(A/N: Forgive me, it took way too long to get this finished. I knew what I wanted to say, just not how to say it. Needless to say, I think you'll like this one. I will point out that I LOVE nightmare/dream sequences. They are too much fun to write. In addition, Turbo's little backstory gives some insight on how he works, but his dream gives some character exposition. Fanon-style though.)

"Who is Fool Candy?" Ralph and Vanellope asked in unison, the latter perched at her usual place on the former's shoulder.

"Fool Candy?" Turbo looked surprised, and slightly cornered when the two Programs walked in to his cell, interrogation guns-a-blazin'. "You're the fool, fool."

"Turbo," Ralph warned, eyes mere slits beneath heavily furrowed brows, "tell me the truth."

"Sh-she knows, she knows! Ask the Glitch, she can tell you!" Turbo squeaked from his new perch on the ceiling, just out of Ralph's reach. He looked horrified, and uncooperative.

"I want you to tell me. You've been skirting around my questions all day so I want you to tell me now!" Ralph was slowly losing his temper, which was—for rather obvious reasons—not good at all.

"'Sides," Vanellope added, "I still don't have access to all of my memories thanks to a certain someone—TURBO!" Her fake-cough startled the ex-dictator from where he was, and he ran to the far corner of the cell.

"Well it's not my fau—wait, actually it is...never mind!" Turbo gesticulated, claws whipping about in circles to emphasise his speaking. "The point is: I can't help you."

"I can make you," Ralph threatened.

"Again, with the threats and the halitosis," Turbo commented, waving imaginary wafts of bad breath from his face. "Theriouthly, you're too in love with me to do anything to me."

"Wanna' bet?!" As Ralph advanced on the diminutive jerk, Turbo cackled.

"You're serious?! You are seriously going to beat on me, your unrequited love?" Fear flickered across his face, chased away by a red glitch.

"The Turbo I had feelings for disappeared when he went to Road Blasters, and was replaced by a psychotic asshat who can't seem to get a grip on reality. We are going to make you tell us who Fool Candy is, even if I have to resort to violence against you." Ralph was dead serious, Turbo could see that.

"H-how about I tell you the story of Fool Candy, hmm?" Vanellope and Ralph sat down on the cell's rock-candy concrete floor as Turbo nervously glitched his way towards them. The twitchy—and somewhat stretched-looking—racer took a deep breath. Flickering, he began.

570|?`/ 71/\/\3!

"Once upon a time, there was a knight, the best in the kingdom. He was fast, he was handsome, and he was so fantastic that everyone loved him.

"Now this knight, he owned a small hamlet and he kept good care of it, but there were those in his hamlet that were jealous of him. The knight's two brothers hated that the knight was praised for winning jousts and duels all the time. They didn't win that often, so why should the winner get praised?!

"So they plotted with the neighbouring hamlet's reigning knight, and decided to make sure the knight lost against him. For the neighbouring knight was a jealous and controlling man who wanted all the glory for himself. So the plan was made and the three went back 'home' to convince their brother to fight the other knight.

"He agreed and it began, the knight's humiliation. The other knight had used all sorts of spells to make it so that he could win. When the knight lost, he felt pain—pain so great he thought he would tear in two. How dare that knight beat him?! He was the best! He was the greatest! He wasturbo-lightdamn-tastic!

"So the knight, mad with rage, bullied the truth out of the weakest brother. In his fury, he made the poor mistake of allowing him to leave unscathed, and the brother alerted the other knight to the impending doom.

"There was a skirmish at the border and they weaker brother didn't survive, but the plan went down without a hitch, just like the knight planned. Sure, he was upset that his brother died, but he was more pleased that the neighbouring knight was long gone. To add insult to the most grievous injury, he set fire to the neighbouring hamlet.

"Now, no one in the kingdom liked that. They called for blood, for the death of the knight, but he was long gone. Like an assassin in the night, he disappeared, never to be seen.

"Flash-forward ten years into the future. The knight, since running from judgement, had learned to live on the fringe of society. He occasionally had to resort to murder—but that was a moot point because it was an honour to be murdered by him anyway—and thievery, but he survived.

"A new hamlet had been built over the remains of his hamlet—which, if I forgot to mention, was demolished after he fled the coop—and its knight was just as good at jousting as he was! How was this possible, he thought, that this knight was as good as him?! The hamlet was pretty nice too.

"Using magic, the knight snuck into the new hamlet and befriended their reigning knight under the guise of a fool. The 'fool' wormed his way into her—that's right, the new knight was female—favour and then—BAM! Much like the knight did all those years ago, he took the new knight's place and ousted her.

"He took every precaution this time, wiping memories and changing appearances using the black magic he learned during his exile. He made the new knight look like a dirty little brat and took her place as the 'new knight'. No one knew better because the knight never left his hamlet, lest he be found out.

