"Absolutely not."

Sora's shoulders slumped. "Huh. Guess that's not a surprise."

"What're you crazy, Sora?" Calhoun folded her arms and glared at him. "I explicitly told you to stay away from anything related to racing not twenty-four hours ago, and you still had the gall to ask me? Ballsy, I'll admit."

"I-I know but…" he stammered. "Just… just hear me out okay? I've got a good reason for asking."

"Oh this'll be rich," Calhoun scoffed. "What possible reason would you have to break ranks and tootle around on a little go kart instead of killing Cy-Bugs like I told you to?"

"Well uhh," Sora scratched his head. His confidence had left him already. "I… talked to that green kid last night."

Calhoun's nostrils flared.

"A-and she's a good kid! She taught me how to control that glitching thing. Watch!"

Sora summoned his keyblade and threw it to his left, teleporting after it and catching it mid-throw.

"And that's kinda suspicious, right? I know I'm not supposed to be here. But doesn't she live here? A-and she's got the same glitchy thing as me."

Calhoun squinted. "That is a little suspect."

"Uh huh," Sora nodded. "And what's weirder, she says she distinctly remembers racing, yet that King Candy guy won't let her near the racetrack. What's he afraid of?"

Calhoun's folded arms loosened. Just a little bit.

"If she's supposed to be here, he shouldn't have a problem with her racing, because that's the point of this game, right? But here's the fun part ma'am."

Calhoun's eyes flashed. "…the fun part?"

"Y-you know how I can lure in Cy-Bugs?"

"All too well…"

"Uh huh. W-well yeah, what if we combined those things? I go in as a 'guest' racer or something and draw in all the Cy-Bugs, which you guys can pick off and-"

"You don't need to race to do that."

"But I wanna race!"

"Too bad, Sora. I want the Cy-Bug leader's head mounted on my wall, but life just doesn't work that way."

"Wait!" Sora forestalled her retreating figure. "What if we use this racing thing to rattle King Candy's cage. Find out what he's really up to?"

Calhoun clapped a hand against her forehead. "…you really think Candy's up to something?"

"Definitely."

"Really really?"

"Really really really."

"Not just an excuse to sit in a little go kart?"

"I-I promise."

"And you have a go kart to race in?"

"…no."

"Well there's an obvious issue," Calhoun said. "But we can figure that out another time. Guess we should go talk to King Candy, see what his angle is."

"Absolutely not."

Sora's shoulders sank again. The people of this world were really against him going kart racing.

"You think I'll allow that… that virus to corrupt our game by racing?" King Candy spat. He folded his arms and stared down his nose at their little group from the safety of his shiny golden throne. "Do you know the damage he could do?!"

"And how do you know he will?" Calhoun raised a good point. "We get all sorts in Tapper's and nothin' goes wrong there. Where's your source?"

"Decades of knowledge of this game's inner workings!"

"Decades?" Calhoun frowned. "Alright, wanna explain how he's been to several other games and none of those have had any trouble?

"That you know of!" King Candy huffed. "For all you know those games could be corrupted beyond saving!"

"If that was happening one of my guys would be beeping me." Calhoun pulled a walkie talkie from the holster on her hip. "Look how many alerts I'm not getting."

King Candy let out some sort of disgusted noise.

"So, I'm inclined to believe that you've got something to hide, Candy." Calhoun leaned in closer. "Maybe I could call my boys instead and have 'em sniff it out."

The little man visibly creased at the mention. "F…fine!" He sputtered. "The virus can race! But don't think I'll take it easy on you boy."

"W-wouldn't expect it!" Sora couldn't hide the grin.

His only issue now was finding something to race in. He wasn't just going to find one of those lying around, was he?

"Any idea where we can find a race car?" He asked Donald and Goofy. It couldn't hurt, could it?

"Nnnope! 'Fraid not, Sora!" Goofy actually patted down his pockets. "Why don'cha ask that girl? Ain't she a racer?"

"Hey, yeah! Good idea Goof!" Sora cried. He wasn't sure why he had to be reminded of that by someone who had never even met her, but it was still a solid idea. Sora gave his apologies to Calhoun, who was surprisingly forgiving about his situation, and found his way back out to the mountain range where Vanellope seemed to live.

"Vanellope? You here?" He poked his head in through the fake wall thing.

"Hello!" She swung out of nowhere, hanging from the platform above by her feet. "Oh, hey there Stinkbrain!" You back for more?"

"Nnnno, I'm actually wondering if you know where I can get a kart?" Sora asked with a shrug. "I mean… you've got one right?"

"Yup! Had it forever!" Vanellope grinned. "Your clown shoes won't fit in it though, so you're gonna have to get your own."

"That's no surprise…" Sora groaned. "You… know where I can?"

"Pff, are you kiddin'?" Vanellope snorted. "Of course I do! I know everything about this game!"

