I've decided to start writing again. It's been a while, around four or five months ago. I was busy with a lot of things then and after that I procrastinated a lot. Anyways, I should be less busy now and be able to work on it again.

First Race

Jack looked at Minty, then at Crumbelina, who looked back at him. "Don't take it personally when you lose really badly." she said. "You don't stand a chance." Jack smiled.

"Talking to that mirror of yours?" he asked jokingly. Crumbelina smiled back.

"Of course not. I'm not Rancis." Crumbelina jokes back.

"Let the race begin." Vanellope shouted. This was followed by the sound of a dozen engines revving kneeled down, putting both hands flat on the ground and stretching his right leg back.

(3...2...1...GO!)

Jack ran ahead, almost two hundred feet of the next racer, who was Citrusella. The next few following were Taffyta, Rancis, Jubileena, Vanellope, and Gloyd. Jack hit a power up box and got a cherry bomb, which spawned in his hands. He ran faster and reached Gumball Valley shortly. Vanellope had just reached the strip of power up boxes and gained sweet seekers. After she passed Rancis and Jubileena, she fired one at Taffyta, who skidded out of control and right into Rancis. The next shot Vanellope fired hit Citrusella perfectly and Vanellope passed by her as well. She saved her last shot until she reached Gumball Valley where Jack was just barely avoiding the gumballs. She fired the last shot at him. Jack, thinking quickly, jumped up on top of one of the gumballs and jumped away, while the sweet seeker had ran into another gumball.

Jack landed on one of the gumballs and nearly fell off. He used his feet to move the gumballs the way he wanted and moved toward the end of the valley, but lost too much speed. Vanellope, Jubileena, Rancis, Candlehead, Taffyta, Oreanna, and Gloyd all passed him before he made it to the end. When he reached the end, he maximized his speed and rammed the gumball he was riding into the nearest gumball machine, jumping off as he did, and broke it. The gumballs in the machine fell out rapidly and hit nearly every racer. Jack barely escaped and ran as fast as he could to catch up to the other racers at Cake Mountain.

As he approached the mountain, he noticed the racers driving along the curved road. He groaned, thinking of how hard it would be to catch up, until an idea popped into his head. Thinking it over, he shrugged.

"Not my fault they didn't tell me any rules." he thought. When he reached the turn, he jumped up to the next layer of the cake, surprising Gloyd who Jack jumped in front of. Gloyd hit the brakes as hard as possible and Jack continued jumping up the cake until he reached the top. Upon entering the tunnel, he spotted a row of power ups. He placed his cherry bomb down right before he reached it and grabbed a new one. He gained sweet seekers and a sweet seeker gun in the shape of a pistol appeared in his left hand. "Sweet!" Vanellope and Oreanna had just caught up to him and he hit Oreanna with one and she spun to a halt. Jack was going to shoot another one at Vanellope but she ran into the cherry bomb that Jack had set. Smirking, he ran and jumped off the edge of the ramp to the next area.

Gloyd caught up to him and Jack waited until Gloyd was about to pass him to use the second shot. The sweet seeker flew towards Gloyd for a second then went backwards and hit Rancis who, along with Candlehead and Taffyta, had been catching up. Jack was utterly surprised with the reaction the sweet seeker had until he realized what happened.

"You little cheater!" he shouted. He jumped on Gloyd's kart and pulled Gloyd's sleeves back, revealing a strand of licorice, the same one that diverted the sweet seeker. Jack tire it off and threw it on the side of the road. Gloyd wanted to fight back but he had to focus on driving. Jack jumped back off the kart and shot Gloyd with his last sweet seeker and continued to run, but not fast enough as Taffyta and Candlehead caught up. Candlehead had an ice cream cannon and it was trained on Jack. Taffyta turned to her.

"Fire away, Candlehead." she ordered. Candlehead had her finger on the button, but hesitated. She looked at Taffyta and then at Jack. "Candlehead, shoot that thing already!"

"Okay!" Candlehead said. She made sure it was locked on her target. Jack heard her fire the cannon and waited for the cold impact of the ice cream, but it never came. Looking back, he saw Candlehead driving next to him, ice cream cannon discarded, and Taffyta falling back, covered in ice cream.

"So that's your choice." Jack said, as they reached the rainbow cave.

"That was not a good idea on my part." Candlehead commented. "They're gonna be gunning for me now."

"I got your back." Jack said. "In any way possible."

"What's that mean?" Candlehead asked, a little confused.

"I mean I'll assist you against your adversaries." Candlehead had a look of understanding. The two passed through a string of power ups. Candlehead received sweet seekers and Jack got a power up that he hadn't seen used before. Candlehead looked at it, amazed.

"You got cavity cover." she said, marveling at the shield Jack was holding. It was two feet across and black, with red zig zag stripes all the way across. It broke into two down the middle and they were each strapped to an arm. "It's an old item that's pretty rare. It blocks off projectiles from hitting you and doesn't go away for the whole race." Jack looked at it, kind of amazed at such a powerful item.

"Weird how it matches my outfit so easily." Jack commented, noticing the color scheme.

"It changes itself based on the wielder. Mine was kind of a flat, floating pink fireball." Jack looked back and saw two sweet seekers coming at them. Jack turned around, speed greatly reduced since he was running backwards, and clasped the two halves his shield together, repelling both shots. Candlehead turned her sweet seeker gun and shot it at Taffyta, Rancis, and Vanellope. "I guess that makes us even."

