I think we all know what's coming up in this chapter… :(

Chapter 4: Master of Schemes

If this plan didn't work, then he was at a major loss of what to do. But it had to work, he was sure of it.

As Turbo drove to the spot where he'd last seen Vanellope and Ralph, he thought about what he should say to convince Ralph to leave. It was pretty clear the wrecker had come to care a lot for the glitch, and he wouldn't likely abandon her in her time of need even if he got what he wanted. But Turbo was far too clever to simply bribe him. Instead, he would use Ralph's affection for Vanellope against him.

Oh Turbo, you sneaky, handsome devil! he praised himself mentally. Once he had a persuasive argument ready, he sped up and tried to locate his target.

Much to his delight, he found Ralph standing beside Vanellope's fail-tastic kart in front of Diet Cola Mountain, but the glitch herself was absent. "Hoo-hoo, Ralph!" he called out with a friendly smile and wave. "There you are! Hello!"

As he got out of his car, Ralph turned to him, burning with anger. "You!"

Turbo dropped his goggles on his seat and shut the door. "Now, I come alone, unarmed…" He ducked just in time as Ralph threw a gumdrop past his head. Holy sh—

"I've had enough of you, Pillow Pants!" Ralph yelled, stomping towards him with clenched fists.

Oh Mod, he's gonna kill me! Turbo darted away, zigzagging behind a giant gumdrop, but Ralph kept blocking his escape. "Now, please, calm down! Aah!" he yelped, genuinely afraid. If Ralph managed to bring him down, there was a chance he wouldn't be coming back.

Finally Ralph picked up the massive gumdrop and threw it behind him. "I'm gonna beat the filling out of you!" he raged, closing in.

As a last resort, Turbo whipped out a pair of nerd glasses from hammerspace and put them on. "Aha! You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses would you?" Finally, a good use for these!

But Ralph simply grabbed the glasses and smacked Turbo on the head with them, hard enough that the lenses shattered.

"Oh!" Turbo blinked in surprise. "You hit a guy with glasses. That's… Well played." He had to admit it was kinda funny. Until Ralph clutched him by the lapels and held him up to his stinky face. "Wha—aah!"

Wreck-it Ralph hissed, "What do you want, Candy?"

"Listen, I just want to talk to you," Turbo promised, unable to hide his fear.

Ralph continued to glare at him. "I'm not interested in anything you have to say."

Turbo figured now would be a good time to put his plan into action. "Well how about this?" He reached into his pocket… "Are you interested...in this?" …And took out the medal.

He knew he was on the right track when Ralph's eyes widened and he released his grip. "My medal… How did you—?"

"It doesn't matter," Turbo interrupted, not daring to reveal his secret hacking skills. He humbly offered the medal and encouraged, "Here, it's yours! Go ahead, take it."

Ralph slowly took the medal and stared at it in amazement.

Turbo watched him carefully, and when it seemed the wrecker's anger had faded, he continued, "All I ask is that you hear me out."

Ralph lowered the medal to look at him. "About what?"

"Ralph, do you know what the hardest part about being a king is?" Besides keeping my true identity hidden, haha. "Doing what's right, no matter what."

"Get to the point."

"Point being, I need your help." Turbo frowned unhappily. "Sad as it is, Vanellope cannot be allowed to race."

Ralph demanded, "Why are you people so against her?!"

Fearing another attack, Turbo raised his hands defensively and lied, "I'm not against her, I'm trying to protect her!" He elaborated, "If Vanellope wins that race, she'll be added to the race roster. Then, gamers can choose her as their avatar. And when they see her glitching and twitching and just being herself, they'll think our game is broken. We'll be put out of order for good. All my subjects will be homeless. But there's one who cannot escape because she's a glitch. And when the game's plug is pulled… She'll die with it." He really hoped Ralph had been imagining the same apocalyptic scenario as him.

The wrecker furrowed his eyebrows. "You don't know that'll happen. The gamers could love her." However, there was a clear sense of unease in his voice.

"And…if they don't?" Turbo responded, his brown eyes soft with fake concern.

