I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters.
Trouble Maker
As Tyler and the others stepped out into the station, a ship suddenly shot out of Hero's Duty, flying around and around the station, breaking a lot of benches and the little round screens for news and such that were there before flying past in front of Tyler and the others. Sitting in the pilot's seat with a baby cy-bug on his face was a massive man with disproportionate hands, a red tee-shirt, and brown overalls with the left strap missing. After another moment, the ship shot into the tunnel leading to Sugar Rush and Tyler sighed.
"That can't be good," Tyler said. "Come on. Let's go kill that thing."
Lightning and the others nodded and they all jogged through the tunnel to Sugar Rush. They stopped just inside, looking around. In front of them, there was a trail of destruction leading through the candy cane forest. In the distance, the ship had plowed into the ground just shy of falling off a cliff and was smoking. Tyler shook his head slowly.
"Come on," Tyler said.
They all ran through the forest, following the destruction until they reached the ship, finding that it was empty. Tyler looked around, but there was no sign of anyone. He could see the castle, however, and he wanted to have a few words with King Candy. Lightning stepped up beside him, also staring at the castle.
"Let's go," Lightning said. "We're going to talk to King Candy again."
"You read my mind," Tyler nodded.
They turned, walking away from the ship and finding a path that lead to the castle. Tyler knocked on the door and the same sour candy opened it. He sighed, turning and walking away from the door. Tyler and the others followed, stopping in front of King Candy, who looked exasperated, despite his smile.
"I thought you all went to Hero's Duty," the king said.
"We did," Tyler said. "And then to Street Fighter. Come to find out, they said that Sarah and Alice had come back here about a day before we showed up."
"They did?" the king asked. "I swear I don't know anything about that."
"I see," Tyler nodded, not believing him for a second.
"If you'll excuse me, I have a giant and a glitch to catch," the king said.
He pulled the lever and his throne once again transformed into a car, speeding out of the castle again. Tyler looked to Lightning, who nodded to show she knew he was lying as well, then turned, walking out of the castle with the others. As soon as they were outside, Tyler looked around, seeing a massive coke-bottle-shaped mountain in the distance.
"We can probably get a good view of this place from up there," Tyler said, nodding in the direction of the volcano.
"Probably," Lightning said. "We'll be able to see any decent hiding places, on the off chance that King Candy's telling the truth."
They headed in that direction, walking silently. Once they reached the base of the volcano, Tyler looked around for any way up it, seeing none.
"I guess we're climbing," Tyler said.
Just as he reached out to the volcano, the whining roar of race cars reached their ears and they scattered into the gumdrop forest they were in, hiding. From off to one side, the guy from the ship came barreling out of the gumdrops, pushing the cart with his hands since it wasn't running. In the driver's seat sat a young girl with candy stuck in her hair, a blue sweatshirt, white pants, and a hand pointing at the base of the volcano where two lollipops were crossing like a doorway. A moment later, the cart hit the mountain, then passed through it, the mountain distorting and turning green between the lollipops for a moment before returning to normal, King Candy and a few donut cops skidding to a stop. King Candy looked livid.
"Find them!" King Candy shouted, not even remotely kind now. "Destroy that cart! That glitch cannot be allowed to race!"
Then, he sped off, the cops following him. Tyler walked out of cover once they were gone, staring at the mountain. He walked over to it, reaching out tentatively, but his hand passed through the wall without him even feeling it being there. He looked to the others who both nodded. Then, he summoned his keyblade and stepped through the wall, the other two following him. On the other side, they were in a dark tunnel, light coming from up ahead. They walked along the path in silence, hearing voices up ahead.
"Welcome to my home!" a young female voice was saying.
Tyler stopped as they reached the cart, the voices and light coming from just around the corner. They stopped as they reached the corner, standing just in the shadows but taking in the scene. They were at what looked like an unfinished track, pieces of road stuck to the inside of the volcano on all sides. The bottom of the volcano was boiling Diet Coke, and the ceiling of the cavern above them had a massive formation of Mentos stalactites.
"Well that's an eruption waiting to happen," Tyler whispered, looking to the guy they had followed and the little girl.
"Everyone here says I'm just a mistake and that I wasn't supposed to exist, what do you expect?" the girl was saying now, lying on a a bed of garbage.
"Listen, kid, I know it's none of my business, but why do you even stick around this game?" the big guy asked.
"You really don't know anything do you?" the girl asked. "Glitches can't leave their games. It's one of the joys of being me."
