*crawls out covered in paper cuts and coffee stains*

Remember how I promised to update once I got back to college? Well, college decided to DROP THE BASS and murder me with so much work and exams and finals that any inspiration left over for fanfiction had to go on a back burner. Then I had to move back home, go back to permanent babysitting/kittysitting duty, look for a job and study for my CRP/AED/First Aid certificate. Not to mention I've been on the most extreme and obsessive Iron Man 3/Avengers bender. Seriously, I created about five fanfic ideas and an entirely unique universe because freaking Robert Downey Jr. is my lord and savior, and he and Mark Ruffalo are so fabulous and Science Bromantic and perfect, and if I have anymore Pepperony feels I'm going to open my own pizza place.

...but I digress. I watched WiR again today, ate a powdered donut, and I have a game I want to explore. Sorry to keep you all waiting!

Heads up: LOTS of Japanese dialogue here. Instead of weighing everything down with gratuitous Japanese to phonetic romaji to translated English, I'm just gonna write what they're saying. Sorry Choko-chan, but there's a limit to your language gimmick.

Disclaimers: Disney owns Sugar Rush, SEGA owns Sonic the Fighters, Acitivision owns DJ Hero 2 (but not a console port), and Namco Bandai owns the Tekken franchise, of which I adore.

Choko's POV

Choko swung her legs under the bottle cap bar stool, patiently waiting for her vanilla-lime soda-cool whip soda float. Pollipop-chan had dominated the races today, and as a show of good will, she invited all the Sugar Rush racers and outside friends to her private soda fountain to indulge in carbonated chaos. Sour Apple-chan, for example, was holding up the line for her suicide cream soda, and Choko idly wondered how long it would take her to crash from the monstrosity's sugar content.

Vanellope-heika was hanging off of Ralph-san's shoulders, ranting about how it wasn't fair that she could have a double shot of root beer in Sugar Rush and not Tapper's. Ralph-san was trying very hard not to laugh—Vanellope-heika wasn't the most...composed after consuming large amounts of sugar—and Choko giggled as her sovereign racer made herself comfy on his head.

Honey-chan and Lemonetta-chan were having a very deep conversation about something called "friend zoning", Minty-chan and Jubileena-chan were comparing hair styling tips with Skrillex-kun, and Choko relaxed; life was good.

So when Sour Bill-san led a teenage school girl in pigtails dragging her injured robot friend through the doors, Choko merely motioned for Pollipop-chan to put her order on hold; she never went through a cycle of idle animations for a reason. "Are you here for soda or Codebusting, Miss?"

"[My friend and I need your help!]"

Choko blinked as everyone turned towards her for guidance. Oh, right, she was the only conscious Japanese speaker in the house. "[How can I help you?]"

The pink haired robot girl raised tired green eyes. "[Please forgive us for interrupting, but our friends are trying to kill us.]". She smiled before her head fell off, and everyone started running around like headless chickens; Vanellope-heika had to use her patented "I'm the Presidential Queen and you will all listen to me" voice King Candy had been helping her out with before Swizzle-kun stopped firing unicorn pop guns at everything that moved.

"Choko, you and the Codebusters fix whatever game issue they're having. Peggy Pigtails, please pick up your friend's head, it's blinking at me. Ralph, let me down; I'm not a little diaper baby who needs a bottle. And Miss Fizzy, get everyone a double shot on me. We all just need some sugar to calm down."

It turned out that "Peggy Pigtails" was a Ling Xiaoyu-san (or just Xiao-san, as she preferred) from Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and as part of their game's linguistic gimmick, could only squeal in Japanese lifted from a sappy 少女の漫画 (shoujo no manga). Choko liked her; anyone who both knew her native language and could carry around her friend's sentient head without a pause was good in her book.

Skrillex-kun straightened his glasses as Choko drove them to Xiao-san's game. "So what are we going up against?"

