Fanfic / Wreck-It Ralph 2

Spoilers for Wreck-It Ralph 2 will remain tagged. However, being an alternate sequel to Wreck-It Ralph, this page does contain unmarked spoilers for that film. You Have Been Warned!

An adventure so big, the arcade couldn't hold it.^note Artwork by the author, jbwarner86

Wreck-It Ralph 2 is a Wreck-It Ralph fanfiction written by jbwarner86. Set one year after the first film, a shady new employee at Litwak's Arcade sells Sugar Rush to a friend of his, and Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun set off on a rescue mission across the Internet to bring Vanellope and her friends back home safely. Along the way, Ralph discovers a strange new video game utopia, while Vanellope and the other racers stumble into their own game's sequel — complete with another Vanellope, this one still a princess... who has a few secrets of her own.

The fic was uploaded on March 8, 2019, and completed on September 13, 2019. It can be read here. Not to be confused with Ralph Breaks the Internet, the actual canon sequel to Wreck-It Ralph, though it does rework some elements from it.

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Wreck-It Ralph 2 provides examples of:

• Alternate Universe Fic: The story takes place in a continuity where Ralph Breaks the Internet doesn't happen. For example, it's only a year after the events of Wreck-It Ralph, but Litwak's Arcade already has a wifi router.
• An Aesop: Life doesn't last forever; but instead of fearing the end, make the best of the time you have.
• And This Is for...: Vanellope does this to her evil counterpart.
  Vanellope: THAT'S for tryin' to kill my family! THAT'S for tryin' to enslave my friends! THAT'S for lockin' me in that stinky bubble! And THAT'S for 'Heavens to bon-bons'!
• Arc Words: "Have the best day of your life."
• Armor-Piercing Response: When Minty Zaki argues against the risk of leaving Bernie's collection to go back to Litwak's Arcade, she says they were there for sixteen years and had a good run. Vanellope, who was a glitch and an outcast for nearly that entire time, retorts with one of these on the verge of tears.
  Vanellope: You had a good run.
• Ascended Extra: The Sugar Rush racers get much more to do than they did in Wreck-It Ralph, with each one of them exhibiting personality traits that the film only hinted at. Rancis Fluggerbutter even gets his own subplot involving his crush on Vanellope.
• As You Know: Playfully lampshaded by Vanellope as she explains the function of the Random Roster Race "just in case anybody hit their head and got amnesia today".
• Berserk Button: Don't ever call Princess Vanellope a loser.
• Bilingual Bonus: Tsukara Pokkistix speaks real Japanese, though none of the other racers can understand her. Translating her dialogue reveals that she was trying to warn the Sugar Rush racers about Princess Vanellope's true nature all along.
• Big "NO!": Rancis, as Princess Vanellope subjects Vanellope to the copy-and-paste machine.
• Body Horror: Quite a few unsettling things happen to the characters' digital bodies throughout. Some of which are shown via pieces of artwork done by the story's main writer.
  • When Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun go online, the wifi router splits their bodies apart into data signals in order to transmit them. For Ralph especially, it's a very bizarre ordeal.
  • Princess Vanellope's copy-and-paste machine literally rips strands of Vanellope's code out of her, and it's an extremely painful process, and the above mentioned artwork shows Vanellope in tears as this happens.
  • And the climax takes place inside Sugar Rush's power cord, while the game is unplugged but hooked up to backup battery power, so there's only enough static electricity in the plug to barely keep everyone alive. Everybody is constantly glitching and stuttering, and at one point, Ralph dangles so close to the real world that his legs almost disappear. To say nothing of what ultimately happens to Princess Vanellope...
• Book Ends: At the beginning, Calhoun gives Vanellope a framed selfie of the Core Four, which gets severely crumpled when Vanellope falls down Soft-Serve Summit. At the end, Calhoun gives Vanellope a selfie of the Core Four plus BD, put onto her dashboard next to her damaged photo.
• Brick Joke:
  • Near the beginning, as Ralph and the others observe the blocked-off empty outlet in Game Central Station, Vanellope wonders aloud what would happen if a video game character tried to go outside. She finally finds out — at the end of the climactic final fight with Princess Vanellope. And it's not pretty.
