The racers left their carts near the stands, walking across the meadow with the grass poking at the soles of their feet. It was not much of a journey; Turbo knew that the house was just five minutes away, completely out of sight of any player. It must have been a secret or unfinished map because there didn't seem to be a reason why he would have a home.
"Guys, we're here!" Turbo pointed at something. In the distance, they saw a cobblestone building with warm light that illuminated from the windows and a miniature garden gnome which stood next to the snow white picket fence that bordered around the place. The three ran towards the house, Turbo hearing something tingle in his pocket when they got to the wooden door. He shuffled through it, pulling out a silver key, and unlocked the door.
Flicking the light on, Turbo went with the twins inside his home, putting his helmet on a peg and ruffling his charcoal black helmet hair. The twins dashed into the house, running right through the baby blue, tiled kitchen and quickly finding their way into the living room. The twins were excited about staying somewhere for the night, but even Turbo himself didn't know at first that he had a home. He only vaguely remembered its existence, thanks to his programmed memory. It was pretty simple, and fairly clean. On the plain red walls of the living room, pictures of red race cars captured in motion made up for the otherwise lack of decoration. The sofa was race-car shaped and coloured the same shade as the walls, however, the TurboTime Twins thought that the sofa was as plush and comfortable as a giant marshmallow.
In the kitchen there was a mini-fridge, stocked with a few cans of cola. Turbo opened a can and took a sip, relishing in the feeling of the cool, refreshing drink trickling into his mouth and down his throat. He peered through the doorway and watched as the twins started piling pillows up, draping blankets on top to form a tent-like pillow fortress. One twin wandered over to a mahogany bookshelf in the corner of the room, grabbing a book that caught his interest. Running his hands over the smooth hardback cover, he read the title, which suggested that it was a horror book: Ghost. Excitedly dashing to the other twin, they opened the book together and gawked at the mysterious images displayed on the paper.
"Thith thtuff ith great, guyth!" Turbo called to the TurboTime Twins, offering cans to them. Shaking their heads, they went back to reading their horror book while pranking each other under the makeshift tent. Shrugging in response, Turbo drank more of his Coke before settling down to watch a T.V show about cars. After a while, Turbo got bored and decided to take a walk.
"Hey guyth, I'm going out." Turbo headed to the white door, the twins nodding in response. Walking along, a cool breeze brushing past his face, he noticed that there wasn't much to look at other than the grass, a race track in the corner and a tunnel…
Wait, a tunnel?
Turbo sprinted to the tunnel, noting the fancy writing above it. It read, "To Game Central Station."
"What'th Game Central Thtation?" Turbo asked no one in particular, placing one finger on his lip as he was thinking. Deciding that it was best to check it out, Turbo hopped on the train, which looked like a row of cars attached to each other.
Turbo could not believe his eyes when he arrived at Game Central Station, frantically darting his head in every possible direction. The floor was a creamy marble colour, and the walls, where more tunnels were, were a stale brown. However, that was not nearly all there was to witness. Big, bulky characters with massive grey armour walked passed him with guns over their shoulders, not even glancing once at a very awestruck Turbo. An orange fox with two tails twisting like a helicopter glided over him to some other tunnel, and two very small angel-like creatures ran over to who-knows where, possibly to wherever that fox was going. Oh, there were so many new people to meet!
"Thith. Ith. Awesome!" Turbo gasped with excitement, his eyes frantically roaming around the large room, desperate to drink in every image.
Looking back at ground level, he noticed that the other characters stopped what they were doing and were now staring at him. One bulky character grimaced at him, clenching his fists and leaving a very confused Turbo worrying about getting beaten up. The weaker characters cowered behind the character, trusting that he would protect them.
"What?" Turbo questioned. The weak characters burst into motion and fled at the sound of his voice.
"What'th wrong?" Turbo took one step forward, and frowned at the characters that ran away, most of which were heading back to their own games. "Oh well, I'm sure I'll find a new friend someplace else!" Turbo said enthusiastically, giving a thumbs up and a smile to no-one in particular.
