The Magical Bond Between Two Hearts Chapter 2

The Magical Bond between Two Hearts
Chapter 2: The Party
She was always afraid of the dark, ever since she had walked into Game Central.  Never did she go into any game with a dark tunnel.  Yet as the girl looked into the tunnel that lead to the DDR party, she had the strangest feeling that she herself did not know she had.  It was the sense of curiosity, and an unknown feeling welling strongly inside her.  It overpowered her fear so much, that somehow she was not taken aback when she walked into the anteroom where the DDR train was, got on it and rode it to the party that lay ahead.  

“I wish Sophie was with me…” was all the girl could worry about as the train sped ahead to the entrance of DDR.

As soon as the train stopped, she immediately ran out and knelt down to catch her breath.  She was so caught up with her curiosity that she did not realize her fear of the dark.  For what seemed like a minute the girl just knelt on the ground breathing heavily.  Suddenly she perked her ears to hear muffled music coming from behind the door into DDR.  Slowly she rose to her feet, clutching on to her bearings as she stared at the door in front of her.  The train long gone now, she had no choice but to go inside.  
The door seemed so far away to her that she thought there was still a long way to go.  But once she reached the entrance, it had only taken her a few seconds to reach it.  She knew that if she opened that door, everyone would want her gone and nothing would change the way things are.  Voices rang loud inside the girl’s mind, mostly screaming the same thought: Get out of Here!  Yet one voice in the back of her mind was saying something that made her open the door into the bright lights of the party…

What are you waiting for?
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“HEY RALPH!!!  Are you in there?!  WAKE UP!!!”  

Ralph quickly jerked his head up from the table at the shrill yell of Vanellope’s voice.  

“I’M UP, I’M UP!!!” he shouted too loudly.

Looking around he saw that no one was looking (of course the blare of the music drowned out his overpowering voice).  “Whew… no one heard me.”  Ralph sighed with relief, and then faced Vanellope.  

“What’s the big idea, kid!” he hissed, “I was trying to block out that loud music stinging my ears!”

“Well sorry for waking you up from your nap!” Vanellope snapped back, “But remember that we came here to get you out socializing with people, not catching up on naptime!”

Ralph blew a raspberry to the side. “Come on kid, is anyone here in this room going to talk to me just because I’m trying to find a date?!  Plus you may have not yet noticed, I’m a bad guy.  Bad guys don’t get dates with girls.”

“Well this bad guy will.” Calhoun replied pointing at Ralph, “You’ll never know if you will get one unless you try.”  

Ralph opened his mouth in protest, but did not say anything.  Calhoun was right; he had to try sooner or later.  Putting one of his huge hands under his chin, he scowled quietly as he watched the DDR dancers on the dance floor.  He really didn’t care about dancing, nor was he really good at it.  Once at one of Felix’s parties he tried to dance, but his fumbling about almost took down the whole penthouse.  Ralph was so embarrassed that he promised himself never to try dancing again.  As he looked out now from the very huge table that Ralph and his friends were sitting at, he was starting to think that his promise might be broken.  All of his friends, including Felix, were expecting him to at least find one person to talk to tonight, and that might mean going on the dance floor and making a fool of him: again.  
At that time, he found himself looking at the entrance, wanting so desperately to get out of this nightmare.  To his surprise the door suddenly opened, making him flinch.  As soon as Ralph caught his eyes on the person that came through the door, Ralph thought that this night was not going to be as bad as he thought.  
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From the first moment the girl walked through the door the first thing she realized was the blaring lights.  She shielded her eyes, squinting in the blinding light as she stepped inside.  Once her eyes adjusted, she stared out in awe.  In the brightly lit room that was DDR, hundreds of characters were sitting, standing, or dancing on the dance floor.  For a minute she just stood there dumbfounded by the scene before her.  Then something loud came screaming in her ears.  She quickly raised her hands to plug her ears from whatever the noise was.  Squeezing her eyes shut, the girl tried to get the loud music out of her head, but it would never go away.  Finally, she let herself slowly open her eyes and let her hands fall to her sides.  

