Ralph had the sudden furious urge to leap off the back of Vanellope's kart and smash that shiny red muscle car into a scrap metal pancake. His eyes narrowed in betrayed wrath at the woman he'd trusted to look after his best friend.
"No one has to get hurt, Ralph!" Shank shouted over the rumble of the engines and the chatter of the pop-up ads. "Just give us Vanellope, and we'll keep her safe! We promise!"
Vanellope made a noise halfway between a laugh and a spit. "See, I know Slaughter Race isn't too big on law enforcement and all that fun stuff, but as a politician, I'm pretty sure 'kidnapping' and 'safety' are two mutually exclusive concepts!"
Shank sneered, her eyes wild and desperate. "Don't make this difficult, Vanellope! We can still find your code block out there somewhere! This is where you're needed most of all! You're still a part of this family!"
Calhoun laughed, cocking her sidearm. "Family?" she shouted back. "You wanna talk about family, Leadfoot? We'll show you family!"
And with a squeeze of the trigger, she fired a spectacular red flare high into the yellow hazy atmosphere. It whistled and erupted like a firework.
It was the signal the racers had been waiting for.
The sheetmetal fence lining the aqueduct splintered to pieces as fourteen candy karts ripped through it, the entire Sugar Rush team revving and ready to defend their friends. They sailed through the air, landing on the pavement and drifting around Shank's squad in an intimidating circle. Every juvenile driver's face wore an expression of smug courage.
Vanellope pounded the gas and tore straight for Shank. Eyeing the racers for an opening, squinting through the dust their wheels were kicking up, Shank charged out of the ring right back at her, engaging a ninety mile an hour game of chicken. Vanellope swerved off down a side street at the last second, Ralph clinging tightly to the spoiler, and Shank spun out in a rage.
Behind Felix and Calhoun, player avatars were beginning to break through the swarm of pop-ups. Cars revved from all directions as players converged on the spot, eager to capture their promised reward.
"Hack another notification, Felony!" Shank screamed above the din. "One MILLION dollars for ANY of the Sugar Rush racers!"
Felony jabbed at her phone screen. The racers scattered their karts as another wave of players drove through the fray. Smoke, dust, and vaporized rubber clouded the scene. Pop-ups continued to spring up everywhere, diverting players off-course. It was utter pandemonium.
One player tore down the side street after Vanellope, his convertible bouncing over potholes. Crumbelina and Snowanna split off from the rest of the racers, coming to their friend's defense. They downshifted, overtaking the player swiftly.
"So I hear you guys missed me, huh?" Vanellope shouted as Crumbelina and Snowanna pulled up alongside her kart.
"Hey, Sugar Rush isn't the same without our favorite glitch!" Crumbelina grinned.
Something exploded off to the right. The player avatar was lobbing hand grenades, desperate to cripple at least one of the vehicles in front of him.
"Kid!" Ralph shouted. "I think this guy's got exploding eggs!"
"Yeah, well, we got something sweeter!" Snowanna chuckled, pressing the power-up button on her dashboard.
A gigantic spring-loaded ice cream scoop unfolded from the back of Snowanna's kart, loaded up with a massive rainbow ball of shaved ice. With a snap, it went flying towards the pursuing car. The familiar Sugar Rush announcer voice intoned exuberantly from seemingly nowhere: "FREEZING 'FRO!"
The avatar yelped as the ice landed on his head, pounding him into the seat and giving him the appearance of having a colossal multicolor afro. His car slowed to a crawl, the body scraping on the pavement.
Crumbelina unleashed her own power-up. Three huge iced cinnamon buns tumbled out of the back of her kart, rolling like boulders. "CINNAMON ROLLERS!" shouted the announcer voice. The sticky buns collided with the convertible, knocking it off the road and into a storefront, which promptly exploded for no reason.
