The sun never rose in Niceland. There were no rays of light to peek through the curtains and rouse those who decided to sleep over the evening hours. Not that that mattered, since Tamora woke up on her own the following morning due to her internal clock. Though Felix would have wanted her to wake him and say goodbye, she knew that it would only make it harder in the long run. Thus, she pressed a loving kiss against his warm cheek and then worked on gathering herself up from the bed.
She hadn't received word all night about any more attacks, which must have meant that things at base were going smoothly. Or at least, that's what she hoped it meant. For all she knew she might have returned to find the facility in utter chaos (more so than it had been) with soldiers running around, attacking one another brutally.
With her boots back on and tightly laced, and with a small glove tucked in her pocket, she left the house without looking back.
As expected, Game Central Station was as much of a ghost town as it had been the previous day, with one exception. The tall and hulking form of Wreck-It Ralph slowly crossed the way towards Fix-It Felix Jr., having come from Sugar Rush.
Tamora would have greeted him, but the wrecker didn't seem to be particularly focused on anything; he moved sluggishly, his eyes glazed, and it honestly looked as though he were being controlled by something.
"Wreck-It!" she called, hoping to get his attention. No response followed. Ralph continued walking until he eventually disappeared into his own portal, but she could have sworn that she saw a glitchy ripple shoot through his body just before he went completely out of sight. The sergeant was tempted to go after him, but the appearance of the Surge Protector prevented her from doing anything but returning to her own game.
He was in a haze. A soundless, colorless haze.
A part of his mind could tell where he was going, but he couldn't exactly control it. He walked through Niceland, heading for the apartment building, his thick fingers curling into the massive fists they were capable of forming. Something deep within him was driving him towards destruction, and while he attempted to fight it off, the opposing force was stronger. Small spurts of realization would return to him, causing him to stop in his tracks and shake his head, but they never lasted very long.
He eventually stopped at the side of the tall building, gazing up with his blank stare. Neon orange code flashed across his eyes, replacing his irises with numerical lines, before he reached up and fiercely rubbed at his face. Thoughts were entering his mind - horrible, awful thoughts that not even the evilest of villains would ever consider.
Something was happening to him. Something bad.
Felix usually started his days on the right side of the bed. With a skip in his step. Bright and cheery. Today though – he was about as bright as the night sky outside the window.
Half-awake, his hand moved across the fabric of the bed only to hit empty space. Confusion penetrated his consciousness and he managed to push himself up and blink back blearily until the bleak sight of the empty bed came into focus.
Numbness overcame him.
He'd missed her.
He hadn't even gotten to say goodbye, or wish her good luck, or tell her how important she was to him. She was just gone.
All at once, the reality of the situation came crashing down on him and his eyes welled up again. He fell forward and buried his head into her pillow, making no effort to move for a good, long while. He debated with himself whether or not he would have enough time to run over to Hero's Duty, to perhaps see her before the workday began; but judging from the previous day's events, that most likely wouldn't have been a good idea. She probably had her hands full anyways.
He didn't move from that spot until the last possible moment; and even then, he was reluctant to get up. Eventually, he forced himself into a sitting position and rubbed at his eyes. With a deep breath, he pushed himself off of the bed. He still had a job to do, after all. As much as he was dreading it.
The headache had not improved from the previous day. In fact, he could have sworn it had only increased in severity. Though that was nothing new if the last couple of days had been any indication.
The buzzing static in his head momentarily became a high-pitched whine - he'd had enough of that sound, and he'd had enough of that virus. He wanted it gone. He rubbed at his ear until the sound subsided, figuring he might as well try and make himself look presentable.
A little – or a long while later, it was hard to tell – he opened the door to their home and almost immediately recognized Ralph. The familiar sight of his friend was comforting.
"Ralph!" Felix shouted, closing some of the space between them. The wrecker appeared distracted, and the sight of him simply staring at the apartment building was enough to cause Felix to slow down a little in confusion. "Ralph?" He called again, looking up at him. "Ready to start the day?" He asked, trying his best to seem cheerful.
Ralph knew that someone was calling his name. He could hear it over the rush of crackly static in his ears. At first, he made no response. He simply continued staring at the building, as though it were communicating with him somehow. All at once, however, he snapped out of his stupor as a high-pitched screeching crashed over him. He grunted and reached up, clutching his head as he willed it to go away.
Felix noticed right away, and with much disdain, that Ralph looked positively out of it. He had noticed over the past few days that Ralph seemed to be having it worse than most of the Nicelanders and himself, but he'd never seen him this bad. He took a tentative step towards the larger man, and reached his hand out a little towards him. "Ralph - are you alright?" He questioned, concern evident in his voice.
