One hour ago Vanellope arrived at the castle in hopes to save Sugar rush, 45 minutes ago Vanellope wandered out into the garden and found Taffyta in the arms of the evil Princess Nelly, 30 minutes ago Vanellope held her breath just before she was about to approach Taffyta for the first time in days, and 20 minutes ago she was thrown in here. In the fungeon.
Vanellope was now pacing the tiny cell figuring what to do. She had tried to focus on glitching through the wall but somehow it wasn't working. She would be able to get her hand through slightly but shortly after doing so it would shoot her back, she wasn't able to completely glitch through. Either she was so frustrated by the fact that Taffyta had switched sides and actually was on team "Princess Nelly" or she was so frustrated that she got caught just moments before contacting her. Or both.
"Taffyta!" Vanellope yelled and banged on the door repeatedly. If she couldn't glitch through the walls enough then she would have to get someone's attention from the upper throne room, hopefully someone was walking by. "Taffyta!" Vanellope yelled again. Although she was sure calling for her would be a bad idea, it didn't stop the girl from calling for her.
"Marshmallow!" Vanellope called out, seeming a little more desperate. She called out all the racers names, even including Rancis and the Marshmallow captain. She called out for Jo, Pa, Ma, and Grammy. "RALPH!" Vanellope finally screamed her throat sore and collapsed on the ground.
She hadn't called for Ralph since the moment of the unplugging incident, it almost broke her by how much she had forgotten about all of her old friends in this new world. It made her sick that she allowed this world to change and mold her to easily forget and Vanellope soon found herself sniffling.
"Don't cry Vanellope.." a voice called from a cell or two over. Vanellope gasped and stood up, the voice sounded familiar and it nearly frightened her out of her stockings when she heard it. "You're not alone…I'm here too…and Rancis" the voice said and Vanellope moved closer to the door. "Rancis is here…but I called for him?" Vanellope said and the voice giggled.
"I think he passed out…he was crying a lot earlier and he just sorta stopped." The voice said and Vanellope felt bad for the poor racer. "Why is he in here?" Vanellope asked and the voice was quiet for a moment. Vanellope had almost thought they had left when it spoke again, "He didn't say much about it to me, but what I've gathered is he housed a candy creature behind the Princess' back."
Vanellope grinned from ear to ear hearing that, "He did?" she asked sounding a bit too excited. "Yes" the voice said, "He seemed to think he shouldn't be in trouble, he was brave honestly.". Vanellope wanted to dance about the cell, it looked like there was more than just one racer in Sugar rush that believed in candy citizens.
"Hey, can you tell me what kind of candy creature it was that he saved?" Vanellope asked hoping it was a small Marshmallow. The voice was silent a moment more, thinking. "I don't recall…I'm sorry." It said and Vanellope shrugged her shoulders. "It's okay." Vanellope laughed trying not to sound down.
The voice let out a sigh of relief; they seemed to be worried about Vanellope being angry with them. Vanellope opened her mouth and shut it again; she was unsure what she should ask the voice next. There were so many questions and concerns, Vanellope wished she could ask them all at once.
She started with the most important one, "Do you know how we can get out of here?". The voice coughed and answered, "Unfortunately on my own, no…". Vanellope waited for her to continue, not sure if the voice was going to tell her more. "But together maybe.."
"I'm sorry, I've upgraded it just as I've planned but there are some small problems with it." The girl said as she showed it off to the old man. He raised an eyebrow to her, "Problems?" he asked and the girl nodded. She felt like she was talking to her own father, disappointing him.
"The game works perfect, it plays, you pick your character…" she trailed off as she showed him the game. "But every now and then there is an extra character...the game isn't 100% perfect like it should be." She finally blurted out.
The old man observed the game and patted it lovingly on the side. "But it plays?" he asked and the girl nodded. "Before you took it this game had a special uniqueness to it, a character in it had some sort of glitch that allowed the children to win more games." He stated and smiled at the girl, "Anyways, I don't know all the problems with it, but if it plays and it still gets me business I think I'll be fine at only being 95% perfection" laughed the old man, leaving the sleep deprived girl speechless.
