that going forward wasn't an option right now.

"This way, dudes!" Jake called as he headed towards the exit to show them out.

"Sonic! Wait up!" Calhoun called from atop her glider, but her calls fell upon deaf ears that were speeding down the tunnel of Fix-It Felix Jr. towards Game Central Station.

But apparently he HAD heard, for she heard a warbled reply echo back up the tunnel saying, "No can do! I'm gonna catch up to them, as fast as I can!"

. : : Meta-Data : : .

. Player Responses .

CraftyKeronian – Thanks! I'm still doing a lot of the same stuff, just have to learn an entirely different program, as I noted in Annie C's response above. So it feels like my brain might implode from all the information overload ('cause now I need to learn all the new stuff AND retain all the old stuff to train my replacement… which they haven't hired yet, haha). And yes, I feel sorry for all the characters… I torture them so… especially Ralph, and Vanellope… and the torture they have yet to see, oh dear… I apologize in advance, guys! As for how they got on a beach, that was partly answered in this chapter, and will be fully explained in the next!

Dixie Darlin – Wow! I'm impressed, and honored! To read that all in one sitting… I just might cry, I'm so touched… but I may just offer you an aspirin instead, to spend so long in front of a computer screen… or a medal, if you read it really fast… I stink at speed reading…

Becky Blue Eyes – OMG! The author of LI16F read my story! I think I just lost a life… Mind. Blown. I'm still in the process of reading yours, but alas, haven't gotten too far just yet… this new job position thing is eating up all my reading time, boo. Which is a total bummer since I finally got Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility for Christmas, and the job transition started as soon as I got back from Christmas break, so I haven't had the chance to read that either yet… D: Ok, done my total sidetrack… point is I plan to read both as soon as work slows down. Thanks for reading my story; I'm so glad you like it! It's been an absolute BLAST writing it, and I'd totally just spend all my time writing it if there wasn't that pesky thing called 'real life'…

. Cheat Codes! .

"The guy who nearly made you power-strip kill" - A poor substitution for the idiom "Road Kill", since it happened in the power strip instead of on the road.

"Doctor McCalloc" - His name comes from the function name 'calloc', which is in C (and some of its derivatives) and is used to allocate memory for a program.

"Bit the bytes" - My little derivative of "Bit the dust", using the computer definition of 'bit' (meaning a single zero or one) and substituted 'bytes' ('byte' is simply 8 bits)

"The local code just wasn't compatible to save the character, and any glitch or corrupt/incomplete piece of code is not able to leave the game to return to their own game to get fixed." - My own theory to explain the phenomenas in Wreck-It Ralph where Vanellope couldn't leave Sugar Rush and Sonic's public service message of how characters die permanently when they're outside their games.

"Sobbing sugar crystals" - Tears are primarily water, but also contain salt. Hypothetically, if you cry your eyes dry, there'd be nothing left but salt. Since sugar runs through the veins of the Sugar Rush characters, it seemed fitting that they'd be left with sugar instead of salt.

"Every game's doctor is able to, and responsible for monitoring the system and handling all the data for it. That's why they're doctors; they know your code - and everyone else's - inside-out." - I came up with the concept of personifying each game's memory manager for the sole purpose of using my OC, 'The Doctor' Muffin Man, but since it made sense for every game to have one, I decided there should be a cameo by the doctor for "Fix-It Felix Jr.", hence the scene with Dr. McCalloc earlier in the chapter, and the prior chapter's reference to Clyde inviting Calhoun to see the doctor in HIS game for some psychiatric counseling.