A/N: Well, this is not exactly a continuation, but the first scene of this story follows the events of 'Double Striped' because of some components used, however it is more of a separate fic so, you can still read it even if you haven't read that story.
This fic jumps between several time periods throughout the 15-year prologue of the first movie, all are in chronological order.
Disclaimer: I don't own Wreck-it Ralph, duh, otherwise I wouldn't be writing fanfictions, I'd be counting my money lol
Vanellope gritted her teeth in frustration as she tried to pull the dried remains of Taffy out of her hair. "Stupid, stupid Taffy lakes." She cursed, "Stupid racers. Stupid this game." Carefully she grasped another remain of pink Taffy that was sticking on the side of her temples between the root of her hair. Breathing out softly, she closed her eyes and proceeded to pull it out until…
Splash!
BOOM!
The sudden, loud eruption caused her to jolt in startle, and she ended up accidently pulling a thick strand of her hair along. "Ow!" she winced in pain and clutched the side of her head. Her body begun flashing into rapid glitches. "Urghh, stop it!" she bellowed, the glitches slowed down. "Stupid glitches…" Vanellope, rubbing the side of her forehead in pain, muttered and glared up at the stalactites of Mentos that hovered above the boiling lava, looking down at her as if judging her. "Stupid, worthless dump…!" she grabbed a small peanut pebble off the brittle ground and tossed it up at the Mentos, it hit perfectly on spot and one of the Mentos collapsed into the lava, dissolving to make another giant explosion.
Vanellope stood there, watching the Mentos succumb and huffed in triumph and turned back, until one of the small hot splashes hit her foot. "OUCH!" She hopped onto one foot in pain before stumbling and falling onto her back in a crouched position, groaning. "Ow…"
She hated it. She despised the place with every digit of her malfunctioning code. It was dirty, it was confined, sometimes the silence was disturbing, and the temperature was far above from normal because of the intense heat of the cola. The Mentos explosions occurred randomly every often, and barely ever let her sleep at night, although she was getting used to it.
The Diet Cola Mountain was indeed nothing but a dump.
But it was not like the girl could complain, she wouldn't. She knew she would be doomed the day she revealed it to her game-mates. Vanellope breathed out as the pain had slowly alleviated, and she sat back up, head hung down. A few tiny splashes were not a big deal, and it was not like if she stayed on the ground long enough, anyone was gonna come, pick her up and check her wounds, asking if she was hurt, not that she needed it anyway. Some would call it arrogance, but Vanellope did not like to appear vulnerable.
Vanellope sighed. What would happen if the racers found out about the place? Sooner or later, they were going to. They had already tried multiple times to make her spit out wherever she had her hideout set up, but Vanellope knew better about handling their little 'interrogations'. She had to prevent them from knowing about it at all costs. She'd had numerous nightmares about King Candy somehow finding out about the secret entrance, sending his guards down to hunt her and confiscating the mountain while the racers would taunt her on how the sugarless dump suited her status as a glitch.
And the moment she was reminded that, it made ol' Vanellope von Schweetz immediately go from being a complaining hobo to an overprotective proprietor.
True, the Diet Cola Mountain indeed was the most awful place to sleep in in the entire game, it made her want to pity herself, but it was still the only reason Vanellope wasn't locked and chained up in the small, dark cell that King Candy had specifically designed for her. In the last 10 years, at least it had kept her warm in the cold breezy nights, at least she didn't have to spend her nights in the dark, she hated the dark; counting minutes before the guards would capture her. Indeed, the inanimate mountain had comforted her more than anyone else in her entire game.
Immediately feeling bad about her obnoxiousness, something that rarely occurred to her, Vanellope looked up at the stalactites of Mentos above in guilt. "I'm sorry." She muttered, staring at it for moment as if expecting it respond to her apology. She received nothing, however, aside from the faint sound of the popping of the bubbles in the boiling cola. She rolled her eyes and sighed, "Doi. What are you talking to it for, Vanellope? It's a…volcano." With a distressed sigh, Vanellope got to her feet and walked over to another corner where an object covered under a big candy wrapper stood.