"Could you show me?"

"Yes I can!"

"…will you?"

"Depends. What do I get out of it?"

"The chance of clearing your name and overthrowing King Candy? Y'know, like we discussed earlier?"

Earlier… Sora yawned in realisation. It felt like eons ago that Vanellope had last brought him here, but it was actually only a few hours? Time was a weird thing.

His thoughts were interrupted by Vanellope cackling. "O-oh yeah! Well c'mon then! Try and keep up!"

"You're kidding me!" Sora gasped after her. "You know where you're going! I don't!"

Vanellope literally leapt from her rail and zapped through the fake wall. Sora supposed he had to follow. Once again the flashes of green lightning out of the corner of his eye was all he could register as the pair of them zipped across the scenery. Vanellope threw a curveball by suddenly shooting left after several bouts of just heading straight, zipping across an enormous stone bridge towards what looked like a factory of sorts.

Vanellope zipped straight through a heavy wooden door, leaving Sora little option but to screech to a halt in front of it.

"H-hey, what gives?" He hissed to her. "It's locked!"

"Well ya know what they say, old chump!" Her voice called from above. Sora glanced upwards to see her sliding a window open. "When life closes a door, she opens a window! Get up here!"

"Ugh, again?" Sora rolled his eyes. The window was a good twenty feet off the ground, which made absolutely no sense. Sora swung his keyblade upwards, volleying himself onto a platform that seemed to be jutting out for specifically this exact reason. Another carefully aimed throw had him leaping onto the top of wall that was opposite the window Vanellope was hanging out of.

"Wrong way, dumb dumb!" She cackled. "I'm over here, remember?"

"Hey c'mon, I'm still figuring this out!" Sora shot right back. The alleyway between them was a good ten feet wide. Sora limbered up his throwing arm. His target was both relatively small and far away, so this was going to be a tough one. He stretched his arms and then twisted both left and right, then took in a deep breath.

And then he swore loudly when his Keyblade veered off course the moment it left his hand. Instead of arcing cleanly into the window like he'd planned, it struck the slate wall about a foot to the left, burying itself between two of them. In a flash of green lightning, Sora found himself hanging from the Keyblade's handle with his face in his free hand.

"…well now what?" He groaned. The Keyblade was holding prone, despite his full weight hanging off of it. He could even jiggle up and down and the thing wouldn't move.

"How's your balance?" Vanellope was resting her head on her arms on the windowsill. "Think ya can stand on it?"

"Err…" Sora gulped. That wasn't something he wanted to consider. Even if he could pull himself up and stand on it, one slip and he'd be victim to the gravity below. "Probably not, no."

He looked up, looked down, looked to the wall he was hanging from, and grimaced. Not the worst of situations he'd ever been stuck in, he supposed.

"What if I…" he mumbled. "Blizzard!"

The Keyblade lit up, releasing a flurry of ice into the wall. The wall didn't shatter, instead forcing ice out from the wall and taking Sora with it.

"This is so dangerous. So dangerous!" He shivered at the end of the Keyblade, which was still jammed within the slowly growing prong of ice. Leaning inwards, he had it curving at an angle away from the wall and towards the window.

Sora adjusted his grip, hanging from the Keyblade with both arms parallel to the window. The Keyblade was cold to the touch but wasn't freezing his hands to it. Maybe this could work…

Sora steeled himself and swung forwards on the Keyblade. It creaked a little but still held his weight. It probably wasn't going to for long though, so the pressure was on.

"One, two…" he muttered, counting himself up. On the third count he let go of his Keyblade and swung into the open window, faceplanting the floor inside and not splattering onto the ground outside, it counted as a victory he supposed. "M-made it…" he gave a shaky thumbs up.

"Well quit slouching, we gotta get you a kart already!" Vanellope held exactly no sympathy for him. She was already at the end of the room they were in, stamping her feet by the open door. Sora groaned. Rubbing his sore nose, he pulled himself back to his feet, wrenched his Keyblade out of the icicle. and chased after her down two flights of stairs into the actual factory floor. Shiny glass tubes were full of sparkling ingredients that fed into giant metallic machines and rolled out onto conveyor belts, where other machines would periodically stab at the products with various additions.

"This is where all the karts are made," Vanellope span around. "Now, I presume you know how to use a simple machine?"

"Uhh…" Sora stared at one of the machines. There were way too many buttons on it, and every menacing whirr that came out of it told him that maybe he shouldn't mess with these things.

"I'm gonna take that as a no!" Vanllope's smile remained. "Look, it's easy! You just push buttons like this, and a kart comes out!"

With no apparent pattern or reason, she hammered at various buttons on the first machine. The contents of the shiny glass tubes began to whirl, with blasts of colour exploding out of their respective machines. Clouds of colour culminated on the conveyor belt in the middle and then next thing Sora knew, a sparkly candy kart had burst out of the madness.

