Hello, fellow fanfictioners! I just can't hold it in anymore...I LOVED Wreck-It Ralph! Oh my god, seriously, one of the best Disney films I've seen in a looonngg time. And I'll admit, I went to see the movie because I'm a gamer and I felt compelled to, but WOW this film just went beyond my expectations.

Anyway, I'm starting this story with a huge grin on my face, and I simply can't stop writing it :)

For all of the readers following my other stories, I hope you enjoy this one just as well. And, if you haven't seen Wreck-It Ralph...GO. NOW. Sgt. Calhoun DEMANDS IT!

I hope you all enjoy the first chapter of, To Save a Hero

Disclaimer: I do not own any entitlement to the Wreck-It Ralph film, the plethora of video game characters present in this fic, nor am I affiliated in any way with Disney Productions. The story I have produced is in fact my own, however, the entirety is written merely for fan-fictioning entertainment-not for profit.

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To Save a Hero

The sound of a quarter being pressed into the cold, metal slot filled the corners of the pixel world. As it slid in, bright red letters flashed on the screen.

PRESS START

The young boy controlling the game's fate pressed the big red button with a curious gaze.

"I'm gonna wreck it!"

The child smiled.

Life's been great. A couple years have passed, but honestly I stopped keeping track. You see, funny thing is, when you actually love your job and the people you work with, you never seem to count the hours til closing time, let alone retirement. Yeah, things have been great here.

Ralph felt the Nicelanders hoist him up on their shoulders with grunts of effort. The bad guy turned around to see Felix give him a subtle thumbs up and smile. At Felix's side, Q-bert gave a joyful look, wiggling his trunk, to which Ralph returned with a small grin of his own.

True, things don't exactly change or get rearranged—variety's probably the only thing we lack. But at the same time, every day is an adventure. Heh, especially with the new guys: Q-bert and the gang really make things interesting.

Then, he turned his attention to the screen he performed behind. Through the pixel clouds hovering in the air and past the thick, glass window, he saw the best racer in the entire arcade. Vanellope smiled cheerily at her first-person player, her teeth white as diamonds, which surprised Ralph considering how much candy the little twerp ate. She held up the player's well-earned trophy and both gamer and character cheered over their victory.

Ralph smiled.

I don't know how the kid does it, but being the number one most desired player for the past two years has kept the kids coming to play Sugar Rush from dawn til dusk. She's a natural, and she inspires me to do my very, baddest, best. She's my hero. Not that I'd ever tell the barnacle—we all know she'd tease me til I run out of lives.

With a single push, the nine-foot giant went flying off of the building, tumbling through the air. Then, with a splat, he landed in the all-too-familiar mud pit. His smile was still there.

'Hm, at least it's not chocolate' Ralph thought as he waited for the last game of the day to come to a finish. The INSERT COIN letters along with the game's title returned to populate the screen. Ralph sighed.

"Another great day, Ralphie!" Mary cried out in a happy yet shrill tone as she handed the bad guy a towel.

"Thanks, Mary." He took the towel and wiped his face and hair. "By the way, great scream of terror today. Definitely one of your best."

A large, pixelated blush formed on the Nicelander's cheeks, "Ohhooohhoooo, oh you!" she giggled.

Standing, Ralph turned to see the rest of the crowd fixing up the building and congratulating each other on another successful day. Felix was petting Coily's head, while Q-bert fixed up the pixel-hedges.

Yeah, it's a crazy, wreckin' life alright—

Ralph walked towards his fellow Nicelanders and waved at Felix, who waved back with a huge, toothy grin.

-but it's the best one out there.

Chapter I: Rumor Gone Viral

"Wow, Ralph! Sounds like you really took a turn-around. Sure those Cy-bugs didn't konk your noggin'?"

Tapper said with his raspy voice while handing the man another signature root beer.

"HA. Ha. Very funny, Tapper." Ralph replied with an unamused expression, exaggerating each 'HA'.