    Vanellope: ...Huh. So that's what would happen.
  • After the Sugar Rush characters realize they were unplugged, Taffyta says that Vanellope should be able to do something, to which Vanellope sarcastically asks what she should do, "wave a magic wand". Guess what ends up being Princess Vanellope's main way of causing problems for the cast later on ends up being.
  • At one point, BD tries to get a high five from Calhoun, but she leaves him hanging. After they both defend Vanellope's castle from Gleeza Chewtankhamun's army of gummy spiders, he puts it up again and she finally returns it.
  • When Kyle sells Sugar Rush to Bernie, he tries to weasel an extra $100 out of him. When Bernie returns the game to the arcade, Kyle tries to stiff him $100 on the refund.
• Call-Back: Several to Wreck-It Ralph:
  • All the chapter titles are quotes from the movie, taken either from dialogue, visual elements, or songs on the soundtrack.
  • Calhoun tells her troops to stuff the unconscious Colonel Lockload in the supply closet at Tapper's, and that Markowski should remember where it is.
  • One of the recreational activities in Extreme E-Z Livin' is dune buggy racing. Ralph wonders how similar it is to operating a Hero's Duty escape pod, and Calhoun remarks that she hopes the two are nothing alike, for his sake.
  • Upon falling down a trap door into the Fungeon in Sugar Rush II, Felix asks "How many times am I gonna fall for that?"
  • General Bill refuses to tell Ralph how Princess Vanellope's scepter works, insisting "I'll take it to my grave!" Ralph just licks his lips and says he's heard that line before.
• The Cameo: It wouldn't be Game Central Station without them. Many of the most iconic ones from Wreck-It Ralph return, including Bowser, Zangief, Q*Bert, Sonic, Pac-Man, and Clyde (the latter two getting minor Ascended Extra status), but a few more are mentioned in passing, such as Tails, Amy Rose, Princess Peach, Toad, Guile, and Cammy.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Rancis, every time he tries to tell Vanellope he likes her.
• Cardiovascular Love: Happens to Rancis at the end when Vanellope kisses him.
• Catch a Falling Star: When Rancis falls from the peak of a loop-de-loop in Sugar Rush II, Vanellope glitches skyward and catches him in midair before zapping both of them safely back onto the ground.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • When Princess Vanellope helps Vanellope rebuild her broken kart, they add a bunch of Sugar Rush II-exclusive extra features like a hang glider spoiler and inflatable pontoons. Both of them come in handy when Vanellope, Rancis, and Sour Bill break out of the princess' Fungeon and escape into the catacombs, allowing them to survive a mile-high fall from the track.
  • BD packs a ton of random things from his apartment when he leaves Extreme E-Z Livin', all of them seemingly set up for this purpose. Ironically, the only thing that ends up being useful is the bungee cord he ties his backpack shut with, which Felix and Calhoun use to rescue Vanellope in the climax.
• Chekhov's Skill: BD's experience with Extreme E-Z Livin' mini-games like volleyball, waverunning, and bungee jumping comes in very handy during the mission to rescue Vanellope.
• The Collector: Bernie Gunderson, who owns an entire room's worth of Sugar Rush merchandise, from video games to toys to T-shirts to sealed food items. He buys the Sugar Rush console from Litwak's Arcade to finally complete his collection.
• Comically Missing the Point: Candlehead does this a lot.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The volleyball game in Extreme E-Z Livin ' goes terribly for Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun. It's only through a stroke of dumb luck that Ralph manages to disqualify the entire opposing team and win by default.
  • Curb Stomp Cushion: Ralph manages to score one point in the game, and he thinks they can turn it around after all. Then the sand starts draining from the arena...
• Disney Villain Death:
  • In the climax, Princess Vanellope accidentally glitches out of the plug to Sugar Rush as it's dangling over the side of Bernie's truck, falling into the real world and getting erased due to the lack of electricity.
  • Averted for General Bill, the secondary villain. During the siege on Sugar Rush, he instead ends up getting Squashed Flat under a falling candy tree.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Colonel Lockload, full-stop. At least, until General Hologram shows up.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun mourn at Tapper after Sugar Rush gets unplugged and Vanellope is presumed dead. Ralph takes it especially hard.
