And so once again I find myself doing battle with the oxymoron which is the Flavored Plain. Ten square miles of undetailed background at the rear end of Nowhere. It's the pink frosting that's the worst. It gets in everything. Even the seals on my boots, which are supposed to be certified against hard vacuum and temperatures up to 40,000 degrees-

Calhoun stopped and looked down at her metal greaves. For a moment, she'd forgotten that she was no longer in her old armor. She wriggled her toes uncomfortably in the squishy frosting. Blecch.

"Now, now you be careful," she heard Felix saying behind her. "You're not in your game anymore, fellas... Fellas? Oh, butterscotch and biscuits!"

A ball of pink frosting splattered against the back of Calhoun's head. She turned to see her husband ducking and dodging away from more of the sugary missiles as a frostingball fight erupted between some of the level 1s.

"LOOK!" yelled a particularly loud dwarf. "I'M MAKIN' A FROSTING ANGEL!"

"I'M GONNA EAT THE WHOLE GROUND! NYAM NYAM NYAM!" screeched a gnomeling.

"It is just me, or are they getting worse?" Calhoun asked.

Felix sighed. "Ohhh, dear. I think it's all the candy. They're on a... a..."

"A sugar rush?"

"That would be the word for it."

Ahead of them, Ralph loped along the ground like a gorilla, propelling himself through the sludge with his massive fists. He kept his eyes on the end of the plain, where low donuts foothills led into the mountains of the interior.

She'll be at the castle for sure, he told himself. She's gotta be.

He squinted at the dark, distant peaks, trying to catch a glimpse of the gleaming edifice at the center of Sugar Rush. He paused. He couldn't see the castle-but there was something else there, something dark, spreading slowly across the crags like molasses.

He heard Scourgica coming up from behind, her boots making sclorping sounds as she struggled through the frosting. "Hold...hold on...a minute," she gasped. "Just...gotta catch... my..."

"What is that?" Ralph asked, pointing. "Can you tell what it is?"

The vampire barbarian narrowed her eyes. "It's... it looks like people. I think. Or creatures., maybe. I'm not sure."

"People?" Ralph breathed. Even in Game Central Station, he'd never seen so many rendered at once before. "What would a whole crowd of people be doing out here?"

"They're not just a crowd," Scourgica said, frowning. "They're an army."

"Come on!"

"Oh dear, oh dear," Professor Beechwood fretted. "If we get caught, we'll..."

"We're not gonna get caught," Vanellope said, exasperated. "What're we supposed to do, stay back there until she comes back? You oughtta be glad I even let you come along after-YIKES!"

Beechwood pulled her back into the alcove just in time as a phalanx of heavily-armed Oreos thundered down the hall.

"C'mon, let's follow them!" Vanellope said, hopping out as soon as they were past.

"Follow them?! Why?"

"Because," the girl explained patiently, "wherever they're going has gotta be where the exit is, right?"

They continued down the hall until they reached an open area. For a moment, Vanellope thought they were outside; then, she realized that they were actually in an immense hangar. Gingerbread soldiers, candy cane commandos, and all manner of assorted tough cookies were loading barrels of non-sentient candy onto something so huge it filled the entire outer wall.

"Whoa! What is that?"

"It's probably that Project P thing she was talking about-oh, look, let's just go!" Beechwood said. "This obviously isn't the way out of here."

"I'm gonna check it out anyway. Hey, if you don't wanna come, feel free to take your chances goin' through the castle on your own."

"Oh dear, oh dear..."

Scuttling from pallet to pallet, keeping the stacks of barrels between them and the cohorts of candy soldiers, they made their way to the edge. Vanellope turned her head left and right, trying to get a sense of the thing docked at the hangar, but it curved out of sight in all directions. It was striped in red and yellow and bright parakeet green, and she figured it might be a giant jawbreaker, but when she stretched a hand out over the gap to touch the side, she felt...

"Tissue paper?"

She tapped experimentally on the hull. There was a hollow thunk.

"Huh, what's this thing supposed to be, anyway?"

"Look out!" Beechwood hissed. "There are more coming up behind!"