She removed the wrapper to reveal what looked an unfinished Go-Kart made out of a green cake hood, a marshmallow seat and four mismatched cookie wheels. Vanellope couldn't help but smile warmly at her creation. "Evening, agent Lickety-Split." She started with a funny salute. "What a day, huh? Err…no, I couldn't get you an engine. Just this," she pulled the taffy covered piston out of her pocket. She examined it for a while, trying to find a suitable place for it in her kart.
After a few attempts with no real progress; finally giving in, Vanellope tossed the piston away in frustration, "Ugh, forget it! Looks like we're gonna have to stick with the pedal system, girl." She ran a hand down the body of the kart. "Hey, don't lose hope, we're gonna make it. And I'm gonna make you, I'm not giving up on you. And once I'm done with you, we're gonna kick the racers' butts!" she said enthusiastically. Giving it a smile, she walked back to her little 'home' and jumped into her cake bed, looking up at the incomplete race tracks of the mountain above, thinking to herself.
It had been 10 years. 10 years since she had been trying to race, and being outcasted for being a glitch. 10 years of living in the same Diet Cola Mountain, her only safe place in all of Sugar Rush. But despite it being a sugarless dump, there was a reason Vanellope cherished it to her heart, and often looked back upon the day she had found it. Which was, apparently, only by an accident.
Vanellope panted heavily as she rushed down the glowing gumdrop plateau, faint noise of barking following her. She had barely escaped moments before being thrown in the prison, or as their benevolent ruler preferred to call it, the 'fungeon', the special glitch-based prison he loved to brag about. Vanellope did not like to imagine it, it sounded terrible from his description.
She hid behind a big gumdrop. Dogs, those terrible Oreo-based devil dogs that King Candy had sent after her. If only did she know that going to watch the racers was this much of a bad idea. She had no luck of escaping today, maybe she was really gonna have to spend the rest of her life in the Fungeon.
Bark!
"Woah!" Vanellope jumped, a devil dog stood next to her, growling. "Hey, hey, easy there, boy!" The dog barked again, she stumbled back. Vanellope looked around to spot a chocolate waffle stick and picked it up. The devil dog stopped growling and playfully wagged its tail as she oscillated the chocolate stick. "Here, you want this? You want this? Go on, get it." she flung the stick far out of sight. The dog hurried away to get it back, Vanellope sighed in relief. Well, that was easy.
"There she is!" A voice bellowed, followed by noise of engines. It was the donut police. "Freeze, glitch! Show yourself, you're hereby ordered to surrender!"
"Yeah, don't be afraid, we don't hurt kids."
Vanellope stepped back in panic, this was it, she wasn't gonna get away this time. There was no to escape. As she got closer to the mountain behind, and expected her back to meet the hard surface of the wall, something strange happened. "Woah, what the-" she yelped as the wall behind felt like it disappeared and she fell inside of it instead.
"Where is she?" Asked Duncan. "I'm sure I heard the dogs barking right here."
"Well, she won't just disappear, she's gotta be somewhere. Keep looking! We're can't go back to the King empty-handed if we wanna keep our heads!"
Vanellope sat still in the mysterious dark place she had fell into, panicking silently but not moving an inch until their voices completely alleviated. Once silence filled the area, she let out the breath that she had been holding and looked around the place. Looking down at the ground, she sensed it was made of Peanut Brittle…one of the rarely found stuff in Sugar Rush. Slowly, Vanellope got to her feet and hesitatingly touched the wall, her hand passed through it. It really wasn't an actual wall; it was a portal. "A secret entrance? Jeez, I thought those were just rumors people made up for fun, like… diabetes."