Snowanna and Crumbelina cheered. But their celebration was cut short - as they approached an intersection, two more cars tore out of nowhere and attempted to collide head-on with the young racers. Vanellope and Ralph swerved to avoid them, careening westbound toward the restaurant district; Crumbelina and Snowanna spun out as the invading cars slammed on the brakes. The player avatars leapt from behind the wheel, crowbars drawn, ready to pummel-
And then proceeded to blow up, as Calhoun, Felix, and Sour Bill swooped in on the cruiser. Calhoun stowed her smoking rifle as she brought the board down to the pavement.
"You kids all right?" she asked hastily, as Snowanna and Crumbelina trembled.
"Not for long, they won't be!" Sour Bill yelped, his jellybean hands flailing.
HONK HOOOONK.
A mammoth dump truck came bearing up the street, a maniacal female avatar at the wheel. "Say goodnight, Sarge!" she laughed. Calhoun gasped, throwing herself in front of the girls.
"NO, MA'AM!"
Felix leapt bravely forward. Whipping his Christmas pie out from behind his back, he popped it out of the box and swallowed it in one gulp. Instantly, his cap shimmered and gleamed, and his entire body took on an invincible sheen. Defiant, he raised one hand to halt the vehicle.
CRUNCH.
The entire front half of the dump truck crumpled like a paper bag as it collided with Felix's outstretched arm. With a CLANG, the player avatar vaporized back to the title screen.
Felix wiped his brow, still glistening with the effects of his temporary invincibility power. "Whoo!" he gasped. "Glad I saved that pie for later, after a-"
The rest of his sentence was muffled as Calhoun yanked him off his feet and pulled him into the deepest, most passionate kiss of his life. Crumbelina and Snowanna turned away, giggling. "Eww! Barf!" they laughed.
Vanellope shot through downtown, engine screaming, Ralph doubled up against the wind. He turned his head at the sound of blaring horns.
Shank's crew careened out of a side street onto the boulevard behind them. The four NPCs' faces were twisted in ugly sneers, meaner than any player had ever seen.
"Sounds like we got a few unwelcome guests comin' to visit!" Vanellope shouted.
"It's okay, I got it!" Ralph called back. "You keep your eyes on the road, kiddo!"
Butcher Boy pulled up on Vanellope's left, the yard-long horns on his hood drawing dangerously close. "Time to take the bull by the horns!" he taunted through gritted teeth.
Ralph smirked. "Hey, if you say so, Beardo!"
Lunging like a wild beast, Ralph seized the horns with both mighty fists and hurled Butcher's car across the road; it spun out and collided with a streetlamp. Little Debbie pushed a button, and a rocket shot from her roof, arcing straight for Vanellope's rear bumper. Ralph caught it one-handed in midair, then hurled it back like a lawn dart. It collided with Debbie's radiator grill and exploded, sending the smoldering car tumbling end over end through the front window of a nearby building.
Felony and Pyro pulled up behind, on either side. Leaping onto the hood of his bus, Pyro readied his twin flamethrowers. "Y'know how hot sugar has to get 'fore it melts, mate?" he shouted madly over the engines. "You wanna find out?!"
Growling, Ralph lunged, clamping both hands firmly onto Felony's hood-mounted gatling gun. He swung the vehicle like a bat, plowing it into the side of Pyro's bus; both vehicles skidded off the road and exploded. A tire flew out of the flaming metal heap, straight for Ralph's head; he caught it just in time, holding it like a foul ball.
"Do we need this for anything?" he shouted.
"Nah!" Vanellope grinned. "I already got four of those!" Ralph tossed the tire away over his shoulder as Vanellope put the pedal to the floor.
A few blocks away, two players were in hot pursuit of Taffyta, Rancis, and Candlehead. The chase rounded a corner, down a street that ended with a gas station.
"A million bucks!" one player avatar screamed, his face calm and expressionless as ever. "I never liked this dumb candy racing game anyway!"
"Ugh, that is so mean!" Taffyta scoffed playfully. "Rancis, teach this guy some manners!"
