Nougetsia and Alden arrived at the Winterpop-Brumblestain house some time later. After parking the Frozen Yo-Kart in the garage, Nougetsia helped Alden out of her kart and into the house. Inside, Adorabeezle was in the living room when she saw the two come in.
"Hey sis, where've you been?" She was watching one of her favorite movies "I, Robot" when she noticed the two come in. She saw that Nougetsia was holding on to a freezing Alden and struggling a bit in a attempt to carry him inside.
"Oh, sorry Beezy. We just ran into some trouble.", Nougetsia said as she helped Alden over to the couch. "Uh, would you mind moving a bit?"
Adorabeezle saw the sickly boy and moved herself out of the way. "Sure...I guess." Alden lied down on the couch and was covered by another blanket that Nougetsia quickly brought over from a near cabinet before quickly falling asleep. "Mind telling me what happened to him?"
Nougetsia looked at her sister, then over to Alden. "Well... It's kind of a long story."
"I got time.", Adorabeezle replied.
"Okay," She took a deep breathe and said, "So basically, Alden and I were snowboarding and were trying to do some tricks. It was about to get dark and I told him that we should be heading back. He didn't want to leave just yet and convinced me to stay until he did one more jump. He did some flips but miscalculated the jump and landed in the frozen lake. Next thing I know, some candy people were helping us out and got us into the nearby lodge and got Alden thawed out. But the doctor there said we couldn't stay in the lodge and we couldn't get to the hospital at this time of night, so we decided to come here until we can get poor Peanut to the hospital by morning. Phew!", Nougetsia let out a huge sigh, gasping for breath after quickly explaining everything to her sister.
Adorabeezle nodded. "Okay, I get it. So I'm guessing he'll be staying over for the night until morning?", she said, gesturing to Alden who was still shivering on the couch. Nougetsia gave slight nod, as if asking to let their sick friend stay. "Alright. Do you need any help taking care of him?"
"I think I'll be fine. Thanks anyway.", she replied.
"Okay. Well, it's pretty late. I'm turning in for the night." The peppermint racer turned off the tv let out a yawn and began heading upstairs. "Goodnight guys."
"'Night sis!" and with that, Adorabeezle disappeared into her room. This left Nougetsia alone with Alden once more.
She turned to him, seeing his body still shivering. She went into the kitchen and grabbed a small basin and filled it with water, then grabbed a clean cloth and brought both back to the living room and set it on the coffee table. She soaked the cloth in the water, wrung it out, and then placed it on Alden's head. "Don't worry Peanut, I'll take care of you." She went upstairs and took a thermometer from her medicine cabinet then returned to the living room and popped it into Alden's mouth. After a while, it went off. She took it out to reveal that the boy's temperature was 38.7 degrees celsius. She breathed a small sigh of relief. While it was fairly high for a kid their age, at least it wasn't as low as before when he was pulled out of the lake.
Alden moaned a bit in his sleep. "N-No... I told you...Jojo... Putting a mic...in the freezer...won't fix your drone... Use peanut butter instead..."
The magenta haired girl tried to hold in her giggles so as not to disturb him. While it wasn't entirely unheard of for Alden to say such nonsensical things when he was tired or asleep, as Alden had stayed over a few times before whenever something bad happened at home, be it an argument with his brother or something else, it was always funny to hear the random thoughts that came out of his mouth.
"Shh... Don't worry, Peanut. I'll be here. Everything's gonna be alright, I'm sure.", she said reassuringly. Alden seemed to calm down as the younger of the two ice cream themed racers continued to care for him.
She tended to Alden for another hour before her own exhaustion began to catch up with her. "Yawn... Wow, I must be getting tired too." She walked over to an armchair and took a seat on it. As soon as she did, she began to feel very comfortable and drowsy. The pressures of today's events really took a toll on her, but her worries about one of her best friends seemed to have kept her on high alert for that whole time that she was easily able to ignore her own fatigue. But now that she had a chance to relax and calm herself down, she was more than willing to take it.
'I'll just rest my eyes for a minute...', she thought to herself. As she began to lean back into the chair, she began to drift into a somewhat peaceful sleep 'Just for a... minute...' She finally fell asleep within a minute with a still ailing Alden by her side.
Elsewhere in the Sugar Rush Kingdom, a rather strange thing was happening with a few certain racers.
At the Gumdrop-Bubblestein household...
Barry was having a dream of fighting against Francis, a.k.a. Ajax, with himself as a Blue Deadpool when he began to experience tremors, both in his dream and out.
