Thanks for the birthday wishes guys :) You guys are as turbo-tastic as always! Turbo ate all the cake (it was chocolate, so he pigged out) so I cannot share, unfortunately. But here's a new chapter for you guys! :)

Save Me from My Dark Side

Chapter Eleven

"You...you guys are my...my bestest f-friends."

"Dayum, didn't take long for him ta get wasted, did it?" Freddy Freak was asking as Turbo gave his tattooed arm an over-enthusiastic hug.

Candy Goodbody rolled her eyes and flicked the stub of her cigarette down on the floor, crushing it under one of her red pumps. "All right, Bobby, what's the story here? I thought you hated this guy?"

Bob grabbed the back of her hair roughly as he yanked her ear closer to his mouth. "And I thought I said to keep your slutty mouth shut," he hissed angrily, though secretly he was loving the pained expression on her face. "I do hate him, that's why we're boozin' him up so it'll be easier to knock him off."

"You mean kill him?"

"I said shut up!" He released her hair and then proceeded to smack the back of her head with an open palm.

Turbo didn't know what was going on; the vodka he'd been steadily drinking was much stronger than anything he was used to. Hell, he didn't even know if he'd ever had it before. The world around him was nothing but a kaleidoscope of colors, sometimes interrupted by something that resembled a face. Words were mixed up in his head, only understanding if one were to talk slowly and directly to him.

"Hey...you f-fellas like sing-ing?" he asked happily, still having one arm looped through Freddy's.

The large hippie seemed almost ecstatic at the idea, a wide grin stretching on his face. "Boy, do I!"

Officer Bob shot him a glare, silently punishing him for encouraging Turbo in engaging in ridiculous behavior, but the damage was done. The racer put a hand to his heart, cleared his throat and started belting out,

"The...wheels...on...the car...go...round and...round...round and...round...all a-round...the track."

His head had started spinning from all the "rounds" and he laughed as if it was the funniest thing in the world. Freddy couldn't help but laugh too. Bob grumbled something under his breath, hanging his head down and lightly hitting his own skull with his fist in aggravation.

"Hey, dude, spell banana," Freddy told him, snickering behind his free hand as he did so.

Turbo brightened up...then got cross-eyed and the goofiest grin spread on his face.

"B-a...n...a...n...a...n...a..n...a...n...a..."

Candy was smirking at this show of insanity, never having seen anyone so off his rocker before. Bob was gritting his teeth and clenching his fists, doing everything in his power to keep from punching the fool right in the face to get him to shut up. Even in his own game, he had been allowed to physically abuse others: when the player caught one of the criminals, they had the opportunity to let Bob shake them violently until they confessed, using a "Confess-O-Meter" to gauge how far along they were.

"All right, that's enough!" the cop burst out suddenly, standing up from his seat and cinching his black tie tighter to his collar.

Bob clasped his hands together and smiled, still trying to put on friendly airs towards the racer so he would go along with whatever it was he told him. Taking just a few steps to get to the other bench, Bob sat beside Turbo who had been chuckling from saying too many "n's" and "a's" and threw an arm around him.

"Hey, Turbo, you know what will make you really happy?" he asked him with the biggest fake smile the world had ever seen.

Turbo looked at him through eyes that would drift off to the side due to being unable to focus and gave him a genuinely friendly grin. "W-w-what's...that?"

"Think about it," Bob was coaxing him forcefully, squeezing his shoulder a little too hard and shaking him a little. "Don't you miss...racing?"

Turbo's eyes lit up at the word. "Yeah," he sighed, a pleasant look on his face. "That, that was f-fun."

An increasingly menacing gleam shined in Bob's eyes. "You want to do it again?"

Freddy, who was simply just wanting to drink and be merry, started getting wiser about what was going on. "Hey, Bob, I thought we was just havin' a lil' fun drinkin' and the like."

The officer scowled so hard at Freddy that the large hippie decided to keep his mouth shut.

Turbo was bobbing his head up and down, a rather awkward motion since he could hardly function without assistance as it was. "Yeah, I...I wanna rrrrrace. I'm the...best...you know."