Ralph went silent. He slowly sat down on a gumdrop, closing his eyes and lowering his head. It was obvious he was giving this some serious thought.

Turbo decided to "help" him a bit. "I know it's tough," he said, walking up to him. "But heroes have to make the tough choices, don't they?" He patted Ralph's hand gently. "She can't race, Ralph. But she won't listen to me." Because she's a stupid kid who doesn't know when to quit. "So can I count on you to talk a little sense into her?"

Ralph made no response for a moment, then he eventually gave the tiniest of nods.

"Very good." Turbo started to back up and said quietly, "Now, I'll give you two some time alone." He turned and walked back to his kart, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Ralph was indeed miserable about his dilemma. Once he got back into his kart and drove off, he allowed himself to crack a sinister grin. And the award goes to Turbo!

When he was sure he was out of earshot, he parked his car and dashed back to where he'd seen Ralph. He peeked out from behind another large gumdrop that gave him a clear view of the wrecker, who was now in the presence of Vanellope. From the distance he was at, he couldn't really hear what they were saying, but he didn't want to take a chance getting closer.

It looked like Vanellope had just given something to Ralph. Turbo squinted his eyes and realized that it was some kind of cookie medal. He knew he was supposed to be hiding, but he couldn't help from laughing to himself, "Ahahoohoo! Oh come on, a medal? And not a very good one, at that. Ralph, it shouldn't be hard for you to make a decision, heheh."

Ralph had stood up and was saying something to Vanellope with a pained expression. The girl, who was standing on her kart, reached into Ralph's overalls and took out his medal from Hero's Duty. Turbo watched intensely. Ohhhh, you're in trouble, Ralph…

Vanellope got angry and threw the medal in Ralph's face. Ralph looked like he was trying to justify himself, but Vanellope slid into the seat of her kart and prepared to drive away. No, no, stop her Ralph, thought Turbo expectantly. His eyes were glued to the scene as if it were a good soap opera.

Ralph had just pulled Vanellope out of the kart and was trying to prevent her from getting back in. Turbo chuckled at how Vanellope kept screaming and failing to get around the wrecker, who eventually hung her on a lollipop tree by her hood. As she protested and struggled to get free, Ralph went over to her kart and clenched his fists. Turbo stared in amazement and thought, Is he really going to…?

Ralph proceeded to smash the kart to pieces while Vanellope shrieked and thrashed, her cries so loud that even Turbo could hear them. "He actually did it, aha! This just keeps getting better!" he said while laughing sadistically. In all honesty, he wasn't expecting Ralph to destroy her kart, but he was glad he didn't have to do it himself. Turbo mused, "I'm not only the best racer and actor, I'm also the best manipulator!"

Vanellope fell to the ground and continued to sob as Ralph stood over the wrecked kart. Then the glitch got up and ran away into the mountain.

Wait, into the mountain? Turbo blinked to make sure he saw it right. It appeared Vanellope had actually run through the side of Diet Cola Mountain. And she did it without using her glitch, which meant anyone could do it. So THAT'S where she's been hiding, Turbo realized. He waited until Ralph picked up his golden medal and sadly trudged his way back to Game Central Station.

When the coast was clear, Turbo scurried over to the broken kart to make sure it wasn't salvageable. "Yep, it's busted," he concluded, kicking one of the wheels. He noticed the piece that read "Made by Vanellope and Ralph" and he shook his head. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. How those two ever became friends, I'll never know."

His eyes glanced at the entrance to the mountain and he smirked. "There's just one last thing to take care of."

A few minutes later, he was back at the site of Vanellope's kart with Sour Bill, Wynnchel, Duncan, and a group of Bear Claws. They were all hiding behind a gumdrop close to the mountain entrance, waiting for the glitchy girl to show up.

"Aaaany second now," whispered Turbo.

Sour Bill looked at him doubtfully. "Maybe she's long gone."

"No! I swear I saw her go through the wall into the mountain!" Turbo insisted. "Right between those two tasteless lollipops!"

"…Are you sure that's what you saw?"

Turbo groaned in exasperation. He knew the others thought he was crazy, and perhaps he was, but he was also vastly intelligent: he would not miss a detail.