• Easily Forgiven: Vanellope accepts the Sugar Rush II racers' apologies for what Princess Vanellope forced them to do, and invites them to be racers in Sugar Rush to boot.
• "Eureka!" Moment:
  • Calhoun has one when Ralph mentions he saw Bernie hook a "black box" up to Sugar Rush before unplugging it — and realizes that no one who puts an arcade game on battery power is planning to just throw it away.
  • Sealed inside Vanellope's bedroom by a barrier of hardened fondue chocolate, Ralph and Vanellope can only break through it with "the hardest, most unbreakable stuff known to game-kind"... and they both remember that Vanellope is currently encased in a bubble made of boundary. Cue the Battering Ram.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: As BD moves towards finding a purpose in his life, his hair goes from a long scraggly mess in Extreme E-Z Livin', to tied back in a ponytail when he follows the others to Sugar Rush II, to buzzed short by the end when he joins Calhoun's squad in Hero's Duty.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The entire fic takes place over a period of just three days, with most of the action occurring in the span of one night.
• Fictional Video Game: In addition to the returning ones, there's Extreme E-Z Livin', an online beach-themed MMO game ^note  It was originally created for the first movie, but was cut from the final story, and Sugar Rush II: Whirled Tour, the Arcade sequel to Sugar Rush.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Felix and Calhoun mention early on that video game characters can't survive without electricity and can't go into the real world. At the climax, Princess Vanellope dies by falling out of the plug to Sugar Rush and into the real world, deleting out of existence.
  • At dinner, Candlehead asks Watermillie about the arcade that Sugar Rush II came from; before she can answer, Princess Vanellope proposes a toast. Turns out that change of subject was deliberate...
  • During the battle in Sugar Rush, BD grabs Calhoun's discarded gun and wipes out an army of gummy spiders. At the end, he ends up shooting bugs for a living by becoming a soldier in Hero's Duty.
• A Friend in Need: When they learn that Vanellope and her friends are still alive out there somewhere, Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun all immediately leap into action to save them, trekking across the Internet and through a wild no-rules MMO game to do it.
• Genki Girl: Princess Vanellope is very hyper and cheerful, obsessed with making sure everyone has a good time. Up until she reveals her true colors, anyway...
• Ghost in the Machine: Turns out the Surge Protector isn't the only one. Every electronic device is depicted as having one of these, characterized as similarly stuffy bureaucrats, including the security monitor in Mr. Litwak's office and the wifi router. Same goes for the websites that Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun visit online — Knowsmore from Ralph Breaks the Internet makes a brief cameo, and they also encounter a grizzled mining foreman overseeing the video games accessed through Steam.
• Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: Rancis, distracted by his feelings for Vanellope, slows down as he drives up a loop-de-loop. He stops at the peak — and only then does Sugar Rush II's physics engine decide to kick in.
• Hammerspace: BD is able to cram a huge amount of items into his backpack, including things larger than it, like an exercise bike and a surfboard.
• Happily Married: Felix and Calhoun.
• Harmless Villain: Bernie, despite being the one who buys Sugar Rush, is hardly antagonistic. He of course has no idea that the characters in the game are sentient, and as far as he knows, the transaction is legitimate.
• Hate Sink: Colonel Lockload, who exists only to lambast Calhoun for having a loving family and to impede her every attempt to look after them. It's no wonder she clocks him in the face when she's had enough.
  • Kyle, the lazy and morally questionable new employee at Litwak's Arcade, isn't exactly lovable either. He's never working, always on his phone, and doesn't listen to a thing Mr. Litwak tells him. The fact that he sells Sugar Rush to his friend Bernie without even telling Mr. Litwak about it just seals the deal.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Ralph sinks into one early on, frightened by the possibility of his game wearing out and dying. Vanellope manages to pull him out of it.
  • He has an even worse one when Sugar Rush gets unplugged, not just mourning Vanellope's apparent demise, but losing faith in Mr. Litwak for letting two games get unplugged in two days, and doubting the safety of the arcade in general.
  • Rancis is furious with himself when he fails to confess his feelings to Vanellope before she leaves for the arcade and hides away from his friends to mentally beat himself up over it. He gets another when he and Sour Bill get locked up in the Fungeon in Sugar Rush II.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Princess Vanellope copies and pastes Vanellope's code into her own body in order to get her special glitching ability, but never truly learns how to control it — and ends up accidentally glitching to her death because of it.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Ralph and Calhoun lock General Bill in a chocolate cage and demand he tell them how Princess Vanellope's scepter works; it's implied that Ralph already put him in his mouth to try and get him to talk, just like he did to Sour Bill in the first movie. When the General still won't break, Ralph offers to let the Sugar Rush racers use him as a soccer ball.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The Surge Protector may be stodgy and bureaucratic, but when Calhoun tells him she's leaving Game Central Station to rescue Vanellope, who is as close to her as family, he graciously lets her pass.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • After getting Sugar Rush back in the arcade, what's the first thing Mr. Litwak does? Fire Kyle.
  • Colonel Lockload gets a sharp dressing-down from General Hologram for abusing his authority and impeding Calhoun's rescue mission. Then for added good measure, Vanellope kicks him in the shin.
• Look Behind You: When Colonel Lockload impedes Calhoun's attempts to leave Game Central Station, she pulls this on him, tricking him into thinking a Cy-Bug has escaped Hero's Duty . As soon as he's distracted, she punches his lights out.
• Love Interest: Vanellope to Rancis.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Rancis turns into an adorable mess whenever he's around Vanellope. The first time he tries to muster up the courage to talk to her, he trips over his own feet and faceplants down the side of the Royal Raceway.
• Masquerade: As established in Wreck-It Ralph, humans don't know that video game characters are alive. However, even in Extreme E-Z Livin', a massive multi-player online game, Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun are able to maintain the masquerade because other players just assume they're custom user avatars. One player even compliments Felix on the authenticity of his "skin".
• Mook–Face Turn: It's implied that the Sugar Rush II racers are already starting to question Princess Vanellope's authority when the siege on Sugar Rush starts. When the princess callously admits she doesn't care if her subjects die, since she can always spawn new versions of them with her cheat code scepter, it pushes the racers over the edge, and they turn against her.
• More Diverse Sequel: The Sugar Rush II racers are more diverse than their predecessors. In addition to different skin colors, the Sugar Rush II racers have different accents, they're from different countries, and, as mentioned above, Tsukara speaks Japanese, not English.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Vanellope warms up to Princess Vanellope once she realizes how much they have in common — both of them faced disastrous hardship (i.e. their games getting unplugged) and persevered for the sake of their friends. Unfortunately, this gets subverted to hell and back once Princess Vanellope's true intentions are revealed, and it turns out her game got unplugged because she jealously murdered all the other game characters and drove her arcade out of business.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Colonel Lockload holds a grudge against Calhoun for the "escaped Cy-Bug incident" that happened in the first movie, insisting that if she'd seen through Ralph's disguise, it never would have happened.
• Opening Monologue: Like Ralph's Bad-Anon share in the first movie, Vanellope gets one here — except hers is a story she tells to the Angel Kids about how much better her life has gotten since Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun came into it.
• Other Me Annoys Me: Vanellope isn't too comfortable around the frilly perky Princess Vanellope at first, getting annoyed with her constant giggling and cutesy turns of phrase. They grow closer as the story goes on, though. Too bad it doesn't last...
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Vanellope delivers one to Princess Vanellope after finally breaking out of her boundary bubble:
  Princess Vanellope: THOUGHT YOU COULD OUTSMART ME, DID YOU?! YOU MAKE ME LAUGH, RALPH! YOU'RE USELESS! YOU'RE PATHETIC! YOU AND ALL YOUR WORTHLESS FRIENDS! AND I WANT YOU TO DIE KNOWING ONE IMPORTANT THING: NOBODY DEFEATS VANELLOPE VON SCHWEEETZ!
  *VOOP*
  Vanellope: Well, you got the last part right. *PUNCH*
• Punch-Clock Villain: The Sugar Rush II racers, who only follow Princess Vanellope's twisted orders out of fear of making her angry. Once they've had enough, they find the courage to stand up against her.