"Judging from the damage dealt to Ms. Detachable Head, I'm guessing the something went way past wrong with the battle AI." Honey-chan was fiddling with the back of the robot's—Alisa-san, according to Xiao-san—head, and sighed. "Once, back when I was a pixel stick, all the functioning mirror images in my game spilled out and started going crazy. My Sonic and Dr. Robotnik managed to fix them before they went Turbo. Then again, mirror images are a different breed of fighter..."

"That reminds me: do you guys actually get injured during normal game play?" The memory of Honey-chan breaking her leg sat heavily over their code busting minds for a moment.

"Not when the proper code sequences run. Otherwise we'd actually get hit damage, and I don't care how hard your head is; there wouldn't be a fighting game running after three hours of abuse."

Xiao-san blushed and tugged on a pigtail, "[My friend Jin is very stubborn. I think he would last for three hours.]"

Choko giggled with Alisa-san then translated for her friends, Skrillex-kun and Honey-chan sharing a significant glance. Waving to the Surge Protector, she sped through the cord leading to Tekken Tag 2. Her friends could make eyebrows at each other all day; she and Xiao-chan were well versed in the tragedies of head strong friends who crashed through games without concern for their squishy bodies.

Honey's POV

Honey looked up from her character roster sheet to see a very large black demon thing maul a panda. The panda proceeded to tackle the demon into a snooty blonde girl, who flipped her internal coffee table and beat the pixels out of them. Blinking slowly, she stepped away from the free for all, grabbing onto Choko's small shoulder. "Ok, Alisa wasn't lying: everyone is trying to kill everyone. I have a few ideas why but we need to beat a level before we can get to the code well."

Skrillex was being antagonized by the more Amazon-y fighters, and Honey felt for him; the poor bastard was 5'4" in the tallest of games, and here he was a pitiful 4'3". "Skrill, don't look them in the eye. They see that as a challenge."

He blushed fiercely, his bright red nose contrasting against his hair."But if I don't look at their faces, my direct line of sight—"

Skrillex didn't finish before one of the more Russian-y Amazons punted him into a wall. Groaning in frustration, she balled up her sheet and threw it at Xiaoyu's too bubbly head. Why the flipping Chaos did this game have over 50 characters? What, were these young whippersnappers too afraid to leave the fighting academy without their entire class before going into a game? Back in her day, you only needed 9 on the roster to have a good time, and she wasn't even around for it!

Yelling in inarticulate rage, she judo flipped a charging Bruce Lee wannabe into a wall, triggering a loud bell. "Wait, what did I just do?"

Xiaoyu bounced over to her, clapping her hands. While Honey knew Japanese better than say, Emo Princess, Choko helpfully translated the Chinese(?) girl's rambling into "The game just recognized you as a special challenger! Now you can fight!"

Honey cracked her knuckles as the sea of rabid-AI fighters stopped thrashing and turned towards her like a bad horror movie. "Well, I guess I'm in for the tournament. How many do I have to fight before I can get to the code well?"

"Hmm, if we play arcade mode on one round matches and the extra fighters don't interfere, and Alisa-chan and someone else as our backup in case we get too broken...about nine stages." She spared a glance towards Skrillex and Choko, and Honey stifled a giggle. "Perhaps...Choko-chan could pair well with Alisa-chan?"

"Fine by me." Skrillex wiped clean his glasses, sniffing past a crooked nose. "But does that mean I'm on crowd control?"

"Come on Mr. Screamo, you know all about pandering to a group of overly aggressive and emotionally constipated pretty folk in funny costumes." Honey pinched his cheek and fixed his nose with a spurt of pixels, then turned towards a grinning Xiaoyu. "Sooo, you gonna fight in your day clothes? Because my other outfit has wings, and you look like a flying fan."

Honey didn't wake up expecting to fight outside of her game. Much less with a hyperactive battle queen, whose orange qipao was much more war fashion friendly and had enthusiasm that could put Amy to shame. But then again, it beat listening to Bear and Bean gripe about how nobody took them seriously anymore.