“Well, so far so good,” she assured herself.  “This isn’t too bad….”

She let her feet walk her down the stairs leading to the DDR floor.  She pulled her hood down further as she got closer to other characters enjoying themselves.  The girl looked around, stopping herself from going any further.  

“I got a bad feeling about this…” she inaudibly whispered.  

The girl looked over at the bar to see no one had taken any seats.  Her eyes widened, what luck.  She slowly made her way through the crowd and took a seat right at the little glass bar.  Exhausted, she lay her head down on the counter, and for a moment everything seemed fine.  

“Hello there, miss outcast.”

She knew who that voice belonged to, even with the loud music still ringing in her ears.  She did not move.  

“Hello Archer,” she whispered, “nice to see you again.”  

“It’s not nice to see you though: Lucy.” The voice of Archer replied coldly.

Fear started to well up inside her, as she sat there.  Slowly, Lucy raised her head from the counter and turned.
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Ever since the hooded figure walked in the party, Ralph sat up straighter than he ever did.  And by the looks of his friends gave him, they had noticed his strange behavior as well.  

“Well my word,” Felix managed to say after one minute of silence, “I’ve never seen this one here in DDR before.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen this person at all.”  

“You said it, I’ve been here for more than a newly plugged in game and I’ve never seen someone like that.” Vanellope uttered in awe.  

Ralph looked down at his little friend, who became his best friend ever since game jumping into Sugar Rush.  There was no doubt that she did not know this hooded person, even though Vanellope knew about all of the characters in the arcade.  Looking back up, he noticed that the person made their way down the steps slowly, descending into the crowd of dancing characters below.  For a few seconds Ralph lost sight of the person, there was just way to many people to tell where this mysterious person went to.  Then, he caught movement of a black trail moving to the little glass bar.  Ralph never kept his eyes off of the figure.  

“I think someone is caught in a tide.” Vanellope said slyly, punching Ralph lightly on the arm.  

“Hey I-I’m not caught in a tide-” Ralph stammered.  

“Oh Ralph my brother, I believe you are.” Felix said cutting him off.  

A sudden noise snapped Ralph back to the glass bar.  Standing behind the hooded person was none other than Archer, a tall man who looked like a fighter with the body he had, but not quite.  He was in the new game Litwak plugged in a few weeks ago; an arching game where Archer was the main character.  Flying Arrows was the name of the game.   The goal of the game was to get more points than your opponent.   Knowing Archer, he might do something unforgivable.  

“Hello there, miss outcast.”

At that moment Ralph realized that the person sitting at the bar was none other than a girl.  She was a real live girl.  He could not believe it.  Not knowing if it was his own will or something inside him going out of control, Ralph found himself getting up suddenly from his seat and walking straight at the bar.  His friends were yelling something at him, but his ears were full of anger that was starting to boil up to hear what they were saying.  
All he knew was that he had to get to her.
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Lucy’s heart stopped as she looked at the face of Archer, who seemed to be bigger that she thought.  

“So…what do you want?” she said slowly.  

A big grin spread across Archer’s face.  Lucy’s felt her heart go up her throat.  

“A grin like that…it must mean….”

“You know what I want you to do…” Archer sternly replied, “…you know you’re not welcome here.”

“I know that.”

The grin that was on Archer’s face had slowly disappeared.  Lucy knew that something was about to happen.  For when she looked around, many of the characters that were dancing or standing talking had formed a group around them.  Pulling her hood down even lower, Lucy walked a few careful steps toward Archer.  There was no getting out of this fight.  Trying to take the advantage, Lucy grabbed Archer’s shirt and pulled him closer than his comfort.  She soon realized that a few seconds later it was a bad idea.  Archer grabbed the front of her cloak and raised her up in the air.  She gave a little yelp as her feet left the colored tiles of the floor.  Then Lucy realized that the colored tiles were not below her feet, but aiming straight at her head.  Archer had swung Lucy in an arch going from the floor to the ceiling, all the way down to the floor again.  
Her head exploded with pain as she hit the glass floor with such force.  For a moment she couldn’t get her vision straight.  A warm trickle came down the back of her head, in which Lucy realized was blood.  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either.  Lucy flung her hand quickly up to her head, trying to stop the bleeding.  Her short-timed impaired vision and hearing made the world around her fuzzy.  Suddenly there were huge, loud footsteps and then…

CRASH!!