"Hey," the powerful character said. He had red dreadlocks framing his face and plum-coloured eyes. White gloves were perched on his hands, two claw-like, white spikes sticking out of them. Most notably, he had a white crescent mark on his completely red chest. Crossing his arms, he stared at Turbo with suspicion.
"Oh, hi!" Turbo grinned, not really understanding why the character glared with such animosity towards him.
"Who are you talking to?" the character asked.
"Oh, no-one. It jutht...well, it maketh me feel happy to do that!" Turbo smiled at him.
The character turned, walked away and waved him off, a small grin hidden on his face. "Make sure you don't go creating trouble..." he warned. Seriously, this guy was a threat? Hardly. He was as short as a smurf and seemingly friendlier than Tails, his yellow fox friend.
"Huh?" Turbo tilted his head to the side. Everyone around him was acting really weird. He hadn't done anything wrong, so why were they acting like this? Well, he supposed that this guy was okay, but it was still unnerving. He just had to figure it out, but not right then. Instead, he decided to look around at his surroundings. There were more places to explore, places he'd never even heard of, places like Pac-Man, Fix It Felix Jr, Asteroids and Dance Dance Revolution.
"Ooh, that thoundth like a good place to go!" Turbo said, jumping up with excitement and pointing at a tunnel with the sign Tapper stamped at the top.
Arriving at Tapper, Turbo was welcomed with the smell of root beer tingling his nose and homely decoration. Fresh root beer taps were lining the walls and a sign with "root beer" stamped on it was hung up at the back of the room. The mahogany rectangular tables were lined up neatly in rows, and though it could have just been a trick of the light, it looked like there was a red light under the rim. The walls were a navy blue, sporting a pattern somewhat resembling the style of the artist William Morris, and some fierce-looking characters were sat on the leather bar stools, playing cards. Going over to sit down, he didn't notice the steely stares given to him, several characters dropping their playing cards and inevitably losing their game. Clueless about the annoyance of the other characters, Turbo lifted himself on the stool, too short to go and sit on it without some effort. Swinging his legs while waiting for his order, Turbo smiled into the distance as those characters slowly turned back to what they were doing.
"Can I get you anythin', sir?"
Turbo turned around to face a puffy man that resembled Mario, a short man with a big, red bow tie around his neck, a white vest, and a blue suit. He smiled at Turbo, feeling completely indifferent to him despite the obvious atmosphere of distaste coming from the other patrons. After all, a customer's a customer. He wiped the tables, waiting for Turbo to order.
"What do you have?" Turbo asked, earning snickers from tables nearby. Whipping his head around in the direction of the laughter, he shouted "Hey, I'm new, okay?" a blush very evident on his face due to his paper-white complexion.
"It's alright," the man said nonchalantly. "We only sell root beer here."
"Okay," Turbo turned back around and returned the man's smile. This guy was the only one treating him decently right now. "I would like one root beer, then, pleathe."
"Coming right up!" the man chirped, making his way to the taps at a surprising speed and pouring a drink for Turbo. "Here you go, sir."
"Yum, lookth nice!" Turbo said, happily gulping down the drink. When he finished, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand. The man could only be glad that Turbo's drink was the non-alcoholic version, made for the kids that came to the bar. He couldn't bear to think about what would happen if Turbo got drunk."Thankth, you're Turbo-Tathtic!" he smiled, giving a signature thumbs up to the man before pushing himself off of the stool. Before darting off towards the tunnel, Turbo looked back to see Tapper cleaning the table. "By the way, what'th your name?"
"Tapper," the man replied. "You'll probably hear a lot of me around here."
"Really? Are you famous?" Turbo questioned.
"No, just...well-known," Tapper admitted.
Shrugging, Turbo turned back to the tunnel, skipping towards it. Looks were turning back to Turbo, everyone obviously afraid that something bad was going to happen to their games while they were out drinking at the bar.
"Hey, you do remind me of the ol' Turbo..." Tapper whispered to himself, drying a glass. "That is, before he went Turbo..."
