Author's note: My apologies for the delay between updates. Had kind of a life upheaval and moved cross-country, but now I'm settling in and can update this again! Hope you guys enjoy this chapter and thanks for sticking with this fic. :)
For the next three days, Taffyta was on the roster. Then, on the evening of the third, the jumbotron didn't display her name.
Taffyta crossed her arms over her chest and pouted, a lollipop sticking out of her mouth. Then she took a breath and reminded herself that she couldn't be on a random roster every day. Even if, with her confidence back, she was winning more than her fair share of races.
Anyway, for once, Vanellope wasn't on the roster either, which allayed Taffyta's tiny remaining fear that the president was a default racer every day.
She glanced around, wondering if she should go home or hang out with someone—Candlehead, Rancis, and Vanellope were discussing something, maybe she should join them. Then another thought occurred to her, and she turned towards the castle, looking at it shining in the distance. Since the last conversation she'd had with King Candy—which, though there'd been nothing normal about the subject matter, had felt almost, almost like the way things had been before—she hadn't been to the fungeon. Maybe she should visit him again. She was no rehabilitation program, but…
The decision seemed to make itself. Smiling without even realizing it, she started to climb into her kart.
"Hey, Taffyta!"
The voice made her shriek and jump. She turned around to see Rancis standing there, smirking at her. "Hey," she said, putting a hand over her chest.
He cocked his head at her. "I was gonna ask if you wanna come over to my house with Vanellope and Candlehead and me, but you looked like you were going somewhere."
"Oh!" Taffyta glanced back up at the castle. No other words came to her.
The gesture didn't escape Rancis's notice. "What's up there?" When Taffyta turned and stared at him, her eyes wide, he added, "At the castle? I thought I heard you ask Vanellope if you could go there the other day. But she was with us, so…I couldn't figure out why you wanted to go."
"Just…uh…" Even though Vanellope hadn't said not to tell anyone about Turbo, Taffyta was sure that it would be a bad idea to mention him. The president was right, an announcement that he was still alive would just scare everyone. Taffyta letting it slip? That would be a hundred times worse.
Rancis's smirk deepened. "Do you have like, a boyfriend up there that we don't know about or something?"
"Ha, ha," Taffyta said. "I just forgot something from when I was staying up there and I went back to get it." Don't ask what, don't ask what, don't ask what.
With a shrug, Rancis said, "Oh, okay. So, do you wanna come with us or not?"
The thought of Turbo in his cell flashed through her mind, but if she said she had to somewhere else, even home, Rancis might get suspicious, and the last thing she wanted to do was betray Vanellope's trust. "Yeah!" she said. "Definitely."
That was the thing, she guessed, with the fungeon—she could always go see him another day. It wasn't like Turbo was going anywhere.
"By the way," Taffyta said, "speaking of me having a boyfriend—you should talk. You and Vanellope seem like you've been hanging out a lot."
Making a face, Rancis said, "Yuck! No way. Girls have cooties."
"Princesses don't have cooties," Taffyta said with an air of superiority.
"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure presidents have normal cooties just like everyone else. So, in summary, gross," Rancis said.
Taffyta wiggled her fingers at him and said, "Uh oh, look out, you might get my cooties!"
Rancis ducked out of her way and bolted towards where Vanellope and Candlehead were waiting, which led to an impromptu game of tag.
Yep, things were good in Sugar Rush. Taffyta was a racer—she was a winner—she was surrounded by friends, and even the one complication of Turbo's presence seemed to be getting…a little less complicated? Maybe? Funny how everything had just fallen into place.
The next day, Taffyta decided to do what she never did, which was go to the stadium to watch a few races. She timed it well—the gamers had selected the Royal Raceway, so she took a seat with the assorted fans and clasped her hands in her lap, watching the quarter alert sign flash at the bottom of the jumbotron and the day's nine racers take their places at the starting line. Rancis and Candlehead were both out there, looking determined. Taffyta waved at Candlehead, but the other girl just nodded back. Racing mode—no distractions. She wasn't hurt.
The crowd roared as the race began, and Taffyta leaned forward in her seat to watch everyone tear away from the starting line. Candlehead and Rancis opened up an early lead, Gloyd close behind them, and by the time the racers were through the town square a cloud of cocoa dust obscured them.
