I've been working on this fic for about a year now, wanting to perfect it before I decided to publish. I still have things to work out in later chapters, so don't expect regular updates for this one. Really happy with this one, so I hope you guys enjoy it.
All the President's Men
Vanellope woke up that morning like she did every other morning. It was an hour before the arcade opened, and she threw her pillow at her blaring alarm clock to knock it over and muffle it. The lump under the blankets shifted, then let out a few tired groans before the young president at last sat up, the blankets falling down off of her. Her half-opened eyes wobbled as she focused in her darkened room, her hair even more a mess than it normally was. She brought a hand to her mouth to hide a wide yawn, then she turned to carefully exit the bed.
Her bare feet hit the cold floor, the shock waking her up more. Vanellope shivered momentarily and grabbed one of the thinner blankets from her bed to wrap around her shoulders. All she had on was a little pink nightgown that hung loosely past her knees, and she honestly hated it simply because of the color, but it was more comfortable than sleeping in her hoodie and skirt all the time.
She shuffled through the mess in her room, mostly consisting of souvenirs that she'd brought home from her adventures to other games in the arcade: gold rings from Sonic's game and a bouquet of fire flowers from Mario that she kept forgetting to find a vase for just to name a couple. She and Ralph had gone to Street Fighter II last night, one of their favorite hangout spots; she knew she shouldn't have stayed up quite all night to watch the entire tournament, but it had been too good to resist.
Vanellope entered the bathroom that was directly connected to her bedroom and flicked on the light. She had to hold her hand up to shield her eyes from the brightness until she grew accustomed to it. She yawned again and scratched her side through her shirt while she smacked her lips. Water, she needed a glass of water before she did anything else. Her blanket dragged behind her, and she had to let it fall from her shoulders so she could use both hands to reach up to her small medicine cabinet that hung above her sink.
Like every other morning of her presidential life, she first stared at her reflection in the cabinet's mirror, noted that she really needed to quit staying up so late because red eyes were not very becoming for the leader of Sugar Rush, and then opened the cabinet to pull out her small water glass. On any other morning, she would have closed the cabinet and ran the tap water to fill it halfway with cold water so she could splash her face with it, then fill it up again to actually drink from it.
This morning, when she closed the cabinet, she saw someone besides herself staring back at her in the mirror. Vanellope gasped and dropped her glass in the sink, breaking it into multiple shards. The shrouded figure behind her, wrapped in a patchwork blanket of candy wrappers similar to the ones Vanellope had slept in during her outcast days, swiftly snapped a snug cold ring around her waist.
"What are you doing, get off me!" the child screamed as she tried to glitch away from her attacker, only to find that she was unable to.
She fell sideways in her attempt to escape and landed hard on her hip. She cried out and in a panic began to shove at the thick, dark brown ring around her. Her large hazel eyes widened in fear when she read the all-too-familiar words "Glitch Proof" carved into the sides of it.
Vanellope snapped herself out of her stupor in time to look up and see the intruder raise up a small jawbreaker, one about the size of her head, up in the air. She screamed and kicked at the person's leg to knock them off balance. The figure groaned in pain (a deep groan, she noticed, so it must have been a male), and dropped the jawbreaker onto floor while he grabbed at his shin. Vanellope's mind reeled as she forced herself to stand, running out of her private chambers and out into the second floor's main hallway.
"Help! Help, someone help me please!" she screamed shrilly as she continued to push with all her might against the glitch-proof chain segment around her. She had no idea where it could have even come from as she had not seen it since her short time in the Fungeon (which she had refurbished into a giant pit of marshmallows for her and the other kids to bounce around in). She'd thought they had disappeared when King Candy had died, but obviously that wasn't the case.
Vanellope didn't have much time to properly think about this particular mystery as she could hear her attacker running behind her now, but not as fast as she was running. "Guards, help!" she called out again, and then she tripped on a wrinkle that was in the long rug than ran down the length of the hallway.
Her heart stopped when she started to fall, and the intruder caught up with her. Vanellope landed on her hands and knees, breathing heavily at the treacherous pink carpet. That was the last thing she saw before she felt something heavy slam her in the back of her head.
"Code red, the president is in danger!"
The Oreo guards had heard the cries for help coming from the upper floor of the castle, and they quickly filed into formation as they ran through the throne room and up the winding stairs. Sour Bill exited his own private bedroom, a small sleeping cap perched crookedly on his rotund head. His jaw dropped when he saw all the Oreo guards run past him, their spears aimed forward with an upward angle.
"Sire, the president needs our assistance!" he heard one of them tell him as they ran past, and Sour Bill felt his heart flutter with anxiety.
"Oh no!" he exclaimed as he dashed out to follow along behind the guards. A memory came to him from when Sugar Rush had first been plugged in, back when Turbo had first come along. They couldn't let something like that happen again, couldn't let anything else happen to Vanellope.
The squadron of cookie guards stopped in their tracks, and Sour Bill accidentally ran into the back of the last one. He fell over and caught himself on his jellybean hands to keep from rolling around on the carpet.
"Why did we stop?" he demanded to know as he scurried alongside the guards to get to the front of the line. "We have to-"
The dour assistant paused mid-sentence when he saw what everybody else was looking at. The intruder stood before them at the very end of the hall right in front of a large picture window, carrying Vanellope's unconscious form in his arms. No one could make out the mysterious person's face under the cloak, and in a blink of an eye, he flew himself and Vanellope out the window with the aid of a glider he had on his back.
"No!" Sour Bill cried out, his small hands reaching out as if he could somehow will the president to come back to him. "Guards, get outside quickly and catch them!"
"Code red, we repeat, code red!"
Wynnchel and Duncan had been on patrol near the Licorice Fields when they heard the call over their walkie-talkies. Their hearts leapt in their throats at the thought of their beloved president being in danger.
"Full speed ahead, Dunc!" cried Wynnchel as he tore out on his motorcycle down the road back towards the castle. "Maybe we can catch the creep before he gets too far!"
Duncan always had trouble at first when the time came to go fast, and he wobbled in the road for a few seconds before he finally got his balance and sped after his eclair partner. "Wait for me!"
The two donut policemen zipped past several landscapes before getting the castle in their sights. Wynnchel heard the sound of sirens behind him, and he knew without having to look that it was the CLAWS team in their large utility vehicle. He was about to motion for them to split up when he got another call over the walkie-talkie.
"The suspect has vanished with the president! He is no longer on castle grounds!"
Wynnchel growled under his breath and he motioned for Duncan and the others to stop, turning his own motorcycle around so he could give orders. "CLAWS team! Go block the entrance to Sugar Rush! We can't have whoever this sicko is trying to get the president out of the game and potentially give her a game over!"
"Right, boss!" the team of Bear Claws donuts called out simultaneously, and they backed the truck up before turning around to speed off towards the game's portal.
"Wynnchel, what are we going to do!" Duncan was on the verge of crying, his hands flexing around his handlebars anxiously. "I can't stand the thought of Miss Vanellope getting hurt!"
"We're not going to let that happen!" Wynnchel snapped at him as he revved up his engine again to take off again. "Come on, let's split up and try to find this psycho before he gets too far!"
While the madness ensued at the castle, the cloaked figure took refuge in the safety of the shadows. Vanellope was still unconscious, her breathing slow and shallow as she lay cradled in her kidnapper's arms. The leg that Vanellope had kicked had developed a nice bruise, and it was hard to carry the little girl very far without having to stop and rub at the leg a bit before going on again. As long as they could make it to the hideout before she woke up and started screaming again, it would be all right.