"The internet," Ralph said in awe, having just got off the tram from his arcade. He glanced around and checked the time before sitting on a nearby bench.

Ralph yawned while scratching the underside of his armpits. He glanced around nervously, hoping no one had taken notice, but several strange looking internet based fellows certainly had, glancing at him with shameful stares. "What are you looking at?" he asked irritably and they hurried away. He sighed and shook his head.

"C'mon, girl, where are you?" he muttered to himself. The wrecker moaned and dug out his little Vanellope Communicator Phone, something that he called it, not that it was its actual name. He considered calling her but thought better of it. "She's not late yet, relax… just take a seat and- wait, is that her?"

Ralph blinked, looking through the ridiculously sized crowd of internet users, advertisers, and various game characters while blinking in astonishment. There, skipping- not just casually skipping but full on smiling and giggling was his Vanellope. The raven-haired candy munching girl.

"...What is she wearing?" he wondered out loud. The big wrecker slowly followed her as she hadn't seemed to notice him yet. Examining her new outfit, something seemed strange about it. It was incredibly similar to her trademark mint green jacket with the candy licorice string pulls, only it wasn't mint green, for that matter, it wasn't even colored. The whole getup had a gray hue to it all, but perhaps more importantly, it seemed tattered and covered in rips, tares and even dirt. What made things even more striking was the candy red colored licorice was most certainly not brightly hued, but a deep black.

Shaking his head in confusion, Ralph sped up his pacing and eventually was able to catch up to her. "Hey, kid! Where ya going?"

"Hmm?" the girl murmured, glancing up at Ralph in a quizzical manner.

Wreck-It Ralph sighed and smiled. Gosh, haven't heard her speak in person in ages. We need to do these meets more often, he thought with a warm smile. Just hearing her voice first hand was far better than their communicator.

"C'mon kid, I got a whole day planned out for us!" he exclaimed while waving his hand toward the internet search bar. The girl smiled and nodded, giving the wrecker a strange dreamy look as she wavered unbalanced from side to side.

"K- kay…" she muttered in a dazed state.

Ralph tilted his head quizzically down at her. "You uh, feeling alright, kid? You look kind of… I dunno, different?" he said, unsure of his own statement.

Vanellope broke down giggling, she outright laughed for a full on minute. It went on for so long that Ralph joined in rather awkwardly, still not really sure what she found so funny.

"I feel great!" she exclaimed, though yelled was more like it. She let loose another fit of giggles and it was then that Ralph noticed something else.

"Uh, what happened to your hair? I don't think I've seen it this bare before, kid. You take a shower or…?" he trailed off when he suddenly realized that she was barely paying attention. Her hair, which always consisted of brightly colored candy decorations were all but gone, though a few pieces of mini jawbreakers that were half eaten did remain. If that wasn't enough, her signature candy licorice braid was completely missing, leaving her hair pulled down and looking rather ragged.

"Sh- shower?" she asked, her voice sounding slurred. "Ohhh, I haven't had one in forevers! You got one?!"

Ralph was completely taken aback by this. What the heck is wrong with her?! "Uh, I got one at home, but kid, I'm supposed to be the stink breath, not you…" he muttered while scratching his head nervously.

Again, the same fit of giggles only this time she did something Ralph had never watched her do in the entire time he knew her, she drooled. He shook his head in astonishment as his best friend drooled over her dirty and ragged clothes while still laughing up a storm. "Stinky breath… heh, stink."

Ralph pinched the bridge of his nose and moaned. "Vanellope, what's gotten into you?! Why are you… why are…" he trailed off as he watched the giggling brat glitch out of control a few times.

He blinked, and blinked again and even went so far as to blink a third time. Her glitch, the glitch he had grown so accustomed to seeing was always blue. It always, always, always had a nice blue hue to it. What he saw was not the pixelated mess of blue three-dimensional pixels that covered her face. No. He clearly saw a mess of hot red colored particle effects, electricity if he wasn't mistaken, appear around her eyes, face and even hands. They had gone skin deep, and from the looks of her reaction, it must have hurt her immensely as she was wincing in pain.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow! Dammit, I hate that!" she screamed which made him gasp.

"Hey! Watch that language, kid! What's wrong with you today?! Why are you so… why are you such a mess?"

"I…" she tried to explain but suddenly hiccuped and her entire body was wracked with an insanely powerful looking red glitch. She started panting and wheezing while clutching her head for dear life. "Stupid glitches!" she screamed again and as if on schedule another glitch wracked her body and another.

"Hey hey, kid! Relax will ya… people are starting to stare," he noted, glancing around at the other users. As he said this, Vanellope was on the verge of tears, nursing her head while rubbing it in tiny circles.

