gonna_shoot_it | 1st Quarter Alert [Action/Video]

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1st Quarter Alert [Action/Video]

[When Calhoun awakes, she finds herself facedown on a table in what must be Tapper's. The wood is slightly sticky under her cheek and smells of root beer, although when she moves a hand around stiffly, there's no mug anywhere to go with it. Which is strange.

What's also strange is that she's in Tapper's when she's supposed to be leaving Sugar Rush. That was the last thing that happened, right? Wreck-It had finally gotten his butt moving and they were going back to where they belonged before...

Stiffly, Calhoun sits up and looks around. And her eyes narrow. This isn't Tapper's. Wherever this is, it isn't the familiar watering hole filled with other arcade citizens. There isn't a single familiar face anywhere. And her gun is nowhere to be found.

For that matter, her armor isn't anywhere to be found. This is a plain white dress. What in the seven levels is this dress.

Calhoun is not amused. With a low growl, she gets to her feet - hits her head on the low-hanging light over the table - and takes another glaring look around the bar. Definitely not in Sugar Rush anymore. This isn't saccharine pink enough. There is, however, a thick journal with her name on it. She knows better than to leave a key item like that behind. After flipping through it quickly and deciding it's infinitely TL;DR, she takes the impatient route and just pokes at the transmission options a few times before she finds the video function.]

Anybody care to share what the flying fairydust is going on around here? Short version. I don't have the time to go through this whole cheat guide here.

[Aaand end transmission.

Alright. Now. First things first. She has to find her scanner, then her gun, then her armor. Then she can figure out what happened.

And somebody is going to get smacked for this.

Calhoun can be spotted slowly making her way through the main part of the village, looking almost like a lioness on the hunt at first as she tries to sniff out any kind of threat. Once she's made her stops into all the stores and found what she's looking for, she'll be a little more at ease, but no less irritated-looking. She's still got this place to scope out and figure out.]

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[Some part of her is genuinely relieved to see Ralph walking along here. Really. This place has been nothing but strange from the get-go and his is a familiar face. Or back. Whatever, he's not exactly a shape you see too often from anyone but Ralph.

That said, the rest of her is just irritated that he's strolling along like nothing is wrong. She considers catching up to him, but she opts instead to fold her arms and scowl at him.]

I'd say hello, Wreck-It, but I'd hate to interrupt this important scratching business of yours.

[The voice instantly makes him flinch. And a part of him feels wistful. After all this time... he's kind of come to miss it.

He stops mid-scratch and slowly turns to face her.]

Sarge? Is that... you?

[In spite of any better judgment, amusement flickers into her eyes at that. But that's it. No smile. Not yet, at least. Important business first.]

No, it's Princess Toadstool. [Eyeroll.] Of course it's me. Where's everyone else?

[Not wasting time, this one. If she's here, and he is too, that means Felix should be around somewhere. They'd all been together before this. Anyone else would just be icing on the cake.]

[Calhoun's a familiar face alright. A horrifying, commanding familiar face, but a familiar face all the same. He feels all the smaller in her presence as he panics to answer her question.]

Oh! Well... Uh! The kid's... [He pauses for a moment and counts on his fingers, as if this were a question that required math to solve.] somewhere. And... everyone? Oh, Felix! Is he with you?

[Some odd joy slips into Ralph's voice. He hasn't really realized how much he misses the little guy.]

[Ralph how does calculating where the kid is require ticking numbers off on your fingers? Calhoun raises one eyebrow slightly as he goes through that process, but shakes it off with a frown when he asks about Felix.]

I wouldn't be asking if he was, would I, genius? [No, there is nothing to worry about here. The guy is a hero and will be perfectly fine. Nothing to worry about.] You really haven't seen him around anywhere? You're not joking.

[Yeah, she knows he isn't joking. That oddly cheerful tone was a giveaway. But she has to ask all the same while she tries to get her thoughts in a straight line.]

N-no m'am. I'm guessing, if he didn't come with you... he's still back at the arcade. [He doesn't know why that sounds so disappointing to him.] I don't know if you noticed, but we're kinda in a whole different game, now.

[Her frown twitches a little lower at that. "Back at the arcade"?]

I noticed. But as far as I know, I've never seen a game quite like this one before. [How can they be away from the arcade and yet still in another game? She pins Ralph with a suspicious stare.] What game is this?

Kind of hard to explain, Sarge. I mean... this game is really different than any other we've been in before. I mean, really different. Like its magic or something. It's called Luceti and it's... kinda like one of those life simulator games? But we're also trapped here by scientists, and no one is self-aware. They all say they've been taken from their own worlds, and apparently there's war minigames? Plus we've got wings as our life meters.