"Anyways, if I do have extreme problems then I'll bring it back to you" He said and offered his hand, "Deal?". The girl didn't waste time and grabbed his hand, shaking it firmly. "Deal!" she said smiling. She was bothered with the fact the game didn't work perfectly, but if he was fine with a game that glitched or didn't have the correct amount of racers each time than she was happy with that too.
"So I'll have the boys come this evening to pick it up" the old man said and gave her a wave goodbye. The girl smiled and bid him farewell as well. She turned to the game and sighed, she had worked so hard to get the game perfect, but maybe its little unique characters and occasional glitches was what made it so special.
The girl walked over to the back of the Sugar rush game and took the plug in her hand, she gave it a yank, and the game unplugged.
"Again…" said the voice and Vanellope focused hard on her glitching. The two had been trying for hours to get Vanellope to glitch enough that she could reach her hand through the door, for reasons the voice couldn't explain till she actually succeeded with it. Vanellope felt stressed at first; trying so hard for a cause the voice was keeping her out of. But after the first hour Vanellope had nothing else to loose and figured doing this was better than sitting out.
Again and again Vanellope tried but she just couldn't do it like she did before on the island. She had so much more faith, she had so much hope, she had everything to look forward to. But now she only had fear, concern, and the possibility that she was going to be defeated.
The voice obviously could tell Vanellope was losing hope. "Please Vanellope, you've got to try." The voice said and Vanellope grew angry, "I am trying!" she yelled and her glitch flared uncontrollably and shot her back away from the door. Vanellope hit the back of her head and she laid there on the floor for a good while feeling sorry for herself.
The voice sighed and spoke again, "Vanellope, you can't let Nelly beat you…please think about your friends.". Vanellope sat up and scoffed, "What friends?" and waited for the voice to reply. When she was quiet Vanellope continued, "Taffyta ran off to be with Nelly, Marshmallow has been MIA for days now, Rancis is knocked out and…and.." Vanellope started to choke up.
"and Ralph, the others, they're all gone too.." she yelled, her voice echoing throughout the fungeon. Vanellope took a breath in and immediately felt like the weight she had been holding onto had been lifted from her shoulders from yelling. The voice seemed to do the same and after a bit of silence said, "You have more friends than you know…and the friends you think have failed you, they will redeem themselves Vanellope."
Vanellope looked at the door, thinking hard about the situation. She had to be wrong about Taffyta, she just had to be. And although Marshmallow is gone she still had the help of an entire island of candy, including the very special popcorn family! Plus even though Rancis was passed out she still had this voice talking to her, Vanellope had lost but not everything yet.
"Let's get the heck out of here." She said and her entire body glitched insanely as she walked towards the door, shooting her hand through. Immediately she felt the clasp of another hand and her entire world went in and out as she realized she was completely glitching through the door along with the other girl on the other side.
Whoever the girl was, she had a glitch like Vanellope and she used it to morph halfway through the wall as well. The girls then had combined their glitches by grabbing each other hands and going the rest of the way through the wall. Separate the girls glitches could not push them through the wall, but together they were able to both get through. Vanellope was amazed by the girl's cleverness.
Vanellope and the girl landed right on the other side of their chambers with a loud bang and their glitching slowly got under control. Vanellope looked up and saw the stairs that led up to the throne room. "We did it!" Vanellope yelled but immediately covered her mouth as she realized they could possibly still hear her from above.
Standing up she turned to finally face the voice that had helped her escape. Vanellope's breath caught as she looked the girl over and realized for the first time who she was. "Taffyta..?" Vanellope asked and the girl nodded, smiling sheepishly her body glitched a little as she did. "Not the Taffyta you know at least…but yes." She confirmed.
The girl had jet black hair cut precisely like the real Taffyta's, hazel-ish eyes, a teal race jacket along with matching dress that both had brown squiggly lines on them, teal and brown hat that still looked like a strawberry, teal and brown stockings along with shoes, as well as brown racer gloves. The entire outfit was completely redesigned to look like Vanellope's sort of taste.
"I'm sorry…I would've told you it was me, but I couldn't risk not getting your help." Taffyta's copy said and smiled kindly at her. Vanellope had too many questions to even start, "I would've helped you still.." Vanellope said but thinking about it, she wasn't sure after the incident she was met with in the garden.
