Chapter One: Blood-coated candy apples
After the cybug incident, ralph and his friends were back to their normal lives with a few changes. ralph was treated fairly, vanellope can race and explore other games, and felix and Tamora begun their relationship after their marriage. but as time passes, they slowly forget about the incident. and little did they know, is that you can regenerate outside your game. if a piece of your part still exists, you can regenerate, but with no memory about everything. When the arcade's owner installs the halloween theme, the heros we know, are in for a fright that can scar everyone for life...
"Sticky!" called Torvald, putting the last batch of her traditional candy-styled apples on a tray lined with waxed paper to cool. Benches set up in their gingerbread barn lined the walls, half filled with the sugar coated fruit.
"Where has that girl gone off to?" she muttered to herself.
A licrorice-made cauldron, half empty but for a hissing puddle of sweet red syrup, cooled over a pile of smoldering coals just outside the barn door. The gingerbread barn itself was warm and snug, filled with lantern light and the sweet scent of sugary treats. Quite the contrast to the chill night outside. Even so, Torvald couldn't help drawing the cool air into her lungs with a satisfied smile as she stepped out to look for her twin. She loved this time of year. Winter would be here soon enough it was true, and that had its own work and worry, just like spring and summer. But the autumn months, after the hours of racing, were a time of relaxation and fun for sugar rush. With the licorice crops in, safe and sound, money would come rolling into their farm before too long. It was a tradition in their game to share the wealth, and what better way than to provide all kinds of treats and games for the kiddies for Halloween?
Halloween. It was the first holiday to come after the harvest, so the people who live in sugar rush always did it big! Of course, the holiday had always been more about treats than tricks at candy apple orchard, where the festivals were mostly held every year. And Every year, the candy people would have tubs set up in sugar rush for the townsfolk to bob for candy apples without sticks. They had taken to turning in early and letting torvald make sure they stayed full of crisp, delicious candy apples.
Even so, sugar rush was still an important part of the halloween festival. Even sticky wipplesnit seemed to be taking more of an interest in the festivities. Last year she'd gone around with their friend, candlehead collecting candy with her friends, but this year she seemed to be really interested in helping Torvald make up a few homemade treats to pass out at the festival in their game. A few of the recipes sticky was trying out seemed a mite odd, but Torvald didn't mind trying new things so long as they were able to finish making their batch of usual treats as well. The only problem was, after helping Torvald spear a few apples and dip them in the bubbling red syrup, Sticky seemed to have quickly lost interest and wandered off to do her own thing.
Really, Torvald shouldn't have been surprised. Torvald had a strange habit of getting distracted by the least little thing. They should have been done making treats hours ago, but as it was, she still had about half the apples left to dip. Worse, she was running low on red syrup and cinnamon firewood.
"Sticky!" called Torvald again as she went to the side of the barn where the cinnamon wood pile was kept to get a few fresh sticks.
"Wherever you run off to, park your kart back over here! We got a lot of apples left to dip after we store them in the barn to dry, and we're gonna be burning the midnight oil with all your wandering!" The caramel racer paused and listened.
The fog that curled towards the orchard tonight did strange things to the familiar sounds of the barn, muffling noises that Torvald would normally find comforting and amplifying those she couldn't identify. She didn't hear the sound of any tiny feet coming her way, nor did she hear her naive friends' voice calling out in response. What she thought she heard was giggling. High, echoing giggling that belonged to an adult just on the edge of her hearing. It wasn't something anybody wanted to hear all alone on a dark night.
"Easy Torvald, your just creepin' yourself," Torvald reassured herself under her breath as she quickly piled a few dry cinnamon branches under her arm for the fire.
She really wished that Anybody didn't go to sleep so early and that Vanellope wasn't out of her game wit her other friends, who were also helping set up for tomorrows celebrations. More than anything she wished Sticky would stop wandering off on her own. A orchard was no place for a young racer to go exploring by herself, especially at night. Torvald had heard too many horror stories of Boys playing around on farm equipment and hurting themselves. Perhaps more dreadful were the stories of children falling into old sink holes or boarded up wells and nobody finding them until months later, if they found them at all.
A thought suddenly occurred to Torvald as she headed back towards the front of the barn. "Sticky, you better not be planning on sacring me! It ain't Halloween just yet!" When there was no answer she tried, "I'll tell Vanellope on you!" There was still no answer. At least no answer she wanted to acknowledge as being more than a figment of her imagination.
As she rounded the side of the barn, a sudden burst of flame whooshed into life, painting the fog bright orange. Torvald jumped back, the firewood she carried under her arms scattering at her feet. She almost bolted, there and then, but calmed down when she realized the flames were under the cauldron. Somebody had gotten the fire going again while she'd been out back at the woodpile. Had Sticky gone to fetch more cinnamon wood and she'd just missed her going around the other side of the barn?