In his effort to rid himself of the unbearable noise, he began backing up, nearly running into Felix, who took a sudden shocked hop back.
Unlike the other times this had happened, Ralph realized he couldn't fight it off right away. In fact, the more he tried to ditch the sensation the worse the pain became, but if he surrendered to it… it felt worlds better. With a final shake of his head, the wrecker was finally able to find freedom from the viscous attack. He panted deeply, blinking his eyes - the very same eyes that were flashing with numbers until that, too, faded away, like a candle being blown out.
His frantic gaze befell Felix - how long had the fixer been standing there? - before he tried to speak. "Wha…how…when did I come back?" He surveyed Niceland, not remembering how he'd made it back to his game. He couldn't even recall leaving Sugar Rush, let alone saying goodbye to Vanellope. The thought of the girl waking up alone bothered him drastically, and it had him taking a step in the direction of the tunnel.
That is, until a terrifying ripple coursed through his body in the form of a glitch. Horrified, Ralph looked down at himself, just in time to catch his large feet turning from code to skin again
It was unmistakable. A glitch.
"Felix!" he cried, his voice cracking in legitimate terror. "What's happ p̥͍̻̝̟̪̫͜ạ̛̖͓̘̞n͔̺̘͍i̢͓̰̺̥ͅć̤̠͇.Ḑ̤̱̮̤̞̾̾͒̎̇͊̀o̬̘̫̥̤̼̣̽͊ͥ̐n̼̗͓̣ͪ̇̄ͬͅ'̧͎͉̄t̰͙̮̤͉͔͍ͫ̐̋̽̌ͮͥ̔́͡ͅͅp̠̟̼̙̙̬̮̑ͭ̃ͧͬͭͥa̱̠n͕ĩ͔̪ͯͤ͑̅̚c"
"Ralph!" Felix shouted with genuine fear lacing his voice. But he couldn't be heard.
Yet another glitch overtook the bad guy. This one was physically painful, and it had him collapsing onto his knees. His form teetered between actuality and code, causing him to clutch into the ground; the dirt and 8-bit grass began flickering with him, creating a swirl of colors and flashing digitized numbers. When it seemed as though the poor man couldn't take anymore, the frenzy dissipated, leaving him severely disorientated... and with bright orange eyes.
Felix's heart was racing in his chest, he stared up at his friend with wide, worried eyes. He wanted to run for help and run to Ralph at the same time. He didn't know what to do.
For what felt like minutes, a tense silence hung between them, until finally the fixer dared to move. "… Brother?" He ventured, trying to gauge some sort of response. When none was made, his panic spiked yet again and he suddenly ran forward to push wildly against his friend's arm, shaking it in desperation "Say something, Ralph!" He shouted.
10101011Destroy101010101111110101Wreck111010101101 Demolish1100101Break01
Various words that signified the same outcome flashed within Ralph's mind as the virus waged war on his judgment. It whispered commands to him in a sweet, mechanical voice, soothing his pain while simultaneously attempting to coerce him into what he did best. He could feel his thoughts protesting and trying to escape, but it was useless; he was being slowly enslaved by the unseen force, losing what was left of his mind.
Though orange and reflective of his code, his eyes trailed down to regard the individual that was pushing at his arm. The wrecker recognized the being as Felix, but the virus didn't take to the fixer very kindly at all; it saw his friend as a direct threat and responded violently.
"RAWWWRGH!"
Unable to prevent, let alone stop his actions, he tightly wrapped his entire hand around the much smaller male and held him in a steel grip. He then stood to his full height, keeping Felix in his grasp, as his fingers tightened around that tiny body.
10101011Destroy101010101111110101Wreck111010101101 Demolish1100101Break01
Rearing back his hand, Ralph slammed the poor hero into the side of the building and kept him there, pinned. He must have still maintained at least some of his self-control, because he hadn't utilized his full strength, which explained why Felix hadn't been killed on impact. His arm trembled as he kept the good guy suspended against the bricks, while continuing to fight through his virus-fueled episode.
'Felix is my friend. Felix is my friend! Felix is my FRIEND!'
The phrase grew louder than the other repeated mantra as he desperately tried to relieve himself of his deadly autopilot. When it truly seemed as though there were no chances of restoring his sanity, the neon binary disappeared from his irises, leaving them their usual honey-brown. The aggressive wrinkle in the bridge of his nose disappeared, as did his snarling scowl.
Blinking away the remaining fuzziness, he looked forward and noticed what he'd done.
"F-Felix!" He instantly set the repairman down, looking both mortified and worried. His voice trembled. "I…I'm sorry…I couldn't stop…" He'd really messed up. Big time. "I saw what I was doing, but I couldn't stop." He reached up, framing the side of his head with a hand before he hunched over, looking at the other worriedly. "Did I hurt you? Are you okay?"