The crowd was pretty big tonight. Mostly good guys, but still enjoyable for the guy with big hands. Ralph turned around in his bar stool and leaned against the bar top, root beer in hand. With Buckner and Garcia humming through the dusty speakers, the atmosphere was both chill and hyped.

In the corner, a small group was playing billiards. Knuckles the echidna held a long cue stick in hand and positioned himself properly over the table before hitting the white ball. The small balls rolled around spastically before the six ball and four ball went into the same pocket. Scowls plagued the other player's faces, a cocky smirk painted on the red echidna's.

Sipping his drink quietly, Ralph continued to watch the game of pool. Zangief threw his hands in the air with a proud face after his lucky shot, smacking a crocodile from Frogger in the snout with his cue stick. The rest of the group playing laughed hysterically.

Smirking, Ralph took a swig of his root beer leaving foam around his mouth. Suddenly, his ear twitched at the sound of whispering. Glancing to his left down the bar, two characters looked grim, hovering close to each other whispering almost inaudible words. One was Expresso the ostrich from Donkey Kong, whose neck was bent down just so he could talk to his friend, and Falco Lombardi. The blue feathered jet pilot ran a hand through his pointed feather-tuft,

"I dunno, Expresso. My bets are we won't last after the holiday season."

Confusion swarmed Ralph's head and the worry became visible on his face. Leaning a bit to his left, Ralph tried his best to focus on the conversation, his large ears aiding him.

The ostrich grimaced, "Can't anyone do anything about it? I mean, maybe the new guys aren't, you know, bad. Maybe they just want to share the arcade."

The falcon's eyes shot open wide as he slammed his fist on the wood causing the ostrich to wince,

"Listen, bro—They. Are. Commandos," Falco took a breath to calm his feathers, and looked down at the bar top. "And they're not here to make friends. They're here to replace us…because we're getting the plug pulled."

Ralph couldn't believe his ears. 'Commandos? What was a commando?' he thought.

Tapper was cleaning a glass a few feet away behind the counter. Careful not to draw any unwanted attention, Ralph turned his head a little so that his eyes could see the barman.

"Pssst! Tapper—" he whispered loudly, his brows furrowed.

Looking up quickly, Tapper waddled over,

"Hmm Hmmm, Ralph. What ya want? Don't tell me ya need me to drive you home, heheh—" the moustached man chuckled with his gruff voice before continuing to clean the mug in his hand with a rag.

"No, no, no. Listen, Tapper," Ralph looked around. "Do you know anything about this…Commando business." The giant man hunched over, trying to block out their conversation from the rest of the bar, which just kept getting more populated by the minute.

The bartender stopped his cleaning. His eyes were fixed on the glass.

He sighed, "I shouldn't talk about this here—"

"Tapper," Ralph pleaded with his worried, yet angry eyes. He wasn't going to let anybody go turbo or try to mess up the arcade. Not with what happened last time. He almost lost his friends and his very life. "I need to know."

Tapper set the glass down and placed both of his hands on the counter,

"The owner just installed a new room in the arcade. The DEMO Dome—that's what he's calling it. I'm not too sure, but rumor has it that the room is filled with…single-player games."

"Single-player? What is it, some sort of lone wolf, one character deal?"

"It's not like an arcade game, Ralph. There aren't any levels, no bonus worlds, or lives. The game…doesn't end."

Ralph froze. Those two words lingered in his thoughts, and, both stunned and curious, he wondered how it was possible. When did the characters get a break? Were they on a full-time shift?! The thought made him feel light-headed.

Tappers continued, looking absolutely mortified.

"It's like an infinite level, and, a-and—cheezits, Ralph, why did you want to know?"

Sighing, the man in overalls looked away, thoughts running wild through his mind.

The bartender could tell something was up, and he too let out a long sigh before picking up another glass to clean. As the breath left his lips, Mario and Peach walked into the bar, causing a friendly uproar to ensue as people sitting at the bar raised their glasses, and both friend and foe alike greeted the popular couple. Mario—fashionably late, as usual.