A sim game with life meters? [Well, there are weirder games out there, right? She guesses that makes sense.] So they change color when you're low on health? Or blink?

I don't really know first-hand. But from what I hear, it's like these wings're all set to insane mode or something! Really easy to hurt them, and if you take em off? It's game over. The respawn process sounds like a real pain, too.

[He slips into a casual tone. It's refreshing to finally be able to talk with someone who knows what he's talking about.]

[Nightmare mode on a sim game. Oookay. She can handle nightmare mode. Calhoun absently shifts her weight from one foot to the other, mulling that over for a moment.]

Respawn shouldn't apply to us, though. Last I checked, Wreck-It, our games weren't like this one. We shouldn't be counting on our little birdie wings for that.

[But he knows that, and she knows he does, too. Death outside your game is THE Game Over. Why he's talking like there's a respawn in this place is beyond her.]

Right, right. I'm just saying what I read in the instructions guide. I've got no idea if it'll work with us... but there's people from all kinds of games here. If any of them went through the respawn, then... shouldn't it work for us, too?

[Not that he's in any rush to find out, mind you.]

Not something I want to play footsies with, thanks. Even if they can respawn, there's no way it'd work right. If everyone else wants to go flirting with broken code, they can go right ahead.

[Because really, that's practically running a cheat code, isn't it? Everyone knows running a hacked code will mess with how things are supposed to go.]

I'm with you! I mean... I'm the last person who'd want to try that out! Just thought you'd like to know. For, I don't know, strategy stuff, uh... Sarge.

[She gives Ralph a long, slow look of mixed exasperation and just a twinge of amusement.]

Yeah, I can see that. Don't strain yourself now.

[Okay, maybe the amusement is starting to win out a bit.]

I'm not, I'm not! But, uh, by the way, Sarge... What is the last thing you remember before being in this game?

[She gives him an odd look, silently measuring if he's joking or not. But he doesn't look like he is.]

We were just leaving Sugar Rush. Or we were supposed to be leaving, and you were taking a dog's age. Why?

[It's almost easy to believe that he's right - that she's talking about the evacuation from Sugar Rush, and that he did fail. But the way she describes it... makes it not so.]

The... The Cy-bugs. We... Did we beat them? How did that... How'd that go down exactly, again? [He tries to act casual, over-squinting his eyes as if just asking for a simple refresher of what he ate for lunch the other week.]

[Yeah, you're not fooling her, Ralph. She watches him carefully, waiting for some kind of signal that this is a joke.]

You turned Diet Cola Mountain into a beacon. They went straight into it. Remember?

Sarge. You're gonna think I'm glitching, but... Bear with me, here. Okay? Truth is? The last thing I remember is trying to do that.

[But does that mean... what Vanellope said is real? It really worked? He did believe her in a way, as unlikely as it sounded, even if it was mostly to help him accept her presence here.]

[Blank stare. She lets that process. He definitely isn't joking, although some part of her is sorely tempted to smack him upside the head and tell him to quit messing around. Instead, she folds her arms, frowning at him.]

So... a checkpoint or two back, then?

[Although why a different checkpoint would still apply when you left the game is beyond her.]

[Checkpoints. Why didn't the think of it that way before. He gives a sheepish nod.]

Right! Just a... fewww checkpoints behind you, ma'am. I guess. [He tries to grin.] It's like this game can't decide which save file to load!

[That. Actually concerns her a bit. Calhoun looks around them, eyes scanning the trees and buildings for any sign of a glitchy flicker. One small glitch like Vanellope is nothing to worry about. One giant glitch which is made up of the world is not something she's comfortable with.]

That could be. It doesn't corrupt save files, does it?

[Serious question. That could be a very, very bad thing. She's never seen it happen but there are horror stories, you know.]

N-no, I don't think so. At least I haven't seen anything that seems like it. And people here... They say anyone here gets sent back from this game at random. The checkpoint's supposed to be reset and everything, as if they were never in this game. If there's any kind of corruption, I haven't seen any signs yet. But the people here... Most of them don't really talk in game terms. [Another awkward point to address.]

[So it resets, even though there is some kind of a checkpoint here. Calhoun shakes her head. If she dwells on this too long, she's going to make her head hurt. The point is, Ralph hasn't noticed any kind of corruption, and he's been around long enough to know to keep an eye out.]

What do you mean? Like they don't realize this is a game, or what?

1st Quarter Alert [Action/Video]

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