AN: hey there! Welcome to my fanfic! Please, tell me what you think, and all opinions are appreciated. I may be new to the site, but that's no excuse to go easy on me if you don't like it. This is, obviously, copyrighted by Disney and Nintendo and all that jazz. Now, let me shut up and let you read.

Sometimes, a simple twist of fate can make great things happen. Just the slightest difference-and everything would change. The outcome and the people involved would be different, and in some cases, nearly unrecognizable as from the same event . People we think we know-they might have had totally different personalities if some important thing had(or hadn't)happened-might seem strangers. This important thing can happen more than once, and has happened twice to someone, once recently and once before. This is the story of before .Not the present, not the future, but the past.

Nobody, no matter how tough or optimistic, could last years of bitterness alone without picking up on it themselves. Not alone. This is a story of the past, and that important event I mentioned before. And it begins with an escape.

Run, run faster. Fast is not enough. I have to run faster than them. I have to get away. The same thought was on the minds of two-though they'd never know-in different places. One was a pokemon, a young one, and the other was a girl, also young. The latter has a name-Vanellope. The first remains without one. The young pokemon simply went by houndour, and other names. a clever thing with a taste for adventure, after causing a bit of trouble she found herself running from the pound. Vanellope was running from the guards and taunting racers. Neither were pleased with their situation.

(breakline/transition)

Unknowingly, the pokemon ran into the nearest game to get the people from the pokemon pound off her tail-literally. The plan worked, and soon she was running in Sugar Rush. She ran until she came to a pond in the strange woods, woods unlike those of the pokemon game.

(POV. shift)

Meanwhile, Vanellope had gotten away from the tormentors, and was in the process of thinking angry and harsh thoughts as to how she'd someday, somehow, get revenge. She stopped at the only pond in the area, the one she'd seen within the first day of the game's being plugged in, about 4 years ago. Some weird thing was drinking across from the water, and looked up upon her arrival. It was pitch-black and rusty orange ,with a skull-type thing on it's head and worn-out, silvery-steel bands around all four legs just above the paws. It had high-set ears and a short stump of a tail, and large, questioning brown eyes that stared at her across the water.

She paid it no notice, seeing as it couldn't possibly tease her-not verbally anyways.

(POV. shift)

'What is that?' The pokemon caught a scent across the pond-it was a confusing one. The emotions carried were angry, very angry, but at the same time frustrated, sad. It's coming from a small girl. Wanting to investigate, the houndour set off to greet the small girl. 'Although the girl may be out to catch me.' she reasoned. Her curiosity won out over fear of being caught, and the pokemon continued. The young girl stiffened upon the realization that the houndour intended to greet her.

"what do you want? Have you decided to come laugh too?" the girl demanded with an angry gesture. The houndour flinched for a moment, then decided to be as friendly as possible, wagging the stump that was her tail, keeping her ears upright, and moving in to smell the girl. Or at least, she thought it was friendly. The girl did some weird thing in which she decided to briefly disappear into blue things. 'pixels, I think that's what they're called.' the pokemon thought. After a moment's hesitation, she dismissed it as nothing and continued investigating the girl, who blinked as if she were surprised by the action.

"so you're just going to keep doing that." The girl said flatly. 'hmm…yes, she's sad. It's just hard to tell.' The houndour ignored the comment and finished smelling, noting her findings. 'why is this girl sad? this is a popular game that probably gets lots of playtime during open hours, what is there to be sad about? I ran from my game to explore, and I've met many people, but none of them were this sad. what's going on here? now I need to know. I've got it! I'll learn why she's sad, then be on my way. Maybe if I make her happy I can find out what makes her sad.' This was the houndour's idea as she licked the girl in a feeble attempt to cheer her up.

"Stop it!" the girl shouted. The pokemon backed off and tilted her head, wondering what the cause of the outburst was. "leave me alone." Was all the girl said in explanation, before wandering off somewhere.

(POV. shift)

"What was that thing anyways?"Vanellope wondered aloud. It made no effort to make her miserable, and it confused her. What was that dog thing doing in this game anyways? "I don't know much about other games, but that thing isn't from this one." She declared. Upon stopping to think about it, she noticed that she had been followed by the thing, and it now sat almost at her feet, looking for all the world like it had been her dog for years on end.

"What are you doing?!" she exclaimed in surprise as she looked at it. "Houndour." It produced the noise happily, and delivered a swift lick to Vanellope's hand, scooting in closer until it was sitting on her feet. Before she could protest, the all-too familiar rumble came from a distance. She used to adore that noise. Before she had learned what it was followed by. The subtle rumble ebbed away to a roar, the sound of the engines drawing nearer. But she stayed still, and stared off to where she knew they would come from, with the little confidence she could still gather after all of the previous run-ins.

Apparently sensing this new mood from her, the dog thing leapt to it's feet and looked around. Coming up with nothing it headed to a tree to curl up beneath it, as if indifferent to what was happening.

The brakes on one of the cars screeched violently as it turned at just the right angle to spew up cake-dirt, passing Vanellope as it did so. "I see those are still working." She muttered drily, wiping some of the dirt and mud off herself. Of course, the game decided this would be the perfect time for her to glitch, and she did so without wanting to-not that she ever did want to. there once was a point when it would have bothered her deeply, but after a while she honestly stopped caring.

"I see you're still not working." The ring leader of the group laughed and pointed an accusatory finger at the unfortunate target of the joke. Checking behind that one, the 3 others followed suit, though none pointed, as they thought the motion was unnecessary since there was no confusion as to who they were poking fun at. Ok, so maybe it's less 'poking fun' and more 'repeatedly hitting over the head with a bat with fun', but either way it was obvious.

The dog thing watched the encounter with a half-opened eye, and a laid back expression.

Taffyda was still smirking deviously, and with that, war began. Only instead of bullets, they fought with newly sharpened sarcasm and heated glares.

"I came to tell you to give it up already. After today's...terrible… debacle, the king said he was going to…expand the security range. You can't get in, so stop trying. You're just a useless waste of space, and a mistake waiting to happen, understand?" Taffyda said in a confident tone, pausing occasionally to carefully choose big words.

"oooh, someone's using a database." came the mocking retort. Some of the confidence in Taffyda's demeanor vanished (as hoped) after Vanellope casually dismissed the strategic wording intended to upset her and appear completely unaffected. In truth it stung her deeply, but she refused to show any signs of weakness to the racers. That was all buried, covered up so well that one would never find it without looking very hard for it, and since that would require hanging around her, nobody ever made an attempt to find the weaknesses. Which was just what Vanellope wanted.

The brown-clad racer known as Rancis stepped forwards, Candlehead mirroring him on the opposite side of Taffyda, and swizzle brought up the rear. The four walked purposefully towards Vanellope, eyes gleaming with malice that rivaled that of a pack of hungry wolves. As quick as the small smile at having outsmarted Taffyda had come, it was wiped clean off Vanellope's face, and she glared vehemently . As the group continued walking steadily towards her, the slight anger on her face changed to a different expression, and she looked at them, glare extinguished, with no more of the once ever-present fire in her eyes. What would have been a longer argument a year ago had lasted a measly 5 minutes now. And they were only getting shorter and more frequent. As her face ungraciously hit the muddy dirt and frosted ground, no effort was made to get up. As the racers walked away, laughing freely at her expense, no effort was made to get up and struggle in vain to protect the small amount of pride they left her with after these 'chats'. And no effort was made to convince herself that what they had said was wrong. So she sat on the ground and thought, while slowly, some of the fight in her faded away.

AN: database=dictionary, basically. Also,(insert words here) = breakline/ point of view or side change.