This will make a smidge more sense if you've read the end of my other story, Remembering You, but it's not necessary

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. The arcade was closed and many game characters were taking advantage of this to run errands, visit friends, and have a good time. The president of Sugar Rush and one of her fellow racers were no different.

"That was so much fun! Who knew we could run fast enough to actually make it around the loop!" Vanellope squealed. She and Taffyta had just come out of Sonic's game and now they were on the prowl for some lunch. Taffyta plopped down on a bench, utterly exhausted. "Yeah," she gasped, "who knew?"

"You alright there, Tootsie-Pop?"

"Fine. I just have to remember how to breathe."

Just then, Candlehead walked up. "Taffyta! Vanellope! What's up?" she said as she waved. The vanilla racer waved back and patted a spot next to her on the bench. "Not much. Just breathing and trying to find a place for lunch. You wanna join us?"

"I'd love to!" the birthday racer squealed.

The three of them ended up in Burger Time and shared one of the humongous burgers. "So what are we gonna do now?" Vanellope asked through a mouthful of food. "You get to pick next, Taff." The strawberry racer put a finger up to her mouth as if to ponder but she already had a destination in mind. "Well, there's a shop I'd like to check out in one of the levels of a Rampage game. Is that okay?"

"Hey, fair is fair. I picked the last place so shopping it is! You have any plans, Wax Drip, or do you wanna come with us?"

"I'd like to come, if that's okay with you two."

They walked to the port and hopped onto the tram. Taffyta and Candlehead leaned in together and whispered, "She has no idea, right?"

"Right. Ralph said to get her dolled up and I could use a new dress anyway." The two girls grinned impishly and snickered, "This is going to be fun!"

"Welcome to Rampage: World Tour!" a female NPC greeted, "What can I do for you today?" Vanellope motioned for Taffyta to step forward. "Hi, I heard there's some dress shops around here. Is that true?"

The woman cooed and knelt down to pinch her cheeks. "Aww! Aren't you three the cutest? Where are your mommies?" The pink racer snorted and slapped her hand away. "Look here, lady, our game was released the same year yours was AND we've been in the arcade longer so don't gimme that kiddie crap!" The woman was taken aback. "I- I'm sorry, sweethear- I mean de- I mean Miss! It's just that you look like children and I assumed-"

The vanilla girl held up a hand to stop her and took a step forward. "Slow down there, Motor Mouth! What's your name?"

"S- Susan."

"Well, Susan, what Little-Miss-Sunshine was tryin' ta say was we don't have moms and we don't need any. We are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves." She smiled and put her hands in her hoodie pocket. "Now, if you would be so kind as to point us in the direction of the dress shop, I'd really appreciate it."

Susan stood up and clasped her hands together apologetically. "I'm sorry, girls, but without an adult accompanying you I can't let you in."

"Why not?" Candlehead butted in.

"Because it can be very dangerous here and we can't have three children running around alone." Taffyta opened her mouth to argue but Vanellope covered her mouth. "We just need an adult, right?" She switched to her adult form. "I think I qualify. So, which way do we need to go?" The poor woman stared at her in slack-jawed amazement. She turned around mechanically and started off down the hall. "R- Right this way, ladies."

"Thank you, Sophie."

A few hours later the girls had their dresses picked out: an adult sized mint green cocktail dress for Vanellope, a pink, sleeveless gown for Taffyta, and a puffy lavender dress for Candlehead and they all got shoes. They walked up to the checkout registers to pay for their plunder.

"So how are we supposed to pay for these, Taff?" Vanellope inquired. The girl shrugged. "I dunno. I've never been here before." The president sighed. "Well, hopefully it's like Tapper's and the money will appear in our pockets." They came to an open register, and since Vanellope was technically the tallest and the adult she put everything on the counter.

"Did you find everything alright?" the cashier asked cheerfully. "Eventually," she replied. "It looks like a prom, a wedding, and a dinner party threw up in here!" Not sure how to respond to that, he just laughed, "Yep, we have the largest selection in the arcade!"

When the last item was bagged he dropped the bombshell.

"Alright, ladies, your total comes to $710. Cash or points?" The girls all frantically searched their pockets. "You guys got anything?" The dirty-haired racer asked. Her companions turned out their pockets and shook their heads. "Listen, uh-" the young woman quickly read his name tag, "Steve. We've never been here before. How are we supposed to come up with that much dough?" He smiled sympathetically. "Ah. Newbies. Well, if you don't have any money we take points too. You would need 7,100,000 of 'em. Did anyone set you up with a points card?"

"No."

"Well, let's take care of that." He pulled out a piece of paper and a blank plastic card. "Just fill this out for me real quick, please." Vanellope did so and handed it back. Steve looked it over. "Everything looks good, Ms. Schweetz." He handed her the card and tapped a little machine to her right. "If you would please swipe this here for me, that'd be great." She did so and the card digitized into a digital matrix for a second, then rerendered into a green colored card with a red race car on the front. Her name was stamped at the bottom. "Ooh. Nice design," Steve whistled.

He put their items under the counter and stepped out. He pointed out a side door and motioned for them to follow. "If you'll just follow me, ladies, we'll get you taken care of. I'll hold your purchases for you." Gulping nervously, they asked simultaneously, "Where are we going?"

"To Scumlabs."

The girls found themselves in a research facility being assaulted with cheer by an overly excited intern.

"Hi, my name is Dr. Jessica and I'll be your scientist today!" She handed each of them a plain cotton jumpsuit. "Dressing rooms are just around the corner. Go ahead and change into these and I'll wait here for you. You can leave your shoes with your things."

"Why do we hafta change our clothes?" Candlehead inquired.

"You'll see," the doctor winked.

Shrugging, they obeyed. When they came out Dr. Jessica ushered them down a hall and out to the side of the playing field. "Okay, do you all know how to play?"