Vanellope shook it off, she'd better get away before the devil dogs could sense her presence. She turned back to explore further inside the place, and was surprised to find a gigantic lake of what looked like Diet Cola. Well, duh, it was called the Diet Cola Mountain for a reason after all.
"It's so hot in here." She muttered, wiping a sweat off her brow. Looking around, she noticed some features up above the roofs, it looked like they resembled a racetrack. The place was huge, really huge and it was empty. "Hello! Anyone here?" she cupped her hand and called out, her voice echoed throughout the mountain. Vanellope grinned in amusement and shouted louder. "HELLO!" the voice bounced back, she continued hooting and having fun with the echo until the vibrations caused one of the Mentos stalactites to crack and fall into the lava pool.
Splash!
Boom!
"Aaahh!" Cutting off the fun, Vanellope screeched in panic and retreated as the lava splashed around. She curled up behind a brittle stalagmite cautiously, waiting for the explosions to settle down. She noticed a sign board next to it, "'Diet Cola Hot Springs, watch out for falling Mentos'," She read and looked up at the Mentos. "Huh? Right. Sorry for disturbing ya', I'll be careful next time." Vanellope scratched her head, why was she talking to it?
She shook it off and marveled at the place. Vanellope grinned to herself, it was so big, so cool, and it even had an undiscoverable secret entrance…well, until now. She had discovered a completely new thing in her game that nobody else know about, she could do anything there, it was all hers.
"Sweet mother of monkey milk, this is so cool! It's mine, this entire place, I discovered it! I'll call it Mount von Schweetz!" she announced on top of her lungs, it echoed. Suddenly, another Mentos dropped and created another enormous explosion.
Vanellope retreated again, hiding behind the brittle rocks. "Okay, no, I got it, I got it! I won't call you that. I'm sorry!" She apologized, ignoring the fact that she was indeed talking to it again, for it actually seemed as if the Mountain did not find her idea appropriate. Coming out of the hiding place, she looked up at the roof, the place even had a racetrack, which certainly meant it existed in the game for a reason. Then how come it was abandoned? It clearly wasn't featured among the other pickable gameplay tracks.
…Just like her.
Then it hit her. Was the track some sort of unfinished bonus level, or perhaps, a glitch like her? Her expression softened; with a deep sigh, she decided to take a load off and took a seat on one of the blunt brittle stalagmites, wiggling her feet back and forth in a playful manner while staring into nothingness. "So…are you, like, some sort of a glitch too?" She questioned the empty space. "You're…apart from the rest of the game and always left out like maybe…you shouldn't exist?" She only got silence for a response. Vanellope's lips slowly formed a small, sad smile and she hugged her knees, rocking back and forth. "Hey, it's okay, you're not alone. See…you and I, we are not so different. I'm a racer, though I can't actually drive, I can feel it in my code. But nobody believes because…well, I'm kinda a g-gl-ii-tch…" the blue pixels took over again. Vanellope winced and cupped her ears, she was still struggling with learning to control the terrible waves of errors that constantly went down her code.
There was a moment of silence that Vanellope took to recover from the glitches. With a distressed sigh, she got to her feet and turned to look back at the 'entrance'. "If they caught me…I'm never gonna be able to race." She looked back up at the mountain. "Hey, maybe I can stay here? I promise King Candy and the racers won't know, they'll probably find you too sugar-lessly disgusting to race on anyway, no offense, I think you're pretty cool." There was a moment of silence again. And then another Mentos dropped and therefore another explosion, but Vanellope didn't get startled or retreat this time. Instead she smiled sweetly and squealed in excitement. "Oh yeah, I've got a home now!"
"This…is…boring." Vanellope complained, sitting while wiggling her little feet that hovered feet above the ground. Indeed, she thought the Diet Cola Mountain was gonna be fun, and true, it was pretty good that she did not have to worry about the racers sneaking up on her in their karts and try to play the infamous 'Who will run the glitch over the fastest' game. Vanellope rolled her eyes in annoyance, "Ninety-Nine," She counted and flung a peanut up at the Mentos to watch them explode, imagining it as Taffyta. It was her favorite pass time…or more precisely, her only pass time. It used to be amusing at first, but now it was starting to get boring. There was basically nothing else to do in there.