She turned her attention to the jumbotron instead, sitting back and letting the fans around her do the cheering. They went a little overboard, Taffyta had to admit. Sure, the race was exciting and everything, but the racers were just getting to Gumball Gorge and no one had even had a chance to be taken out by a gumball yet.
Candlehead, Rancis, Gloyd, and player-controlled Adorabeezle made it through the Gorge, but a gumball smashed into Swizz. As usual. Taffyta smirked. Then Gloyd hit Adorabeezle with a power-up, missing the boost pad in the process, which left Candlehead and Rancis out in the lead.
Her mind drifted, as it looked like one of the two of them had the race in the bag—the Royal Raceway was only one lap, it being the longest and most difficult track in the game. Kind of funny that they still called it the Royal Raceway, considering Sugar Rush was a constitutional democracy now. Then again, the alliteration was nice. She'd always liked that sort of thing
She smoothed her dress out, tilting her head at the way the sparkles caught the light, and glanced up at the jumbotron in time to see Rancis coming down the straightaway towards the finish line.
Then everything went silent.
Not the fans, they were yelling as loudly as ever, but all the ambient noise in the game—all the birdsong, the wind, the honey pot bees buzzing around—it was all just gone.
Taffyta felt a weird buzzing through her body and she stood up. Something bad was happening, she could feel it in her code. And she didn't mean that the way they all said it sometimes, she really could feel…something, something in her, like every byte of her was shuddering, and her stomach sloshed around with queasiness.
Something stabbed through her, not pain, just the sensation of wrongness, and there was a ripping sound louder even than the crowd's cheering.
The sky turned a weird red color, fizzing with binary around its edges. Then, as Taffyta watched, her heart in her throat, a crevasse opened up across the finish line, sharp and jagged and glitchy, scrolling with binary and discharging bolts of energy.
One of the bolts crashed into a stand, and it slowly tipped forward. Screaming fans fell into the crevasse and Taffyta covered her mouth with her hands. Everyone else panicked. The seats around her emptied, NPCs were tripping and falling over each other to get away from the stadium, and all Taffyta could do was stare at the—the thing ripping the finish line apart.
She'd forgotten all about the race but at that moment, Rancis came zooming down the track. The victorious smile on his face turned to confusion as he saw the pandemonium in the stands. Distracted by that, he almost didn't see the crack spread across the finish line. Which was growing—Taffyta saw that now, every time it spat out a bolt of energy, it got wider.
Rancis saw the crevasse just in time and slammed on his brakes. His kart disappeared in a cloud of sugar dust but when it cleared, he was standing several feet away, staring in shock. The other racers were closing in on the finish line by now, but enough NPCs were fleeing that none of them bothered to come see what was wrong—they just left the track to head directly to the Rainbow Bridge that led to the game's exit. The memory of the last time NPCs had been stampeding out of the stadium was still fresh.
Then Taffyta's paralysis lifted as she realized—Vanellope. Someone had to find Vanellope!
Jumping out of the stands—bouncing over them three at a time—she hit the ground and ran to Rancis's side. He was still staring in disbelief at the crevasse. The bolts of red energy shooting out of it were increasing, most dissipating into the air, but a few landed on the track or the swiftly emptying stands.
Taffyta yanked on Rancis's arm and he stumbled back. "Do you know where Vanellope is today?" she demanded.
"Wh-what? No, I haven't seen her…" he said, sounding dazed.
"Okay, okay, think…" The arcade wasn't closed which meant Vanellope wouldn't be over in Fix-It Felix Jr. The castle, maybe? She could check, at least, and then, and then…well she'd think of where Vanellope liked to hang out, but maybe she wouldn't have to.
Her heart pounding, she turned to face the castle. The sparkling white turrets were so far. Her shoulders slumped but then she heard Rancis say, "Are you going to look for Vanellope at the castle? Because I can give you a ride…"
She whirled. Why hadn't she thought of that? Because she was no good in a crisis situation, that was why. If Vanellope were here, she'd be able to keep people from panicking…well maybe, the glitching crevasse was growing wider by the minute, creeping closer and closer to where Rancis and Taffyta were standing, and where—
"Pixie sticks, your kart, Rancis!" she yelped. The front wheels were only inches from the widening gully.