Ralph watched the two become the center of attention, a surprising smile appearing on his face. A cough emitted from the bartender,

"Look, it's just a rumor. No one's even seen these, 'Commandos'. If you ask me, it's just a gust of drama for the sake of stirrin' something up."

"Thanks, Tapper." The bad guy gave a weak grin.

He looked over to his right to see if Falco and Expresso were still present, but only a tip, two gold coins, were left where they had been sitting. His big eyebrows furrowed,

"But, if there were other games with these solo characters…do you really think they'd give us the boot."

"Honestly? No, I don't. Only because no other bar-game is better than ole' Tappers!" The bartender laughed.

Ralph's mood instantly lightened as he smirked, "You got that right. Alright, bud, I'll see you 'round."

Flipping a coin onto the bar top with his enormous fingers, Ralph stood from the stool and waved goodbye.

"Anytime, Wreck-it. Anytime."

XXX

"Commandos? Heavens to Betsy, Ralph, where in the world did ya hear about such a thing?!"

Felix was overreacting. Again.

His brown eyes pleading for his partner to listen with some sense, Ralph sat patiently on the plush couch. The Penthouse was dark, with it being such an early hour and all, nobody else in the building was awake. Fix-it Felix was pacing the floor now with his 8-bit, moving legs.

"I mean, there's absolutely no way they could exist." He hit his fist into his open palm.

Sgt. Calhoun sat with her legs crossed in another chair, her eyes deep in thought.

"Brick-breaker over here's got a reason to wet his pants, though. These lone wolf fighters sound dangerous." She said with a stern look.

Felix stopped in his tracks before looking at his wife with wide-eyes, "Honey—"

"Guys, guys, calm down. It could just be some stupid prank for all we know." Ralph added.

The sergeant turned to face him with a glare,

"And if it's not?"

The room went quiet again. The monotonous ticking of a clock the only sound that inhabited the air. Ralph held his hands together over his knees, Tamora had her arms crossed and blonde bangs covering his eyes, and Felix stood still near the large, glass window.

Then, Fix-it turned to face his two companions,

"For now, I say we just go about our lives normally. There's no reason to suddenly be paranoid all the time, especially if it does turn out to be a false rumor."

No one said anything until a feminine yet gruff voice replied

"For once, I agree with you." The sergeant said, uncrossing her legs and smiling softly at her husband.

"Thanks, sugar doll." Felix grinned ear to ear.

Tamora stood from her seat and gave a signal with her hand to her shorter husband, who, catching her drift, quickly shuffled past her and towards the exit.

"Wreck-it." She spoke loudly.

The volume in her voice startled Ralph a bit, causing him to flinch. She gazed down at him with piercing eyes, which suddenly softened, "Thank you." she said with a gentle tone.

Ralph straightened up, both shocked by the woman's sudden change in character and for the thank you, which he wasn't quite sure what it was for. Tamora turned her head to look at Felix, who was holding the door open for her like a true gentleman. She looked back at the man in front of her.

"For always looking out for him."

Then, with her index and middle-finger extended, she saluted him as she turned to leave. Chuckling to himself, Ralph stood too, crossing his big arms.

As the sergeant walked through the open doorway, Felix stood as stiff as a board with a soldier-like face, which caused the woman to smirk. Felix closed the door behind him, but waved at Ralph before completely shutting the door.

Now alone in the penthouse, the overall-hobo-man turned to look out the large window. The lights from the neighboring arcade games lit up beautifully like rainbow stars and party-lights. Ralph smiled as he laughed softly,

"Psshhh, What am I worried about? Everything'll be just fine."

Ralph said as he looked at the thrilled, smiling image of Vanellope on the side of the Sugar Rush game.

What could go wrong?

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed it :)

Leave a review and tell me what you think!

Until Next Time... :3