"Like I said, I got your back." Jack said. Oreanna and Gloyd had quickly caught up to them. Oreanna had sweet seekers and Gloyd had an ice cream cannon. Oreanna shot her sweet seekers first, one at a time. Jack blocked the first two and decided to try something with the last one. He looked at Candlehead. "Let's hope this works." As Oreanna fired her last sweet seeker, Jack positioned his shield so the two halves were folded inward as far from his body as possible. When the sweet seeker was close to making contact, he pulled the shield back so that he was actively slowing the sweet seeker down, and then pushed the shield back out, throwing the yellow projectile back. By this time, Gloyd shot the ice cream cannon and the sweet seeker hit the glob, causing it to drop and hit Oreanna. The sweet seeker continued and hit Gloyd in the head.

Candlehead and Jack continued out of the cave and darted for the finish line, a few miles away. They hit the last strip of power ups. Jack got a cherry bomb and Candlehead got syrup slick, which was strategically useful since they were on a particularly narrow road.

"On your count, we lay them down." Jack said and Candlehead nodded.

"3...2...1... now!" They put the traps down and proceeded down the track. They could see the finish line in the distance. "Almost there." Just as she said that, she was hit by a sweet seeker neither of them had seen. Jack looked back and saw Taffyta with a sweet seeker gun. She fired one more and it came right at Jack. He jumped up bad clasped his shield together, pushing him back. Candlehead regained her speed and Jack jumped on the back of her kart, ready for Taffyta to fire another one,but was surprised to find Taffyta already out of sweet seekers. Jack stood up on the kart and ran across to the front, waiting to reach the finish line to jump off. His foot landed on the checkered line and then he stopped running.

"I thought that would be more challenging." Jack said to Candlehead as she stopped her kart next to him. Taffyta followed shortly and almost hit him. Next was Gloyd and then Vanellope. Rancis followed shortly and then Oreanna. Jack walked to the side of the track where Calhoun and Felix were and picked up his weights. Sitting down, he slid them back on his legs.

"So what game are you from, newbie?" Calhoun asked. Jack was about to respond but was cut off. "More accurately, what console are you from, how did you get here from a console, and what do you want here?" Jack scowled.

"Not telling you, I don't know, and I have so little purpose here that I plan on leaving as soon as I find out how." Jack glitched over to where all the racers are parked, surprising everyone except Oreanna and Gloyd. Shouts of "You can glitch?!" came from everywhere. Jack ignored them, focusing on one thing.

"Anything else before I'm on the roster tomorrow?" he asked Vanellope.

"Yeah, you've gotta change your outfit, your name to have a candy name, and take your roster picture." Vanellope answered.

"As long as I can keep my colors." Jack said, gesturing to his red and black clothes. "How about this?" Jack glitched-summoned a red ninja suit from mortal kombat with a black, long sleeved shirt under it, all on a hanger. Vanellope, a little surprised by the glitch-summon, looked at the suit and envisioned it on Jack, but shook her head.

"Was that a glitch or a programmed ability?" she asked.

"Oreanna didn't tell you anything, did she?" Jack asked. Vanellope thought back to her conversation with Oreanna, who had only mentioned his challenge to a race.

"Not really." she answered, glaring at Oreanna, who shrunk back in the seat of her kart. "What else can you do?"

"I can reprogram things standing next to them. Although it's much harder than if I was in the code room. But back to the task at hand." He glitch-dismissed the outfit and summoned another one, this time a jumpsuit. Again, Vanellope shook her head. He showed her a few more, but she said no to them all.

"I'm kind of partial to the ninja suit." Swizzle commented.

"I'm out." Jack said, dismissing a pair of red jeans and a black shirt.

"Why do you need to wear red and black so much?" Nougetsia asked.

"Well red is my favorite color." Jack said. "But it doesn't look as good on me as black. Other than that, I just don't feel right if I'm wearing any other colors without them." Vanellope thought about this.

"We'll work on it later. For now, we have to change your name." Vanellope said, sitting down in her kart. "Hop on. You're too slow running in those weights." Jack was hesitant, but sat down on the back of the Candy Kart and Vanellope sped off to the castle.

(At the castle)

"So you want your Sugar Rush name to be Jack Licorice?" Vanellope asked. They had just made it into the castle and had been looking into the code for the score board. Jack nodded.

"It works with my name. Plus it matches my color scheme." Jack said. As Vanellope changed the code, Jack looked around, seeing all the different codes. He accidentally tapped one and it opened up.

"Hands where I can see them!" Vanellope shouted, pointing at Jack. He turned around and put his hands up as if he was about to be arrested. "What did you open?" Jack shrugged, having not seen the name. Vanellope floated over, closing the box and checking the name of it. "Miscellaneous pies." Vanellope looked back to Jack. "Sorry, I get a little paranoid with the code room because of Turbo."

"Turbo what?" Jack asked, thinking it was an adjective.

"Turbo the crazy racer." Vanellope answered. "He kind of took over the game a while back." Jack was confused and it showed greatly. Vanellope saw this as she finished up with the board. "I'll explain. It all started about twenty five years ago when RoadBlasters was plugged in."