Breaking the Ice

It was the end of another day of life in Litwak’s Family Fun Center. All the families had gone home, all the nostalgic gamers had gone home, and Mr. Litwak had put up the closed sign for the night. It was time for the fun to start.

Wreck-It Ralph had once again been tossed into the mud by the Nicelanders, as was standard for the end of each level of the game. With the arcade closed, he got up and wiped the mud off. The Nicelanders and Felix were working on repairing the building.

Fix-It Felix Jr. turned to Ralph as he was passing by. “You really did a number on the building today, Ralph,” Felix commented in a friendly manner, “The players were really determined to beat you.”

“Thanks, Felix,” Ralph replied, “There were a lot of good players controlling you today, so I had to try my hardest.”

Gene, one of the Nicelanders (and Ralph’s least favorite of them), stumbled back over to the apartment, covered in cartoony explosion ash. “Every time we have the bonus level,” Gene complained, “that explosive enemy blasts me across the game. And it’s only ever me!” He looked at Ralph. “You told them to do that, didn’t you?”

Ralph replied, “I can neither confirm nor deny that I may have…persuaded them to attack you.” Gene angrily went into the building.

Ralph continued walking away. “Say, Ralph…” Felix said. Ralph stopped and looked back at him. “What are you doing tonight?”

“I was thinking of going over to Tappers, having some root beer, going back to my tree stump, and then calling it a night. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just that there’s a new game that got plugged in today.”

“Oh, yeah…I saw it when I was on the roof. It’s called Frozen, isn’t it?”

“That’s the one! I’ve heard that it’s really popular for being a brand new game. I was thinking that we could maybe check it out.”

“Hmm. I suppose that could be fun. Do you think they’d be afraid of me? I mean, I’m 9 feet tall and I have really big hands. Do you think they’ll think I’m a monster or something?”

“Just stay calm, Ralph, don’t lose your temper, and I’m sure they’ll love you.”

“Let’s get going, then.”


Ralph and Felix made it to Game Central Station. As they were passing through the gate to their game, Ralph was stopped by Surge Protector. “Sir, I’m going to need to pull you over for a random security check.”

“Why do you always go after me?” Ralph asked him, “Why don’t you go after people who are actually dangerous?”

“Just doing my job, sir.”

Felix butted in, “He’s with me, and I guarantee you he’s fine to pass.”

Surge Protector looked at Felix. “I’m not sure.”

Felix got close to Surge Protector. “Listen, I get that it’s your job to keep bad things from happening to the Station or to other games, but I promise that Ralph is one of the most honorable and trustworthy bad guys in gaming history, right up there with Bowser.” Ralph smiled at how kind Felix was. “And…” Felix deviously whispered, “I have photographic evidence of you spray-painting graffiti onto the tunnel walls of my game.”

Surge Protector gulped. He turned to Ralph. “You’re all clear, Ralph. Have a nice night.”

“Thank you,” Ralph said, “You do the same.” Surge Protector zapped himself away.

Ralph and Felix walked by the gate for Sugar Rush. Having been restored to a playable character instead of just a glitch, Vanellope was free to leave her game as she wished. She was walking out of the gate when she saw Ralph. “Hey there, Major Body Odor,” she said. She ran over to catch up to him.

“Hello, Baroness Boogerface,” Ralph retorted, “Are you going to the new game, too?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

He picked her up and put her on his shoulder. “Then let’s get going.”

Along the way, they passed by Hero’s Duty. Sgt. Calhoun, Felix’s wife, was standing by the gate. When she spotted the three of them, she commented, “I figured I’d see you guys tonight.”

Felix ran over to his wife. “Hello, my dynamite gal,” he said. He jumped into her arms. She caught and embraced him.

“Good to see you, my little honey bear,” she replied. They kissed.

“Ick,” Vanellope commented, “All this lovey-dovey stuff is making me sick.”

“I feel ya,” Ralph replied, “You’ll never see me getting all kissy-kissy like those two.”

