"You think the surge projector saw we're not in our game yet? I don't want to worry everyone else." Ralph said, scratching his head.
"Don't worry 'bout a thing Ralph, their fine. We still got a bajillion things to do here!" Felix responded, growing interest on the Youtube platform.
He and Ralph had only been on the internet for a few hours, and Felix already found loads of figurines and trinkets.
"What else can we go to? Is there like, a castle or a mansion we can go in? Or- oh! a dragon train?"
Ralph sighed to Felix's excited blabbering. He thought they should leave soon before he glued himself to another place.
Soon enough a skinny green man came up to Felix, holding up a graphic sign that said "Win this competition, Get a private jet!" He dropped down the sign when he recognized his friend Ralph.
"Hey buddy, how are ya?"
"Hi, Spamley. Oh, that's my friend by the way." He introduced Felix who smiled at him kindly.
"Look at all this stuff I got! What else doesn't exist, am I right!?" Felix asked happily.
Spamley nodded and smiled awkwardly at the man with a hundred things in his arms.
"Your gonna get him a suitcase for that, right?" He whispered to Ralph.
"Do I have a choice?" They chuckled at Felix, and he was still in awe of anything watchable.
"You haven't been here in a while. You're here for Candy Girl?"
"Well no, actually. I'm just stressed from a lot of stuff back home, thought the internet would make me feel better." He said taking a deep breath.
"Oh."
"I know. Shocker. Why, have you seen Vanellope?"
"Yep, she looked a little off when I saw her earlier, like she was a bit sad. But she asked me about coding a week ago."
Ralph kept his composure calm. "Oh, well, what'd she ask about it?"
"Nothing in particular, just that she wanted to update Slaughter Race I believe. Tracks, if I remember."
"Wait, she knows how to make her own codes now?"
"Not really. I just gave her a code for making pathways. But it's fine, I didn't let her know where I got them from. She insisted, but I told her no. I know how bad that could get."
Ralph let out a breath of relief. At least she's not changing everything.
"The pathway code works anywhere. And there's many kinds. She can give the game a response that'll let her make any route she wants, like race tracks. It has to be specific, otherwise they'll spawn randomly."
"Is it effective?"
"Yeah, but she and the game should be fine."
"Okay. I've been wanting to tell her how bad the internet can get, but... I don't want to word something the wrong way. I'm kind of an idiot." Ralph said ruining his own mood.
"That's not true, your just sensitive." Felix rubbed in, still laughing at videos like a kid.
"If something does happen to go bad, I'm most likely to fix it. Believe me, she'll be fine. She's smart and knows everything about this place." Spamley said, assuring Ralph.
"Thanks. You wanna spend another eternity with me and Felix goin' everywhere?"
"Yeah sure thing!" Ralph noticed Felix wasn't moving or paying any attention to them, so he dragged him away from the Youtube website, making sure he would get him a laptop to occupy him later.
_
A mix of dusky smoke and rattling grounds rushing through her face elated Vanellope as she drove. It was so lively, she thought she might have a heart attack, but she didn't care. She screamed and cheered her happiness away.
Her body shook and although she was getting woozy, she wanted to keep going. It was all too fun to resist.
She remembered Shank needed her to stick to the program. She flew her car off the track and raced faster, looking for her.
She thankfully felt at ease when she saw Shank's car and rushed to get to the group. She wasn't sure if she'd confront her about her situation or not later, but that didn't matter right now. She had fun.
For the first time in a while.
Now irritated, the speed of her car slowed down as if it were skipping, her glitch stopped and buffered as she tried catching up with everyone else.
It didn't work. They were too far ahead, and pixels from her spread all over her car and on the road she was positioned in.
She grunted and kicked the closest old tire next to her as she slammed the car door. How would she explain this to Shank? She's never been that far behind before.
"Where's V?" Shank asked herself realizing she hasn't seen her car. Her hair was blown into the dry air and trucks on the street stopped-mid road. The game stopped to load itself and Shank's touchscreen glitched and shut down.
What the heck?
"Dude, what's going on?" Pyro asked, about to fall out of the muscle car's backseat.
"I don't know. Nafisa, could you look for the kid for me?" Shank requested as she attempted to start her car with still no success.