I am so freaking sorry for not updating sooner! First it was my final exams. I was this close to failing Chemistry, but my new teacher helped me study harder, so I managed to pass. Then I was so relieved that I didn't want to do anything aside from nothing, haha. And then it was just pure laziness. AND THEN it was my cousin's graduation party, which was a complete waste of my time. I won't even talk about the part where his uncle (his mother's brother) tried to hit on me and a six-year-old girl! Rest assured...I'm back!
AnonymousZGirl-YIKES! Girl, I love you to death, like I do all of my reviewers, but...that is A LOT to take in. *sighs* I'll see what I can do. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!
Princess LalaBlue-Here you go, my good friend!
TheWitchThatLivesInTheJungle-Well...read the end of this chapter. Maybe I can work something out after all? ;)
Raccon Girl-Don't worry. I never let my stories end badly for the characters!
Dalek-I hope that you like what I've done with her in the story, and I hope that you don't mind her and Swizzle being love interests! ;) Thanks for reviewing!
Ashuradehedgehog-Stop being so thinky! Oh, I'm only joking. The answers will be revealed in good time...but I think you'll be surprised from what you'll learn...OOOOH, am I being mysterious?
KylaSoulSongAlchemist-Oh, haha. *waves at the random citizen* Hey, this is making me think of Megamind...GAAAAH! I would totally write a fic on that...hey, I should! Alicia, if you're reading this...MINION IS MINE!
And to my Chemistry teacher from the beginning of this semester, a very special shout-out: Dearest Madam, live long and suck it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
"I have to admit that this game is even more impressive than I imagined it to be," Turbo confessed, still gawking at everything in the world of Portal. Wheatley had been giving him the cold shoulder, and GLaDOS and Chell were nowhere to be found.
"What can I do to make you shut up and get out?" Wheatley barked.
"It's just a tiny favor," Turbo promised. "You've had access to Sonic dot exe and MARIO in the past, right?" Wheatley gave a robotic nod. "Just hack into BEN and tell me where the code room is, and then we'll be on our way."
"How do I know that you won't try to take over that game?" Wheatley pointed out.
"Because we've already been there!" Black stepped forward. "And it's another Trojan Game. We need to get rid of it, and we need his help."
"A friend of ours is in there," Red added. "She's in danger."
"When will you EVER LEARN?" Wheatley exploded. "Don't go looking around in places that you know will only bring you trouble!"
"None of us go looking for trouble," Jenna sighed. "Trouble usually finds us. But can you please help us just one more time?" She implored.
"Pretty, pretty please with a cherry on top?" Jubileena added, batting her eyelashes. Wheatley groaned and turned to his computer, which he slaved over for a good long time. Turbo continued to wander around the room of the game that they were in, obsessed with how pretty the graphics looked. The racers chatted with each other, sometimes glowering at Turbo. Finally, Wheatley had results.
"Look in the Happy Mask Shop," He suggested. "If it isn't there, I don't know where." Turbo and the others thanked him before they left.
"Alright, here's the plan," Turbo said, getting everyone to huddle around him. Jenna couldn't help but feel silly. First they hated Turbo, then they were reluctant allies, and now they were forced to take orders from him like he was their football coach? She stiffled a giggle, but resisted the urge to shout when they heard Turbo out.
"We could all die this way," she said in a low voice to him. The children were just as aware of the risks as she was, and they weren't quite ready to die.
Alicia couldn't find Knuckles anywhere, and she was scolding herself for forgetting that Knuckles had a rebellious streak, not to mention a restless nature. He was not going to sit back while another war went on around him. She headed for the palace...the place she should have looked for him first instead of last. But when she entered, she found a surprise waiting for her, and it didn't have anything to do with the person she was searching for. There were four new racers talking to the children that were guarding the code room. One was a pretty blond adult chewing on a piece of gum as she spoke. The other three were children, and two of them were boys. Swizzle scowled at both of them, but smiled at the young girl whenever they made eye contact.
It was the adult that noticed Alicia and called out to her. "Hey! Are you a new racer? I'm Bubbles!" When Alicia was close enough, she was pulled into a hug. "It's SO nice to have more adults here!" Bubbles exclaimed. "Anyway, you don't know them, so I'll introduce you! New racer, this is Jake, Caleb Cottoncandy, and Cindy Swirl. Guys, meet New racer."
"Her name is Alicia Rish," Taffyta laughed. "Anyway, Alicia, what are you doing here? Did Turbo do something that he's going to regret?" She got serious, and Crumbelina cracked her knuckles.
"No, no...I'm looking for Knuckles. You remember him, right? Has he come by here at all?"
"Yeah, he did," Adorabeezle answered. "But he didn't stay too long. He left after he said something about going to teach 'someone a lesson in pain'." Alicia groaned.
"I shouldn't have left him alone so soon," she moaned. "Why does he want to go do something stupid...?"
"Because he's a boy," Adorabeezle giggled. Taffyta and the other girls laughed too, but the boys weren't too pleased about being the subject of a joke.
"Whatever," the boy named Caleb said. The Swizz burst out laughing, and Caleb glared at him. "What's so funny? You think that being a boy is funny, like these girls?"
"You're wearing PINK!" This was true. Caleb had pink hair that was kept in a ponytail, a pink cape, a pink eye patch, and pink boots. Caleb's visible eye, which was a light blue, flashed.