When they were done kissing, Calhoun asked, “Are you guys going to that new game?”

“Yep!” Felix replied.

Calhoun put Felix back on the ground. “I’ll tag along. I was gonna go in and make sure that there weren’t any viruses in the game.” She walked over to Ralph. “Hello, Ralph. Hello, President von Schweetz.”

“Hey, Calhoun,” Ralph replied.

“Hi there, Tammy,” Vanellope greeted.


Unlike the other games at Litwak’s, Frozen had a small boat instead of a train to get into the game. They piled in with Ralph sitting in the back. The boat was at a slight angle because of this, so Felix, Vanellope, and Calhoun leaned forward to try to balance it out. The boat then was able to start moving.

“I feel like singing,” Vanellope said as they went through the cord tunnel, “It’s a small world after all…”

“Please, no,” Calhoun said, “For the love of God, please don’t sing that song.”

“Sorry…” Vanellope said. She sat in saddened silence for the duration of the trip.


When the boat left the tunnel, the four were amazed by this new game. “Look at that dazzling high definition…” Felix commented. They looked at the incredible backgrounds and details and graphics the game had. The boat took them to a dock. Felix was the first to get out. “Looks like we weren’t the only ones to come over,” Felix commented. The others got out and saw a few other video game characters who were waiting around.

Sonic the Hedgehog was talking to Ryu of Street Fighter and Pac-Man. “So after that, I grabbed Mario and threw him across the stage.”

“Then what?” Pac-Man asked.

“Then there was a Smash Ball that floated by and I broke it open, turning into Super Sonic. I then knocked Mario off-screen and won!”

Mario walked by at that point. “I got that-a Smash Ball, Sonic,” he said. He looked at Ryu and Pac-Man. “I then hurled a whole-a bunch of fireballs at him and knocked him off-a the screen.”

“You have your version,” Sonic said, “and I have mine.”

“Hey, Mario,” Ryu asked, “Could you get Pac and me a spot in the next Smash Bros.?”

“I dunno. I’ll talk to Master Hand about it. We’ve only got three new people confirmed at this-a point. Though since-a one of them is Mega Man, you might-a have a shot, Ryu.”


Meanwhile, inside the castle, Anna and her friends and servants were busy decorating for a party to welcome all the other video game characters. “It’s almost time,” Anna cheerfully said, “How is everything coming along?” Everyone responded positively. “Good, good…” The cooks were plating the food, the waiters were moving the finished plates to tables in the main hall, and other such things.

Anna’s older sister, Elsa, shyly walked through the hall. “Anna?” she stated.

Anna turned to see her sister. “Hey, Elsa! Like how the decorations look?”

“Yeah, they’re great…It’s just that…I don’t want to attend this party.”

Anna finished putting up a banner and went onto the floor. “But Elsa,” she replied, “you have to be at this party! You’re the Queen of Arendelle! You’re one of the most popular characters in the game! You’re the character who makes the title of the game!”

“I know, I know. It’s just that…that puts a lot of pressure on me. I don’t feel comfortable around people like you do. I’m not that social.”

“Don’t worry about it! If you’re worried about what people think of your ice powers, there’s a couple of guys who use fire powers, and there are a lot of other characters that have other elemental powers. You’ll blend right in!”

“I don’t know…”

One of the servants came up to the princess and the queen. “Excuse me, your highnesses,” he said, “The decorations are all set up and all the food is prepared and plated.”

“Excellent!” Anna exclaimed, “Open the doors and let the guests in at once!” He walked away. Anna looked at Elsa again. “Just be yourself.” She walked away to greet the guests. Anna got to the doors right as they were opening. The crowd of other video game characters silenced as they did. “Hello, everyone!” Anna announced, “I am Princess Anna of Arendelle, and I welcome you all to Frozen!” The crowd cheered. “Come in, we have plenty of food and space for everybody!”

As Ralph and friends walked in with everyone else, they happened upon a little snowman. “Hello!” he introduced himself, “I’m Olaf.”