Reaching on to grab another peanut, she hurled it in her hand while aiming. "Glit-thes aren'th allowed to race, hoohoo!" she mimicked with a lisp. "Oh yeah? We'll see. There goes our benevolent rightful ruler, King Candy. One hundred," she tossed the peanut, it hit the candy above and it splashed into the lava. Vanellope smirked to herself, she'd probably be charged with treason if anyone saw what she just did. But the good thing was that they weren't going to.
But her grin vanished as soon as she snapped out of her childish imagination. "Jeez, snap out of it, Vanellope. You know that's not gonna happen." She hissed and got to her feet. Vanellope winced in pain as she rubbed her bottoms, the floor was so blistering hot. It was like…the floor was lava. "Pfft…" She smacked her knee and snorted at her own unspoken joke. "Heh, that was good."
Puns aside, the floor indeed was a pain however. She couldn't take a nap on it without looking like she had a sunburn. Vanellope rubbed her chin, maybe she could try some renovations to make it look more like a 'home'. And she knew just the right place for the correct equipments.
The Junkyard.
###
"Come on!" Vanellope groaned as she stood on a marshmallow and struggled to set up the 'roof' that was a big waffle. She tripped and fell onto her back on the hard ground. She sat back up and wiped a sweat before smiling at what stood before her. "Perfect!" She marveled her little 'home' made up of a sponge bed, waffle roof and walls, a little rack, lightened by a glowing jellybean lantern, and even a lounge where she could sit and safely watch the Mentos explode.
Vanellope felt all her exhaustion vanish as she admired her home. With a big smile, she jumped into the bed and bundled herself up into the candy wrappers. After a long time, Vanellope felt warmth. Not from candy wrappers, not even from the torrid hot temperature, but the warmth of being home, being safe. And it was thanks to the Diet Cola Mountain.
Tears rolled down Vanellope's warm pink cheeks as she rushed inside the secret entrance of the mountain and jumped onto her bed, burying her face in the pillow and letting her tears soak in. She sobbed miserably like she had never before. She trusted him, named him her friend, her hero. And what did he do? He played with her feelings, destroyed her trust…and her precious kart.
He destroyed everything she held close to her heart, and for what? A crummy medal. Vanellope sneered in disgust. How stupid of her to think their teamwork was worth anything before his obsession for his medal, that was obviously why he helped her. But she didn't think Ralph would also turn out like everyone else once he got what he wanted. She thought Ralph was better than that.
But she was wrong. He was no better, he was just like everyone else. Her dreams held zero importance when it came to his own. Vanellope wiped her eyes, sniffing. How could she make such mistake? For the first time in 15 years, she had let her guard down; she let her feelings get the best of her. Just because he teamed up to bake a kart for her or helped her figure out what the Joystick of her kart did was not a reason to decide that Ralph couldn't betray her.
Petty how he almost made her believe her dreams were finally going to be true, why did he have to give her hope if he was just going to destroy it eventually?
"Knock-knock! Hoo-hoo!" Came a familiar voice, Vanellope's code stopped transmitting data for a moment when she recognized the voice. She glitched as she turned and gasped at seeing the short heighted King standing in distance, giving her a sweet smile, his white sugary kart next to him.
"You!" Vanellope exclaimed, backing into the waffle wall cautiously. "H-How did you get in here?!" She was sure King Candy was nowhere to be around when they were out…or maybe she wasn't.
The King's smile turned into a frown. "No. You were supposed to say 'Who's there?' Go on, say it."
"…I," Vanellope blinked.
"Say it!"
"W-Who's there?"
