A/N: No, this is not an 'April Fool's' chapter, or a prank... But in hindsight, I prepped y'guys! :D I'm legitimately the worst I think lol
Song Listened To - Fall Into The Sky by Ellie Goulding/Zedd
*Chapter 114*
The longer Tessa drove through her land, the more she began to wonder just why it looked a bit unfamiliar. Candy trees, pebbles and landscapes, of which she saw on a regular basis, all looked a little different, as if they were a bit more cutesy or sweet. Tessa rocketed through her land and, as she rounded a corner, she suddenly saw her castle come into view, in the distance. She squinted her eyes in concern and, as Zed's light-cycle brought her upon the massive walkway, which led up to the castle, she slowly relaxed her shoulders and peered at her home in the utmost of confusion.
The castle now looked to be almost cartoony, it's bubbly structure and spires were far different from the solid, stoic castle she had grown up in. She revved the engine and suddenly felt her heart begin to race in growing panic. She furrowed her eyebrows and scanned her brain for any tiny detail she could have possibly missed, last night, any obvious button she accidentally pushed. One small slip up and the kingdom was seemingly downgraded. The light cycle roared up to the bizarre looking entrance, though she was horrified to find the castle doors lazily hung open. As quickly as she could, she parked Zed's bike and rushed inside. What was just before the entrance had her mind nearly doing back flips.
"...MOM?" Tessa hollered in hard surprise as she froze.
In her usual, mint green hoodie, brown, tiered skirt and striped leggings, little Vanellope stood a proud three feet tall. She whirled around and, in the fear of everything going on, she peered up at her daughter in the dread of panic that hung over everyone. Little versions of Taffyta and Rancis stood with her, as well; Ralph, Oliver and Penny hung back in confusion. Tessa urgently peered at them, it was clear she had just interrupted their conversation.
"Tessa, you have exactly two seconds to tell me what the hell you did!" Vanellope's little voice urged, though after a few hard moments of silence, Taffyta easily burst out laughing. Rancis covered his face and did everything he could to hide his laughter. Vanellope threw her fist down and glared at Taffyta and Rancis, who had seemingly downgraded as well, "This is serious! I can't help it!"
"Mom, what happened?" Tessa giggled nervously as she knelt down, though she flinched once Vanellope pushed closer to her.
"You tell me! We woke up like this!" Vanellope hollered, "What did you do to cause this?"
"You guys look so... So different, so adorable!" Tessa urged through a small smile, though she largely hung onto a nervous air as she peered to Taffyta and Rancis, all dressed in their usual, racing clothes, of which they were programmed with before their upgrade, "Surely we can just reset the game, it looks as if the game is trying to revert back to what it used to be? Is that what it is?"
"The game is trying to downgrade itself," Ralph suddenly barked, though Tessa quickly stood and, as large as she felt against her mother, she knew her father was still his same 'ol self, "Whatever you did Tess, none of us can figure it out, none of us have access to the code room."
"Why not?" Tessa argued nervously, though Ralph pushed closer to her and waved his arm lightly.
"Because, the game is downgraded! Welcome to the past, Tess! This is the world we lived in before you, or Penny, or Oliver were even a thought!" Ralph's booming voice was billowing with anger; Tessa flinched and began to feel an overwhelming urge of nervousness, "In this world, code swaps were non-existent, coding colors remained the same, and there was only ONE head of the game."
"Mom?" Tessa asked.
"King Candy," Vanellope and Taffyta loudly barked at the same time.
"It's not like he was resurrected, or anything," Ralph stated firmly, as he glanced down to Taffyta, Rancis and Vanellope, though he gave Tessa his urgent glare, "But, he was the only one with access to the code room. None of us can get into the code room to figure out this mess, because all of our codes went back to normal! The game still thinks you're in charge... Anyone with purple coding."
"How is that possible?" Tessa defended.
"Everyone is downgraded! Do you not understand?" Ralph bellowed; both Oliver and Penny largely flinched as Ralph pushed closer to his daughter, "My code color went back to red, Vanellope's went back to blue, so on and so forth! Whatever you did, you single handedly reversed all of our swapped codes."
"What did you do last night?" Vanellope loudly argued, everyone looked on the verge of being mortified, "You didn't swap codes with that boy, additives and all, did you?!"