(Barry's dream...)
In his dream, instead of fighting his foe on top of an old aircraft carrier on a cloudy day in a random port in New York, the scene gradually began to change and darken. The cloudy sky started to turn purple, then pink, then red.
As Barry was about to stab Francis in the gut with his katana, the villain suddenly disappeared. "Hey Francis, where'd you go? We weren't playing hide and seek!" He looked around and found no sign of him. He searched the area for any clue as to where he had gone but to no avail. "Where the hell are you, Francis?"
After a while, the OC grew tired. In his boredom, he took out a planner and flipped through its pages. "Fine! Let's just reschedule the fight. Just to let you know, I'm not available on the weekends and on Monday. How's next Tuesday sound?" When he got no reply, he just shrugged. "I'll take that as a yes. So, I'll see ya later!"
The boy in blue turned around and was about to leave the carrier when he suddenly to felt his legs buckle. "Ow! Hey, what's going on?" At that moment, his body began to feel heavy and start to glitch. "Wh-what... is... ha-ha-pp-ppen-ing?", he said. He tried his best to lift his arm and saw that he was glitching red, "H-Hey... I-I'm... no-ot a...g-gli-itc-chh!"
The skies continued to darken further and turn blood red. After a moment, red lightning flashed and sent a bolt of electricity to the antenna on the carrier's main bridge. The sudden overload of electricity caused the bridge to explode, sending multiple shards of broken glass and steel in all directions. A large piece of rebar almost hit the immobilized racer and stuck itself into the ground a mere foot from his face.
"That...w-was-ss.. clo-oo-sse! A...bit fur- th-ther and... I would-d've... been...a...Bar-rry-yy-be-que...", he said to himself.
"That can be arranged.", a voice said. Barry looked up to see Ajax standing above him.
Barry flashed a nervous smile. "Oh, hey... Fran-ci-cis. Di-id... you... co-come... to... he-hel-lp... a... g-guy... ou-outt?"
The villain didn't smile or react. He picked up the rebar that had nearly struck Barry's face and pulled it off the concrete. Ajax began to glitch red and his face deformed into blood red pixels and pieces of flesh. He stared down at Barry as he held the rebar high above his head.
"No.", was all he said before he thrust the piece of iron through the poor boy's head, leaving a now bloodied body of a boy on the now decrepit aircraft carrier.
(In reality...)
The events of the dream appeared to have an effect on Barry as he slept. His own body glitched as he did in his dream. He cried out in pain and agony as he punched and kicked in his sleep, all while his body kept glitching red and blue with the red pieces of code slowly overwhelming the blue.
Meanwhile... at the Candy Castle...
While Barry was having his own dilemma, Vanellope and Jack seem to be experiencing the same violent glitching as well.
(Vanellope's dream...)
In Vanellope's dream, she was on a lovely date with Rancis on the rooftop of one of the towers of the Castle. It might have been a very odd choice but it was her dream date.
The game's power couple were having a picnic of one of the more level towers, as the others were of the pointed top-like design. The spread was made of the usual sandwiches, some soda, and some pudding cups and jello. Not really what you'd bring to a normal picnic but the two were happy with it just the same.
"Isn't this perfect, Nellie?", Rancis said as he stood up and raised his hands. "Being up this high makes me feel like-"
"Don't you dare say 'King of the World', butterfingers. I'm the ruler here.", Vanellope laughed. "And it's President, not king or queen."
Rancis laughed as well. "Hehe... I guess you're right. I may be hanging around with Alden too much, you know?"
The president nodded. "Just a little bit. Honestly, I don't know why though. All you two talk about are different kinds of hair care products and jackets."
Rancis looked at her, appearing offended. "Hey! Hair care is important even to guys, ya know? Especially when you look this darn good!" He struck a pose as he took out the butterfly comb he received from the OC and combed it through his already coiffed hair.
The former glitch rolled her eyes at that. "If that's what you say so, Flugs. Honestly, I don't really care about hair. I mean, just look at mine." She pointed towards her own head.
Rancis kneeled down next to her and smiled. "That's pretty obvious, Van. But it suits you." He plucked one of the sprinkles from her head and ate it.
"Don't eat my candy clips, ya dolt!", Vanellope said, looking mad at him. Rancis started giggling, making Vanellope giggle too. Soon, the two of them were just laughing at each other and having a grand time.