Tyler leaned his back against the wall. Clearly Sarah and Alice weren't here, but now that he had heard about the girl's problems, he wanted to help. He could see that Lightning did too, she just didn't want to show it.
"What do we do?" Lightning whispered. "Help her? Or keep looking for Sarah and Alice?"
"What happens to her is none of our business," Tyler said. "But I can't just leave having heard all that. I'm too soft for that."
Lightning nodded. The three of them walked out of the tunnel and the girl gasped, the big guy stepping between her and them.
"We're not here to hurt anyone," Sazh said. "We're here to help."
"How?" the guy asked.
"However you need," Tyler said. "My name's Tyler. This is Lightning and Sazh."
"I'm Vanellope von Schweetz!" the girl said, stepping around the bigger guy.
"I'm Wreck-It Ralph," the bigger guy said.
"Nice to meet you both," Tyler nodded. "Now, what do you guys need?"
"Well," Ralph said. "She doesn't know how to drive a car."
"I can teach her," Sazh said. "We'll need someplace for her to drive though."
Ralph turned, beginning to punch the ground, arms moving in a blur and shattering the ground as he ran around the edge of the Diet Coke, forming a mostly round track. Sazh nodded approvingly as Ralph carried the cart to the track, setting it down.
"Okay," Tyler said. "What else?"
"I can't really think of much else," Ralph shrugged.
"I can," Lightning said. "I want to go take a look inside of that castle again. This time without being escorted."
"Deal," Tyler nodded. "Sazh, we leave them to you. We'll be breaking into the castle if you need us."
"Wait, you're doing what?" Sazh asked, Tyler simply raising a hand in farewell as he and Lightning walked away. "Oh this is going to end so badly."
Tyler looked up at the window over twenty feet off the ground. No way was he going to be able to climb that. Never. The wall was smooth.
"How are we getting up there?" Tyler asked.
"Like this," Lightning said, sweeping him off of his feet into a bridal carry and jumping, easily clearing the height and slipping into the window with him, setting him on his feet.
"That works," Tyler said. "Isn't the guy supposed to sweep the girl off of her feet, though?"
Lightning rolled her eyes. "Come on. We need to find the dungeon."
Tyler looked around. They were in a bedroom with a massive bed, a half dozen wardrobes, and a pair of shackles attached to the wall opposite the bed, as well as shackles attached to each of the four bed posts.
"You sure we're not there already?" Tyler asked, indicating the shackles.
Lightning covered her mouth as she snorted before shaking her head. "I don't even want to know. Come on."
She cautiously opened the door and peeked out, leaving the room with Tyler following her. As they walked, Tyler took in the massive structure. Everything was pink. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, the candy chandeliers. Everything. Somehow, that didn't seem to fit with King Candy's personality. Especially given what they saw outside the volcano. Finally, they stopped as they reached a balcony overlooking the courtroom. They both crouched down, peering through the gaps in the railing's supports. Below them, King Candy was pacing in front of his throne. Two of the cops walked in, reporting that they couldn't find Vanellope and he sent them away. Then, he walked through a curtain behind his throne. Tyler pushed himself up a bit, staring.
"What's back there?" Tyler asked.
"I don't know," Lightning said.
"Help me down," Tyler said.
Lightning picked him up, dropping to the ground floor and set him down, Tyler silently jogging to the curtain and peeking through. A white door sat behind it, and Lightning slipped her gunblade between the door and the wall, levering it open an inch, allowing Tyler to peek through. Behind the door, several power cords, each as big around as Tyler's arm, ran along the short hallway's walls and ceiling, blue electricity running through them every few seconds. On the other end of the hallway, there was a massive round blast door with a gigantic Atari controller set into the bottom half. As Tyler watched, the King pulled out a napkin with something written on it, then reached up to the door.
"Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start," King Candy said, pressing the Atari's buttons as he read it.
A series of short beeps sounded from the door and it sank into the wall a couple inches before turning a quarter turn clockwise and splitting in half, opening. The king tied a lickerish rope around his waist, which the sour candy assistant of his held.
"The code is the sweet life blood of the game," the king muttered to himself before jumping into the void ahead of him where hundreds, if not thousands of boxes floated, wires attached at the top and bottom of each, electricity running through them. King Candy floated through the clearly gravity free room to the boxes, looking around before poking one twice, a ring of smaller boxes, each barely the size of a standard six-sided die, appearing out of it. He scrolled through the boxes for a moment before grabbing one, the cords detaching themselves from it and fading. The other boxes faded and he swam through the room to a larger one that, if Tyler was reading it correctly, ready King Candy. He tapped that one twice and a huge cloud of the tiny boxes appeared between him and that box. He held the one he had grabbed earlier out and let go, cords attaching themselves to it before a blue cloth of some kind appeared around the back of the king's neck. Tyler leaned away from the door, Lightning letting it close silently but quickly, then picked Tyler up, jumping them back to the balcony they had been on before, Tyler quickly scanning the area around the balcony to make sure they were safe before both knelt back down and watched the curtain.