Vanellope took incredible interest in him. “Wow! A living breathing snowman! I can hardly believe it!”

“I know, right? It’s pretty amazing!”

Vanellope gave him a big hug. “You’re so darn cute, Olaf!”

“Thank you, friend.” He looked up at Ralph and Felix and Calhoun. “I’m very popular with the young ones. Kids love me.”

“Aww,” Felix joyously agreed, “you are so cute!” He hugged Olaf as well.

“Looks like he’s also popular with the adults,” Calhoun commented.

Olaf left their embrace. “I haven’t gotten to know everyone yet. What are your names?”

Vanellope did the introductions. “I am President Vanellope von Schweetz of Sugar Rush, this is Sgt. Tamora Calhoun of Hero’s Duty…” Vanellope briefly snickered at the word. “And last, but certainly not least, we have Fix-It Felix Jr. of the game Fix-It Felix Jr. and the bad guy of the game, Admiral Underpants!”

Fearing there would be a misunderstanding, Ralph corrected, “Actually, my name’s Wreck-It Ralph.”

“Oh my!” Olaf exclaimed, “You’re so tall! Are…are you gonna hurt me?”

“I promise,” Vanellope said, “he’s not gonna hurt you, simply because I like you and he doesn’t like to make me angry.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Olaf replied, “I almost wet myself. I don’t know how that would work, but I felt it was about to happen.” He looked at Ralph and crew. “Well, come on in!” He led them into the party.

The party was full of video game characters, all chatting with each other and with the various NPCs. “I’ll go speak with the head of security,” Calhoun decided, “make sure they’re up to speed on any possible threats.” She walked away.

“I’m gonna hang with Olaf,” Vanellope said, “I like him a lot!” As they were standing there, Jr. Pac Man walked up to Olaf. Vanellope moved him away. “Get lost! He’s mine!”

“Oh, now, now, Vanellope,” Olaf kindly reprimanded, “I can be friends with everyone.” He reached an arm out to Jr. Pac-Man. “Come here. What’s your name?” They walked away.

“Well, Felix,” Ralph commented, “Looks like it’s just you and me.”

“I guess so, Ralph,” Felix replied. He looked around. “I can’t believe the popularity of this game. Not even our game has ever been so popular, and we were one of the first games here!”

“Yeah, it’s strange. I don’t get what could make this game so popular that almost everyone has to try it out.”

Felix looked around. “Hey! There’s my old pal, Mario!” Felix turned to Ralph. “You don’t mind me talking with him, do you?”

“No, go ahead.”

“Great! I’ve been meaning to talk to him for awhile now. See you later.” Felix walked over.

“Well, looks like me and me,” Ralph said to himself, “Might as well get me something to drink while I’ve got no one to talk to.”

As he walked to the refreshments, he encountered some other familiar faces. “Hey, Ralph,” Sonic said, “Haven’t seen you since we went racing together!”

“Yeah, that was a lot of fun. I really liked that one course that was on all those floating islands. You remember that?”

“Totally! That was great. Well, I gotta speed, keed.” Sonic ran off.

“Must be a sore loser. He never likes to talk about when someone else wins.” Ralph walked by Donkey Kong. “Hey, DK. How’s it hanging?” The gorilla pounded his chest in a show of strength. “That’s good. Keep on rolling those barrels.” Ralph got over to the refreshments. “Well, even though this game takes place in a medieval setting, it seems they’ve still got modern soda cans.” He picked up a can of root beer and opened it. He took a sip. “Tasty…”

One of Ralph’s friends from Bad-Anon, Clyde the ghost, floated over to him. “Hey, Ralph,” he said, “Have you seen my friends?”

“Yeah, I think I saw Blinky looking for Pac-Man. They went that way.”

“Thanks, buddy. See you at Bad-Anon this week!” Clyde floated off in a direction nowhere near where Ralph was pointing.