Rancis leapt into action, throwing himself into the kart's seat and starting the engine in one movement. A stream of glitchy energy shot out from the crevasse, grazing the back of the kart and making red binary shutter across it.
With a screech of tires and a cloud of sugar dust, Rancis pulled up beside Taffyta, and she jumped in and hung on as he floored it.
Reaching the castle seemed to take forever, and when they finally got there, Taffyta hopped out of Rancis's kart and tried the door. But when she pulled on the looped handle of the lollipop knocker, it didn't budge. She pulled again, more out of disbelief, and then banged on the door. Why was no one answering?
Then the day grew dark.
Rancis gasped and Taffyta turned around, just in time to watch two orange papers, large enough to cover both console screens, come down.
Sugar Rush was out of order.
Color drained from Rancis's face and Taffyta couldn't breathe for a second. Then she redoubled her pounding on the door, shouting for Wynchel or Duncan or Sour Bill or anyone to open up.
Finally, there was the sound of locks—a lot of locks—being unchained, unbolted, and undone, and the door opened a crack. An Oreo guard peered out at her. "Yes?" he asked.
Yes? Didn't he see what was going on? "Is Vanellope here?" Taffyta asked.
"The president is out currently."
Taffyta wanted to scream. "Well, when is she coming back?!"
"I don't know, Miss Muttonfudge."
She just gaped at the guard, and then Rancis grabbed her arm. "Taffyta! You stay here and wait in case she comes back. I'll go look for her, okay?"
"Oh…that's…that's actually a pretty good idea…" She turned to the Oreo guard. "Can I come in?"
The guard hesitated, which was odd. No one had ever had a problem letting her in before. Come to think of it, the door normally wasn't locked…
But then he said, "I suppose I could let you in…just stay in the throne room."
As she entered the castle, the doors swinging shut behind her, Taffyta glanced out at Rancis, who still looked pale under the dark orange of the sky. He gave her a nervous smile, then hurried back to his kart. Then the doors slammed closed, the guard re-did all of the locks, and Taffyta heard the roar of Rancis's kart as he drove away.
"What's with the security?" she asked, hearing the nervousness in her own voice.
The guard didn't answer, instead posting himself silently at the door and staring straight ahead.
Taffyta sighed and wandered towards the half-finished throne and Vanellope's desk. She stood in front of the desk, fidgeting, feeling her heart pounding, wondering where Vanellope was and when she was going to get back and what they were going to do and what if Litwak unplugged the game right now, what if he didn't even wait until tomorrow, and…
Wait. Why…why had that thing appeared to begin with? Why would the game go haywire, why would there be something wrong with it when that had never happened before? Why was Sugar Rush acting like it had been infected by a virus?
Taffyta's heart went from pounding to still. Her lungs felt like they were in a vice and she couldn't breathe. She had been infected with a virus. She had brought a virus into the game. She had felt something in her code just before that crevasse had appeared, like she was just corrupted enough, just permanently damaged enough, to respond to whatever was ripping the game apart.
This was her fault.
Her legs felt weak and she clenched her hands around the edge of the desk to keep from just wanted to get out of the throne room then, from the guard that she was sure was watching her, judging her—wouldn't all the castle staff know she'd been there with a virus? Nausea roiled in her stomach and she clenched her fingers tighter around the desk.
Then her prayers were answered. Another Oreo guard entered the throne room, leaving the door open behind him. Taffyta's eyes darted to it and then, without giving herself a chance to think, she crept towards the door. The guards were deep in discussion, gesturing towards the windows and the orange light pouring through them. She took advantage of their distraction and slipped out the door into the hallway.
She didn't even know where she wanted to go, she just—had to be alone, because there was an ache in her chest expanding and crowding out everything and she didn't want to be in front of people when it burst and overwhelmed her.
She turned down a side corridor and then a sob hitched her throat and she just stopped, right where she was, and plopped down on the floor, putting her back up against the wall and covering her face with her hands. Tears leaked out from under the heels of her hands and her sniffling echoed in the hallway.
