Author's Note: This chapter steps into slightly weird territory. I hope you like that kind of thing ;).
"Look Ralph, I'm no good with remembering sequences, okay?" King Candy(1) said, "I remember at the end there was 'B A Start', but that's about it. There were lots of ups, downs, lefts and rights.." In which order is anyone's guess.
"Well this is getting us nowhere.." Ralph said disappointedly. Fine, I'll do it.. I'll just use the brute force method. He punched the door leaving a dent. He winced. That hurt! He punched it again harder, this time leaving a larger dent. Some skin peeled off of his knuckles which made him briefly yell in pain. This door is tougher than anything I've ever wrecked in my life.. I've never hurt myself doing it before.. I can't keep underestimating this door's strength. With two final punches infused with all of his might and rage, the door busted open. "We'll just have Felix fix it later." He took deep breaths to calm down.
"My hero," Vannie said sarcastically. I mean it, Ralph.. Thank you.. You get it, Ralph! Maybe now we can get me out of here..
Hearing those words, Ralph remembered the medal Vanellope had given him and the circumstances surrounding it. He briefly glitched as the sudden surge of information wormed its way into his consciousness, causing another heightened flash of pain. "Remembering stuff sucks," he said, "It's making this headache worse.." I don't like to complain.. I'm glad my memory is starting to return, but with each new memory returned, my head feels like it is being split open like a melon. They went inside the code room. "So what are we looking for?" First time I've been in this kind of place..
"If I had to guess, it would be in her file," King Candy(1) said, "And I think I may have an idea why it happened, though it's just a theory.." I've only ever watched whatever Turbo did in here. It's not like I knew what he was thinking.. Although it was certainly the other way around.
"So are you going to tell us?" Vannie asked. I'm so tired from all this.. I won't say anything because it'll make Ralph worry, but my headache has been getting worse as well. There has to be some kind of connection there..
"Sorry. If I'm right, it's because you share the same name as your counterpart," King Candy(1) said. I'm afraid I don't even know which one I'm talking to anymore. Is she Vanellope from Sugar Rush 2? She's certainly using her character model.. "Sugar Rush isn't quite as advanced as some newer games, after all. From what Ralph told me, it would seem as though Sugar Rush 2 is able to cope with it somehow. Maybe it saves guests in a different directory or something.." If we can manage, all it would take is creating a separate directory for guest files here as well..
"Ugh.. Yeah, you lost me," Ralph said disappointedly. I've got no idea what he's going on about. So it's because their names are the same. Saving and directories is beyond me though..
"Well let's first start by finding her file," King Candy(1) said, "We can figure out what to do next after that.." Don't feel too bad, Ralph. I don't really understand this stuff that well either.
"There's hundreds of files though!" Vannie said in an annoyed tone, "What the heck even are half of these things?" She glitched to her younger form and back again. Sheesh.. Is this all I'm gonna do until we're split back up? Play backseat driver? Sorry.. I don't think she can even hear me though.
"Just look for one with your name on it, I guess," Ralph said while furrowing his brow, looking for Vanellope's file, "Didn't Sour Bill say something about locking up memories? Is that related?"
"Well, yes!" King Candy(1) said, "There should be three directories for memory around here somewhere, but without a separate body for the memories to go into.."
"Why three?" Ralph asked. I can understand maybe two, one for guests and one for ones in the game..
"Well," King Candy said, "one for racer memory, another for citizen memory, and the third is for guests, like yourself." Why racer and citizen memory is split up is beyond me.. I suppose that would make it easier to program the game or something though. But then why is there one for guests?
"So wait.." Ralph said contemplatively, "Let's suppose I were to open the guest memory thing, could I access my memories like that?" Maybe there's some sort of shortcut to this whole memory restoration process..
"Yes, I would imagine so," King Candy(1) said, "Not that I've.. Well, not that Turbo ever tried.. All he did was lock them up. He never opened them or anything. Once he did that, all he had to do was explain it away saying it was because the game had just gotten plugged in." Of course he did a lot of personality alterations to the racers as well after they tried to help Vanellope race a few times..
"Okay, well I'm going to keep an eye out for that," Ralph said. Vanellope and Vannie are the top priority, but if I can get my memory back faster, and possibly get rid of this headache, I'll take it in a heartbeat.
"Zombie just here for moral support," Zombie said as he floated around in the room with his arms crossed, still holding his hatchets, "Not want to mess anything up."
"Thanks, Zombie," Ralph said with a smile, "It's good to have you around." You always were one for moral support..
"It make good story for meeting too," Zombie said.
After a few minutes Ralph happened to find the 'Guests' Memory' directory, not that he was looking for it first. Oddly enough it's nowhere near the other two memory directories..
"Well, I found the guest memory thing here," Ralph said plainly. No idea what to do with it though..
"Tap it twice with your left hand if you want," King Candy(1) said, "It's better to do it now in case we lose track of it. I'll keep looking in this direction." Jumbotron. No..
Ralph did what he was told as lightly as he could. "Woah!" he yelped as it opened, "Well that surprised me.. Hey, why are there two with my name on it in here? There's one with a number after it." In 'parentheses' even..
"It's probably because your game was reset," King Candy(1) said, "Just merge.. Well, I guess you wouldn't know how to do that.. Tap it with your right hand and there should be an option to merge it with another. Just tap that and the other with your left hand. It's actually quite simple." Maybe I should do it rather than explain it.. Well it looks like he's got it.. He shrugged and continued looking.
