The following Sunday Vanellope decided that it was time the new characters got a feel of Game Central Station. So, as a group, they all went out to explore the place. They were allowed to visit almost all the games too, with Hero's Duty being among the few that were off limits (for obvious reasons).

"You want to check out Sonic's game Matlow?" Candlehead smiled.

"Sure." Matlow smiled back.

They went inside and enjoyed watching Sonic race as well as talking to Tails and a few of the other characters. Sonic and Dr. Eggman also gave them a demonstration of part of what went on in their game. This turned out to be a mistake, when Dr. Eggman tried to hit Sonic with one of his drills Sonic automatically rolled out of the way. The drill hit a rocky wall instead and caused rocks to crumble off.

"Look out!" Dr. Eggman called.

One of the rocks was rolling towards Matlow!

"Matlow!" Candlehead gasped, knocking him out of the way without thinking.

The rock continued on... Sonic had stopped rolling around this point.

"Oh no!" Sonic gasped.

He and Dr. Eggman ran to Candlehead and Matlow...and relaxed, Candlehead and Matlow were fine.

"Candlehead..." Matlow stared at Candlehead, who was pretty much hugging him. "Are you crazy you...you could've been killed."

"So what? I don't care what happens to me as long as my friends don't get hurt." Candlehead looked at him upset, tears in her eyes.

He realized that she had been more scared of him dying than of herself dying.

"I'm so sorry...I was the one who wanted to go into this game and..." Candlehead sobbed.

"It's not your fault, it was an accident." Matlow said comfortingly.

"Actually it's our faults." Dr. Eggman said apologetically.

"Yeah, we got so into gameplay mode that we forgot about you two being from another game." Sonic was obviously upset with himself. "I shouldn't have rolled out of the way, I mean at least I would've been able to regenerate."

"But I should've stopped the drill before..." Dr. Eggman added.

"Enough." Matlow said. "No one is hurt and it was an accident so I say we just drop the subject. How about we visit a calmer game Candlehead? Like Fix-It-Felix Jr or PacMan?"

"Okay." Candlehead started to feel better.

"We're coming too, we want to meet the other new racers." Dr. Eggman smiled.

And they left...none of them knowing that someone had seen the whole thing. Someone who wasn't really supposed to be in the game.

Things went better for the other Racers and future Racers. Sourward of course was still hesitant about making new friends but he had least managed to be polite. Bodhivian however got annoyed pretty quickly because he called all the other characters Judith or Bennie (the male equivalent to Judith) and all the other characters kept misunderstanding. Fortunately when Sonic came out Ralph got the idea to ask him to explain the terms Judith and Bennie through the PSA so that Bodhivian wouldn't have to repeat himself again. Sonic did and Bodhivian was very grateful.

Crumbelina also got a surprise: Graham did not introduce himself as her boyfriend. Instead he introduced himself as someone who loved her very much. Crumbelina couldn't help but blush at that, and was grateful that he respected her feelings enough to not call himself her boyfriend. That was when she realized that he hadn't tricked her into dating him, he had tricked her into giving him a chance.

Now by this point you're probably wondering if the future Racers had learned how to race yet. Not yet, you see the future Racers didn't even know that they were going to become part of the game. Vanellope knew that something would happen that'd cause the vacationers to become citizens of Sugar Rush, so she was waiting for that to happen before teaching the future Racers how to race.

Bitalo of course was already a citizen, but he had admitted to Vanellope that he was scared of racing. He also told her that Torvald was still teaching him how to be brave about racing for real. Luckily the amusement park step was done, and Torvald said that there were just two steps left. The third step being him actually participating in a Roster Race of course.

As for the second step, Bitalo didn't find out until the next day. Torvald had borrowed Minty's kart (with Minty's permission, don't worry) for Bitalo to use. Yup, she was actually going to put him behind the wheel.

"Oh, you're going to teach me how to drive?" Bitalo guessed as he saw Minty's kart.

"More like...I'm going to teach you how to race." Torvald smiled as she pointed to her right.