"Huh? What did you thay?" Turbo looked over his shoulder. Tapper half expected him to glare at him, but the only thing he saw in his eyes were confusion and sadness. He saw that look somewhere before, many times. It was when Ralph would come in after a long day at work before he became the good guy of the arcade, chugging down a root beer and sometimes sleeping in the washrooms after closing time. Every day, he would wallow in his sorrows while talking to Tapper about his unhappiness about being the bad guy. He told him that he was his only friend, other than the other bad guys that went to Bad Anon and some of the homeless characters that roamed around Game Central Station. It carried on like this for thirty years, and Tapper didn't really feel like watching another game character go through the same thing. Even though he couldn't help the situation of Turbo being the bad guy of the entire arcade, at the very least he needed answers.
"Hey, could you come over here for a second?"
Turbo turned back around and walked up to Tapper. Turbo was considerably taller than Tapper, but he still looked at him like a child looking at their father: with admiration and familiarity. Clearly, he already saw Tapper as a friend. Instant trust in someone like that was not going to serve him well in the future, Tapper noted.
"I want you to know this," Tapper said, walking over to serve another customer while Turbo followed closely behind. "None of this is your fault. They're scared of you because another person, also called Turbo, went and tried to destroy the entire arcade."
"They're thcared of me becauthe of what thomeone elthe did?" Turbo frowned.
"Yep. They think you're going to do the same thing."
"But I'd never do that!" Turbo shrieked, horrified at the thought of doing such a thing.
"I know you wouldn't," Tapper ignored his shouting, turning back to face him. "But you've gotta prove it."
"How?" Turbo asked, hopelessness in his eyes.
"Just...do good stuff, like visiting Sugar Rush and helping Vanellope or somethin'."
"Vanellope?" Turbo questioned.
"Yeah, princess of Sugar Rush," Tapper held up a finger, suddenly remembering something. "Ah, but she does prefer to be called president..."
"I'm confuthed. Why call her a prethident when the'th a princeth?"
"That's just what she prefers," Tapper replied, leaving Turbo scratching his head. Noticing this, he decided to explain it better. "She used to not be a princess, but now she is one, she doesn't want to change herself for the title. She's callin' herself a president because it sounds better, though I'm not sure if she knows anythin' about politics..."
"Politicth?"
"Grown-up stuff," Tapper said simply.
"Oh."
Turbo rocked on the balls of his feet, his arms behind his back. He wasn't really sure who Vanellope was, but from the sounds of it, he and her would make good friends. Watching as Tapper served some other customers, he noticed that the last train was going to arrive in five minutes. Leaving his trophy behind since he couldn't really pay using any other method, he headed to the gateway of the tunnel, some characters throwing daggers at him from a distance. He was uncomfortable with the stares, but found that it would be best to ask Tapper one last question.
"Doeth Vanellope like racing?"
Tapper turned around from a customer to find Turbo standing at the tunnel. How did he get there so quickly? "Um, oh yeah. She loves it."
Yep, they were going to make great friends.
The last train from Tapper arrived at Game Central Station. Turbo got off, capturing the scenery with his mind. Obviously, he was going to see it many times in the future, but he was so excited by what was happening around him that he didn't particularly care.
"Hey, that guy..." someone said, staring at him.
"That looks like Turbo!" someone else quivered.
"No duh, dolce!" a third person said. "Did you not hear that Litwak plugged in a new game?"
"Yeah, but I didn't think that it was going to be TurboTime. That game was unplugged for a reason, you know..." the first person sighed.
Wait, what?
Turbo was confused. What did they mean by unplugged? Tapper never said anything about getting unplugged. He decided to go ask.
"Hey, um, can I talk to you for a thecond?"
The three ghosts who were talking suddenly turned a dark blue colour when they spotted Turbo.
"P-p-please don't hurt us!" the previously light blue ghost quivered.
"Y-y-yeah, t-t-they were just jokes!" the ghost next to him, who used to be pink, whimpered, planning to run away as soon as possible.
"I'm not going-" Turbo started, but the ghosts ran away before he had a chance to finish. "-to...hurt...you..."
Turbo stared sadly after them. He wished that they didn't feel that way about him, that the other Turbo never tried to take over the arcade, because it was getting pretty darn impossible to make friends. Yawning, he headed to the tunnel titled 'TurboTime', feeling too tired to overthink things. He could only hope that tomorrow this Vanellope girl racer would help him become the good guy that he truly was.