Not a moment later, Vanellope exited the mountain at last, wiping her nose on her sleeve as she shuffled to her ruined kart.

At once, Turbo leapt out from his hiding spot and pointed excitedly. "See?! I told you she was here! Get her!"

The guards charged towards Vanellope and surrounded her while Wynnchel and Duncan shackled her into a glitch-proof chain. It all happened so fast and the girl didn't even put up a fight, but Turbo was satisfied nonetheless.

The king loomed over Vanellope with his hands on his hips and grinned cruelly. "After all these years, I've captured you at long last." When she didn't respond, he cleared his throat and instructed, "Ahem. You're supposed to be begging for mercy that I will not show."

Vanellope sighed and kept staring at the ground as she spoke monotonously, "No please let me go I beg of you have mercy."

"Never! Ahahahahaha!" Turbo exclaimed with enthusiasm and laughed maniacally. "And now, we're going to give you a nice new home…in the FUNGEON!" He snapped his fingers to Wynnchel and Duncan as he strolled to his kart. "Let's go! I want to get the glitch settled in before I go to the race."

The donut cops roughly yanked Vanellope into the C.L.A.W. truck, then locked the door before getting on their motorcycles. Sour Bill was about to hop onto Turbo's kart, but the racer stopped him.

"Not you, Sour Bill," he said sing-songly. "I want you to clean up this mess."

"Huh?" Sour Bill gazed at all the broken pieces of Vanellope's kart scattered on the ground. A garbage can and dustpan were dropped in front of him. When he turned back around, Turbo and the others were already driving away. Sour Bill drooped his eyes and let out a disgruntled groan.

The Fungeon had been built right behind the castle and sort of looked like a 19th century jailhouse. If it had been made out of edible goodies, that is.

With a spring in his step, Turbo led the way down the halls. As he passed one room, he heard a feeble voice call out, "Heeeelp! For the love of pie, let me out!" and Turbo recognized it instantly. Fix-it Felix? Oh yes, Sour Bill did mention he dropped by earlier. Looks like his crummy game's finally getting the boot, ha! He continued to pass several empty rooms until he got to a very special cell.

"Here we are!" He opened the door and let Wynnchel and Duncan lead Vanellope inside, where they attached the chains to the walls to keep the girl sitting on a block in the center of the gloomy room. Turbo went up to her and asked pleasantly, "How do you like it? I decorated it myself to make you feel right at home!"

Vanellope put her chin in her hands and rested her elbows on her knees. "Thanks," she grumbled sarcastically without looking up.

"Ohoho, you're not still thinking about Wreck-it Ralph, are you?" he said, figuring he had a few minutes to mock her.

"What do you care?" Vanellope muttered with a brief glare.

Turbo began to circle her slowly. "It's just that you seem to think he was doing it for your own good. That your friendship meant something to him. The truth is, however, he didn't care at all about you." He smiled twistedly. Lying was fun! "Oh, you should've seen his face when I gave him back his medal. He was positively ecstatic! He knew he didn't need you anymore. And once he had finished pretending to protect you, he went on his merry way as if nothing had ever happened."

He heard a sniff from Vanellope, but he wasn't sure if she actually believed him or not. Still, he went on with false sympathy, "You poor, naïve child. Betrayed by the one she thought was her friend." Turbo stopped in front of her and chuckled darkly. "Did you really think that anyone could ever love a glitch?"

Vanellope wiped her cheeks, but refused to make eye contact.

This wasn't as fun without her making some kind of pitiful response, and Turbo felt like he had enough anyway. As he turned and walked back out of the cell, he joked, "Now you just stay put. Don't go anywhere! Hoo-hoo!"

The guards locked the door and turned to their king. "Uh, what do we do now?" asked Duncan.

Turbo answered, "You might as well come with me to the race; there's no point in guarding the glitch." He laughed as he strolled away. "After all, it's not like anyone's coming to rescue her!"

No, kids, lying is not fun.

Turbo you big jerk! …Aww, I can't stay mad at you. *hugs*

Wow, I'm messed up. Please review.