Bitalo turned...and froze with terror. The practice track she was pointing to was scary looking, with a dark road, black licorice trees, candy corn rocks, and candy pumpkins with scary faces carved into them. There also were so many black licorice trees that it made the track look even darker.

"I don't think this is safe Torvald..." He said nervously.

"What's not safe about racing around a track?" Torvald retorted.

"When the track looks like a death trap from Satine's game." Bitalo gulped.

"Well I'm going and you could stay here, all alone, and watch." Torvald smirked.

Bitalo's eyes widened. There was no way he was staying there alone with all that creepy stuff near him!

"So we're driving along the track then?" He said awkwardly.

"Thought so." Torvald smiled. "Don't worry, it only looks scary because it's Halloween themed. This is where Gloyd used to practice-race, we each have our own special practice-track. However nowadays we'll use any old practice-track since we don't mind using each others."

"So why can't we use another track?" Bitalo asked.

"Because once you can handle this one you'll be ready to join in the Roster Race." Torvald said. "This track is going to help you race without letting anything distract you."

"Okay..." Bitalo sighed.

He reluctantly got into Minty's kart, and after a few instructions from Torvald they took off. Bitalo was distracted at first, and it was not just the forest either. It was also insecurity. As he kept nervously looking around he felt ashamed for letting harmless-yet-creepy things distract him and started to believe that he would never be good enough for Torvald.

Fortunately he never crashed, but he did go really slow. He was too scared to go any faster. So by the time Torvald did two laps he had done half of one. Luckily all the practice-tracks could fit two karts at a time on it.

"Bitalo stop." Torvald stopped close to him during her third lap.

Bitalo stopped the kart. Torvald got out of her kart and walked over to him.

"You have to go faster if you want to race." She tried to not sound as annoyed as she felt.

"I...I can't..." Bitalo hung his head.

"I know the forest is scary but nothing in it will harm you-"

"No, I really mean it. I just can't do it." Bitalo shed a tear.

Torvald was really annoyed and frustrated. After all the hard work she did and all the progress he made he was going to give up?

"Oh for the...look, why did you want to race anyway?" She frowned.

Bitalo shed a few more tears.

"Because...because I won't be good enough for you until I become a Racer." He admitted. "Because...I love you."

Torvald dropped her mouth open.

"You love me? How long?" She asked.

"Ever since we first talked...on that slope..." Bitalo was close to sobbing.

"I've really liked you since then too." Torvald smiled.

Bitalo turned to her, shocked. Now it was his turn to drop his mouth open.

"You...but why?" He asked.

"Because you're sweet, friendly...and you're brave when it counts." Torvald said. "Also you have a snarky sense of humor at times, which I actually find kinda amusing. Even if it doesn't look like I find it amusing. 'Golden grim reaper', heh, that was actually witty of you."

Bitalo smiled a little despite still being confused.

"But what about my not being a Racer?" He asked.

"I don't care whether you're a Racer or not, I like you for you." Torvald shrugged. "Besides, true Racers only race for the fun of it and because they love racing. No other reason. So if you love racing and find it fun, then you can do it. No matter what place you come in."

Bitalo's smile was stronger now, and his confidence returned.

"Well, racing did look like fun to me...so what are we waiting for? Let's race!" He grinned.

"One moment." Torvald went closer to him with a playful smirk.

"What?" Bitalo asked.

Torvald kissed him. Bitalo froze, caught off-guard, but then smiled and returned the kiss. 8-bit hearts surrounded them. After they ended the kiss they just grinned at each other.

"You really are my golden grim reaper..." Bitalo sighed happily. "Because I feel like I just died and gone to heaven."

"I'm glad I'm your golden grim reaper." Torvald smiled back. "I don't want to be anyone else's. Now, how about we get back to racing?"

"You bet!" Bitalo suddenly recovered and then grinned teasingly. "Bet I can beat you this time."

"Oh yeah? We'll see about that." Torvald laughed.

And this time they really did race. Bitalo didn't do too badly for his second time, in fact when compared to his first time he did more than good. He still was an amateur at it of course, and would be for a few weeks. But at least he now could race and enjoy it at the same time. And that was the most important detail.