Alisa and Honey were cheering in a strange queue area that sprung up, protected from the growling, jerking horde of zombie fighters that wanted a piece of honey-dipped Honey. Well, they were free to look/death glare, but touching/trying to claw out her eyes with freaky chakra devil claws was an entirely different beast.

First up was Kazuya/Angry Asian Bad Boy #3 and Anna/Owes Sonny a New Nose, and ho boy, they were salivating with the chance to murderize them. Honey was on the tag partner position off stage and counted down before the match began with clenched fists; this was going to get ugly.

Kazuya lurched forward but Xiaoyu executed a folding fan-palm to the pectorals combo that knocked him into the boundary. Ok, Honey liked this girl a whole bunch. Jumping up quickly, Xiaoyu kick flipped off his face before he could grab her ankle, kicking out his shins before he could switch with Anna. Hard back-facing punches to the brunette had her flying up in the air, and a satisfying low kick avenged Skrillex's nose.

Then Anna roared and turned purple, picking up Xiaoyu and throwing her against their side of the boundary. Her health plummeted and Honey tagged herself in, yelling in code because that was total BS, where did this psycho power-up even come from?! Honey flew directly into Anna's pelvis, knocking them into the center of the stage. Anna didn't have the benefits of mercy invincibility, so Honey elected to fly-spam the psycho out of her.

She managed to roll out of her hit box and punched Honey square in the nose, and holy crap that stung. Stupid poisonous purple aura of doom. Subconsciously tapping into the old Amy fight data in her file banks, she bootie bopped Anna into the boundary, and a shower of rings exploded for a double hit. Huh. Flexing her back muscles, Honey charged into Anna and another, slightly smaller shower of rings fell from nowhere to bring Anna's health down.

Honey tilted her head back and laughed maniacally. The game gave her special abilities! Oh, this was too good. Winking at a cheering Alisa and Choko, Honey went to town on Anna, using some of Xiaoyu's back-kicking and Knuckles' I'm-gonna-wreck-your-face punches to her advantage. Oh yes, she was so cheating but Anna had her freaky out of bounds purple glow and screw the rules, she had lots of rings!

Anna managed to tag herself out with Bad Boy Wonder, and Honey remembered why Xiaoyu and Alisa came in the first place. He didn't pull the punch that darn near cratered her face in, kicking the Chaos out of her gut like she was a soccer ball piñata.

Refusing to be KO'ed in the first round, Honey kicked him into the air, and Xiaoyu introduced her to the beauty of Tekken Tag Tournament 2. She jumped in to complete the combo Honey was setting up, and they switched off between up slams and kidney kicks until he hit the ground and didn't bounce back up. They cheered and high fived, Xiaoyu more or less trash talking to poor suckers in Japanese.

The obviously purple glow exploded out of Kazuya and Anna in an obviously evil plume, absorbing back into the waiting masses. Then the two started flopping around on the ground like fishes; they were yelling for someone to tell them why exactly they couldn't stop flapping on the ground, so Honey figured this wasn't a normal game mechanic. "Umm, next round?"

Skrillex's POV

Skrillex loved angry crowds he could turn into wicked crowds thrashing to his personal mix of dubstep and Transformer death metal. So when he hacked into the soundtrack for the stage music and decided to practice his DJing skills, he took most of the credit for turning the killbot zombies into dancing killbot zombies.

Over the demon death din of "Kill Everybody"—hey, it was incredibly appropriate—Choko unceremoniously dumped two fishtailing fighters behind his booth, washing her sugar sticky hands clean of their shenanigans. The woman who punched his nose apologized profusely for her unsportsmanlike conduct, and he gave her a free pass because it wasn't her fault that she was a former killbot and she was hot as ever loving hell.

He couldn't figure out how to keep them from glitching, chalking it up o the weird purple virus upsetting their animation cycles. Shrugging, she gently pushed them into a corner and put the music on auto, letting the killbots dance themselves docile and watching Honey and Xiaoyu beat the crap out of them.

