wintercrazed | The Other Side of the Mirror

[For some reason, the immediate response he gets is well....nothing. Nothing but absolute silence. It's a bit strange and almost- deafening, considering how massive the castle itself is.

But finally, after a moment or two there's a voice that calls out to him- coming from the throne room.]

Ralph! Ralph, in here!

[Ralph's just about to leave and go check Diet Cola Mountain for his friend, when he hears Vanellope's voice echo through the castle.

It's weird that she waited so long, but maybe the thing she found had distracted her or something.

He walks down the hallway and enters the throne room, a big smile on his face.]

Hey, Vanellope. So what's this really great thing you couldn't wait to show me?

[All the way at the very end of the throne room is the child, who's sitting at the throne itself, kicking her legs over the side. At the same time she's curiously running her thumbs over...something she's holding in her hands, that's connected to a chain around her neck.

When Vanellope hears Ralph come into the room she smirks slightly, gesturing for him to come closer. Her voice is a bit quiet, as if she's too invested in the artifact to pay full attention to him.]

...Come see.

[Ralph's smile fades slightly, this is rather odd behavior for Vanellope, but it's no cause for alarm.

Whatever she found must be fascinating, in order to capture her attention like this.

He shrugs slightly to himself and makes his way down to the throne and stands in front of Vanellope. Ralph leans over to try and get a look at her trinket.]

Is it some kind of necklace?

[She doesn't answer right away, using her sleeve to shine the necklace. There's a large red ruby encrusted in its center- and it almost seems to be glowing somewhat. When he speaks though she jumps a little, looking up sharply.

Her appearance suddenly glitches a few times- only instead of the familiar blue glow, it's all red. Vanellope frowns for a split second before masking it with a bit of a grin, nodding.]

Yeah. ...Ain't it cool Ralph..?

[She lets go of it and lets it drop back down onto her chest before resting her hands on the arm-rests of the throne.]

[Ralph's smile diminishes when Vanellope jumps and completely vanishes once she glitches red.

The glitching's bad enough, she had that under control where she only glitched if she wanted to. So, for Vanellope to suddenly glitch like that is unusual. But, what makes things worse is the red added to her glitch. There's only one person Ralph's seen glitch red, and that was Turbo.

His tone is full of concern when he responds to her.]

Yeah, it's great and all, but are you feeling okay, kid?

[She falters, her smile wavering a bit. Then she glances up at him before hopping down from the throne, stepping around him quickly.]

Yeah! Yeah everythin's- ...F-f..ffii- ...IIiinee-

[She glitches again and reaches up to touch the necklace, before chuckling.]

What uh- ..took ya so long to get here, huh? Are your overalls fulla'....br.rrr- ...bricks or somethin'?

[Ralph frowns.]

You sure about that? I thought you got your glitch under control.

[Not to mention that she was reset to how she was supposed to be, so the involuntary glitching should be a thing of the past.

At her question, he shrugs lightly.]

Sorry about that, it took a little bit longer to get my mess cleaned up than usual.

Nah, M'fine! Fine I just- ...

[She shrugs quickly, shaking her head a little.]

I'm just excited, yaknow? Since I found this old thing and...all..

[Vanellope has been continually sidling towards the door as she talks, backing up with...a pretty fake looking grin on her face, even for her.]

[Ralph scratches the back of his head with a giant hand, a puzzled expression on his face.]

Funny, I never thought you'd be so excited about jewelry.

[He raises an eyebrow.]

Where are you headed off to?

Hey, it's uh- ...it's an old thing I found, why w-w-w-wouldn't I be excited?

...

[She freezes in the center of the throne room, glitching uncontrollably again. It's obvious she's not doing it on purpose now, and the act she's putting up is waning. He's not as stupid as she first realized.

Vanellope glances up at him before suddenly giving him a sinister grin, before turning and taking off for the doors, cupping her hands around her mouth as she goes.]

Guards!! Guards! Lock the throne-room up tight, quick!!

[Before Ralph can respond to Vanellope's answer, she grins at him nastily and then yells for the throne room to be locked up.

He's the only person in the throne room, so she's trying to capture him!

This wasn't like Vanellope at all and he runs after her, giving chase. She's faster than him, but he isn't going to give up that easily.

He's not too concerned about being contained in the throne room, he broke through the sugar cube walls once before without even trying, and he can easily do it again.

What Ralph is worried about is Vanellope, something weird was going on and he was going to figure out what.]

Vanellope! What are you doing?!