"Ta daah!" She celebrated. "See? It's easy! Now you do it!"

"Can't I just… use that one?" Sora pointed to it. It was a bit glittery and pink, and he wasn't sure he was going to fit in the driver's seat, but a kart was a kart, right?

"No, dummy! I already told you! Your clown shoes won't fit in a kart made for me! Besides, don't you wanna make your own?!"

"Err…" Sora gulped. His quivering hand reached for the nearest button, but the moment he'd made contact the first of the giant glass tubes shattered, scattering pink stars everywhere.

"Heyyy, I thought you got that glitch under control!" Vanellope called.

"I… don't think that was the glitch! I-I'm just kinda bad with machines!" Sora grimaced.

"No kidding!" Vanellope shot back instantly. "Try again! Maybe it won't fail this time!"

Sora grit his teeth and pushed another button. Another glass tube thing exploded, this one scattering bright blue rings, which of course pinged into other glass tubes and smashed them open too. Before Sora could do anything to stop it, the entire rainbow of candy go-kart parts was spilling across the floor. But despite it all, the conveyor belt was still moving. Sora just stared in disbelief as a nauseatingly colourful kart spilled out of the messy rainbow. It looked like the aftermath of a tornado running through a hardware store, but it was a kart. That was the important thing.

"Hoho, wow, you got a good one!" Vanellope cried. "Just look at all these details! Sugar glass for your windscreen! Oreo tyres! Rapid fire sprinkle rifle! Jellybean finish!"

"Those are… good?" Sora frowned. "A-alright, I'll take your word for it. Wanna give us a hand getting it over to the race track?"

"Unnn…" Vanellope was suddenly shy. "W-what if the other racers see me?"

"It'll be fine, don't worry!" Sora cried. "Tell you what, you help me half way. You can go hide or whatever after that. Deal?"

Vanellope wrung her wrists. "…alright, deal. But once we see the race track I'm going!"

"Works for me." Sora said, and the pair got to work wheeling his mess of a car out of the factory. Across the long bridge the car was pushed, and then down the long sloping path towards the town, where the rest of the guys were conveniently waiting.

"Huh. So you actually got yourself a kart." Calhoun said. "Not bad, Sora. I… presume you know how to drive it?"

"Uhh…" Sora's face fell immediately. "Yes?"

"Well isn't that encouraging." Calhoun deadpanned. "So you wheeled this all the way here by yourself?"

"Hunh?" Sora grunted. "N-no, Vanellope helped m-hey, where'd she go?"

He glanced over his shoulder to where Vanellope was just moments ago, but the kid was nowhere to be found.

"She was just here a second ago…"

"Are you sure you're not just making her up?" Donald snickered.

"Aw, why would he do that, Donald?" Goofy was the voice of reason. "And where'd he get a kart from if she wasn't there to help? They ain't just lyin' around."

"Goof's logic stands to reason," Calhoun nodded. "Odds are the kid doesn't like being near the town because everyone seems to hate her. Sound about right?"

"Uh huh. She said pretty much exactly that." Sora said. "A-anyway, I'm in time for the race, right?"

"Just about," Calhoun gave a thumbs up. "Candy's been waiting on you but I'll give him his dues, he's sticking to his word."

Goofy was more than happy to help Sora wheel the new kart towards the track in Vanellope's place, setting it down behind nine other cars. Several colourful looking racers were already giving Sora nasty looks, meanwhile King Candy was staring at his pocket-watch with a face like a gargoyle.

"You're late, Virus!" He spat. "The nerve of it all! I bend the rules to allow you to race in the first place, and you keep us all waiting!"

"Sorry! I got here as quick as I could!" Sora cried. "I went through so much to get a kart, and then wheel it all the way over here, a-and a bunch of stuff!"

"Pfft! You call that a kart?!" Candy hissed. "That, my glitchy friend, is a hodgepodge. What is your theme? Garage sale?!"

"A-as long as it races, right…?" Sora shrunk away from him.

"Hmph! Good luck getting that thing off the starting line." Candy scoffed. Almost cheesily on cue, a loud klaxon sounded out of nowhere, and a whole bunch of red lights lit up on the arches above them.

"Hah! May the best man win, Virus." Candy tittered, climbing into his own personalised kart in pole position. The ten or so other racers practically mirrored him, a couple of them managing a snicker at Sora's expense before disappearing into their own karts, and Sora supposed he should do the same. Getting behind the wheel and adjusting a few things here and there, he muttered. "I see you, Candy."

Author's Note:

Hey there dudes. Bit of a filler chapter I guess, but I figured it might've worked a bit better for Sora to put his own kart together rather than just having things work out for him.

Next up, we've got a race (which I hopefully won't ruin), and King Candy gets thwarted. All is not over, though. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading :)