Candlehead and Taffyta lazily walked up to their mother, Taffyta wiping pretzel crumbs from the corner of her mouth. The other children were busy completing a puzzle while they waited for their meal.
"Mooom, when are we gonna get food? I'm starving." She whined.
"Don't worry, sweethearts. Dinner will be ready in a few." She replied, gently rubbing Taffyta's shoulder.
Tamora rolled her eyes over the phone. She heard Felix munching on what sounded like hard candy and a load of laughing.
"Where are you?"
"I'm on the internet sugarcake, with Ralph and Spamley."
"Hurry up your little trip, the players are getting tired of you guys' bonus characters."
"We'll be back, I prom- is that a rocket?"
Ralph nudged the phone back to him. "Felix, focus!"
"Right, right. What were you sayin', Tammy?"
She dropped her head on the wall. "Will you please, I don't know, come back and do your job tomorrow?"
"I will, I'll be back before you know it. I love you, tell the kids I love 'em, too." Felix hung the phone back up, forgetting to say good night.
"Bossy, am I right?" Felix asked Ralph.
"Yeah, cool. You don't wanna sit down a while?" The tall man asked.
"No, why?"
"No reason it's not like my legs hurt or anything. I walk one more time, I'll fall in the ground. I'm sure of it."
"Oh, Ralph, stop complaining! Just let me see if there's another Star Wars trivia happening- oh, is there anything around here I can fix?" Felix exclaimed taking out his hammer.
"I... don't think so. Everything's pretty perfect here."
"We're at the internet, Ralph, what's not perfect here?"
"I'm back!" Spamley said holding a cart with mostly weird looking stuffed plushies. "You know Felix, that rabbit in the pancake shop has awesome merch."
Felix didn't hold back from taking a stuffed animal without asking and buried it in his suitcase with the rest of his stuff.
"You know what'd be great?" He asked.
"If we go home?" Replied Ralph.
"That too, but what if I got these laptops for my own? Everyone in the penthouse can have one, you know?" Felix answered, putting another coated pretzel stick in his mouth.
"Okay great, but it would be nice to leave, like, now." Ralph complained.
"Have you seen Mortal Kombat yet? It's way better than Star Wars trivia." Spamley informed.
Felix raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"
"Mortal Kombat. You kick and stab people to win! There's blood and pain."
"That sounds gory." Ralph said, obviously disturbed.
"The fights are great. come, follow me." He said leading them towards the arena.
As they walked to a place neither Ralph or Felix saw before, Ralph noticed Spamley wasn't doing his main duty as a bot.
"Shouldn't you be... well, spamming with Gord?"
"We decided to have the rest of the day off. I was bored because almost everyone's been getting those security safety guards."
Felix laughed a little. "So things change here every second?"
"Pretty much. The good news is I can hack weak places. Slaughter Race doesn't have such high security now that I think about it." Spamley of course declared he was joking when he saw two of his friends concerned faces.
When Ralph saw how upset Vanellope was when he forced her out of Slaughter Race using that virus years ago, he realized how much she loved the game, and how much she needed to be in it. Now Spamley's saying it could get infected easily.
"Wonder how they'd function with all that." Ralph joked.
"That's true. Candy Girl even complained that driving on the dirt's gettin' bor- wait, where'd Felix go?"
Ralph called his name a few times until he came up with an unfinished box of french fries and a chocolate bar.
"We thought you were coming with us."
"I still am, but I saw this big castle with wizards. I wasn't gonna pass that up." Felix answered remembering the wizards cloaks.
"Yep, they fly on brooms too." Said Spamley.
"Really? I didn't see 'em do that-"
"Okay, that's it! I'm leaving." Ralph stated.
"What, why!?"
"I'm tired. Also, he's giving me a headache." Ralph said pointing at Felix.
"Your actually leaving, Ralph?" Felix whined.
"Yeah Ralph, live a little. I'm pretty sure those other arcade characters would like to wreck the building too." Added Spamley.
Ralph rolled his eyes and agreed to stay. He knew how pissed everyone would be at him if he hadn't come back without Felix.
"...One more place. And that's it." Ralph informed with his finger.
"Deal!"
••••
After Slaughter Race cooled down, finally, Vanellope was reunited with Shank sitting in her car.
"V! Thank goodness, your back." Shank gave her a small hug, relieved that the child was alright.
"So like, what's wrong with the game? I was driving fast and it was acting… pretty dumb, wasn't it?" Vanellope questioned.
"Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I'll try to fix it the best I can though." Shank answered, getting her car together.
"Hey, Shank, we'll still get to drive around the road and stuff together, right?" She asked politely, tapping her little hands on her wheel.
"Um, yeah, sure kid. Maybe later. Get yourself ready so we can chase down these newbies." Shank informed as she eyed the newly-spawning players.
Annoyed, Vanellope started her car, feeling ignored. The game stopped processing for a second and slowly flow back to normal. One side of the ground looked like it switched colors with a building.
"Bro, hurry up! I'm almost done spending my money." One player by the name AshKater139 rushed over the microphone.
"Yeah, sorry I lagged. You saw that glitch right?" His friend SkullBlazer7 answered, rolling his eyes when the game wouldn't follow his controller's command.
Vanellope was more than ready to play with her friends, but everything around her refused to function properly. She huffed, having no choice but to sit out on the one thing she loved most, and doodled imaginary car tracks in her notebook while everyone else laughed and had a ball. She'll never be able to code anything in this game's state.
Sometimes she wondered why the game suddenly went against her. Everything was perfect before. What happened? It seemed as if no matter where she went, something was wrong.