“What an idiot,” Ralph commented, “No wonder he never catches Pac-Man.” He took another sip. At that moment, Ralph saw a beautiful woman in a blue dress standing by herself, looking quite lonely. Ralph decided to talk to her. “Hi,” he introduced, “I’m Ralph.”

She looked up at him. He was handsome in a strange sense. “Hello, my name’s Elsa.” They shook hands. “You have quite large hands,” she commented.

“Big hands…big job.”

“What’s your job?” she inquired.

“I’m the bad guy in my game. I stand at the top of this apartment building and demolish it.” He held up his hands. “These bad boys make smashing things a breeze. How about you? What’s your job?”

“I’m the queen of this land.”

“You’re the queen?” Ralph immediately knelt down before her and bowed his head. “Your majesty…”

Elsa chuckled. “Oh, you don’t have to do that.” Ralph lifted up his head. Even kneeling, he was still taller than her.

“Sorry. So if you’re the queen, why aren’t you the center of attention at this party?”

“I’m not that social. A lot of the people in the game don’t like me because I cause the main plot of the game.”

“I know that feeling. No one in my game liked me for about 30 years because I was the bad guy. They kicked me out of my home in the forest and I wreck the building to get back at them.”

“30 years? How awful! What happened?”

“I decided to get some respect, so I went to other games. I wound up befriending this girl from Sugar Rush and helped to restore her to her rightful place as an official character, and wound up defeating an old foe as I did. Then everyone realized I could be a good guy.”

“Wow! Impressive!”

“Yeah. I’m amazed I actually survived the journey. It almost killed me multiple times.” Ralph took a sip of his root beer. “My root beer’s getting warm. I’m gonna go get some ice for it.”

As he was turning, Elsa interrupted. “Wait! I can fix that. Give it to me, please.” He handed it over. She held it and cooled down with her ice powers. She handed it back.

Ralph took a sip. “Wow! It’s perfect now! How did you do that?”

“I have ice powers. I can create snow and ice with my bare hands.”

“That sound pretty cool, no pun intended.”

“It’s not. It’s a curse. I had to keep it a secret for my whole life because my parents, rest their souls, were afraid that people would try to destroy me if they knew. The whole plot of the game is caused by me, caused by me covering the whole country in snow and ice.” Elsa began crying.

Ralph lifted her chin with his finger and she turned towards him. “But you can’t let yourself think that. If you focus on the negatives of your powers, you’ll only ever see yourself as a monster.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like I only ever thought of myself as being capable of destroying things with my giant hands. I thought I could only be a bad guy. But I eventually discovered how useful my hands could be and how their power could help other people. I was able to help my friends get out of wrongful imprisonment, and saved an entire game by breaking stuff.”

“That’s good for you. But what could my ice powers do to benefit anyone?”

“Well, you were able to cool down my root beer. I have to imagine you can do much more than that if you were able to freeze an entire country. And if you were able to cool it and not completely freeze it, I’d guess you have some control over your powers.”

“You have a point. I remember when I was younger, my little sister, Anna, and I would sneak out of bed, go to this room, and I’d create a small Winter Wonderland for the two of us. We’d build snowmen, we’d ice-skate…Those were good times.”

“See? That’s something you could do. You could have fun with your powers and let other people have fun.”

“Maybe I’ll do something like that for the ending of the game. No one’s been able to beat the game yet. Maybe that’s why it’s made so much money…”

Olaf wandered by. Upon spotting the duo, he said, “Elsa! Ralph! How are you two enjoying the festivities?”

“Oh, much more,” Ralph declared, “after we met each other.” He and Elsa faced each other. She giggled.

“You’re lucky, Elsa,” Olaf commented, “Ralph’s an admiral!” He walked away.

Elsa looked at Ralph. “An admiral, eh?”

“Not really. It’s a nickname my best friend gave me. Though I was once in an army.”

“Really? Tell me about that.”

“Well, I wanted to get a medal, and I heard from this guy at Tapper’s that I could get a medal in his game, Hero’s Duty…” Ralph and Elsa talked for the next hour or so about Ralph’s journey, Elsa’s childhood, and general interests of theirs.