Lucy heard something smash into the floor moments after she did.  

“What in the world…?”

Once she knew her vision was clearing, Lucy opened her eyes, and gasped.  
There, standing protectively in front of her, was a big pair of feet.  
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Standing in the crowd of onlookers, Ralph watched as the girl was flung off her feet by Archer and came plummeting down hard to the ground.  His heart flew up into his throat, trying to grasp the situation.  The anger that had been boiling up a few minutes before was about to reach its breaking point.  But what Archer said next made Ralph mad:

“Not so tough now, are you? You’re just a weak coward and that’s all you’ll ever be.”

Inside something just snapped.  He ended up shouting out: “HEY!!! Leave Her ALONE!!!”  Before he knew it, Ralph charged right through the crowd, fists raised high.  In a single intense moment, Ralph’s huge fist crashed Archer into the ground.  

CRASH!!

All of the spectators gasped in horror as the huge crash echoed the small room.  Ralph lifted his hand from the crushed glass floor, which was now a huge crater.  Ralph looked back to see that the girl was rubbing the back of her head, which was trickling blood.  The arm she was using to rub her head with was all bruised up.  A sudden rustle from the crater made him snapped his head back to the now shaken Archer emerging from the huge crater Ralph had created.  Without thinking, Ralph stood in front of the girl protectively and raised his fists, ready for a fight.  But the man did not move.
Archer only just stared right past him, right to the girl behind him.  His look was menacing, but not as well as to recover from Ralph’s hit and come punching back.  As sudden as the fight started, it ended.  Archer ended up storming out of DDR with his head held high, but with his anger boiling up.  The spectators viewing the fight had all since forgotten about it, and returned to their regular dancing or standing around talking; as if nothing had happened.  
Seeing the fight was over and done, Ralph unclenched his fists slowly, letting his hands fall to the side.  He realized that his cheeks were starting to turn red, but managed to keep it down.  

“Um…are you…are you okay?” he stammered.  

But when he turned around, the girl was gone.  Panic swept over him as he searched the crowd for any signs of the girl with a hooded cloak.  But there was now too many people to tell where she was.  Finally, Ralph hung his head, putting his hands to his face and rubbing down.  

“RALPH!” came out a shrill cry.  

Ralph turned to see that Vanellope was making her way through the crowd.  He knelt down so that Vanellope could climb up his arm right on to his shoulder.  

“Thank goodness!” spoke the concerned voice of Felix as he and Calhoun made their way behind Vanellope.  “We thought you would get pummeled out there.”

“Yeah but…turns out he was shaken from that sudden outburst I did.” Ralph glumly replied.  

Ralph then noticed Calhoun looking around.  “So where is that hooded girl that you made google-eyes at?” she finally asked.  

Ralph felt his cheeks warm up again.  “How should I know!” he blurted aloud, “One minute she was behind me, and the next thing she was gone when I turned to see if she was okay!”
Vanellope furrowed her brow and gave Ralph a confused look.  

“Look guys, I know that this is all coming at you at once,” Ralph began, “but I think…I think I need to get out of this place.  Maybe she’s at the station.”

All three of his friends stared at one another, trying to decide if Ralph should go find the so called mystery girl, or have him stay to find someone else.  Finally, they looked up at Ralph (Vanellope looking down at him) they all gave a short nod.  Carefully Ralph plucked Vanellope off his shoulder and gently set her down next to Felix.  Before Vanellope could have the chance to say goodbye, Ralph was already out the door heading to Game Central Station.