Part of her was demanding that she stop it, get up, and do something constructive, sure it's your fault that the game's about to be unplugged but stop being such a baby and help! Help people get out to Game Central Station, calm people down…something. Anything.
A bigger part of her just wanted to sit there and cry.
She heard footsteps and curled up further against the wall, stuffing her fists into her mouth to keep her sobs quiet. The Oreo guards were probably looking for her, but maybe they wouldn't turn down this way if she was quiet—maybe they'd just leave her alone and let her be miserable—
Still, a squeak escaped her, and the footsteps stopped. And then they started coming closer.
Taffyta drew her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead on them. There was still a chance that whoever it was would ignore her.
"Taffyta?"
And, chance gone. She looked up, scrubbing at the streaks of mascara on her face. Turbo was standing there. And she was so distraught that she didn't even care that he was still supposed to be in the fungeon, not wandering around the castle. "Just leave me alone," she said. "Go…go escape, or whatever you're doing."
"I'm not escaping. Little Miss Glitch said I could have the run of the castle while she wasn't here." There was a glitchy ghost image of King Candy for a second and he peered more closely at her. "Oh," he said, freezing and looking appalled. "You—you're…you don't have to cry."
"You don't even know why I'm crying," she sniffled.
He gestured towards the nearest window. "That out-of-order sign probably has something to do with it."
Taffyta stared at him for a long moment, and then, without even bothering to cover her eyes, she burst into wailing tears.
His glitch was audible, but she couldn't see him as she cried, huge wracking sobs that made it impossible to breathe except in choking gasps.
She cried a lot, but she hadn't cried like this since…well, maybe ever, no that was a lie, she had sobbed and choked into her pillow two nights after the game had reset, after the excitement had worn off and she'd gone home finally, because everything had changed and her dearest friend had been taken from her, but not since then, and she knew with every fiber of her being that this time, this would go on forever. The despair pinning her to the wall would never leave her and she'd just cry and cry and cry until there was nothing left of her.
"It's my fault!" she wailed. "The game's going to get unplugged because of me!"
There was such a long silence that Taffyta was sure he'd left. Figured. That was what he did, he abandoned people, he—
There was a feeling of movement at her side, and then a light, hesitant touch at her shoulder. "You don't have to cry," King Candy's voice repeated.
That only made her cry harder.
"Taffyta—"
"I did this!"
King Candy, or Turbo, whoever he was, didn't say anything, and Taffyta just wrapped her arms around her knees and kept sobbing.
Of course the tears stopped. They always stopped. Then she was left with hiccuping whimpers and burning eyes and she couldn't see through the slick of tears. Her face was caked with running makeup but she didn't bother lifting a hand to wipe any of it away. What was the point? Snot dribbled down from her upper lip to her chin and was dripping onto her dress, anyway. A little smeared makeup wasn't making her look any worse.
"You don't have to cry," King Candy said, "becausthe it doesthn't help anything."
Then, to her surprise, he pulled a handkerchief out and wiped at her face. All of it. The tears, the mascara, even the snot. He didn't meet her eyes as he did it, but there was a little furrow of concern between his eyebrows that made everything, just for the briefest of seconds, better. "You should go," he said, his tone gentler than anything she'd ever heard from him, certainly in the last week, but maybe ever. "Head out to Game Cthentral Sthtation."
She swallowed. "I should—I should stay and help—"
"What are you going to do, my dear?"
Taffyta looked at him, her vision sticky with tears and makeup, then acknowledged his point with a heavy sigh. She'd done enough, hadn't she? No matter what she did to help, no matter how much she told herself she was making things better, nothing was ever going to make up for this.
Feeling miserable, she got shakily to her feet and hiccuped. There was a jerky movement from King Candy, like he was going to help her, but then he glitched to Turbo and drew away. "I'd walk you there, but I'm sort of under house arrest here. And it's not even my house anymore, hoo-hoo. Guess the front door will have to do?"
"You don't have to," she said in a small voice, thinking she probably should have said I don't want you to.
With a graceful twirl of his hand, he said, "I'm royalty, though. That means I have to be chivalrous."
Against her will, a watery giggle escaped her. "You're not real royalty. And right now you just look like a racer wearing pajamas."