Skrillex admitted that Honey was in the zone. No broken legs or falling into bottomless pits here: she and her partner managed to infinite combo the Stage 3 fighter into a perfect KO. More and more former killbots flopped apologetically in a sad little corner, but Skrillex frowned as more fighters kept breaking into the stage to prolong the ass-kicking. Choko and Alisa tried to keep them from screwing up the roster rotation, but Skrillex shook his head; music couldn't soothe the savage killbot zombie beast of that stupid purple virus could manipulate the arcade mode.

On what was "Stage 5" but was totally Stage 9, Honey and Xiaoyu fought against a pretty Asian boy and what appeared to be the badass demon version of him. In that round Xiaoyu got the crap kicked out of her; from his viewpoint it looked like she was pulling her punches. Honey managed to high kick them to oblivion, but he knew a reluctant heroine when he was one.

They flopped their way to his booth, and Skrillex pulled the pretty boy aside; his demon pal was too busy shouting the lyrics to Cinema, and he didn't wanna break his concentration. "Nice to meet you, knuckle duster. My name's Sonny; what's yours?"

"...Jin." Oh good Betamax, this just got better and better.

"Let's talk in private Jin, the crowd's just a bit too loud for this venue." It was true; Devil Jin took over the music with an androgynous blonde fighter, and the wild energy from "Bangarang" was entertaining the killbot zombies. Below the stage he brought into existence—thank Honey for teaching him the wonderful world of abusing Action Replays—he pushed Jin onto a recliner, taking up space on a stock folding chair. "Impressive fighting moves, how much do you gotta train to leverage teenage girls into boundary walls?"

"I had to master the Mishima style of karate to defeat my father, grandfather and great-grandfather in order to stop myself from turning into a Demon—"

"That's currently making a new name for himself as a DJ"

"—and avenge my mother, who was taken from me by Ogre—"

"I think she's starting a mosh pit in front of the battle stage"

"—and I've told Xiaoyu to stay away before I hurt her, so it's not my fault if she—"

Skrillex hit him on the head with his roster sheet, stopping Jin's melodramatic life story from really taking off. He narrowed his eyes and rubbed his head, mumbling, "Or that's what the game writers said. Personally, I just like training with Hwoarang and Nina and—"

"Xiaoyu?" Jin stiffened as much as he could without having control over his movements, and Skrillex wrote down a note on the back of his roster. "Let's focus on her. You do know she almost let you and your wild side kick her perky bubble butt to the loser's circle, right?"

"Yes, well—"

"Such a sweet girl, and super pretty." Skrillex grinned as Jin's already agonized face grew even more emo, and examined his fingernails. Fok, he needed more red apple pie nail polish from Sour Apple. "I'm more appreciative of blondes myself, but she's built like a mini-brick—"

"DON'T YOU SPEAK OF HER WITH SUCH LEWD WORDS!"

Skrillex wrote down another note. "Oh, so you do care about her? I couldn't see that during the battle or after. She sure does care though, enough to not fight back when you were compromised."

Jin looked like he was having a heart attack, battling against the pre-programmed personality that he took way too much to heart. But if Ralph could become a hero in his own right, then Jin could work his way out of his emotional constipation. "I...between my overbearing mother and my jerk of a grandfather I don't want her around and she's so colorful and bright and lively and she just lights up the room and Hwoarang already threatened to shave my head if I didn't...but..." He managed to gesture at himself as he flipped about in the air. "Why would she ever want me?"

Skrillex sighed, slowly shaking his head. "Did you hear her calling for you after Honey kicked your butt?"

"...yes?"

"Does she always call after you after you fight?"

"...yes."

"Alright, now I need you to imagine her standing right next to us. What is she doing?"

"...calling out...to me—"

"If you can hear her now, why don't you recall that she was one who cared after all?"

Jin had half a moment to appreciate his super epic wisdom before the crowd upstairs exploded. The androgynous blonde from before beat their door down, yelling loudly, "They made it to the boss stage!"

Jin grumbled about mothers and cheesy dubstep and Skrillex tucked his roster sheet away. Better go spread his wisdom to the rest of the plebes.