Taffyta's copy smiled at her and let go any words she wanted to argue with Vanellope, the two could have went back and forth all night about whether or not keeping her identity a secret from Vanellope was a good choice or not.
"But wait…how do you have a glitch like me?" Vanellope asked and Taffyta smiled looking down, "I've always had one..since the day I was programmed just like you Vanellope." She said "I tried countless times by myself to get out with it, but it wasn't till we combined ours that we were able to be rid of this cell!"
Vanelloped looked the girl over as if seeing her for the first time, she had never met another glitch before and seeing the girl act as if it were no big deal was surprising to Vanellope. Vanellope wanted to talk more about the girls glitch, ask how she has been dealing with it, or how she came up with the idea to get out of the fungeon. But dwelling on these things and wasting time that could be used towards Nelly's demise was silly, they needed to move on.
"Well first things first, we need to get Rancis out of this cell!" she beamed and went to retrieve the keys near the fungeon steps. Vanellope felt odd seeing the girl walk around, although she knew she wasn't Taffyta it still did look like Taffyta all the way down to the facial expressions. The only thing different was the color scheme, Vanellope definitely realized how off the real Taffyta must've felt when she met the copy of Vanellope.
The door creaked open and Vanellope along with Taffyta peaked in to find Rancis, looking weak, and lying on the floor. The girls rushed in and quickly tried to wake him up, shaking him. The boy groaned and refused to open his eyes. "Dang it Rancis wake up!" Vanellope said and pinched his nose.
"Ouch!" the boy yelled and sat up looking at the two girls, "Why did you do that for?" Rancis angrily said and rubbed his nose. "Because I'm not going to carry your heavy butt out of here!" Vanellope said smiling at the boy and helping him up. Rancis looked at the door, realizing it was opened and smiled.
Next he looked at the girls and went to thank them only to be stopped by Vanellope, "We can do all this thanking mumbo jumbo later.." she said and started to rush out of the cell and up the stairs. Taffyta followed and Rancis weakly rushed after the two as best he could. The three stopped at the top of the steps and found a lever, which Taffyta pulled, and the doors of the fungeon opened.
The three paused waiting for guards to fill in or attack them, Nelly to throw a transporting white light at them, or possibly other racers to scream for the first two options. But when all was silence the group looked at each other awkwardly. "Why isn't anything happening…?" Rancis asked and Vanellope shrugged her shoulders.
She figured that if three of the most wanted people in Sugar rush were all in the same locked fungeon that they would at least guard it with an Oreo or two. "I'll go up.." Vanellope finally said after some silence, "If it's safe I'll come back for you guys." She added and smiled at the two. Taffyta nodded and Rancis gave her a thumbs up. Vanellope held her breath and climbed up and out into the open.
Vanellope was not met with Oreo guards, Nelly, the castle residents or anything for that matter. Vanellope looked up as she was met with a cracked and ruining castle that once was the grand and beautiful caslte that belonged to Nelly, prior to Vanellope.
Across the room she saw hallways had caved in, windows were shattered but the large castle still stood proud. The ground was rumbling like a soft engine of a kart and shaking slightly like it had done way back by the soda pop river with Marshmallow just before it had knocked them off her feet.
Vanellope had forgotten to call the other two up in her amazement and silently, without warning, they ascended out of the staircase. Rancis was the first to speak, "What happened?" he yelled and Vanellope turned shushing him just as a piece of wall came tumbling down from opposite them. The crew held still, unsure if it was safe to move. Vanellope shot him a dirty look, "No screaming.." she said softly and Rancis nodded tensing a bit.
"This is what happened to our game when it came unplugged…but why was it unplugged again?" Vanellope asked out loud. Taffyta's copy shrugged her shoulders and Rancis walked closer to the two. "How did we not feel this…I mean, we were in the fungeon and all.." he started to say before Taffyta held up her hand to silence him. "That fungeon is solid, we were probably the safest in there than anywhere else in Sugar rush.." she said and Vanellope's eyes widened in horror.
"But…what about my friends?" she asked Taffyta and looked around as if by doing so they would suddenly appear. "Popcorn family, Marshmallow, the racers, and Taffyta!"