He plucked at the front of his jumpsuit and looked up at her, clueless surprise on his face that almost made her laugh again, despite the pit in her stomach. "Pajamas?" he said. "Really?"
As quickly as it had appeared, her smile vanished, and she didn't respond to his question. Instead, she asked, "What about you? If the game's unplugged, you can't stay here."
"Don't worry about me. I have kind of a knack for getting out of games that are having their plugs pulled."
Taffyta swallowed. That was all well and good, but…what if someone, she couldn't believe Vanellope would do this, but Calhoun, even Ralph…what if they wouldn't let Turbo out? The thought made her ill.
The two of them reached the throne room doors. To Taffyta's surprise, they were open. She'd figured Turbo was being kept out of the throne room, since that was where the code vault's access was.
When she poked her head in, saying, "Hello…?" she saw that the room was deserted. "Seriously?" she asked no one in particular.
Turbo peeked in, snorted, and said, "I was never that impressed by the castle staff, I have to admit." Then, with a shrug, he stepped into the room. Taffyta jumped to keep up with him. If he tried to go into the code vault…she'd…well, she would…
Yeah, right. If he tried to go in the code vault, there was nothing she could do to stop him. But he didn't even glance towards it, instead continuing to accompany her towards the castle doors.
Then she stopped and stood stock still in the middle of the room. What was she doing? This was wrong. Not just leaving the game, but she couldn't…she couldn't leave Turbo here. She couldn't abandon him in the game—and she couldn't trust him not to go into the code vault, no matter how much she wanted to.
"I can't leave," she said. "This is my fault and I have to stay until I'm positive there's no hope."
Turbo looked at her. "There's no hope," he said.
She clenched her fists at her sides. "There's always hope."
For a moment, he regarded her, and then he said, "You know, I used to think that way too."
Blinking at him, surprised by this, Taffyta just said, "What?"
He let his eyes rove around the throne room. "Yeah. Back when RoadBlasters got plugged in. You know, I was pretty jealous, the way all the players just abandoned me for some fancy new game, when I was the best, but everyone said, oh, don't worry about it." His eyes narrowed. "The twins especially, they were…I mean, I guess when you spend every day losing to the greatest racer ever you either get bitter or you get optimistic. So they said, the players will come back, just have some faith, and you know, I actually tried? I gave their happy little fun-fest a shot. Sure, the gamers would come back, they'd get tired of RoadBlasters. Games didn't get unplugged, not at Litwak's." With a mirthless smile, he looked at her and said, "Guess you know the next part of the story."
Yeah. He'd told her, after all. She was silent for a moment. Then she asked, "The twins?"
"TurboTime's NPCs. They couldn't ever beat me. Well." He shrugged. "Every once in awhile."
"Are…are they dead?" Taffyta asked, already knowing the answer.
Turbo's eyes shifted, looking more past her than at her. "There wasn't much warning when Litwak pulled the plug."
"You…" Her next words spilled out of her without her meaning to. "You killed your friends?" The thought made her stomach shrivel. Not just because…well, he'd done that, but…but what if that happened in Sugar Rush? What if some people couldn't get out in time? What if Candlehead or Rancis got trapped here, and the plug got pulled, and that would be her fault, she'd have to live with that, for the whole rest of her life.
"See?" Turbo said. "Even monsters have stuff to have nightmares about."
There was a lump in her throat that she tried, without luck, to talk around. Finally, she said, "How can you act like none of it mattered? The twins…they were your friends, and now they're gone, and…"
"Well see, here's the thing, Taffyta." Turbo curled his hands in front of his chest. "You can either care or not, and the second you stop caring, the easier it is to do what you have to do to survive."
Something in her snapped at that. "What you did didn't have anything to do with surviving," she said. "You could have survived without killing all those people, without taking over Sugar Rush, that was all about…all about being the best, wasn't it? You had to be on top, everyone had to like you and think you were the greatest."
He drew back a little, but all he said was, "Hey, I did want I had to do."
All she did for a second was stare at him, her eyes brimming with tears again, angry ones this time. Then she turned away. "I can't believe I almost fell for this again," she muttered. "All you do is hurt everyone around you."
There was a sound, and then, "Taffyta?"
When she turned to face him, he'd taken a step closer to her. He looked uncomfortable, and he was fidgeting, then glitching, like he'd lost control over it. "What?" she asked.