• Race Against the Clock: Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun need to go online, find their way to Bernie's computer, rescue Vanellope and her friends, and get them all back to the arcade before it opens at 10:00 the next morning.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Rancis, to Princess Vanellope:
  Rancis: You're wrong, You're not the best. You're not even close. Without your little magic wand, you're nothing. You know why Vanellope's better than you? Because she's kind. And she's caring. And she's humble. And she's everything you'll never be. And that's why Ralph and Felix and Calhoun came all this way to save her, and it's why we'll never stop standing up for her — because she's our friend. And what have you got, Princess? A kingdom full of subjects too scared to stand up to you? Is that why they do your dirty work? It's sure not out of loyalty, I know that much, Because no one could be loyal to you. No one could trust you. No one could love a monster like you. How's it feel, Your Highness? Huh? How's it feel to know nobody loves you?!
• Remember the New Guy?: Colonel Lockload. He wasn't in Wreck-It Ralph ^note He was actually written for an earlier draft of the movie, but ended up being cut, but the story treats him as if he's always been Calhoun's superior officer.
• Shout-Out:
  • Felix's nickname that BD calls him, Jumpman. Fix-It Felix, Jr. was partly inspired by Donkey Kong.
  • BD hums what's obviously the Mission: Impossible theme song as he sneaks around Bernie's electrical wiring. Ralph sarcastically calls him Remington Steele.
  • "Pork and Beans" by Weezer plays in Extreme E-Z Livin' when Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun first arrive there.
  • "POWER-UPS! UNLIMITED POWER-UPS!!"
• Take That!: A few subtle ones aimed at Ralph Breaks the Internet ^note which the author very vocally did not like:
  • One of the games on Bernie's Steam account is Slaughter Race, a game prominently featured in the film; Felix immediately dismisses the possibility of traveling through it, saying it sounds like "nothing but trouble".
  • When Princess Vanellope suggests that Vanellope should strike out for Litwak's Arcade, Vanellope is horrified at the idea of going Turbo, insisting that she could never, ever abandon her game. She does exactly that in Ralph Breaks the Internet, which was one of the elements that made the film so divisive among fans.
  • Princess Vanellope in general is one towards Vanellope's characterization in the film, which was widely derided for turning her into a selfish brat who was willing to go Turbo (and thus put her entire game and every one of her friends in it at risk of unplugging) solely to fulfill her own personal desire for something new. Similarly, Princess Vanellope intentionally killed the characters within her entire arcade and got it shut down to steal their powers for herself, establishing her as someone vile enough to doom entire games to get what she wants, everyone else be damned.
• Those Two Guys: Swizzle Malarkey and Gloyd Orangeboar.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Princess Vanellope is the girly girl to Vanellope's Tomboy.
• Villainous Breakdown: Princess Vanellope has a truly creepy one when her subjects turn against her. She goes Laughing Mad, starts glitching uncontrollably, foams at the mouth, and tries to throw Vanellope out of the open plug in revenge.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Taffyta and Candlehead. The latter annoys the former a lot, but they still care about each other.
• Wham Line:
  • In chapter 17:
    Princess Vanellope: Oh, silly goose you can't get out of the power strip! Nobody can!
    Vanellope: Wh-what do you mean I can't get out?! Y-you told me I could! You said you'd help me get back to the arcade, you said that!
    Princess Vanellope: Oh yeah! that was the funny-fun-funniest part of all... I lied!
  • Ralph experiences an In-Universe example when Felix offers a newly gameless Pac-Man and crew a home in Fix-It Felix Jr. Felix remarks "We old-timers have to stick together!" — and it's at that moment that it sinks in for Ralph just how old his game truly is, and how circuit failure and unplugging could be a very real possibility for him and his friends.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: After Sour Bill and Rancis get locked up in the Fungeon in Sugar Rush II, Rancis has a bit of a breakdown about his foolish attitude to think he would be able to do something. Sour Bill, quite surprisingly, gives him a bit of a pep talk and gives him reassurance that Vanellope thinks the world of him.

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