"No," they admitted.

"That's okay! All you have to do is destroy the buildings! Watch out, though. You have limited health and that can be lost by being shot, falling, eating the wrong thing, or being hit by another player." The girls stared at each other nervously. "Um," Vanellope piped up, "won't we die here?" The scientist shook her head. "You shouldn't. You have three lives and the game recognizes you as a player as soon as you start. As soon as your life is gone the game freezes so you can escape. Any more questions?"

"I've got one," Taffyta drawled. "Why are we doing this? What's the point?"

"We take the points you earn in a game and convert them into money to be used at any of the shops in the game. It's not a 1-to-1 points to dollars ratio, though. It's more like 10,000-to-1 so do your best out there!" She winked slyly. "Because this is your first game the winner gets a discount on their next purchase."

This didn't sound too bad so the girls started walking out into the suburbs of Peoria to start. "Wait, girls!" Dr. Jessica called out. "You'll need these." She tossed each of them a soda can. "Drink up!" she chirped. The racers nodded at each other, braced themselves, and chugged the liquid.

Immediately they felt like they were on fire and their bodies ached. They screamed as they seemed to grow and expand. The jumpsuits just barely held together. Vanellope blinked back the tears of pain and looked down at her bare feet. They were longer and hairy! Vanellope, Taffyta, and Candlehead really were growing and they were mutating! Suddenly their clothes couldn't contain their bodies anymore so they ripped and split as the girls shot up.

The pain disappeared and they looked themselves over.

"Wow," Vanellope growled, "I was not expecting this!" She had turned into a giant wolf with thick, black fur. Taffyta was a red iguana looking thing, and Candlehead was a green gorilla. "This had better not be permanent," Taffyta hissed. "Yeah, I don't wanna be a giant green monkey forever!" Candlehead hooted loudly. "It's not!" a tiny voice said. They looked down and there was Dr. Jessica, looking like a bug and waving. "Have fun!"

Grinning maniacally, the monsters charged the unfortunate city.

Vanellope was doing the best, so far, which bothered Taffyta. They may have made up after the Turbo Incident but Taffyta was competitive almost to a fault. She smacked a helicopter out of the air and stalked up to the wolf girl. "Hey, save some building for the rest of us!" she yowled. Vanellope just barked out a laugh. "You're just gonna have to do better, Scales. Go bother Queen Kong over there."

Taffyta looked over at Candlehead and saw that the gorilla monster was having the time of her life. She looked up at their health bars and saw that she was only about half full, Candlehead was nearly full (she always managed to find the hidden pieces of food), but Vanellope was almost dead. She smiled a horrifying smile and punched her wolfy friend. Vanellope grunted on impact and everything froze as she shrank back into a human. She scooted off the screen and everything resumed.

The giant lizard chuckled and resumed destroying the building front, until something grabbed her tail and pulled her off the roof. Vanellope had respawned and had gotten some revenge. Taffyta lost some life but she was hanging on by a thread. "What's the big idea?" she shrieked. "You tell me!" the wolf howled. A soldier shot the mutant lizard and she shrank.

When she came back she resumed her argument. "You probably do stuff like this all the time with your wrecker boyfriend. I'm just sayin' give the rest of us a chance!" Vanellope's punch sent the structure crumbling down. "Don't bring Ralph into this," she snarled. "This is between you and me! What, destroying my homes, my things, and my pedal kart over the years aren't enough to give you an edge?"

Candlehead tramped up and punched them both. "Hey, don't fight!" she roared.

"Someone grew a backbone," Vanellope muttered darkly.

The gorilla girl snorted and went back to a bank she was working on. The two rivals glared at each other but left it at that. At least, until the lizard girl hit the wolf girl and killed her again. "Sorry, Fuzz Face!" she taunted. "Didn't see you there." Vanellope came back for the last time and kicked Taffyta, emptying her life bar. "Oops," she sniggered, "my bad, Lizard Lips."

Taffyta didn't even bother destroying more buildings on her return. She shrieked out a battle cry and charged the black wolf. Vanellope was only too happy to duke it out. The two monsters punched, kicked, and bit anything they could reach. Between their brawl and the bullets peppering them they quickly died and were out of the game.

"That was a great game, ladies!" Dr. Jessica clapped. Candlehead clapped happily too. Vanellope and Taffyta glowered in opposite directions. "I hope you had fun. In 2nd place we have a tie! Vanellope and Taffyta both had 1,259,300 points. Well done!" They didn't look at each other as they crossed their arms and rested their chins on their elbows, but both girls smiled. "And today's winner is Candlehead with a whopping 3,691,400 points. Astounding!" The winner clapped her hands again and squealed like a school girl.

"This is kind of humiliating, isn't it?" Taffyta sighed. "That it is," Vanellope agreed. They turned towards each other and grinned. "Still friends?" The strawberry racer sheepishly asked. "Taff," the vanilla racer sighed, "you can really be a stinkin', rotten scuzbag of a racer, but you're MY stinkin', rotten, scuzbag of a friend." She hugged the girl tightly. "We're cool." They both hugged and congratulated the birthday racer and the three friends went to go get their dresses from Steve.

They all thanked their lucky Starbursts that, because of Candlehead's discount, they just barely had enough points.

They changed at the store and returned to Game Central Station. "Wow," Candle yawned when she saw the time, "we should probably get back. I'm getting tired." The other two nodded and they went home.

On the train back to Sugar Rush Taffyta and Candlehead immediately fell asleep next to Vanellope's side. Terrorizing several cities really takes it out of you! The woman's own eyelids grew heavier and heavier as she reflected on the day's events. A smile crept up on her lips as she succumbed to sleep.

Her final fading thought was deciding that nothing could make this day any better.