[Vanellope doesn't answer though and just keeps on running, glitching erratically as she makes her way to the end of the room. She manages to just barely make it past the doors before the Oreo guards shut them- but she knows Ralph will be able to get out without a problem.

But she's planning for that already- hoping he'll continue to chase her. So what if the Oreo guards get crushed in the process?

Not her problem.]

[Ralph stops up short right as the doors were slammed in his face.

He'd rather not get into too much trouble with the guards, so instead of smashing the doors, he punches the wall next to them. He's hoping that nobody's standing in the way.

Ralph looks out the hole he made, trying to avoid hurting anyone.]

[Vanellope skids to a stop, looking over her shoulder. The guards are safe- they managed to jump out of the way in time. So with a hiss she barks at Ralph down the hallway, glaring at him.]

Better keep up slow poke!!

[Before she turns and takes off down the hallway again.]

[Ralph glares at Vanellope as she challenges him and he rushes out of the hole, charging down the hallway after her.]

What's this, some kind of game of tag or something?!

[She chuckles deeply and keeps running, going down a hallway Ralph's probably never been down before. It's deeper into the castle than he's been too, but somehow it seems familiar...]

C'mon, you run like a grandma!

[Ralph's too concerned with following Vanellope to really pay attention to his surroundings, so he has no idea where he's at in the castle.

He's not wanting to move much faster, if he does, he'll have difficulty with the corners and probably end up smashing into more things than he already is.]

[Vanellope can feel the vibrations of his footsteps- so grinning she ducks down a final, narrow hallway.

..The dungeons. But why would she want to go there?

Quickly she hops down the stairs and into the first, biggest cell she sees- ironically the one that King Candy trapped her in before. ...Well, here goes nothing.

Skidding to a stop she turns, her back to the far wall before calling out, her voice echoing loudly in the confined room.]

C'mooon, I ain't g-g-g-gettin' any youU-UN-ger!

[Ralph finally realizes where he's at, he had spent enough time in the dungeons smashing walls until he found Felix's cell. Vanellope's hadn't been too hard to spot, but he had wanted to bring her kart to her fully-fixed.

Why would Vanellope lead him down here? It was likely a trap, but Ralph was confident in his own strength. He felt like that if she did capture him, he could easily free himself.

Vanellope's special cell is rather creepy, but even so, he enters the room, slowing down as he frantically searches out his best friend.]

What are you playing at, kid?

Edited 2013-02-07 04:09 (UTC)

[Panting, Vanellope backs up a bit, but the necklace she's wearing is glowing an ominous red- it's easily visible in the darkness of the cell now. She doesn't seem like she's upset she's been cornered in here, essentially- in fact, she's just grinning even wider now.]

Good job ham-hands, ya caught me. So now what are ya gonna do? Go- 'Ooh Vanellope, kid! What's gotten into ya??'

[Ralph narrows his eyes.]

No, I've got a fairly good idea of what's gotten into you. You only started acting weird after you got that necklace.

Edited 2013-02-07 04:18 (UTC)

Whaaat, this o-old thing?

[She rolls her eyes, flicking the corner of the necklace with a finger.]

This ain't got nothin' to do with ANYTHIN' stink-brain. An' here I was thinkin' you were usin' that brain of yours for once, if it even exists-

[Carefully she peers around him before taking a step back, keeping her eyes fixated on the exit for a moment.]

I just think ya keep forgettin'... that us racers aren't 'xactly as sweet as we appear to be. ...Don'tcha remember what everyone did to my kart?

[Of course, that was BEFORE they'd regained their memories..]

[Ralph frowns, something definitely wasn't right here, especially with the way Vanellope said "stink-brain". Usually it was a joking term of endearment, but now, it had become more like a biting insult.]

Well, yeah, of course I do. And don't you remember that I chased the bullies off?

Sure, you had your moments, like when you snagged my medal, but you never were as bad as the others.

...Maybe.

[She lets that single word response hang in the air for a moment or two as she glances over at the exit again. She can barely see it past Ralph's girth, but if she needed to make an escape she would easily be able to get past him- ...as...unpredictable as her glitch had become right now.

Suddenly she looks up at him, her gaze not teasing anymore- ...it's filled with malice and spite, and it almost looks like she's ready to jump and attack him at any moment. ...She glitches again, red pixels altering her structure before she goes back to normal, but she talks anyway, acting as if it never happened.]

Since I'm in charge 'round here...I was thinkin' I make a few changes. And all that's gonna start today.

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