The glitching didn't stop. "It wasthn't about—" Glitch. "—hurting other games. Or other people." Glitch. "I justht wanted to racthe."
She didn't say anything. Why didn't he get it? Why couldn't he see how wrong he'd been? In a voice tight with more unshed tears, she said, "But you did hurt other people." Your friends from TurboTime. All those characters in RoadBlasters. Vanellope. Me. "I know that wasn't what it was about. That's your problem. Everything's about you. You don't care about anyone except yourself. You've never stopped to think about how you're going to mess things up for other people, have you? And if you do, you don't care—Vanellope was just in your way, she didn't matter."
He glanced down at his feet. His crown slid forward, then disappeared as he glitched to Turbo. Then, looking back up at her, he said, "…sorry?"
Her mouth fell open. "Seriously?"
Holding his hands out in a shrugging gesture, he asked, "Not good enough?"
She clenched at her sleeves, feeling her fingers digging into her own palms even through her gloves and her jacket. "No, that's not good enough!" she shouted in such a shrill tone that he took a step back. She had never, ever spoken to him like this. "You tried to kill Vanellope. You tried to kill her, Turbo—or—or King Candy, or whatever you want me to call you! We've all seen the video of her first race, we all saw the way you—you rammed her kart, and tried to beat her up, and you were going to crush her against the wall and it doesn't matter if she would have regenerated, because you were trying to murder her!"
Turbo stared, his hands curled in front of his chest again. She wondered if he was going to deny it. "I…" he began, then glitched back to King Candy. "I wasthn't…mysthelf."
"Yes you were," she said.
He opened his mouth, then glanced down at his hands. Lacing his fingers together at chest level, he said, "It wasth all falling apart. And I justht had to, had to, well you know, do sthomething." He grimaced. "I don't think I wanted to kill her, I justht wanted her out of the way. I wanted that kart desthtroyed, and then…you know, I think life impristhonment in the fungeon would have been fine…"
"Oh, that's really comforting," Taffyta sneered. "I'm sure Vanellope would sleep a lot better at night if you told her that."
King Candy's face twitched. "I don't care how the glitch sthleepsth."
"Ugh!" She threw her hands up. "I was being sarcastic! You think Vanellope's losing sleep over you?" Then she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at her shoes, the abrupt deflation making her feel flat and tired. "You'd do it all again, wouldn't you? You'd lie about everything and lock up our memories, and you wouldn't care at all. It's all about you, and if someone got in your way again, you'd do whatever popped into your head so they didn't mess up your perfect little lie. Maybe you don't plan on hurting people, but you do."
He didn't answer at first. He also wouldn't look at her. Then, in a low tone, he said, "I don't have any reason not to do it again."
Anything that she might have said lodged in her throat, and all she could do was stand there, frozen, and stare at him. His mouth was set in a thin line, his fists were clenched, and he looked…mean. Like the deranged, glitching racer she'd seen on the jumbotron that other day that Sugar Rush had been on the verge of destruction.
Taffyta couldn't move. Or speak. Or do anything but feel like she'd ruined everything, and in twenty-five years…what was to stop her from becoming just like him? She could be the arcade's new Turbo, the selfish taffy-brain who couldn't think of anything except the fact that she wasn't racing, and had brought down an entire game because of it.
The urge to flee rose up within her again, but she forced herself to stay. After all, he'd just admitted he had no reason not to try to take over again.
Then, the throne room's kart door opened up and a kart zoomed through. With a screech, it came to a halt, and Vanellope leapt out, pulling her goggles off. She caught sight of Taffyta and Turbo and glitched over to them, looking determined.
"Hey," Vanellope said, looking between them and noticing, Taffyta was sure, the stricken, tear-stained state of her face.
"Howdy, glitch," Turbo said, like the conversation he and Taffyta been having had never happened. "Enjoying your last couple hours as president of Sugar Rush?"
Vanellope didn't take the bait. Well, not totally. "Listen, Turbutt, I know that you know how to fix the code. I know that you know that I know."
"I don't follow," Turbo said lazily.
Vanellope planted her hands on her hips and took a deep breath, then said, "Get the virus out of the game."