After a while, she leaned toward Rancis as they watched the game's sun setting on the horizon. "I had a nice time today, Flugs. No worries, no races, just you and me." She rested her head on his shoulder.
"Yeah Nellie, so did I.", Rancis replied as he also rested his head on hers.
The two stayed like that for a while until the sunset's light faded into the night. They looked at the horizon one more time before Vanellope stood up.
"I guess we should be heading back inside.", she said.
Rancis nodded. "Yeah. I hope we can do this again soon."
They began cleaning up when they saw a flash of red lightning, followed by the loud crashing of thunder in the distance. The two hugged each other in fear from the sudden noise.
"What was that?!", Vanellope said, still a bit startled.
"I-I don't know. Maybe just thunder?", Rancis replied.
As they stood there, they noticed a strange light in the distance near Chocolate Lake. Even with the great distance, they saw something red that appeared to be spreading from the lake and onto the shore.
"What the-"
CRASH!
Another bolt of red lightning hit, this time on Diet Cola Mountain. The mountain, like the lake also became engulfed in the red matter. This then spread down from the mountainside to the forest, reaching ever closer to the Speedway.
CRASH!
Before the president could even understand what was happening, a final bolt of red lightning hit, this time on the wafer bridge that led up to the castle. Now that it had hit closer, the two racers were finally able to see what the red matter was. What they saw shocked them more than the lightning.
"Is that fire burning red?", Rancis asked.
The aforementioned fire was burning everything it touched as it snaked its way up the wafer bridge.
"Nevermind the color, Rancis! We gotta get down from here and escape.", Vanellope panicked. She went over to the small hatch that led to the roof and tried to pull on it, but found it shut tight. "Why isn't this working? It's jammed!" She glared at Rancis. "Did you shut this closed?"
Rancis shook his head. "N-No, it wasn't me, I swear!" He dashed to her side and tried to pull on it as well but proved unsuccessful. "Crepe!"
Vanellope looked worriedly as her boyfriend. "What are we gonna do? We have to get down from here and warn everybody."
"Can't you just glitch us down?", Rancis suggested.
Vanellope slapped her head in frustration. "Duh! I'm such an idiot!" She grabbed Rancis's hand and walked to the edge of the platform, peering over to look for a safe spot to glitch to. However, all they saw was the ground and the castle beneath them engulfed in the red flames.
"Oh sugar, there's no place to glitch to. We're trapped here!" She let go of his hand as she felt her eyes starting to sting. She covered her face as she let out soft sobs.
Rancis felt pity for her, so much so that he was able to ignore the impending flames climbing its way up the tower. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug.
Vanellope's sobbing slowed down for a moment as she began to realize what was going on. "R-Rancis... what are you doing?"
Rancis was squeezing her tightly. She tried to wriggle free but he remained strong. "Don't worry, Nellie. Even if this might be the end, I will never let you go."
The candy haired girl used what strength she had left and tried to pry Rancis off of her. "This is no time to be dramatic, Rancis. We have to go and find somewhere safe."
Rancis didn't move. Instead, he whispered in her ear, "There's no other place to go, Nellie. All we can do is watch and wait for the end."
Vanellope's eyes widened at what he had just said. The way he said it scared her for some reason. Rancis briefly released her and grabbed one of the bottles of soda from their picnic and cracked it open. He brought Vanellope back into the hug and poured it on themselves.
"Ack!...What was that for?", Vanellope gasped. She almost got some of the soda in her nose as she looked up while Rancis was dousing them both.
Rancis's expression was sullen. "This should buy us some time before we burn."
"R-Rancis..."
The Reese's boy pulled Vanellope to the center of the platform and made her face the now burning game. "Look, Vanellope."
Vanellope did as she was told. She looked at her game, now completely engulfed by the fire. She could even hear the pained screams of her friends and subjects in the distance. Their cries ringing in her ears caused her pain. Not a physical pain like she had experienced through her years of being bullied, but rather an emotional pain. She felt that for some strange reason, this was her fault, thought she didn't know why.
She took a few steps closer to the edge as tears fell from her face. Even with what could be described as the fires of hell burning everyone and everything she knew, all she could hear now was a dead silence. She began to feel weak as her knees suddenly buckled, leaving her kneeling on the floor. She was still crying for her friends that she didn't even notice.
Poor Vanellope kept weeping for a while with nothing else in her mind aside from the pained screams still echoing in her ears until she heard Rancis whisper in her ear again.
"This is your fault, glitch! You let this game burn! And now, so will you."