"Yeah, yeah, we know, we know," the cruel policeman was dismissing him hurriedly. "Listen, but we can't let you just race anywhere, right? I mean, we want to see you in your natural element."

The intoxicated racer just stared at him blankly with a completely innocent and perplexed smile on his face, not knowing what in the world he had just been told.

Bob sighed in annoyance, but kept up his exterior outlook of friendliness. "You know, go back to..." He checked around him to make sure no passers-by were listening. "TurboTime."

"Ecstatic" could hardly begin to describe how Turbo felt at the idea of going back to his real home. His mind was so far gone that he didn't even remember that that was impossible. Freddy opened his mouth to say something but he slapped it shut, not wanting any reprimandation from Bob.

"I...I can go...go back?" Turbo asked happily, a surge of worthiness and importance coursing through him at the very idea.

Officer Bob patted his shoulder and grinned at him. "Of course you can!"

He motioned for Candy to go start her car. "You just get in the backseat of my squad car, and your ol' pal Bobby here will take care of everything for ya."

Turbo pretty much fell flat on his face, a chorus of giggles erupting from him, when he tried to move forward. Bob dropped his smile and replaced it with more hateful expression, his eyes narrowed down and his teeth clenched as if he were growling.

"Freddy, assist him in the back of my car," he said flatly as he pulled out a toothpick from his front shirt pocket, sticking it between his teeth and sauntering over to his squad car.

The barrel-chested man effortlessly picked Turbo up, who was still laughing from falling over, and opened up the back door to Bob's car before tossing him in. The racer laid on his stomach for a while there, cracking up at the movement of being thrown somewhere and landing on something soft.

Bob was already in the driver's seat and he facepalmed himself, running his hand down his face tiredly as he observed this from the rearview mirror. Only a little while longer and this idiotic free-range murderer would be permanently out of everyone's lives for good. He just had to keep reminding himself of that.

"Well, here we are!"

Turbo felt the car jerk to a stop right before Officer Bob made his announcement. Getting flung to the floor seemed to be even funnier than anything else that had happened to him since his trip down Vodka Lane began. Bob cut the engine and got out, slammed his door shut, and swung open the door to the backseat, grabbing the racer by the elbow and jerking him out of the car and allowing him to fall on the ground.

"Car ride!" Turbo exclaimed cheerfully as he laid on his stomach in the dirt, giggling the whole while.

"Not yet," muttered Bob under his breath, waving for Candy to park her car parallel to his own.

The officer took a moment to look down from the hilltop they had parked at to swing his eyes over their location: the citrus-themed track of Sugar Rush. This wasn't one of the main tracks, it was an unlockable bonus track that players could race on if they scored enough points. The small area consisted of the yellow winding track that went around a large lemonade pool with a geyser fountain installed in the center, shooting up lemonade straight into the sky at timed intervals. Jumbo sized orange and yellow gumdrops dotted the otherwise empty landscape while tall white and orange swirly trunked trees of lemon and orange hard candies bordered the edges of the location. It was under one of these trees that the trio of non-residents were situated.

They had been able to sneak into the game thanks to Freddy harassing the Surge Protector, acting as though he wanted to go inside Tapper's to sell drugs, which of course was a huge no-no. The Sugar Rush-ians were all supposedly engaged in a meeting over at the starting line of the Royal Raceway, so there shouldn't have been anyone around to witness what was about to take place.

The curvy brunette swung out of her vehicle and strutted up to the policeman, one hand on her hips.

"I hope you don't mind us using your car," Bob said in a quiet voice, running his hand down the hooker's flank until he reached her of her butt cheeks to squeeze...hard. "I'll pay you back later. I won't slap you around so hard next time we...uh..." He smirked, letting the sentence finish itself in her mind.

"You always did say I was your favorite to interrogate," she replied dryly, looking off to the side.

"I had a couple of reasons," he remarked, letting his eyes wander up and down her body. The game developers had certainly given her an appropriately inappropriate name.