Ralph swallowed, even though his throat was dry. He did as instructed, praying he didn't touch another file by mistake and just floated there quietly.
"Ralph, did it work?" King Candy asked, "Ralph?"
Meanwhile in Hero's Duty's code room, Calhoun did the same for Felix.
Felix suddenly found himself standing outside of the door to the penthouse in Fix-It Felix Jr., where some kind of party was taking place.
"Hey Felix. Just wanted to check on ya. I saw a big uh, explosion or something go over the building there," Ralph said sheepishly.
"Oh, those are.. just fireworks.." Felix said nervously. This is so familiar.. How did I know he was talking about fireworks?
"Fireworks, okay. Phew. Is it somebody's birthday? Or..?" Ralph asked unconvincingly.
"Well, it's more of an anniversary. The 30th anniversary of our game, actually," Felix said. The words just rolled out of his mouth as if they had already been spoken. This..
"What?! 30 years? And you're having a party without me?" Ralph asked accusingly, "Out of the way, I'm going inside." He shoved Felix aside and went in. "Heyo!"
"This isn't how it happened.." Felix said before following him inside, "Stop it Ralph!"
"And why should I?" Ralph asked, "For 30 years you lot have been throwing me in the mud. And what thanks do I get? Do I get a slice of cake? No? Do I get a place atop the cake with everyone else? Gene! Your only purpose is to get thrown out of the building!"
"Ralph, calm down!" Felix said anxiously, "This isn't how it happened!"
"This is how it should have happened!" Ralph said insistently, "Look at you, Felix. You've never lived in a dump. You've only been treated like a criminal once. Twice if you count with Calhoun. But me? How do you think it feels to be avoided for 30 years? You knew what was going on. You didn't even try to stop it. What's wrong with you, man?"
They were suddenly the only two in the room. Everyone else had disappeared in an instant as if they had turned to smoke.
"I'm sorry, Ralph! You have to believe me, I never wanted it to be that way.." Felix said frustratedly, "You're right, I should have said something. I should have done something, but it's too late to change what happened." There isn't a single day where I don't think about it at least once..
"You're right, but I don't have to like it.." Ralph said picking him up by the back of his shirt, "Come on, we're going to Hero's Duty. Let's get this over with."
Ralph immediately dropped him on the ground as the scenery around them shifted into that of Hero's Duty's gameplay area. "He's all yours," Ralph said to Calhoun as he casually picked up a baby Cy-bug and walked out of the exit.
"Slick tiddlywinking pint-size," Calhoun said while pointing a gun at Felix's face before putting it away.
"Uh.. Tammy?" Felix said with a nervous laugh. Jeepers..
"That's not how it happened, short stack," Calhoun said sarcastically, setting down her cruiser, "Hop on, we're going to Sugar Rush. Wreck-It had a Cy-bug with him. Got to find it before it lays its filthy eggs." As he did what she said, the scenery shifted around them into Sugar Rush.
"This is so confusing," Felix said while scratching his head. Am I dreaming?
"Well of course you're dreaming," Calhoun said wryly, "You don't think this is all really happening, do you? Be glad we're guiding you through it."
"Huh?" Felix asked. How did you know what I was thinking? Felix's head was practically spinning as his code processed the sudden surge of information he was being assaulted with.
"Here comes the best part," Calhoun said jokingly, tossing him into Nesquik Sand and jumping in herself.
"Jiminy jaminy. Really?" Felix said apprehensively. You're not going to punch me in the face are you?..
"Relax, Felix," Calhoun said wryly before kissing him tenderly on lips, "It's good enough that you know what really happened."
"You really are one dynamite gal," Felix said in a satisfied tone. He yelped as fell through the Nesquik Sand and landed on his feet in the Fungeon. He was facing the window, its thick bars mocking him silently.
"You sure showed those bars who's boss," Ralph said wryly with his arms crossed. Felix turned around and saw Ralph leaning against a busted down wall.
"You're not still mad at me, are you?" Felix asked hesitantly.
"Fix this kart for me and maybe I won't be," Ralph said warmly as he dumped broken kart pieces out of a garbage bin, "There's a little girl whose only hope is this kart.."
Felix hit it with his hammer, restoring it to its former.. 'glory'. This hammer can only do so much..
"Yeah.. It really looks like that," Ralph said with a laugh.
Author's Note: So yeah, Ralph and Felix are having nice little weird dreams as their memories are returned. I hope you like it.
Okay, so this may be a bit confusing about why there are two memory files for Ralph and Felix. I just kind of figured that rather than replacing memory files outright, the game is a little bit more benevolently designed, so it just creates a new file with (1) at the end, but they're both still being accessed by the same character, which is causing headaches from the strain of doing so (kind of like a computer trying to use too much ram, I would imagine), with increasing pain the more of the original they access.
The same is happening to Vanellope, more or less. To see what I'm getting at here with the number at the end of the file, go to a folder and copy two different files over into it. Select both of them at the same time and right click on one and rename it to something. Depending on your operating system one will either be just that name and the other having (1), or one will have (1) and one will have (2). Mine does the latter of the two.
As for the dreams, I think it's just an interesting way to have them remember everything while still not fixing it instantly, because I don't think that'd be very interesting to be honest.