"Oh, son of a s'more!" Vanellope cursed. "Hide!"

There was really only one place to hide. They scurried up the nearest ramp and into the dark interior of Project P.

"And I was down there so long that time lost all meaning, hoo hoo! Just me and my rats. I miss my rats." Turbo sighed. "I'd still be down there if Vanellope hadn't come along and broken me out!"

"I thought you said Vanellope put you in there," objected a Shyguy.

"No, no, that was the other Vanellope, the old Vanellope, this is a new Vanellope, who's older. It's all very simple."

"He's right!" screeched Toad, still scraping loose frosting from under his cap. "She had all us racers locked up! And she's got a lot more jail cells down there. Well, she did until Wario farted on 'em, anyway."

"Didn't I tell y'all she was up to no good in there?" Kenny complained. "How many times do we haveta go over this? We gotta deal with this situation before it gets worse!"

The assembled video game characters muttered and shuffled their feet, paws, tripods, and other assorted appendages. "Well, I don't like to cause a fuss," a xenomorph said shyly.

Suddenly, a barking cry echoed across the Menu Channel. "I've never seen such a sorry bunch of namby-pamby, thumb-sucking diaper-fillers in my life!"

The crowed parted as a baby marched to the front, drumming his fingers on his golden plasma rifle arm. "What are you bunch of wimps waiting for? You all just gonna stand around until your timers run out?"

He hopped up on a Thwomp. "I heard it all, see? I heard what's goin' on, and I heard what you all said back, and I just about blew my Gerber! You think you're safe here, hiding in your precious menu channel? Think again! Oh, sure, this two-bit tin-pot sugar cube might only be going after racers now! But what about tomorrow? What happens if she decides she's going after fighting games next? Or puzzles? Or RPGSs? Are you all gonna hide under the bed and wait for her to go away?"

"Uh..." a goblin piped up. "Uh, no?"

"You're brick-breakin' right, no!" Third hopped up and down. "You're an army! You! You can breathe fire! You can run faster than the speed of sound! You can..you can eat fruit! If we combine our abilities, there's nothing this team couldn't accomplish! Are you with me?"

"Hell, yeah, I'm with you!" Kenny said enthusiastically. "Just let me run home and get my salt lick and I'll be ready to knock some heads!"

"That's one! Who else?"

"I'll go, I guess."

"Great! That's Hiccup from the game adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon. What's wrong, are the rest of you gonna let yourselves get out-cohone'd by some slapdash licensed game?"

"Hey!"

Some of the characters were leaving, but a good number of them were staying, and more were starting to show up as the news spread, crawling out of their individual games. Some wanted an end to tyranny, others seemed a little too thirsty for carnage, and some just looked curious. Whatever their movies, Third's army was growing.

"I suppose I'll go, hoo hoo," Turbo said, raising his hand. "I owe it to Vanellope!"

"Yeah! We owe Vanellope the butt-kicking of her life! Woo!" shouted a girl with a mohawk.

"Not that Vanellope, the other-oh, whatever."

"Mr. Turbo?" Turbo felt a tug on his sleeve, and looked down to see Toad.

"Yes?"

"Take this box. Its contents will help you on your way." The little mushroom handed the confused racer a glittering, rainbow-colored cube with a question mark on the side. Turbo fumbled with it for a moment, then found the lid and opened it.

"What am I supposed to do with this thing?" he asked, perplexed. He didn't see how the object inside could be of any use.

"You'll know what to do when the time is right."

"Oh, not this business, oh, honestly, can't you be a little more specific?" Turbo said, annoyed. "Now I'm just gonna be- 'now? Now?' all day and all night and thanks a lot for that, buddy, I-"

"When all seems lost, and it looks like evil has won," Toad said. "That's when you use it."

There was a pause.

"Woooooo," Toad said, wiggling his fingers. "Wooooo. Ooooo."

"What are you, supposed to be a ghost now?"

"Wooo. I'm... I'm just going to leave." Toad turned and melted away into the crowd.

Turbo shrugged. Mushrooms were so weird.