Bob bent down and tapped Turbo's helmet a few times with his knuckles. "Hey, racer, you can't drive from down there."

Turbo tried to get his legs to work, which he found was not as easy as he thought it would be. He smelled something sweet and tangy in the air and his mouth started watering. His eyes cracked open but he couldn't see much of anything except for the wave of colors floating about.

Tired of waiting, the policeman stood over Turbo to where he could grab him under his arms and hoist him up to his feet, shoving him into the side of Candy's car so he could hang onto that for balance.

"Key still in the ignition?" Bob asked Candy to the side as he roughly assisted the intoxicated racecar driver in opening the car door.

Candy simply nodded, opening her purse to pull out a cigarette and a lighter before she leaned back against Bob's own car to smoke.

The sporty purple and pink car only had two seats, so Bob just settled for opening the passenger side door and shoving Turbo inside that way. Then he jogged over to the other side and started pulling the still giddy man over into the driver's seat. Finally, he got him sitting in the appropriate way, even going so far as to put his hands on the steering wheel for him.

"Look out there," he instructed Turbo, pointing with his hand out past the windshield.

Turbo followed his finger with his eyes and blinked a few times to clear his vision. He saw...green fields and a...yellow race track. His eyes squinted with happiness at the familiar image. Home. He was back home, back at TurboTime! He couldn't believe it, it was really there right in front of him!

"What do you see out there?" Bob asked him. "You see TurboTime?"

"I n-never thought I'd see-see it ag-gain," Turbo was smiling blissfully, small tears of joy coming to his eyes.

Bob was unable to believe his luck at how easy this idiot could be suckered just by getting him drunk. Amazing how alcohol affects people's minds. The policeman grinned and patted him on the shoulder supportively.

"It's nice to see it again, huh? Why don't you go out there and test it out, get reacquainted with the ol' stomping grounds?"

Turbo sat quiet for a moment, still unable to process what was really going on and also still extremely overjoyed at the notion that he had somehow made it back to the one place where he felt he truly belonged. He nodded and grinned widely, squinting his eyes shut briefly and uttering a little "squee" of joy.

A malicious smile of evil replaced the friendly one Bob had been wearing far too long. He went so far as to even crank the ignition for the racer and then slammed the door shut, backed up and gave him a mock salute in farewell. The policeman trotted around to where Candy was leaning on his car and waited to watch the show.

"Nighty-night," he sang darkly, his features drawn up in a look of malevolent glee. "Good riddance to bad rubbish."

Inside the car, Turbo gripped the steering wheel with both hands, a turbo-tastic feeling if there ever was one. The sound of the engine purring filled his ears and the air-conditioning blowing on his face was enough to simulate the outside wind, tricking him into thinking he was in a regular racecar and not a closed-top regular car. His eyes tried to focus more and there it was, the familiar yellow-colored track of TurboTime, waiting for him to rule it once again.

Even though he was so intoxicated that he was experiencing a delirium of turbo-tastic proportions, Turbo still had enough sense in his code to do one very important thing before attempting to drive. He grabbed at the seat belt and fumbled with the end of it as he clumsily attempted to shove it into the locking mechanism.

"Sssssafe-ty first," he mumbled to himself in reminder, mentally patting himself on the back.

Grabbing the steering wheel with both hands again, he felt his heart pounding in that old familiar way it used to when he used to race all the time. He felt around with one hand for the shift-changer then clumped his foot about for the clutch, but could not find it. This confused him but it dawned on him in a eureka moment that this must be a remodel; it was an automatic as opposed to a manual like he was accustomed to. Turbo shrugged at the change, not really in a condition to think too much of it. He grabbed the stick that changed the car's position from "park" to "drive" and...

down the hill he flew, gaining speed faster than was possibly considered normal (or even safe). The track, the glorious track was just right there, he was almost there within its reach! Soon he'd be racing around in his old simple circle, only going left just like the good old days; God, it had been so long since he'd just maneuvered around an old-fashioned track such as the one at TurboTime.