Choko's POV

The stage transformed into a beautiful water lily garden, steam rising up to obscure the tall, dark 美女 (bijo) smiling serenely at Honey-chan and Xiao-chan. Her eyes glowed a dangerous purple, and with the smile still on her face, she literally kicked the two into submission.

Alisa-chan grabbed onto Choko's hand. "[If they KO, we'll have to go in for them!]"

"[Don't worry, Alisa-chan, Honey-chan is too proud to let anyone best her in battle.]"

Honey-chan then proceeded to fly into the woman's stomach, Xiao-chan tag in and out repeatedly to kick the 美女 (bijo) harder and harder into the ground before she finally KO'ed. "[Yes, my friend Xiao-san is also very...tenacious.]"

Honey-chan and Xiao-chan held hands and jumped in tandem, laughing like Minty-chan and Sour Apple-chan after a good race. "[Tenacious is a very good word.]"

The woman was on her hands and knees in the water, panting harshly. Then the purple in her eyes began to spread into the stage, warping the water lily garden into a poisonous nightmare as the 美女 (bijo) turned into a 鬼女 (kijo), laughing and snarling like a power mad villainess...

Like a power mad boss sequence, glitching into the chaos that Honey-chan often swore by.

The new woman, "Unknown", started off by kicking Xiao-chan into the murky sludge, the purple ink ticking to her body and gluing her to the ground so Unknown could spam-kick her to death. Honey-chan tagged herself in and righteously pelvis-slammed Unknown into the murk herself, although the laughing woman didn't get stuck. So unfair, it was like racing against Vanellope-heika on boss mode.

Unknown pinned Honey-chan down into the murk and began kicking her to death, howling with laughter the entire time like the banshees that ghosted Gloyd-kun's track. Her friends' health hit zero and Alisa-chan grabbed onto her elbow. "[Are you ready, Choko-san?]"

Xiao-chan spit out a tooth. "[At least I have that down to an art.]"

They jumped into the murky water as the game gonged with Choko's arrival. The flailing fighters beyond the stage cheering them on, and Choko changed into her peanut brittle geta. Between Unknown not wearing real clothing and the way leather soles tended to sink into sludge, she needed all the advantage she could get.

Choko wanted to set something straight. She has never been, and probably never will be, a good fighter. But while her speed in Sugar Rush came from racing, she was programmed with very quick feet, and Unknown moved slowly in her self-made purple quagmire.

Alisa-chan hip kicked Unknown to the ground and threw her head at her, adding an explosive burst to her attack. Choko mentally added explosive cookie biscuits to her list of kart updates. Quickly tagging in, Choko tripped Unknown and tagged out, playing run-rings-around-the-rusty until Alisa-chan managed to bring Unknown's health down to 50%. Then the creature growled and threw Alisa-chan against the boundary with a tidal wave of poison, and that wasn't really nice.

Choko jumped back into the mess and kicked Unknown's shin, scratching damage onto her indecent living wetsuit. She howled and really, why did all these fighting game bosses howl and groan like Rancis-kun with a stomach ache. And what did she have to complain about? Oh, her glitchy attempt at world rageification isn't going to well? At least she didn't have to deal with a group of angry pocky people arguing over localization cameos, or Taffyta-chan bossing everyone from Vanellope-heika to Ralph-san, or Marzipanne-chan launching her car into the roof of the castle and wondering why Sour Bill-san was so annoyed! Really, between Sugar Rush and the squishy retards on her team Choko got so frustrated sometimes, and—why was Alisa-chan giggling?

Looking down, she noticed that Unknown was a sad heap of scratched up goop, her geta innocently dripping with purple. Honey-chan was rolling around on the ground laughing with Xiao-chan, and all the spectating fighters were flopping around with glee instead of faulty character physics.