She turned around and was horrified to see not Rancis, but a creature made of burnt flesh, melting candy, and red pixels. Before she could even voice a response, the creature pushed off the edge and into the fiery depths below.
(In Vanellope's room...)
The young president tossed and turned in her sleep as she grunted and moaned. Her body shook violently and glitched blue several times within the span of a minute before the blue pixels began to dim and grow darker. As the glitching slowed down and dimmed completely, a sudden surge of pain coursed through her as red pixels were beginning to emerge from various points of her body. These pixels, caused a burning sensation similar to the fire in the dream.
Vanellope cried out from the pain before the red pixels inexplicably disappeared. There were no burn marks left on her skin but that didn't stop the burning sensation from disappearing until much later. All of this was while the president was still asleep.
(With Jack...)
A few doors down the hall where Jack slept, he, like Barry and Vanellope, were also experiencing a strange and painful dream.
(In Jack's dream...)
Jack was alone in the Code Vault, fixing some small issues. He'd heard of some glitches appearing on the Speedway. There were some areas that didn't produce power-ups, while other areas that were supposed to be shortcuts that only the racers knew always seemed to either randomly disappear or lead to dead ends and cause them to have to regenerate on the main track.
He was in the middle of the massive web of codes and wires, trying to find any coding errors that were marked by a glitchy code box for anything out of the ordinary.
"Where is it? I've been here for a couple of hours now but I can't see anything wrong with the codes.", Jack said to himself. He was feeling tired of searching for the error, which was reasonable given the amount of time he's spent in the Code Vault. "(Yawn...) Whatever. I'll just check it out tomorrow." He closed up the Speedway's code box and started making his way back to the vault's doors.
However, as he was halfway to the exit, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a strange looking block floating aimlessly in the void. It seemed to be made of red pixels of various shades and appeared to shift in shape constantly before returning to its blocky form.
"What the hell is that?" Out of curiosity, he swam over to the block. It didn't look like any normal code box like the others, but whatever it was, it glowed and pulsed as if it had some sort of heartbeat.
"Definitely strange.", Jack said as he touched the side of the glitchy block.
The block seemed to react as its pulse started going faster. The pixels on the outside grew gradually before moving inward to the center of the block. "What the-", Jack touched the side once more but this time, his finger got cut off from the deceptively sharp pixels. It was quite a feat considering that his hands were always covered by his metal gauntlets except for when he was resting. "AHH! Son of a-", he tried to curse but noticed something else happening with the block.
The whole block kept growing larger and floated closer, as if by instinct, towards him, its pixels moving much faster in a manner almost like a vortex. The pixels like a cloud of tiny blades, ripping and consuming pieces of the surrounding code that it drew faster and faster toward its center.
"Oh crepe!" He turned around and swam as fast as he could to the exit. As he was almost there, he glanced back and saw a portion of the block had begun consuming the other code boxes in the game. "That's not good." He kept trying to reach the edge and was about to make it when he felt his leg in a great amount of pain. "AHHH!" He looked back and saw that the block had managed to shear of his right leg.
The blood from his severed limb floated in the void as he tried as best he can to ignore the pain and swim out of the vault, the globules of which left a trail leading to the vault's exit.
Still in a tremendous amount of pain, Jack managed to grab the edge of the door and pull himself out of the vault, still bloody and now staining the corridor with his blood. He used his gauntlets to dig into the floor of the corridor to get himself to safety and away from the block. With what effort he could muster he dragged his weakened body down the hall and to the elevator. He pressed the button to open it and glanced back once more to the direction of the vault. What he saw horrified him.
The block had now somehow transformed into what could only be described as a monstrous blob. It didn't have a defined form but it was clear that it was trying to reach for him. It had spawned a long appendage made of razor sharp, red pixels that snaked through the corridor and was only a foot away from his face. Luckily, the elevator opened and he was able to drag himself inside and pressed the button for the throne room.
Jack breathed a sigh of relief. The pain he felt was unbearable, sure, but it beats having that monster away from him. He felt himself getting weak from the loss of blood as his vision started to blur. He felt the urge to shut his eyes but tried to keep them open so he could attempt to get help.
Unfortunately for him, that would never come. No sooner had he started to calm himself down and ignore the pain of his hemorrhaging limbs that continued to sap him of his energy, he suddenly felt the elevator abruptly stop. This was followed by a banging noise coming from the floor.
BANG! BANG!
