Tables Turned

When Taffyta opened her eyes, her vision was blurry. There was a bright light hanging over her and she wasn't back in the middle of the race track like she thought she was. She was lying on an uncomfortable cot and every muscle in her body ached.

The noises that woke her were the three adults chatting in the corner of the room. It didn't sound argumentative, but it wasn't a casual conversation. It was frantic and fearful.

Felix and Tamora were speaking with Surge while Sour Bill was nervously pacing from one corner of the room to the next. It took a second for the pink racer to recognize her current surroundings. She was in the castle infirmary. How she got there, she wasn't sure.

Her head was pulsing and her legs were numb. What just happened in the few seconds before this? All she remembered was that she lost total control of her kart and the vehicle smashed against a solid surface. But that was it.

Normally, she would have endured the damage. She was built to crash through giant gumball machines, explosives, and falling debris. Why was she just now feeling like she'd been run over by a dozen karts?

This couldn't have been because of her altered code.

Felix walked in through the hallway of the pink room lit with the soft glows of the sun shining through. "Oh, you're awake."

Taffyta rubbed her forehead. "How long was I out?"

"Several hours." Surge claimed as he stood beside the others with his arms crossed. "You had a pretty nasty car accident."

Felix appeared on the left side of the cot. "How are you feeling?"

"I can't feel my legs..." She lowered her blue eyes. "I lost the race, didn't I?"

Tamora appeared on her right side. "That doesn't matter, Taffyta, you were badly hurt."

"I can handle a little pain," Taffyta responded. "I'll be fine once I get out of here and go driving again."

Surge shook his head. "This is the first time I've ever heard of a racer being knocked unconscious after an accident. Something's clearly wrong here and if I were you, I'd take a break from racing for a while until we figure out what it is."

Taffyta blinked. "Take a break from racing? Nobody's ever stopped racing just because of a little injury."

"This isn't just a small wound, Taffyta." Tamora said. "You've lost feeling in your legs."

The little girl attempted to sit up, but it was much harder to do than before. "Then I'll rest up for a little while until I can walk again. Besides, I don't really need my legs that much to drive."

"Your kart isn't exactly intact, either." Surge told her.

"Then Fix-It here can do his thing."

Tamora looked down at her. "Taffyta, I understand that you really want to get back in the game, but the kind of damage your kart went through isn't easily fixable."

Taffyta's face looked frozen. "What do you mean?"

"I did my best." Felix said. "But it seems that there's something else gone wrong. The kart keeps re-damaging itself."

The pink racer felt her stomach drop a bit. She hoped they wouldn't have asked her about the glitching. They wouldn't have any reason to suspect it, would they? Only Vanellope has that ability.

They didn't ask any further questions. But Felix offered to carry her on out of here, and though Taffyta was feeling a tad bit embarrassed at the thought, she accepted. It wasn't as if she could carry herself anyways.

The following day, Taffyta was sitting on the grass off screen of Fix-It Felix, Jr, and holding her knees close to her chest. She was able to use her legs again, but now she couldn't have driven her kart in Sugar Rush. The kart seemed to be inoperable even if Felix kept hitting it with his hammer. And now Taffyta was feeling the weight of her actions on her tiny shoulders.

This was the price she had to pay for trying to fix something. Something that could have worked itself out on its own.

Sighing deeply, she stared out into the 8-bit distance. "So, this is what it's like to be an outcast."

At least the racers didn't hate her the way that they did Vanellope. They've learned to appreciate each other, regardless of their racing status. She heard the sound of three racers approaching her from a short distance away.

Nougetsia, Candlehead, and Crumbelina all gathered around her and tried their best to cheer her up.

"Are you doing okay, Taff?" Candlehead asked. Of all the racers, she seemed to be the most worried about her.

"No, Candlehead, I'm not doing okay. I can't race and I'm stuck her doing nothing all day while you guys get picked by gamers."

Crumbelina sat down on the grass. "It's not so bad, Taffyta. At least you've got this place to go to when things don't work out in Sugar Rush."

"That's not enough." Taffyta said.

Nougetsia flipped through her notepad to find the list of presidential tasks Taffyta asked her to write down earlier and presented it in front of the pink racer.

Taffyta looked at her. "Yeah? What about it? I can't really do anything about those things right now."

"No," Crumbelina said. "You just can't race. But we can help you do other important things, too."

"Yeah," Candlehead insisted. "You are the leader, after all."

Taffyta rolled her eyes. "I'll probably crash the game if I set foot in there."

The three girls looked at her in confusion.

"Why would something like that happen?" Candlehead asked.

Taffyta just realized what she just said and she also knew that these three weren't going to drop it. Especially if it concerned their game. And because Taffyta had now been feeling more alone than usual, she wasn't about to be the only one to carry the burden of this secret.

"Guys, if I tell you this, will you swear on King Candy's grave not to tell anyone else about it?" She began. "Not even Fix-It and Calhoun?"

They all eyed her suspiciously, but nodded anyways.

"Okay," Taffyta took in a deep breath. "I know this is probably the worst thing a character can do... but I might have gone into the game's database and changed a few things here and there with my code."

"WHAT?!"

Ralph and Felix had been working all day, but the noise caused them both to look down from the tall complex at the girls.

"Shh!" Taffyta said. "I know it seems bad, but I just thought-"

"Taffyta, you could have deleted your whole code!" Candlehead said.

Crumbelina's face had gone slightly pale. "Vanellope didn't have a glitch because she changed her code herself! She just happened to have it!"

Nougetsia shook her head disapprovingly.

Taffyta stood and crossed her arms. "Don't get all high and mighty with me! You guys haven't thought of doing the same thing when you heard about Vanellope leaving?"