"Pink was a masculine color once," He snapped. "Whatever. I don't need you guys to help me. I'm going to go look for the president and see what she remembers. And I'm going ALONE!" He stomped off. Crumbelina frowned.
"I seem to recall some of us telling him that we don't buy the whole 'bad boy' act," she said to Taffyta.
"What about you and Lemmy?" Adorabeezle teased. Crumbelina's mocha-colored cheeks grew more opaque as she blushed.
"Lemmy is sweet!"
"You're with Lemmy Koopa?" Jake asked, making a face. "What do you see in him?"
"Everything that she doesn't see in you!" Swizz teased, coming to the lovestruck girl's rescue. "Face it, Last-Nameless Jake: you were created in less than a day. While my hair was being perfected, you were being slapped together and forced into the game." Jake scowled.
"I don't need you or Caleb to find Knuckles!" He declared. "I'm going now!" He huffed away, and Cindy turned to Swizzle.
"You were rather rude," she said. This sweet girl wore red shoes with light brown bows on them, had brown hair and brown eyes, and a simple outfit. She didn't look as flashy as Taffyta or did, but yet Swizzle blushed.
"It's all true," he insisted. "That's why he doesn't look like us!"
"Who are you? Where did you come from?" Alicia asked, fearing that the hatred within the racers remained. Only instead of attacking their beloved president, they would go after the one they deemed the outsider. Taffyta's mouth opened, and her lollipop dangled from the corner of her mouth.
"Everything is starting to make so much more sense now that everything is back to normal," she said, letting her candy fall from her mouth and hit the floor. "It wasn't just Black and Red that...I mean, we can remember when Vanellope was a princess."
"When Turbo came to Sugar Rush, nobody wanted to help him," Cindy interrupted. "Black was the one who convinced Vanellope to incorporate him into our game. So she took him into the code room."
"That was his first visit to that part of the castle, but you know that it was not the last," Bubbles added. "It was Caleb that began to suspect that something was wrong with him wanting to 'help' the princess with the codes. At first we didn't believe him."
"He tried to delete our codes. He almost succeeded with Vanellope," Swizz spat. "And he kept us in SCS," he said, gesturing to the new characters. "He kept Black around for some reason. Probably thought that she'd be against a glitch."
Taffyta was crying again, and Adorabeezle rushed to comfort her. "The last thing I can remember was talking to Vanellope about our cars and Turbo, and then...we were kicking her around in the dirt, calling her names..." She hiccuped. "This is our fault. We should have listened to you," she said to Jake and the new characters through her tears.
"What is SCS?" Alicia wondered, hoping to change the subject.
"It means 'System Crash State'," Crumbelina spoke up. "It's sort of like when a virus infects a game, only when it's just a specific character." She shrugged. "At least, that's what I think it means. Jake is the one who is all tech-savvy."
"Let's go get him!" Bubbles shouted, pumping her fist into the air. "Let's find him and Knuckles!" With that goal in mind, she led Alicia and Cindy out of the palace. Alicia was surprised to see that there were new karts parked there, and she wondered how she didn't notice them on her way inside.
"Hey, is that a motorcycle?" She asked, pointing to the one vehicle that did not in any way resemble a car. Bubbles beamed and nodded.
"Let's get poppin'!" She yelled, revving up her ride and speeding ahead of Alicia's Scarlet Streaker and Cindy's Cinammon Spin...
Lulu was trembling, huddled against the wall, whispering to herself every so often. "Shhh...I'm okay. I'm going to be okay." The Happy Sales Mask Man had been watching her in silence for a while, but then he began to hum. At first, Lulu thought nothing of it. If he felt pity for her, then he was trying to calm her, or so she thought. If he was gloating, he was singing in his own way. She did not care either way. But then his voice changed. It got higher in pitch, and then she recognized the song.
The Lavender Town Theme from the Pokemon games was infamous for driving children to commit suicide, or so the legend went. And now he was humming it. Lulu gritted her teeth and slapped her hands over her ears, but that only helped so much. She had not been convinced that all of the Lavender Town Legends were true, but she did not doubt that children would commit suicide after listening to this song for hours on end.
"Do you want for me to die?" She shouted at her tormentor, who kept smiling and singing. She had to block him out somehow, and thought of her favorite television show: Mystery Science Theater 3000. In order to endure viewing horrible movies, the protagonists of the show would make fun of the films. She was in a similar situation. But how could she make fun of a song with no lyrics...a song that many claimed was responsible for the deaths of many children? The only thing Lulu could think of was to come up with her own lyrics...that way her mind would stay close to sanity. She cleared her throat and began mumbling.
"You've met with a terrible fate...I loved my father, never hate, but he kept me all alone..."
During my last semester of school, I started to write a poem called "BEN's Song", and I sing some of it at the end of this chapter. If I do not honor the promise I am about to make, then you may come after me with pitchforks and torches. Ahem...
I PROMISE TO BRING DAILY UPDATES BACK!
Black and Red Licoricetwist belong to Raccon Girl.
Cindy Swirl belongs to Dalek.
Jake belongs to epicabsol.
Caleb Cottoncandy belongs to Deathstroke Terminator.
Bubbles belongs to LittleDarling13.
PHEW! There are so many OCs. And it gives me an idea. Once this story is completed, I'm thinking about creating a bunch of one-shots to serve as a sequel. They'll mostly be about the OCs interacting with each other and the other characters. What do you guys think? Would you like to see that?
Review, please! :)