gonna_shoot_it | 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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[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?

They don't have a clue! Most of 'em act like customers or never even heard of games!

It must be in their code... I don't know how they could miss it otherwise.

I know! It's all so weird. I see people I recognize from games all the time but none of 'em recognize me! They must all have some really weird programming.

It could be some kind of cheating device rewriting part of their codes, I guess. Hard to tell. [Small frown.] Well, we'll find out sooner or later.

Yeah, you got plenty of time to figure it out. [But he has some actual faith in this. After all, Calhoun's a smart cookie. He thinks she'll be more likely make sense of this weirdness, while Ralph is content to just shrug and live with it.]

In the meantime, you thinking of finding somewhere to stay around here? You can pick a place without any minigames or anything. That way you can, uh... [He furrows his brow in confusion.] Do you sleep?

[She would probably give him a weirder look if she didn't know that, hey, some games don't sleep. Thank the coders that Hero's Duty actually has some kind of respite.]

Yeah, I do. Just any old place, though? They're open for the taking?

[Also she just looked... intense enough to possibly always be awake.]

Yeah, as long as there's no one already living there. But I think there's plenty of empty space around. [He squints his eyes in thought.] Think there's an apartment or two on my floor that doesn't have anyone.

[This is an appraising look, Ralph.]

Good. That floor could probably use someone to keep an eye on you.

[For all the harshness of her words, her tone is actually fairly light. She highly doubts he has any ability to loose Cy-bugs in this place, although she does believe he has an overwhelming ability to cause trouble without meaning to.]

[And he responds back in a light tone.]

Sheesh, it's not like I'm gonna wreck anything.

[But it would be nice to have her around if he needs an extra hand with Vanellope.]

[Eyeroll. But she does give a small smile.]

Of course. It's only part of your name, right?

[He gives a sheepish grin back.]

Yeah, but - you know what I mean! I'm not always gonna wreck it.

Edited 2013-02-11 08:09 (UTC)

1st Quarter Alert [Action/Video]

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