Before he could understand what was going on, the monster burst from the floor and wrapped around him. Its pixels were shredding off pieces of his body as he felt himself getting engulfed by the beast.
(In reality...)
Jack, like Vanellope and Barry, was writhing in pain. Like the former two, he was also experiencing convulsions as his body glitched of red and blue pixels. However, compared to them, his own experience was pure agony. His glitches were more erratic than Vanellope and Barry's and he was suffering just as she did, if not more so.
While Vanellope felt the fire burning in her pixels, Jack felt these pixels had the same sensation of his whole body being torn apart by an unknown beast. His pixels were slowly being ripped off of him one bit at a time, as if the beast was taking pleasure in his torment.
But even though he could feel it, he couldn't do anything to help ease his distress. His body wouldn't move an inch. He could do nothing but let the unseen creature gain satisfaction from his misery.
Back with Alden...
Meanwhile, Alden was sound asleep on the couch with Nougetsia having nodded off on the chair next to him. Even though the boy's temperature had gone down and stayed in the 38 degree range, he still shivered from the cold. He was having a very odd dream not unlike the ones of his friends.
Alden's dream...
The boy was lying, or rather floating, in a dark and endless abyss. His eyes were open and he could see his own arms floating right in front of him. He could barely move his head to look around but there wasn't really much to see. All that was around him was an inky blackness.
He lay there trying to figure out where he was when he suddenly felt a pain in his chest, as if there was a heavy weight pushing down on it. His lungs were hurting and he opened his mouth as he tried to gasp for air. The moment he did, he noticed that air bubbles had come out. He realized that he was underwater, and that the pain he was feeling was an indication that he was running out of air.
Panic and fear started to set over him, he tried to get up and swim up to get some much needed air but something he never expected happened. As he tried to get himself stable, he felt something keeping his arms and legs down. Looking at said limbs, he noticed glowing red chains holding him down to the ocean floor. He kept trying to struggle free but was proving futile. His lungs were aching so much and he didn't have any strength to try and pick the locks, much less break free.
As the last of his oxygen was being used up, his vision began going dark. He gently floated back down with his face upwards. He could barely see a light shining above him, as if trying to lure him to reach it. It was like a cruel joke to him, the light being visible but still out of his reach.
Finally his air supply had run out and he was fighting to stay conscious but he was starting to lose it. As the his vision blurred and the darkness set in, he felt some small movement below him. He could feel himself get pulled down by his chains as the light became further and further away until the ground swallowed him up and left him in the dark.
(In reality...)
Alden lay on the couch like before but was gasping and coughing. Unlike his friends though, he wasn't glitching.
"(Coughing...)"
Alden's coughing fit started to wake Nougetsia up from her sleep. "(Yawn...) Peanut?" She rubbed her eyes when he heard Alden's coughs. She instantly grew worried for him. "Alden? Alden, are you okay?" The boy continued to cough. She put her hand on his forehead and was shocked that it was very hot, far beyond than his temperature before.
"Oh no, you're burning up!" She quickly grabbed the towel from a while ago and dipped it in the water before placing it on Alden's head. His coughing calmed down and he seemed to stop having difficulty breathing now. She touched his head again and noticed that his temperature was slowly coming down.
Nougetsia breathed a sigh of relief when Alden calmed down. "Phew...that was close. I should probably keep a better eye on you." She took the thermometer and popped it back in Alden's mouth.
When the thermometer beeped again, his temperature kept stable like before. The boy seemed fine as he slept. Npugetsia continued to replace the towel as she stood guard of him, silently wishing he would get better enough to take him to the hospital tomorrow.
'I hope you get better soon, Peanut. I'll watch over you all night if I have to, so don't you worry.'
Shout out to TheDisneyFan365 and Agent BM for helping me out with some ideas for this story. Both of them have some stories going on that I hope you all will read too.
Agent BM has a particularly interesting WIR story called Life and Times of Lucy and Kevin about his OCs. They're pretty funny and entertaining with random moments here and there.
TheDisneyFan365 on the other hand has a collab story with other writers about multiple worlds. It's a sequel to his Ragnarok story and trust me when I say that the plot takes so many twists and turns that you'll never be expecting the next character that appears.
You'll be helping us out by taking some time to read it. It's a rather M-rated story but it's worth it. Hope you enjoy their stories too and give them some comments. They told me they welcome any and all reviews.
Now I know I can't write any good stories but I am willing to help out and promote others. Hopefully you all enhoy them as much as I do.
Salamat!