"Of course not!" The two girls said at once.

Candlehead rose and stared right in Taffyta's face. "How can you be so dumb?!"

The pink racer was shocked and took a step closer to the emerald-green haired girl. "Excuse me?"

Candlehead stumbled backwards. "I mean... how could you think about doing something so scary and risky like that? That's so reckless and irresponsible!"

"I thought I was saving our game!"

"But what if you can't race permanently?" Crumbelina said. "We've already lost gamers because of Vanellope being gone, and without you, we probably will lose more!"

"But..." Taffyta looked down at the ground, her fists at her sides. "You didn't get to see what I was able to do with that glitch. I glitched things back several feet behind me. That's such a powerful move, don't you guys think?"

None of them were convinced and Taffyta felt as though she wasn't just alone, but completely isolated. She'd never been accused of doing something so dangerous and possibly costly to others.

But that was because she'd never done anything of the sort.

Nougetsia scribbled on her notepad and presented a picture of Felix's hammer.

"Yeah, maybe Dad could go into the database and fix your code!" Candlehead said.

Taffyta lowered her eyes. "That would mean I have to tell him about what I did. I'm not ready for that." She plopped back down on the grass.

"Come on, Taffyta," Crumbelina said. "I know it's hard, but if you don't tell him, then your code's going to be messed up forever. We don't want you to have to sit out on the bleachers."

"Remember how Vanellope felt when she couldn't race? That's exactly how you'll feel if you don't march over to him and tell him the truth." Candlehead told her.

Nougetsia nodded with them.

And for a moment, Taffyta actually considered it. Because the more difficult part wasn't that she would have to rip the band-aid off by telling the truth, but how much worse the situation could have been if she didn't and the adults found out for themselves.

She remembered how clearly angry Ralph was when he only suspected that Taffyta did it. She didn't want to see what his reaction would be like if he found out it was true.

"I don't want them to hate me." Taffyta said.

Candlehead placed a careful hand on the pink racer's arm. "They won't hate you. The things that they do for us are for our own good. If they get angry, it's because they're worried about us."

"It's not just them." Taffyta said. "What about the rest of the racers? And the people of Sugar Rush? If they see that I'm willing to almost erase myself like that, how could they trust me to lead them? They'll see me as unfit to be a leader. And then we'll have to figure out who else will take my place again."

The girls all shared a look with each other and appeared on both sides of Taffyta in a comforting embrace.

"We don't hate you." Crumbelina said.

Nougetsia gave her a comforting smile.

"Taffyta, you're my best friend." Candlehead said. "I couldn't ever hate you, even if you did boss me around a lot. And best friends have each other's backs when things get sticky."

"That's right." Crumbelina confirmed and Nougetsia once again nodded.

Another voice caught all of their attention.

"Are you girls doing okay?"

Felix was standing off to the side, smiling warmly at them with a hint of concern in his eyes.

The girls all looked at each other and Taffyta could clearly see that the others were waiting for her to bite the bullet and confess. But just as she was about to, she saw that Ralph was also walking over to check up on them. She couldn't deny that Ralph was probably one of the most intimidating people she'd known, aside from Tamora.

She'd seen him smash up things much bigger than herself.

"We're doing fine." Taffyta said. "Just having a little disagreement, that's all."

The others nodded profusely.

"Alrighty," Felix said. "Well, it's just about closing time and Gloyd said a little family activity planned for us. Something about a corn maze treasure hunt."

Candlehead palmed her face. "Oh, yeah! I almost forgot about that."

"Right," Crumbelina said. "He's been talking about it all week."

"So, you girls coming?" Felix asked.

The three looked over at Taffyta.

"Uh..." Taffyta began. "Well, I'm not feeling really in the mood for participating."

"That's okay," Felix said. "You could come and watch with Tammy. She's not really into mazes, either."

Taffyta took a step back. "Well, the thing is... uh..."

She looked over at Ralph with pleading features. Ralph raised his brow but he seemed to understand what she was asking him.

"Oh, that's right!" He said with his hand smoothing over his wild hair. "I promised I would take Taffyta with me to Bad-Anon!"

Felix turned to him. "You did?"

Taffyta was about to ask the same question, but she saw this as an opportunity to avoid her confessions. Though, if she did go with Ralph, she just knew he was about to drill her with questions.

Or maybe he just felt like sharing his activities with the other kids, since Vanellope wasn't here anymore to do it with him.

"Yup, what kind of uncle would I be if I didn't take these little rascals off your hands every now and then?"

Felix looked at Taffyta then back at Ralph, his face showing that he had more questions to ask. But he nodded approvingly. "Alright, then. You guys go ahead and have fun at Bad-Anon."

Taffyta nodded and hurried over to Ralph's side. As they wandered towards the game tunnel, Felix also added, "Stay out of trouble, Ralph! I'm counting on you to bring her back safely!"

And Ralph said, "Please, Felix, when have I ever done otherwise?"

AN: I saw a picture of Ralph and Vanellope as Joel and Ellie from The Last of Us, and I totally can see them having that kind of dynamic if Wreck-It Ralph took place in a zombie apocalypse.

Also, I just recently re-watched Code Lyoko (one of my childhood faves) and I had this idea for how Taffyta would have been affected by the change in code. The show is about these five middle schoolers that go into a virtual video game world called Lyoko and fight against this homicidal computer program. One of the elements in that game is the evil computer program messing with the heroes' codes (or DNA sequences) and making them more vulnerable in Lyoko, or making it so that they can't return to Earth, and things like that.

So I kind of thought that it was an interesting concept to introduce to this fanfic. I'm no expert on code, but it is much more simplified in this world.