"No, we didn't, we didn't!" Tessa begged; she began to see the curving doom of this situation, "W-We only placed each other's source codes in our code boxes!"
"Ohhh User help us all," Taffyta muttered as she covered her face; Vanellope practically seethed.
"You did WHAT!" Vanellope shrieked, Tessa's look of pure horror continued to grow.
"Th-the additives didn't blend into my coding, like it would with an actual swap... What's the big deal?" Tessa argued as she began to become defensive, and protective, of Zed.
"The big deal?!" Ralph shouted with a sarcastic, incredulous chuckle.
"You're the only one, in this whole game, that now has access to the code room," Vanellope pointed her little finger to the code room, looming at the end of the now shorter hall, and gave her daughter a disappointed glare.
"Or if YOU lost your coding color, as well," Ralph glared, though he shot Oliver an angry, disgruntled glare, in which Oliver easily returned.
"I don't have silver coding, I didn't mess up the game," Tessa let her palm come to life with her purple powers, "I still have my original coding, we can still get into the code room to figure out this mess! Not to mention, Oliver does too!"
"Nice try, Oliver was stupid enough to give away his code, so to make prom night as cliche and magical as possible," Ralph grumbled, "Perfect timing, too."
"What?" Tessa hissed to Oliver, who bashfully looked down, though he largely flinched once Tessa rushed him with her live-wired palm.
She slapped her hand to his arm, and with much complaint from the both of them, Oliver's coding wigged a beautiful, olive green; Tessa knew his code was now mixed with Emery's emerald coding. Tessa yanked her hand away and stared at her brother in surprise, though he gave her back a weak, almost sorrowful smile, as if he had been caught committing a crime. Just as Tessa was about to open her mouth to scold her younger brother, and inquire where Emery laid off to, the castle door largely popped open, yet again.
"Guys, I know what's wrong, here," Zed suddenly urged as he pushed into the castle, with Lickity close behind him. Tessa whirled around and was beginning to feel her blood boil. Zed waved his hand lightly, though he largely stopped dead in his tracks and looked down at Vanellope, Taffyta and Rancis, though he finally peered around the castle in bemused confusion, "What...?"
"The game is downgrading, Zed," Tessa urged to him in a rush; she felt relief come over herself, she knew he'd have ideas on how to fix everything, "I-I don't know what happened, but we may have accidentally missed a step, last night."
"W-we didn't miss any steps," Zed urged sorrowfully; the fact that he had to open up, and tell all of his opposing secrets, to the love of his life, made him feel as if he had rocks in his stomach. Zed shook his head and nervously peered about everyone, "This... This is all my fault."
"I-It's not your fault, Zed, c'mon, let's just, get to the code room and figure out how to reverse this," Tessa rushed, "The game reverted everyone's code colors, so now it believes I'm the only one in charge."
"Not even you are in charge anymore," Zed urged loudly, "You're allowed in the code room, but you don't have enough power to fix the game from the inside."
"Yes I do, the game still thinks I'm in charge!" Tessa hollered; everyone else slowly stepped away from their shout match.
"Trust me when I say, you're not in charge anymore!" Zed yelled back, though purely in hopes of trying to get his point across.
"You didn't give me your coding! I still have my own, it recognizes my coding because-"
"You didn't exist when the game was this downgraded version! Right!" Zed urged as he largely gestured his arms, "That's the whole reason your coding is still the same color... The game has been given a virus. Whether you go into that code room and yuck about or not, you're not going to be able to fix anything from inside the game!"
"Why not?!" Tessa begged, the smaller, pinker Great Hall still hung onto their voices.
"Because Radex is in control of the game, now!" Zed loudly growled, his eyes trained to Tessa's in horror. He groaned a complain, looked about in a fit of crazed anxiousness, and brought his attention back to Tessa's look of stunned fear, "He wants everything back the way it was. He couldn't win Vanellope's heart, he couldn't kill you when he took your code box to Hero's Duty..."
Everyone fell silent, and amidst trying not to remember those fateful minutes in Hero's Duty's highest perch, everyone stole nervous glances to the Kings and Queens of Sugar Rush. Ralph finally slid his protective gaze straight into Zed's soul, tilted his head down, and gave an intimidating glower.