Smirking, Rancis punched his power-up button.
"PEANUT BUTTER BOOMERANG!"
Three peanut butter cups shot out the back of Rancis' kart, spinning through the air like buzzsaws. One of them clipped off one player's driver-side rearview mirror; the other two smashed both windshields, obscuring the players' vision.
"Dang it!" one player moaned. "How do you get out of first-person view? I forgot!"
In a flash, Taffyta unleashed her own power-up - "SPRINKLE SPIKES!" A torrent of bright magenta spikes poured across the road, glistening like sugar. Both players drove blindly through it, shredding their tires to bits. Skidding on their rims, the two cars knocked into each other and off the road, crashing headlong into the gas station. Gasoline pooled on the ground beneath their crippled vehicles.
The players scrambled to get out, only to see Candlehead drift to a stop right in front of them, at the outer edge of the gas puddle.
"Happy birthday!" she grinned cheekily. "Make a wish and blow up the candles!"
She revved her engine, and a plume of sparks and flames shot from her exhaust pipes, igniting the slowly spreading puddle. "HAPPY BIRTHBLAZE!"
Candlehead tore away as the gas station erupted in a fiery explosion behind her, eliminating both players. "Hee hee!" she giggled as she caught up to Taffyta and Rancis. "I've always wanted to try that!"
"Remind me never to steal your candle," Rancis said with mock apprehension, as the three of them roared off to rejoin Vanellope.
Vanellope and Ralph zoomed beneath a highway overpass. Above, a player in a customized drop-top spotted them.
"Sweet!" he hissed. "Cool million, here I come!"
But before he could head for the highway exit ramp, two tiny candy karts drove up and parked a hundred yards in front of him. Jubileena and Adorabeezle stood up, pulling faces at the player and sticking their tongues out.
"Nyah-nyaah!" Adorabeezle taunted merrily as Jubileena blew a raspberry. "You can't catch us, loser!"
The player avatar let loose a static-ridden battle cry that pushed his headset mic to the limits. Tires squealing, he bore down on the two girls; they revved and shot straight toward him. Any second now, the crash would happen…
Adorabeezle punched her power-up button. A long ice cream cannon popped out of the hood.
"NOW!" Adorabeezle shouted.
She and Jubileena split off to swerve around the player just as the ice cream fired from the cannon. The player skidded to a stop in disbelief.
"A LA MODE!"
Two tons of ice cream came splattering down on the player's car, slamming it into the highway so hard that the axles broke. Smoke billowed from the engine as the player struggled to emerge from under the freezing mountain.
Adorabeezle and Jubileena rejoined each other behind him. "And what's a sundae without a cherry on top?" Jubileena teased, launching her own power-up.
"FIRECRACKERS JUBILEE!"
A barrage of red fireworks shot out of Jubileena's kart. They homed in on the player's ice cream-covered car, exploding it in a shower of cherry hearts and frozen dairy splatter.
Leaning out of their karts, Jubileena and Adorabeezle high-fived each other before heading for the nearest off-ramp.
"CANDY CORN ROCKET!"
Gloyd's cart bounced mischievously as an arsenal of candy missiles shot forth, bombing three players' cars out of his path. On either side of him, Swizzle and Minty launched their own power-ups to clear the convoy that blocked their getaway.
"RAINBOW LANCE!" the voice cheered, as Swizzle's kart shot into the car before him with the force of a rocket, flipping it end over end through the air. "SOUR APPLE GRENADE!" it shouted again, as Minty lobbed a handful of candy apples at two players tearing out of a nearby parking lot; their cars automatically reversed and spun in circles, bashing into each other.
"Ha!" Gloyd laughed, holding onto his pumpkin hat as they approached a sharp corner with a tall building. "These losers aren't so hard!"