Elsa told Ralph, “I admittedly have a weakness for chocolate,” after he told her about Sugar Rush.

“If I may be honest,” he said, “I used to hate chocolate. I thought it tasted terrible and bitter. But when my life was saved by falling into a puddle of chocolate, I suddenly loved chocolate and I’ve been fond of it ever since.” He took a sip of root beer. “Still, I like the taste of root beer better.”

“I’ve actually never had root beer before. May I have a taste?”

“Sure. Would you like for me to get you a can or-"

“No, may I please have some of yours?”

Ralph thought for a second. Since he liked Elsa so much, he gave her his can. “Here you go.” She took it gently and took a sip. She didn’t bother to wipe it off before she did, she just drank it as it was.

“Mmm…that tastes so sweet.”

Seeing Elsa so happy warmed Ralph’s heart so much. “You can have the rest of it.”

“Oh, Ralph, I couldn’t.”

“No, it’s all your’s.” Elsa smiled brightly at Ralph and took another sip.

Felix, Calhoun, and Vanellope walked up to Ralph. “Hey, Ralph,” Felix said.

“Hi, Felix.” Ralph turned to Elsa. “Elsa, I’d like to introduce you to my friends. This is Felix, this is Sgt. Calhoun, and this here is Vanellope. Guys, this is Elsa.”

“Hello,” Elsa said.

“Hi, Elsa,” Felix said, “Ralph, we should get going. The arcade’s gonna be opening soon.”

“Do we have to? Can’t we stay five more minutes?”

“Now, Ralph.”

“Fine, I’m coming.” He turned to Elsa. “I’ve got to get going.”

“I understand,” she glumly said, “Goodbye, Ralph.” Ralph started walking away. Elsa looked at the floor. “Ralph, wait!” Ralph stopped and turned back to look at her. “Before you go and hit the road…I gotta know…when can I see you again?”

Ralph smiled. “I live a few games down the station from you. My game is Fix-It Felix Jr. Visit me sometime.”

“I will, Ralph! Goodbye!” She waved.

“Goodbye, Elsa.” He waved in return. As the four walked on the dock towards the boat to Game Central Station, Vanellope looked at Ralph. “What? Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Oh, no reason, Mr. ‘You’ll never see me getting all kissy-kissy like those two’,” Vanellope teased, “no reason whatsoever.”

“Knock it off,” Ralph insisted, “I was not kissy-kissy with Elsa.”

“She’s your girl-friend!” She began singing, “Ralph and Elsa, sitting in a tree… K-I-S-S-S-S-S-S-I-N-G…”

Felix chuckled, “That’s too many ‘S’s for ‘kissing.’”

“Not if Ralph and Elsa are kissing for a long time.”

“Stop egging her on, guys!” Ralph demanded.

“No chance, Lance,” Calhoun laughed, “This is not going away anytime soon for you.”


Meanwhile, in the castle, the servants were cleaning up the decorations and trash from the party. Elsa and Anna helped out. Elsa was happily humming as she worked.

“I haven’t seen you so happy before, sis,” Anna commented, “What’s got you in such a good mood?”

“Oh, I met the most wonderful man at the party tonight,” Elsa explained.

“Who was he? Was he that handsome Zangief fellow with the nice thighs?”

“No, his name was Ralph and he was so handsome. He had huge muscles and an adorable chubby face and he was just so dreamy! Oh!”

Anna chuckled. “Sounds like you met Mr. Right.”

“Actually,” Olaf commented, walking by, “Ralph’s an admiral. So I think that makes him Admiral Right.”

“Ooh,” Anna jokingly stated, nudging her sister with her elbow, “looks like you found yourself a keeper.”

“Cute, Anna. Real cute.” She picked up Ralph’s root beer can. “It feels a bit warm.” She cooled it down with her ice powers and drank the last bit of soda left in it. She looked at the can. “I’m not a monster, Ralph, and now, I know it, myself.”