As Torvald drew closer she saw that whomever had built up the fire had used too much lemon fuel. The flames were licking up the side of the cauldron, bright and hungry. Already she could see that the syrup that had been left in the pot was bubbling up. At this rate it would burn and blacken, going completely to waste. "Oh Sticky, you can't use that much wood! You need a low heat for this kind'a treat."
She went to drag the cauldron out of the fire and save what she could of the syrup, careful to avoid the leaping, flickering flames, but found the old pot wouldn't budge. It was usually only this heavy when it was full, not half empty like it was. Torvald did the best she could, tugging the cauldron inch by inch away from the barn.
Once it was on a patch of damp dirt she went about shoveling sand over what flames she could, trying to tame the wild fire. The flames subdued a bit, so Torvald decided she'd try to get her friends help to get the cauldron back in place.
"Sticky, are you in here?" asked Torvald as she walked into the barn. The lanterns had all been blown out. By the light from the fire, Torvald could tell that the barn was empty on the inside. Empty that is, save for a pile of sticky Popsicle sticks that used to have candy apples on the end, sitting boldly on the benches. Even the apples that hadn't been dipped yet were missing. A echoing voice, a mans voice, whispered "hungry," and then chuckled sweetly. So that was what was going on!
"Gloyd, I can't believe you! You scared me to death and those treats are for tomorrow, to share with all the girls and boys that came looking for sweets to bite! How could you be so selfish as to eat the lot after they even had a chance to dry!?"
Rancis and swizzle had to be in on this. the candy apple Orchard produce might be good enough that a kid would like to try to eat a whole bushel in one go, but one kid couldn't have eaten all the apples Torvald had dipped. Even three managing it was a stretch, but that was the only logical conclusion she could come to.
"Gloyd, get out here right now! You and your friends! Or I swear, I'll be telling vanellope about how I learned how to break a boys arm with my bare hand!"
Still there was nothing but silence. Well... almost. There was that high, echoing chuckling again. It sounded like... It sounded like it was coming from the cauldron, but that couldn't be right. It didn't make any sense. How could the others be hiding in that bubbling hot mess? Torvald moved tentatively towards the cauldron, her eyes darting back and forth.
"Run." a voice whispered. Torvald shrieked shorlty to turn and see a girl standing behind her. sh ewas about 3 or 4 feet high, had licorice red hair with black highlights, pale skin, and had to diffrent eye colours. one was green and the other pink. she wore a purple french maid dress, with an light yellow apron on it. she also wored orange and yellow stripped stockings and black mary jane shoes. she had a tiny gold crown headband on her head, tilted. along with a red candy wrapper bow, tied to the bottom of her hair. on her arms, she wore two shaded purple stripes, lighter and darker, and had a wavy lace on her wrists, and had cherry red fingerless gloves.
"Oh, dear! you nearly gave me a heart attack! what are you doing here in the middle of the night?"
the girl just stared at her and whispered "he has two, your his third, run away quickly, like a bird." and with that, the girl turned and walked away from her, into the dark. torvald gave the girl a weird look and continued to do her investigation.
Beyond the glow of the fire, there was nothing but darkness, mist, and fading moonlight. The smoke from the partially quenched fire burned her eyes as she looked into the big black pot, ready to jump back at the first sign of a trick. She froze. Her eyes locked on to two sad, shriveled up figures curled into balls at the bottom of the pot. They were completely covered in bubbling red syrup, but even so, Torvald could tell right away the tiny figures were her friends.
"Gloyd! Sticky!" She screamed.
Torvald reached into the cauldron with her bare hands, burning her limbs on the still hot metal as she closed them around Her friends' unmoving forms, the pain of her seared flesh nothing compared to the agony that tore at her heart. How had this happened!? Had her friends somehow fallen in!? Why hadn't they cried out!? Why hadn't they screamed!? Torvald ran into the barn where there was a trough of water and quickly dunked Gloyd and Sticky's body into the cold liquid.
The syrup was already starting to set and the sticky gunk wouldn't come off. Torvald did the best she could, but a part of her knew it was already too late. Her friends' weren't breathing. She tried hammering on sticky's chest, put her mouth to her friend's and breathed air into her lungs. She did the same to gloyd, and it did nothing but leave a sickly sweet taste in her mouth, pieces of half dried red syrup sticking to her lips. That was too much for her. She fell back on her knees, wiping at her mouth with her hand, trying to get rid of the taste... The taste of death and candy. She felt her gorge rise as tears pricked the corners of her eyes. How could this have happened? She blamed herself. What kind of a horrible friend was she?
That's when she heard the laughter again. It filled the barn, vibrating through the candy straw beneath her feet, and seemed to echo inside her chest. Inside her head. There were words too, in a man-like childish sing song voice, "Trick or treat! What a beat!"
Torvald got up, backed away, wildly turning her head back and forth, trying to find the source of the song and that horrible mocking laughter. "Where are you!? Who are you!? Did you do this!? Did you do this to Gloyd and Sticky?"Torvald howled, tears of anger and sadness spilling from her eyes. "What did my friends ever do to deserve this!?" She backed slowly out of the barn, away from her friends' body, whipping her head around to try and find the source of laughter. Where was the laughter coming from?