But as the three racers cut the corner, they saw what had been concealed behind the building. A player had parked their 18-wheel big rig just out of sight, its rear door open and the loading ramp down. Gloyd gasped, with no time to react, as he drove straight up the ramp into the trailer.
"Gloyd!" Swizzle and Minty yelped in unison.
The trailer door slammed shut. "Awesome!" the player shouted from the driver's cab. "I got one!"
The big rig hauled away, with frighteningly quick acceleration for such a big vehicle. Teeth gritted in fury, Swizzle gave chase, pulling up next to the truck and pointing lividly at the player.
"That's my best friend you've got in your truck!" Swizzle screamed. "Give him BACK!"
Minty's eyes practically bugged out as the player avatar gave Swizzle a rude gesture that would certainly never have been programmed into Sugar Rush.
"YOU ASKED FOR IT, BUDDY!" Swizzle roared, producing a length of licorice rope from beneath his dashboard - the safety rope he'd carried on his and Vanellope's expedition up Soft-Serve Summit.
"Swizzle, no!" Minty shrieked.
"Swizzle, YES!" Swizzle responded, tossing the licorice like a whip; it caught the big rig's rearview mirror. Tying the other end to his steering wheel, Swizzle scurried up the rope commando-style, shattering the driver-side window with a furious headbutt from his hard candy hat.
The player did a double-take. "What the-"
"You stole my friend, you jerk!" Swizzle bellowed, leaping into the cab and pummeling the avatar in the face with his tiny fists. "And STEALING! Is NOT! BEHAVIOR! BECOMING! Of a HERO!"
He kicked the avatar out of the passenger-side door, where he tumbled ragdoll-style to the pavement, squashed by the wheels of his own truck. Swizzle hit the door release and dived out of the still-moving vehicle back into his own kart; Gloyd raced out of the trailer, free again, rejoining his friends.
"Dude!" Gloyd beamed. "What'd you do?!"
"Nothin' that Mrs. Calhoun wouldn't have done," Swizzle said with a smirk, cutting the licorice rope free.
Vanellope and Ralph came barreling around a corner, just yards ahead of a four-kart convoy of racers - the Palette Swaps, sticking close together to cover the entire width of the road.
"We got your backdoor, Vanellope!" Sticky shouted over the roar of the engines. "Nothing's gonna get through us!"
CRASH.
A chain-link fence behind them clattered to ribbons as a monumental green army tank ripped through it, turret rotating wildly.
"Okay, except maybe THAT!" Nougetsia squealed in terror. Everyone pounded the gas - but as the Palette Swaps were notorious for being the slowest racers in Sugar Rush, that didn't mean much. The tank was actually gaining on them.
Even Ralph couldn't believe his eyes. "Okay, can someone help me out here and tell me one crazy thing this game DOESN'T have?!"
"What power-ups did you guys get?" Vanellope called.
"Sweet Seekers!" Torvald yelped. "They were the only thing left! But they only shoot forward!"
"And something tells me they're not strong enough to get through a tank!" Citrusella whimpered.
Sticky furrowed her brow. "One isn't...but four at once might be!"
She turned to her fellow racers, hair bow whipping wildly in the wind. "Listen to me! On three, we're all gonna do a one-eighty reverse drift and hit him with the Sweet Seekers!"
Nougetsia blanched. "But I never got the hang of the one-eighty reverse drift! What if I screw it up?!"
"You won't!" Vanellope assured her. "Just remember what I told you! Turn away from the skid, not into it!"
Lip quivering, Nougetsia shut her eyes and repeated it to herself. "Away from the skid...away from the skid…"
A mortar shell exploded yards away. The tank was closing in.
"One!" Sticky bellowed. "Two! THREE!"
Vanellope and Ralph tore away as all four Palette Swaps spun around in unison, tires screeching, Sweet Seeker cannons emerging from their hoods. Pointing directly at the tank, they fired.
"SWEET SEEKER!"
The explosion nearly blew Citrusella and Nougetsia's hats off. The tank flew a good fifty feet in the air, flipped over, and crashed back to earth in a crumpled heap. A faint CLANG told them the player avatar inside had been eliminated.
Nougetsia couldn't believe her eyes. "I did it…" she laughed. "I did it! I finally drifted! Oh my gosh, I can't wait for the next Random Roster Race -"
Her celebration was cut short as a shark unexpectedly popped out of a nearby manhole, teeth gnashing. All four racers screamed in shock.
"Let's just focus on getting everyone the heck out of this game first, okay?!" Torvald squeaked as they all drove off after Vanellope.
Pop-ups were still swarming the map, forcing every player off the streets as Vanellope and Ralph sped through. High above, Calhoun and Felix kept watch on the cruiser, Sour Bill clinging on with all his might and trying his best not to look down. The Sugar Rush racers kept an eye on them, as a checkpoint to locate Vanellope.
Finally, the group converged, reuniting in a long chain of vehicles - Vanellope at the front, her entire team of fellow racers behind - tearing up the road that led to the game exit. Calhoun and Felix swooped down, covering the rear.
"I count fifteen!" Felix said. "All present and accounted for!"
"Perfect!" Calhoun grinned. "Let's get our butts out of this godforsaken asphalt jungle and never look back!"
Sour Bill tugged at Calhoun's weapon belt. "Actually, Mrs. Soldier, I think you might wanna look back for just a second…"
Felix and Calhoun gasped. Shank was gaining on the racers, flanked once again by her squad, their cars fully respawned and repaired. Shank was low in her seat, hands high on the steering wheel, stone faced and more dangerous than she'd ever looked.
At the front of the convoy, Vanellope glanced back. "Dang it!" she shouted. "Two-faced weasels at six o'clock!"
"It's that early already?" Ralph said, confused.
"Shank's right behind us!" Vanellope clarified. "Don't worry, though, we're in the home stretch now!"
No sooner had she said it than the big rig-driving player, freshly respawned, pulled up out of a side street, blocking the exit point with his truck. The karts were a hundred yards away and closing fast, just seconds from smashing headfirst into the trailer…
The player avatar laughed. "Now I gotcha, you little snot-faced morons!" he shouted.
Vanellope grinned mischievously. "I know you are," she chuckled, "but what am I?"
VOOP.
To the player's utter disbelief, Vanellope glitched her kart and Ralph straight through the big rig trailer. They sailed through the exit portal without a scratch.
From behind, Calhoun guessed exactly what Vanellope's plan was. She steadied her plasma rifle and took aim.
KPSHOOO.
The shot was dead-on accurate, blasting a massive hole through the trailer. One by one, all fourteen Sugar Rush racers jumped through the smoldering chasm, passing safely out the exit.
"You ready with that hammer, Sugarcakes?" Calhoun shouted, crouching low as the cruiser picked up speed.
Felix brandished his golden hammer, spinning it like a six-shooter. "Don't you worry, Snoogumbunches!" he said with a smirk. "I can fix it!"
As soon as the last racer had passed through, Calhoun flew the cruiser low towards the exit, and with pinpoint accuracy, Felix tapped the roof of the trailer with the hammer in the split-second they were over it. With a shimmer, the trailer became whole again - just as Shank's crew came bearing down on it.
Felony, Pyro, Butcher Boy, and Little Debbie's faces all fell. "Oh, motherf-"
KABOOOOMMM.
Four souped-up vehicles collided with the big rig, erupting in a perfectly spectacular explosion that shook the surrounding buildings. A gargantuan fireball plumed into the sky, orange and billowing.
And out of the center of it flew Shank's immaculate car, saved by a perfectly timed jump. Scowling, her fingers gripping the steering wheel so hard it could've snapped, Shank drove headlong through the exit portal, unfazed by the fiery wreckage of her friends' vehicles, possessed by the drive of a madwoman with only one objective:
Don't let that kid log off.