"Can't you see? Hoo-hoo, your rightful ruler, King Candy! And you're under arrest for committing treason against the Kingdom, Glitch!" he finished, gritting his teeth ragefully.
"How did you find out about the…" Vanellope muttered as her look hardened. "Let me guess, did Ralph tell you about the secret entrance?" She hissed, hopping off her bed.
"Oh, no! Hoo-hoo! Not at all! Kings don't need dirty Halitosis-riddled warthogs to capture naughty, disobedient children, hoo-hoo! Or I might've just seen you run into here." He giggled and walked closer to her, trying to look sympathetic. Vanellope glitched once but stood her ground firmly, not breaking eye-contact. "Oh dear, how sad to see him betray you. You really trusted him, didn't you? But really, who's fault is it? Just because he helped you make a garbage pile of a kart, you forgot that he's still just a bad guy. Milk my duds, you're so naïve, Vanellope." He softly ruffled her hair with a smirk on his face until…
Splash!
Boom!
"WAHH! Hoo-hoo, whoa!" King Candy hopped around, struggling to avoid the splashes of the cola that just exploded but failing miserably while Vanellope stared at him gravely.
"Here me out, your majesty." She spat as the King still hopped on one foot. "I don't have a kart. I can't race, what is it you have with me?" He glared at her.
"Still does not excuse that you've caused enough trouble already! Not only did you try to race, you even dare have the audacity to hide this…pigsty abandoned place from your ruler?" He grabbed her by the hoodie, "It's time you know your place, Glitch. And your place is nowhere but in the Fungeon." He hissed, a slight wave of glitch suddenly went down Vanellope's code, nearly contacting him along. King Candy jerked and immediately recoiled back from her, an alarmed look on his face. Vanellope was almost startled as she felt like she saw someone…else. But seeing the opportunity, she took the chance to race toward the secret entrance to escape, only to run into a lineup of CLAW guards who grabbed her and put a heavy shackle of Glitch-Proof handcuffs in her hands. "I've had enough of her! Have her stay in the Fungeon until the Random Roster Race ends, when we can have a look on the further consent."
"The further what?" Vanellope managed to ask.
"Oh, hoo-hoo!" He laughed. "Why, your execution of course." Vanellope gasped, a terrified look as she forced out by the guards. It was all over for her. Ralph was gone, she had no kart; and even lost her mountain, the closest thing to a comfort zone she'd ever had in 15 years. Now it was just a matter of time until it was permanently over. Vanellope raised an eyebrow, remembering the strange thing that happened when she glitched in the King's grip.
And she could swear she saw a glance of someone…other than him.
Vanellope glitched through the walls and drove across the unfinished racetrack at an enormous speed as the huge pile of Mentos dived into cola, with a certain figure diving among them. She accelerated her kart and flew across the bridge, catching him in midair.
"Kid!" Ralph exclaimed when he saw his best friend who had just saved his life.
"Don't worry, I got it under-control!" she confirmed with a quick salute and glitched them both across the wall. The two glided across the air with the kart and landed in the chocolate puddle.
Splash!
"Chocolate," Ralph acknowledged the dense substance, a big smile gracing his face as he realized they were alive. "It's chocolate! I love chocolate!" He cheered. The two splashed and splattered it around, for the first time in forever, chocolate felt like the best thing ever. "Oh, beautiful chocolate!"
"Yeah!" Vanellope hooted in agreement. Her attention then went over to the erupted Volcano that now had foam flowing out of it. The volcano that used to be her home throughout all the years had helped her best friend and worked as the beacon that ate all the cybugs, including the evil King.
One thing she had to admit was that the Diet Cola Mountain wasn't just some other mountain, or even just a home. It always had her back when all the hope was lost. A smile graced Vanellope's face as she silently gave it a friendly salute. 'So long, old friend.'
A/N: Hope you enjoyed it, leave your thoughts in the reviews and thank you for reading!