After nursing her head for a minute, she blinked and glanced up at the giant video game character, blinking in astonishment. Her eyes widened in surprise as she looked up at Ralph as if she only just now noticed his existence. She wiped away the excess drool from her dress and shook her head in confusion.

"Who the hell are you?!" she asked, her voice raising just a few notches higher than he would have liked.

"What? What the heck are you talking about, kid? It's me… Ralph, y- your best friend?"

Ralph took a few hesitant steps forward, while Vanellope started backing up in fear. She glitched again, though this time it remained exclusively around her mouth.

"J- juust please l- leave, Ra-lph. I… I have to leave." she said, her voice wracked with fear as she stuttered her way through a glitched filled sentence.

Ralph had never seen his friend, his favorite little kid in the whole universe act in such a manner. He felt scared beyond belief as he tried to reach out, but something from behind stopped him.

"Hey, Ralphie boy! You ready to roll?"

"Huh?" Ralph whipped around and, there she, Vanellope von Schweetz, his sweet little girl and best friend. Standing there with a gleaming smile, her clothes mint green, in a very pristine state and her hair dolled up with candy decorations. Just like he remembered her.

"Ralph? Earth to Ralph?!" she said while waving her freakishly tiny hands in his face.

Immediately Ralph whipped around and spotted the false Vanellope running off into the distance.

"Hey, who are you…" the little one trailed off upon noticing a literal clone of herself running away from them. "Ralph… who the hay is she?!"

Finally, Ralph snapped out of his daze and made a choice. He grabbed Vanellope and lugged her onto his shoulder before running off toward the clone.

"Hey, watch it, you big lug! What's going on? Why are we chasing her?!"

Still running at full speed, Ralph merely shook his head. "There's no time to explain, kid, but we gotta catch up to her! Now!"

Vanellope wanted to protest more, but deep down she trusted him and she nodded quietly. Ralph was no stranger to weaving through crowds, though he took care as to not actually hurt anyone in his way, even if he easily could, given his immense virtual size.

"Ralph, that way! She went down there!" his impish friend yelled while pointing down a random alleyway. They both spotted a red glowing hue coming from the same direction and he turned into it. "Ralph, what's wrong with her? I- is she a virus?"

"I don't know, kid," he said while running and turning down random alleyways. Each turn made their surroundings darker and darker, but it was easy to spot her in the distance with how often their target glitched. "Look she just showed up and I thought she was you an- and something was wrong with you," he explained.

"How could you think that was me, stink brain?"

"Uh, maybe the fact that she looks exactly like you, fart feathers!"

They turned another corner as the girl sped up, glitching left and right. "Please! Why would I ever dress like that? And was she drooling?"

Ralph stopped in his tracks, looking around for the clone Vanellope. "Uh, yeah, yeah she was drooling."

The alleyway they found themselves in was quite a dealer darker than they were used to. Sleazy looking users who twitched and glitched around the place would occasionally walk by, along with some coded characters that did not look friendly in the slightest. The duo looked up, trying to make heads or tails of the place, but they were surrounded by brick buildings and random assortments of websites which had been shut down long ago.

"R-Ralph, let's get out of here, okay?" Vanellope said, her breath sounding shaky. "I- I don't like this place."

Ralph sighed and nodded. "Yeah, yeah okay, kid. I guess we lost her…"

Ralph wasn't stupid, die outside your game and that's it: Game Over. The internet, while mostly safe, did not count as either of their games in the slightest. The least safe place you could find on the web would be the Dark Web; a place where illegal activities took place, both from its users and from other code characters like themselves.

"I'm sorry, kid. I just wanted to do the right thing," Ralph said while glancing up at her.

She gave a hesitant smile and nodded. "I know, stink brain," she said with a quiet giggle. "But not here, I don't think I could ever live with myself if you… if you died," she muttered.

C'mon, Ralph. You gotta be brave, for her. He smirked, smirked even. "Kid, I'm not going anywhere, got it? And it would take a lot more than some criminals in the stupid Dark Web to take this wrecker down. Now let's go- youch!" He screamed as he stepped on something hard and sharp.

He jumped in the air while nursing his foot, hopping on it and yelping over and over. Vanellope held on for dear life. "Stupid can!" he screamed.

"Can?" Vanellope jumped down from him and examined the offending object. It was a strange looking canister that was mostly empty, what tiny amount of liquid remained glowed a deep dark red color. She thought back to the strange clone of her and realized that not only did she have the same canister stored in her jacket pocket, but a glint of blood colored stains had littered her clothing. "I think this came from her, Ralph," she said rather seriously. She held it up to him while Ralph examined the thing.

Sighing, he pocketed the strange object and picked her up. "C'mon, stinky breath. Let's get out of here, pronto."

Anyone wishing to discuss WiR fics, story ideas or just to chat about writing, I have created a new Discord channel which can be found here: discordDOTgg/fkE5SnT (just replace the DOT with a .)