"He's using you," Ralph urged quietly, though Tessa took a wary step away from Zed.
"What are you saying," Tessa's voice shook.
"I'd rather game over, for good, then to have to say this to you," Zed's voice shook too, alongside his hands. He looked down nervously and shut his eyes in a soft lull of anguish, "My memories came back to me, as I was leaving Sugar Rush, just now... That code swap, or code-source placement we did last night, was exactly what Radex wanted for my life... For your life, and for Sugar Rush..."
"What do you mean?" Tessa's eyes began to well with scared tears.
"The additive, in my coding, wasn't memory files," Zed urged darkly, as if he had known this all along, though he just now could remember. His scared eyes gripped Tessa's, "I-It was Radex's source-code... He copy-pasted it into me, to hopefully one day... Give back to you."
The two stared at each other in a growing, slow death of a silence. Tessa began to feel her skin grow cold with hard realization that drowned her in sorrow. She shook her head slowly, as if she could hardly believe her ears.
"To give back to Sugar Rush," Zed sadly concluded as he furrowed his eyebrows and gave Tessa look of pure anguish, as if having to reveal the main plot points, of Radex's revenge, was something he didn't sign up for.
"You're Radex's puppet," Ralph uttered darkly, though he caught eyes with Rancis and Vanellope; the two gave him their nervous stares in return.
"Beyond the grave," Rancis mumbled in a groan of exhaustion as he clumsily rubbed his face with his little hand.
"You knew this all along, didn't you," Tessa grit her teeth and began to feel angry, though tears billowed harder in her eyes. Zed covered his chest and lightly shook his head.
"I had no idea, Tess, it was hindering my memory," Zed tried his hardest to continue, though he flinched as Tessa gestured her arm in a fit of anger.
"I put every single last ounce of trust, I had, in you!" Tessa suddenly hollered as she took a seething step closer to Zed; he eagerly back-stepped, as if he was now uncertain of just what Tessa was capable of, "Th-the only reason you're with me is so you could destroy my game?!"
"Tessa, that's not it at all, I-I was brainwashed," Zed begged, he began to look scared, though Tessa's brooding footwork made it so he was beginning to be pushed towards the castle's exit, "Just, let me explain! Th-this problem is fixable!"
"With what, Felix's hammer?" Tessa gave him a nasty side eye as she clenched her fists, "I can't believe I trusted you! I can't believe I almost let you muddy my code with yours!"
"Tessa, listen to me!" Zed's voice pleaded loudly and angrily, though he continued to nervously back-step and hold out his hands defensively.
"You've had half a year to explain yourself," Tessa hollered as she clenched her fists harder, "Get out of my game! You've ruined everything!"
"Tessa, you can't fix the game from the inside!" Zed urged, he squinted his eyes and was nearly on his knees begging, "Please, LISTEN TO ME!"
"Get out!" Tessa screamed as she suddenly threw her fists to the ground, which sent the glorious, pink swirled tiles outwards in chaos; Zed covered his face with his arm, though he nervously peered to Tessa through the rising dust. Through her writhing anger, she shook her head and took a clumsy, though purposeful step closer to Zed, "How could you do this to us?!"
"Tessa, I have the answer! I-I think I know how to fix everything!" Zed pleaded loudly.
"Tessa, listen to him!" Ralph suddenly urged from his stand point, which was a dozen feet beyond their fight.
"I hate you," Tessa urged, in Zed's face, as she largely shoved on his chest, "I HATE YOU!
Zed froze as he peered into Tessa's eyes. He felt his skin grow cold, the realization of everything that had fallen over him. He shook his head in anguish and tried his very hardest to gesture his hands to Tessa, as if all the anger and hatred, she had to throw at him, could never stop him from trying to comfort her, though he flinched once she shoved on his chest once more. He wobbled backwards and grunted a soft noise, though he finally got a view of his now dysfunctional Sugar Rush family, as a whole. Everyone looked disheveled and miserable; Zed shook his head in horror, at the fact that he was the cause of this whole mess. Before Tessa could get another swipe in, to prove her point, Zed quickly left the castle, mounted his light-bike, and sped away as quickly as he could.