"What did you see?" Lightning asked.
"A cheater," Tyler said. "I'll show you once he leaves."
"He's leaving?" Lightning asked.
"I'm pretty sure, yeah," Tyler said.
After a moment, the king returned, getting in his car and taking off. The sour candy remained standing beside where the throne was supposed to be. Tyler glanced at Lightning but before either could do anything, there was a knock at the door. The candy left to check and Lightning jumped them both to the curtain, setting him on his feet. They both ducked behind the curtain, Lightning forcing the door open enough for them to slip through, then stopped, staring at the door.
"What is this?" Lightning asked.
"I think it's the game's coding," Tyler said, walking over to the controller. "What was it?"
He reached out, pressing the buttons from memory, the door beeping and opening as he finished. He sighed, staring at the inside of the room. He picked up the lickerish, tying himself off and Lightning picked up the other end. He stepped out, drifting a little before stopping, looking around. Off to the left, there was a purple box that was floating there, sparking out of the top and bottom every few seconds. He tried swimming, gradually drifting over to it before stopping and grabbing it, looking at the spot int he center of the top where cords were supposed to go. There were pieces of cord there, but they looked like they had been broken, or ripped out. He looked at the face of the box. Vanellope von Schweetz. he looked to the cloud of them and swam back to the door before landing and turning back to the cloud again.
"Vanellope has a...I dunno, code box, let's call it, but it looks like someone, ripped the cords that were supposed to be connected to it out," Tyler said.
"That's...really weird," Lightning said. "Any guesses who?"
"King Candy," both said after a moment.
"Let's find the dungeon," Tyler said. "Something's not quite adding up. And we still need to see if Alice and Sarah are here."
Lightning nodded and Tyler untied himself, tossing the rope aside before walking to the door, the door sliding open this time. He carefully peeked out of the curtain and saw that the coast was still clear. He and Lightning sneaked out from behind it, taking a door to the right of where the throne would be and found themselves at the top of a staircase. They quickly ran down the stairs until they reached a door that looked like it was supposed to be metal but was made out of candy. Tyler summoned his keyblade and slashed it in half, kicking the half that wasn't attached to the hinges out of the way. In front of him, a normal-looking man in a light blue tee-shirt, a blue baseball cap, yellow carpenter gloves, a carpenter belt with a golden hammer, blue jeans, and work boots was standing beside a window. The only thing strange about him beside his bulbous nose was that he stood about two and a half to three feet tall.
"How is there a window if we went down?" Tyler asked.
"Must be in the side of the cliff?" Lightning more asked than said.
"Who are you?" the man asked.
"I'm Tyler, this is Lightning," Tyler said. "Is this the only cell?"
"I think so," the man said. "I'm Fix-It Felix Jr. from the game Fix-It Felix Jr. Are you here to rescue me? Also, have you seen a big angry guy with a red shirt and overalls that smells really bad?"
"What, Ralph?" Tyler asked. "Yeah we saw him. I take it he's from your game."
Felix nodded. "He went Turbo."
"Where does that term come from?" Tyler asked as Lightning began to search the room for any sign that Sarah had been there.
"Well, a long time ago, the most popular game in the arcade-"
"Short version," Tyler interrupted.
"Oh, uh, okay," Felix said. "There was a game called Turbotime, and the main character, Turbo, got jealous of another racing game that became more popular than his. So he left his game, tried to steal the spotlight in that game, caused a glitch when he crashed the player's car, and both games got shut down."
"Did he die?" Tyler asked.
"No one knows," Felix shrugged. "No one ever saw him again so everyone says he just disappeared. But now anyone who game-hops into another game to try to steal the spotlight is doing what everyone calls going Turbo."
"I see," Tyler nodded just as Lightning shouted for him. He ran over, looking at her hand where she was holding a necklace.
It had a pendant that was a planet with a chunk missing and a small drill-like point dangling below it.
"What's that?" Tyler asked.
"Sarah's," Lightning said. "She was here."
"How long have you been in here?" Tyler asked Felix.