She stumbled out into the cool night air, still reeling from what had happened to her friends, still haunted by the laughter of somebody she couldn't see. If she had watched where she was going, she might not have tripped over a well placed hoof. She didn't realize she had stumbled into the fire until the flames were chasing themselves through her brown bow and flickering up into her hair. Panicked beyond all reason, she reared back on herarms, and fell right into the still cooling cauldron.
She screamed then, loud enough to wake the dead, as her flesh burst and blistered from the heat and the sticky syrup seeped into her wounds. Everywhere the metal of the pot touched, a layer of skin stuck, sizzling and smoking as it parted from the rest of her body. Blinded by the smoke of her own flesh burning, the stench choking her even as she fought for more air with which to scream, she tried desperately to climb out of the cauldron. The sides, slick with her own blood, slipped beneath her painful fumbling. The chuckling rose all around her, the laughter loud and menacing. A face peered out of the smoke.
Sh efroze in terror. it was their former ruler, king candy! but he was different. instead of being their height, he was at least ten feet tall, He had an insect-like body, and he had a candy ring neck that could expand in length. His back was completely purple, and his front yellow. His arms had lighter an darker stripes and his cufflinked hands became red claws, and the tips had a darker tone of purple. He gained four orange and yellowed striped legs, and two similarly-colored pincers located on his chest. He had jagged purple markings on his head, and under his mouth. His crown changed into a spiky appearance. His hair became feral and unkempt, with a darker color, his purple eyelids and gray eyebrows darkened more too, and his teeth formed into large sharper canines. and finally, he had neon hot pink wings on his back, and had long neon hot pink tails. his eye swere complete madness.
"Give me Something Sweet to eat!"
He sang sinisterly as he lunged forward. Torvald felt his sharp teeth close around half of her face. One eye went dark as it popped between a pair of sharp fangs. Her shriek faded to a gurgle as the former ruler ripped away part of her face and throat, chewed and then swallowed the bloody wad of flesh.
With a burst of adrenaline, Torvald managed to scamper out of the cauldron and crumble to the marbled ground. She felt something crack as she hit the dirt, but that didn't matter. She just had to run, she had to get away! She couldn't get up properly, but still she dragged herself through the dirt. A mad idea seized her. If she could get to the barn... Just get to the barn and close the door, she could buy herself some time to think. Just to think. Tears spilling from her one remaining eye, she labored over the sweet ground, the few feet between fire and possible safety now seeming miles. Any moment she expected his teeth to find her again.
With mild disbelief, Torvald tumbled into the barn and slammed the door behind her. She panted heavily, finding it hard to suck air into lungs while there was a hole in her throat. She started coughing uncontrollably, suffocating on her own blood and terror. Something slammed into the door behind her like a freight train, making her shriek and whimper.
The wood splintered as laughter shook the frame of the entire barn. She stood on her legs with her back to the barn door, bracing her burnt and melted limbs against the door and the slippery, candy straw covered floor as best she could. This couldn't be happening. She couldn't handle something like this on her own. She needed help. She needed help right now! As she opened her mouth to scream again, this time to yell as loud as she could to call for help, she felt something suddenly thrust between her jaws.
It was as if it happened in slow motion. The wooden door blossomed, opening like a rare red flower, all spines and petals gaping wide as if to entice a lover. Shards and shrapnel shred open Torvalds back, sending a shower of scarlet spurting from her that splashed across the barn door in a pattern that looked almost like wings.
She never had time to register the pain as the tyrant that caused the hole, something large and cylindrical, was forced clean through her back and up through her ribcage and into her mouth from her throat. She couldn't tell what it was at first, but the taste of dirt on the fence post mixed with her own blood as the sharp end skewered her tongue. The post, that had so recently been buried in the ground, transfixed her as it poked up through her throat from deep inside her guts. She felt her teeth break and her jaw pop loose from the rest of her skull as, with another forceful shove, the post shattered the door behind her and king candy began to force his own body through. She felt parts of her she had never felt before burst within her body as the thick shaft of wood churned her internal organs to mush.
The candybug, whatever her 'ruler' was now, tore through the barn door like it was tissue paper, a look of triumph on what she could see of his twisted face. She didn't even feel the shards of wood embedded in her back anymore, only the wood that had impaled her. It was almost a relief when her burning lungs collapsed and the rhythm of her heart slowed, stuttering it's final beats.
The last thing that flickered across her consciousness before she finally died was a little figure, walking bear the candybug, who was smiling. she raising her lifeless hand into the air and smiling, giggling all the while... And then taking a bite of the red syrup-coated Torvald, before speaking.
"I perfer blood coated, than red syrup, don't you think?"
he chuckled "you did warned her, though"
"oh well, three down..."
she opened her mouth, revealing sharp, teeth witb scarlet liquid, stained on her teeth "...Eleven more to go..." she said as she took another bite.