The handyman held his head and wobbled back against the building behind him. He shrunk down against the brick and looked up at the bad guy with a downright terrified expression – one the nearly cleaved Ralph's heart in two.
"I-" Felix stammered, but words failed him after that. "I'm okay." He spoke shakily, raising a trembling hand to push himself from the wall.
Whatever had happened to that soldier back in Hero's Duty was now happening to Ralph.
"What about… what about you?" He attempted to swallow his alarm, though it was obvious that he was fighting the urge to bolt away. "You were glitching." He spoke the word in a terrified hush. Ralph could not have been glitching. They still had the entire day to get through; and the only possible way he had seen a glitch get fixed was through - a reset.
With a heavy-hearted sigh, Ralph sat down on the ground and held his head in his hands while the reality of his plight descended over him like a cold blanket.
As if nearly killing Felix wasn't enough, but he'd also been glitching? It was just too much.
"I can't stop it," he confessed, his tone low and defeated. "When it gets into my head like that… I lose track of what I'm doing, who I am." He looked up at Felix, and though he wasn't crying he might as well have been; his gaze conveyed more sadness than any batch of tears ever could. "What if that happens again, Felix? What if I can't get ahold of myself?"
Felix shook his head. They had to get this under control, or they could lose everything.
"We can fix this! I know we can." He spoke, trying to sound hopeful – though whether or not he truly believed his own words was a different story.
Ralph remained silent. Lowering his hands from his head and looked down at the giant weapons; he stared at his palms and then curled his fingers inward.
What if… what if Vanellope was the next one to suffer his blind wrath? He'd never forgive himself if he hurt that little girl. Ever. He would have rather smashed his skull in with his own fists than harm a single piece of candy on her head.
"I'm dangerous," he stated. "I can't be around you guys." He pulled himself up into a stand again and then took a step back, prepared to run off somewhere. That is, before the sound of the arcade's front door opening caught his ears.
Sensing his friend's train of thought, Felix took a desperate step forward and outstretched a hand.
"No, wait! We've just got to make it through the day. That's all!"
The happy voices of children soon began filtering through the air, signaling the beginning of the day; and the fixer was forced to hold back a frustrated sigh.
Looking up at the larger man, Felix swallowed his apprehension and stepped forward to pat him on his large knuckle.
"Just hang in there, brother.
For once, Felix's bright and shining optimism wasn't something that Ralph wanted to hear. He found absolutely no comfort whatsoever in the sunny words, for in his mind there was no silver lining to the situation. As far as he knew he was more or less doomed (with or without his coworker's pep talk to guide him along). Getting through the workday would be harder than anything he'd ever faced - and that was saying a lot considering all that he'd experienced over the past thirty years. Maybe he really did just need to 'hang in there'.
Before he walked off to his starting position, and before Felix could do the same, the wrecker needed to say something. Or rather, he needed to ask something of his friend. He reached out to touch the fixer gently on his shoulder, yet stopped himself halfway and retracted his fingers, as though he'd felt something hot. He couldn't risk anything.
"Hey, Felix. I need you to do something for me," he began, trying to word himself in a way that wouldn't make him feel any more humiliated than he already did. "If I seriously lose it and there's no chance of getting me back, I need you to keep the kid away from me." He didn't have to specify who 'the kid' was, because there was only one person he referred to as that. "I know you and Sarge are smart enough to keep your distance, but she won't understand. She'll try and save me. I know she will."
He desperately tried not to imagine the miniature president going after him, but the heartbreaking image entered his infected mind nonetheless. He pictured her screaming at him, holding out a tiny hand, trying so hard to call him back from the depths of insanity. It utterly crushed him.
"And if I get really bad…" He paused, feeling his throat grow incredibly dry. He willed himself to continue as a serious expression overtook his previously dismal features. "Do whatever it takes to stop me. I mean it." Whether that entailed containing him somehow or having Sarge's soldiers take him out, Ralph was more than willing to accept his fate.
Felix desperately tried to think of some way to reassure his friend, but nothing came to mind. He hated the fact that nothing could be certain anymore; and he definitely was not used to having a problem continue on for so long.
He didn't see anything he could do to make the situation better, except to agree with him. "... Alright, Ralph." He sighed, and reached to pull his hammer out of his utility belt. It would be go-time soon. He could see the familiar shadow of a patron come to a stop before their game, and hear the metallic 'clink' of the quarter as it was deposited into the machine. He turned to face the larger man again, and gave him the most reassuring smile he could muster. "Don't worry." He told him, and quickly made his way to his starting position before the title screen could vanish.
"Too late for that, pal," the large man sighed, watching as Felix walked away. "I'm already worried."