"Only a couple of hours," Felix said. "It was empty when I got here."
Just then, the wall exploded inward on one side, and Ralph stepped through with a trash can filled with pieces of Vanellope's cart.
"What the hell happened to that?" Tyler asked.
"I did," Ralph said. "Felix, I need you to fix this cart."
"Ralph!" Felix said. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Okay that's it," Tyler said. "Ralph is the bad guy in your game, right?"
"Well...yes," Felix said. "But I don't-"
"Where do you live Ralph?" Tyler asked.
"The dump," Ralph said.
"What do you eat?" Tyler asked.
"Bricks," Ralph said.
"What do you sleep on?" Tyler asked.
"Bricks," Ralph said.
"How many friends did you have prior to going Turbo?" Tyler asked.
"None," Ralph said.
"That's not true!" Felix argued. "I was your friend!"
"Your entire job involved throwing me off of a building," Ralph said. "After that, you'd get medals, and pie, and all of the Nicelanders would congratulate you, and I'd go back to my dump, covered in mud, and watch you be the hero. The one time in the last ten ten years I tried to talk to you was on the thirtieth anniversary of the game and you spent most of the conversation trying to get me to go away and not ruin your party, which, for the record, I'm sorry about, and then when I asked if I could stay, you spent the rest of the conversation telling the Nicelanders not to be afraid of me!"
Felix opened his mouth to speak but found he had nothing to say.
"Nothing?" Tyler asked. "Done? Excellent. Ralph, what happened to the cart?"
"King Candy said that if Vanellope won and the gamers saw her glitching the game would be shut down, but she's a glitch, so she can't leave," Ralph said.
"So you smashed the cart to protect her," Tyler summarized. "Except, that I'm sure she didn't understand why you were doing it so she's probably mad at you and devastated that her friend would betray her, Sazh is likely with her trying to cheer her up, and since you're trying to get the cart fixed, I'm sure you have figured out that she's actually not a glitch."
"Wait, you already knew?" Ralph asked.
"We just found out a little while ago," Lightning said. "Know a way to fix it?"
"If she finishes a race, win or lose, the game will reset and everyone's trapped memories of who she is will be freed, plus she won't be a glitch anymore," Ralph said. "King Candy, on the other hand, isn't a real racer, and everyone will remember who he is too."
"He's Turbo," Lightning said. "No one's seen him because he was hiding, waiting for another racing game. Once he found this one, he found the code, set up a door only he knew how to open, then tried to erase Vanellope's code to replace her as King Candy."
"That...actually makes sense," Felix said. "Oh my god! We have to help her win!"
"Fix the cart and Ralph will handle it," Tyler said. "Speaking of Ralph handling things, Ralph, you had a cy-bug with you when you got here. Did you kill it?"
"Well, it sank into a candy lake, so yeah," Ralph said. "It's dead."
"No it's not," Tyler said.
"Oh my god!" Felix said. "Sergeant Calhoun is still out there looking for it!"
"We'll help her," Tyler said. "Felix, go with Ralph."
He nodded and smacked a piece of the cart with his hammer, the pieces all flashing and turning back into the cart. Just as he did, Sazh stepped through the hole he had made.
"Hey," Sazh said. "So...uh...Vanellope got arrested while I was making a bathroom break."
"How long ago?" Tyler asked.
"About twenty minutes," Sazh said.
"She'll be here, then," Tyler said, walking out the hole they had made into a long hallway.
On one end, there was an arrow with the word "FUNGEON" written inside of it. They all jogged around the corner, finding themselves at a locked door. Tyler summoned the keyblade, tapping the keyhole and the lock clicked open. Tyler pushed the door open and Vanellope smiled widely as she saw him, then glared at Ralph.
"I know, I know, I know, I'm an idiot," Ralph said.
"And?" Vanellope asked.
"And a real numbskull," Ralph said.
"And?" Vanellope repeated.
"A selfish diaper baby," Ralph sighed.
"And?" Vanellope urged.
"A stinkbrain?" Ralph said.
"The stinkiest brain ever," Vanellope said.
Tyler walked over to the massive steel ring around her waist with chains attached to the wall around the room. He tapped it with his keyblade and it clicked before popping open in the front and Vanellope cheered, leaping into the cart. Ralph and Felix jumped on, the cart taking off and smashing through the wall, dropping to a road way below, landing unharmed, miraculously. Tyler and the others walked to the edge and looked down.
"Yup," Tyler nodded. "I'm not going."
Lightning laughed, picking him up and leaping out of the hole, Sazh following.
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