"One more race!" Vanellope yelled to the teen racing beside her. "Then I gotta head back to the arcade!"
"Then let's make it a fun one," Shank said, grinning recklessly at her friend.
Vanellope grinned back. Any race in Slaughter Race was a fun one!
"We've got players who think they own Corkscrew Alley," Shank went on. "How about we show them a real race?"
Vanellope responded by accelerating further, pulling ahead of Shank's car. She looked over her shoulder, and briefly cut off Shank from pulling alongside her again. She laughed at Shank's bemused expression.
Shank's eyes flicked ahead and she pointed. Her mouth moved, but the sound of the engines and wind tore away her words.
"What's that? I'm going so fast, I can't hear you, slowpoke!" Vanellope crowed, facing forward.
Too late, Vanellope recognized the intersection she was crossing. It was named T-Bone Turn, and had a harsh reputation for the blind intersection and a plethora of 18-wheelers that never slowed.
It happened too fast for Vanellope to even glitch. One second, she was racing alongside brick and stone, then a huge metal grill loomed up beside her. Harsh impact jerked her to the side. Her hands flailed for the steering wheel, there was a boom, heat washed over her, then… nothing.
Vanellope felt like she was floating in the air, but everything was pitch black. She tried to move her hands, but nothing seemed to be functioning right. Words that did nothing to pierce the darkness appeared in front of her.
"Regenerate in...?" Vanellope read silently, her mouth unresponsive. Her eyes found a countdown below the words. "Three… two… o-"
Feeling returned to her body in a flash, and Vanellope really, really wished it hadn't. The sensation was similar to the slight sting of glitching, but so much worse. It felt like her pixels were being jerked to pieces and mashed back together. Repeatedly. Vanellope might have screamed, but she wasn't sure of anything in the darkness and pain.
In the next moment, she regained motion in her body. She tried to jerk away from the pain, but this only seemed to make it worse. She clenched her eyes shut, feeling as though she was falling, falling…
Then she slammed against a hard floor. She writhed, breath catching wrong in her throat as her pixels continued to glitch in a wild panic.
"V!"
Shank's voice and the slap of footsteps were oddly distorted, then Vanellope felt strong, solid arms slide under her body. Her body was hugged against another, grounding Vanellope enough for her glitching to calm down. She took a deep, quavery breath, and sounds started to come into focus.
"Easy, V," Shank said calmly. "That's it, just breathe."
Vanellope's body gave one big flinch, then the glitching finally slowed to the occasional twitch. She opened her eyes to see Shank holding Vanellope across her lap. They were in the crew's current hideout, and all of the crew but Pyro were surrounding them.
"Sh-Shan-n-nk," Vanellope winced at the glitch still in her voice. "Wh-what-t-"
"You had your first regeneration," Shank said, her cheer sounding fake.
"Congrats?" Felony offered weakly.
"How do you feel?" Shank asked.
"No w-worse than that one t-time that Ral-lph made me a track in T-Taffy Twists," Vanellope said, her voice gradually calming down.
Vanellope tried to bounce to her feet to show that she was okay, but her legs glitched out and Shank narrowly saved her from face-planting by grabbing the girl under her arms. Vanellope chuckled sheepishly as she wriggled her feet.
"Okay, maybe I'm a little dizzy," Vanellope admitted.
"Don't worry, the first regeneration is the worst," Shank said.
"Good," Vanellope said, rolling her head back to look at Shank. "Now… can you put me down? I'm fine now."
Shank set Vanellope on her feet, her hold lingering for a moment. Vanellope smirked.
"Really, I'm alright."
"Vanellope!"
The booming yell echoed through the hideout a split second before the door burst open. The gang, high-strung after Vanellope's episode, stiffened. Vanellope yelped and glitched behind Shank. Everyone relaxed when they saw it was just Ralph.
"Where's Vanellope?!" The brawny man demanded. His hair was even wilder than normal as he scanned the room.
"Right here, Sergeant Stinky," Vanellope said, leaning to wave at Ralph. She blinked. "Why are you here?"
"I drove him." Pyro walked into the room while Ralph ran to Vanellope. "Oh, good. You okay, little V?"
"Just perky," Vanellope said, unresistant when Ralph scooped her up. She looked at Ralph's wind-blown hair and snickered. "Nice 'do."
Ralph frowned, unresponsive to their old joke. Vanellope raised her hands.
"Ralph? Hello? You in there?" Vanellope teased, waving a hand in front of his eyes.
For a moment, Ralph just looked confused. He looked Vanellope up-and-down for a minute before slowly speaking.
"Pyro said you were glitching really badly."
Vanellope blew a raspberry. "Oh, that? That was just because it was my first regeneration." She glitched to sit on Ralph's shoulder and directed her next words to the gang. "I'm fine."
Ralph shrugged, nearly dislodging Vanellope. He turned and purposefully strode from the hideout.
"Alright, then, let's go! Hey, Vanellope, I was thinking. With a layer of sprinkles, maybe the Fudge Bog wouldn't be so slick!"
"I live for slick roads!" Vanellope exclaimed. She twisted to yell back, "Rematch tonight, Shank?"
Shank smirked. "You're on."
As the pair moved outside, the gang finally started to move again.
"Well, she's taking it pretty well," Felony said, sounding relieved.
"Remember our first regeneration?" Pyro shuddered. "I couldn't race for a week!"
"She's tough," Shank said, watching Vanellope lean against Ralph's head and hug his hair a tad harder than normal. She turned to the others. "Now, come on. The players have had free rein of the streets for too long!"