WorldWide Wreck-It

Arcade Accolades

Ralph smiled as he watched the jumbotron from Vanellope's raised personal seating, seeing Vanellope zip by Snowanna as they made it to the halfway mark of the Random Roster Race's sprawling track. Despite what many would like to think, the candy president never actually used her glitch during the Random Roster Races. She wanted to play fair with her fellow racers after hours, mainly because, as she told the wrecker, she didn't want to be Turbo 2.0.

The thought made the wrecker frown lightly, as he remembered catching Vanellope one night having ditched her game and hiding out in his stump in the junkyard. She said she had a bad glitching fit between play sessions that one morning, with flashes of a mangled and nightmarish Turbo flashing in her vision. She was left shaken, and didn't think any more racing was a good idea for that day.

Ralph's frown deepened as the memory of that night played out, but as the crowd let out a loud and excited cheer, he was snapped out of his thoughts and looked back up at the jumbotron with his full attention. Swizzle was leading the race a good distance ahead, with Gloyd and Jubileena fighting for second place. Vanellope was around seventh place, which honestly was pretty average for her if she failed to get an early lead.

Because she never wanted to glitch, she was usually battered around a lot as she lacked the reaction time to avoid most of the items. The wrecker smiled as he blamed that on the Mario Kart tournaments that were held in the Rec Room, because there Vanellope was very much unable to deal with a spam of items set to throw her into last place. It was comical, watching the usually confident racer sputter and become flustered.

But when she was here in Sugar Rush, she kept a level head even when losing. It was pretty admirable, and Ralph made sure to praise her on her maturity. She always said she's just waiting for the right moment to strike, but the wrecker knew that being around other more calmer people helped her mellow out.

The wrecker smiled as the racers left the ice cream mountains and raced their way through the final stretch of the race. It was a straighter run, but even still Ralph felt a twinge of guilt inside of him. He still remembers the geysers of Cy-Bugs exploding out off the ground from either side of the track.

Moments after Turbo was revealed to the world.

The memory still haunted Ralph, as he remembered seeing down dark Sugar Rush became, and how the swarms of Cy-Bugs flying about in the sky.

As the racers blasted over the finish line, Vanellope just barely missing ninth place, the wrecker was slowly brought out of his flashbacks and memories thanks to the roaring cheer of the crowd. He blinked, shook his head, and looked down at all the racers, who were all hopping out of their karts to congratulate each other.

Ralph smiled and turned around, heading down the staircase so he could be amongst the action and hopefully distract himself from all these messy thoughts. Leaving through the bottom of the tower and greeting donut cops Wynchel and Duncan before standing before the gaggle of excitable racers.

"Oh. Em. Ge!" Candlehead squealed. "That was probably the most fun I've had since the last race!"

Gloyd gave her a weird look. "You mean... yesterday?"

The dizt blinked vacantly, then looked at him with a wide-eyed look. "Oh yeah..."

Taffyta rolled her eyes, then smirked at Vanellope. "What about you, Prez? You kinda fell behind a bit at the end there."

Vanellope smirked back with a shrug. "Just playing even, Taff, that's all. If I wanted to, I'd just glitch my way to first place. But where's the fun in that?"

Rancis nodded as Snowanna pointed at her with a happy look. "Yes, exactly! I was talking about this with Sticky earlier, but where's the fun if you always come in first? So I'm so glad you think so too!"