His eyes lost focus and he made the fateful decision to close his eyes to rub at them, making him lose control of the car completely. Thankfully, instead of driving straight into the lemonade fountain and drowning in it (which had been the plan), he crashed headfirst into a giant orange gumdrop. The airbag in the car went off and his seatbelt tightened, both of them preventing him from slamming into the windshield, which had shattered on impact. Smoke rose from the hood and the car died there on the spot, completely totaled.

Bob and Candy had been watching from the hilltop, Bob throwing his hat on the ground and stamping it repeatedly while cursing loudly when he'd seen that the plan to have Turbo drown himself had not worked. Really pissed now, and with the most scornful look of irritated evil marking his features, he kicked the side of his own car enough to rock it considerably.

"Damn it! God damn it! Got him too drunk to steer straight! Damn it!"

Candy knew better than to say anything while Bob was throwing one of his famous tantrums so she silently let herself into the backseat of his car and sat there with the window rolled down so she could continue smoking. Bob was cursing and ranting and stomping about like a nap-deprived toddler.

"If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself," he finally said once he'd calmed down enough to make coherent speech. "I'll just go down there and drown him myself, like I should've done in the first place."

"Then why'd you do it this way?" Candy dared ask from where she was in the backseat.

He turned and screamed the answer so hard that his face turned even redder than it already was, almost to the point of being purple. "Because it would have been fun watching the so-called greatest racer of all time kill himself while DRIVING A CAR ON A RACE TRACK! THAT'S WHY!"

"Cruel irony," the hooker snorted to herself.

Bob was just about to go marching down the hill to execute who he felt was the world's most notorious criminal-at-large when thankfully he was stopped when two of the Sugar Rush racers unexpectedly showed up. They looked like twins, only one was green-garbed and one was yellow, and they had both driven up and parked close to Candy's crashed automobile. Bob cursed more under his breath but figured that he wasn't going to risk getting caught in a game he had no business being in, so instead of doing as he said he would, he simply got inside his car and backed up to leave the way they had come.

Now, Minty Zaki and her color-swapped twin Torvald Batterbutter had left the big meeting together (their other sister, Sticky Wipplesnit, had decided to cruise with Taffyta Muttonfudge for a while) and were just riding around goofing off in their karts when they both heard what had been Turbo crashing. Out of curiosity, they had decided to check it out and drove towards the Lemonade Loop (the name of the track). Upon seeing the destroyed car rammed into the giant orange gumdrop, they immediately parked their own karts and ran to survey the damage.

"What an ugly car!" Minty proclaimed, turning her nose up at the outdated vehicle, the front end of it accordianed into the side of the gumdrop.

Torvald ran to the driver's door and opened it, then gasped and stood back as she bugged her eyes out at who was inside. "Sis! Come here, quick!" she called in a panicked voice.

Minty ran to her sister's side and she also let out a small gasp. "Jumpin' jellybeans! Is that Turbo?"

Turbo wasn't moving in his seat and his eyes were shut, his head hanging forward to where his chin was almost touching his chest. Torvald was scared but she shakily stretched out her arm to touch his neck to check for a pulse.

"Whoa! He smells drunk," she gagged, pinching her nose with her other hand once the alcohol scent hit her.

She let out a small sigh of relief when she felt a pulse and could see the slight rise and fall of his chest to signify that he was breathing. When he unexpectedly groaned in pain, she let out a little shriek and jumped back, wiping her hands off on her skirt as if she had just touched a dead person.

Minty laughed at her twin's reaction but she quickly made herself take control of the situation. "You think we should get him out of the car?"

"Are you crazy? He's bigger than us, we'll just drop him."

"He's not that much bigger. The two of us should be able to hold him up."

"But what if his neck's broke or something? If we move him, it'll just get worse. Or we might accidentally kill him."

Minty sighed as she considered that possibility. "Okay, how about one of us drive to the castle and get Vanellope and ask her what to do. She'd want to know about Turbo being here anyway. And then the other of us can stay here in case he wakes up."