Blushing, Choko stepped back ready for the stage to end...until Unknown let out a screech so loud Choko could feel the sugar in her bun crystallize. All the muck from the ground swirled up to cover Unknown's body, creating a gigantic vortex of evil glitching power ready to take over the entire arcade. Choko grabbed onto Alisa-chan's hand, preparing herself for the most difficult battle of her life—

A gong sounded as a giant set of stereos crashed down onto Unknown, releasing a large bass rumble that obliterated the purple sludge and triggered the cut scene for Unknown's defeat. Everyone looked up to see Skrillex standing sheepishly on a raised platform. "What can I say, sometimes you really just need to drop the bass."

Vanellope's POV

Vanellope slurped her vanilla-mint-chocolate-diet cola concoction as she watched the gentle mayhem in Pollipop's promenade. After the Codebusters reset the Unknown data in Jun Kazama's data, the entire population of over muscled fighters turned back to normal, and proceeded to suffer a severe lack of sugar and electrolytes. Luckily Pollipop had a large stash of Gatorade for her nitro boosts, and all the guys from Tekken Tag Tournament 2 decided to come for a diplomatic visit.

Xiaoyu/Peggy Pigtails in particular was very happy, bouncing along with Alisa/her headless friend and a—sweet mother of monkey milk, was that a giant panda?! Shoving her drink into Sour Apple's greedy little hands, she jumped onto the panda's back, pointing her scepter towards the general unknown. "Onward, Marshmallow Butt!"

The panda bucked her off into Ralph's overly concerned arms, and Vanellope cheered. "Do it again!"

While Ralph and King Candy fussed—jeez, did they think she was made out of rice paper?—she saw Jin Kazama/big fat diaper baby awkwardly try and talk to Peggy Pigtails in a quiet corner, who was blushing redder than a gumball dispenser. They passed Japanese back and forth for a bit, diaper baby looking like he'd eaten way too many moon pies, before Peggy Pigtails more or less glomped the loser and slapped a big fat Hershey's kiss on him.

Everyone froze—the racers thought that kissing beyond cheek kissing was gross and the fighters obviously knew about this little love-fest—before Hwoarang/the guy who just ate his weight in atomic fireballs yelled loudly, "Somebody owes me five bucks!"

Money was exchanged as rapidly as Pollipop's famous third-wheel wintermint smoothies, and Vanellope spotted her Codebusters in the chaos. Choko was sighing wistfully, probably thinking about a blue raspberry boy across the arcade. Honey was collecting money with the robot girl and Leo/the blonde Vanellope was pretty sure was a girl. And Skrillex was smugger than a sour patch snake, very much not making oogaly faces Peggy Pigtails.

Vanellope laughed and tipped Pollipop with a vanilla wafer. Tomorrow was fast approaching, and if anyone was going to survive with their marble cake intact, they needed all the sugar they could get.

少女の漫画 (shoujo no manga): manga marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10 and 18, often with a strong focus on human and romantic relationships and emotions.

美女 (bijo): beautiful woman.

鬼女 (kijo): witch/demon. (u c wat I did thar)

Oh yes, this all just happened. No, I regret nothing.

Tekken Tournament 2 is basically a fighting game where you beat up people with two characters. Normally you fight with one, but as a tag team game, there's combos where you switch off quickly and add onto each other's moves, do team throws, etc. The final boss of the game is Jun Kazama, mother of the protagonist Jin (who has lots of emotional issues and just needs to stop pushing people away and get together with Xiaoyu -pouts-) who turns into this creepy stripperific villain called Unknown. In the first arcade version released, Unknown isn't a character like Jun. Therefore, that boss sequence in her code messed up, became half-sentient and attacked the AI of the game, making everyone into killbot zombies. In normal game play no one would notice, but after hours...

Also, the flopping is a reference to another glitch in TTT2. Basically, if you hit a character very precisely (or in this case, exorcise them of a purple glitch virus) they cycle through every animation they have in the game. Look it up, it's kinda funny.

I've been waiting to drop the bass in the literal sense for so long it's ridiculous. And if you think that's ridiculous, hold onto your hat, because next chapter is a whole new world for the Codebusters ;)

Loved it? Hated it? Want Pollipop's drink recipes? Then review and let me know how I did :D