"But a peon found out. A dirty, filthy peon from a hamlet the knight had once visited back before his exile. Ten years after his takeover of his new hamlet, the knight was discovered by a ham-handed, ignorant, slovenly, clumsy, oaf and the dirty brat he ousted!

"All his hard-laid plans, gone to waste. All because one dirty brat couldn't keep her nose out of the jousting competitions! No matter how good his spells were, the knight could never get rid of the deep-down, gut-feeling that she absolutely had to compete. That was his downfall.

"They burned him at the stake. Threw the knight into the fires of the Void right before the usurper's eyes. He screamed and screamed, but no one heard. No one cared.

"He spent a lot of time in the Void, that knight. It was painful, being forced to relive every last one of his mistakes for the rest of eternity. He begged the Void to spit him out, give him another chance at life. He would do better, he promised, they would suffer.

"He didn't mean it. Living was hard. Being hated was harder, but the Void spat him out anyway. The Void had a purpose for him.

"The end." Turbo crossed his arms angrily and scowled at Ralph and Vanellope. "Happy?! Can I go?! Can you go?! Your very presence nauseates me."

Ralph was horrified; yeah, he knew Turbo had issues and that he had gotten Turbo Time and RoadBlasters unplugged, but he never knew he had killed one of the Twins. He had always assumed that Throttle had just...gotten lost when Turbo Time was declared Triple-O.

The fact that Turbo willingly murdered Throttle...that scared him.

Vanellope, on the other hand, felt the strangest sense of dejá vu. She had heard that story before, she just knew it. The nuances were different, but the tale was the same.

"Once upon a time, there was a foolish jester who thought he was a knight. He allowed his hubris to overtake his good sense, and let his anger rule him. Because of his mistake, many lives were lost."

The thought that Turbo had hidden in her game for that long scared her, but the name Fool Candy evoked a warm and fuzzy feeling deep inside her chest, a bit like when Ralph would take her over to Tappers for karaoke night and then duet Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds with her. Belonging, perhaps even happiness. Comfort maybe? She wasn't too sure what she was feeling but boy-howdy did she hate feeling that way about Tur-butt of all Programs!

Turbo kept twitching and glitching, throwing worried glances in their directions as they mulled over their feelings. He seemed nervous, breathing shallow and skin covered in a sheen of sweat.

Ralph was the first to move, standing up and dusting off his overalls. "Thank you," he gruffly acknowledged Turbo with a curt nod and then faced Vanellope, "I—I've gotta go do some thinking."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Have fun, ya' big galoot!" Vanellope's flippant dismissal of Ralph was a beard, covering up her own hollowness and confusion. Without so much as a glance backwards, the giant lumbered out of the cell and back to Fix-It Felix Jr.. That suited her just fine; gave her some time to think.

Or maybe even talk.

The pause that stretched between Vanellope and Turbo was excruciating, to say the least. Turbo's nervous restlessness and pacing back-and-forth in his corner away from Vanellope did not mix well with her contemplative brooding. The silence—unfortunately not the tension—finally broke when Vanellope cleared her throat.

"I...I don't remember Fool Candy. Or who I was before the whole...incident, I suppose you could call it? I'm sure I was even more awesome than I am now, yeah, but it makes me wonder." A deep sigh and she looked over to make eye-contact with the racer, "Why?"

The clicking of his claws together was sharp and unexpected as he drummed his fingers together, "Because I could."

"No," she wasn't going to accept some vanilla-bean lie, "why Sugar Rush? I know there has to have been a buh-million other racing games before this one—and p'rolly more after us—so why come here?!"

"Because I could! It was there! It was easy! It was safe!"

"It was safe...," realisation dawned, "you weren't in danger of dying if the courses were made of candy. You weren't in danger of crashing if you were playing against children lighter than you! I get it!"

Mmhmm, thought Turbo, the whole nine yards...

"But...why come back?"

"Gag me with a spoon, girl! Do you ever stop talking?!" His teeth bared at her, sharp edges and pixilating borders, and he hissed. "For fuck's sake, leave me alone! I told you your damn bedtime story, so fuck off!"

Vanellope's mouth set in a straight line, determined and pissed. "No, you fuck off! I'm just tryin' to understand! I don't know why I'm even stillhere! I don't know who Fool Candy is an your 'bedtime story' did nothing! But, believe it or not, Fool Candy may have meant something to me at one point in time or another. Whether or not your time as Fool Candy meant anything to you is your issue but I am confused and I am angry but I am mostly tired of your bullshit." She frowned, tears glimmering in her eyes, and glitched through the ceiling with a parting goodbye, "Fuck you, Turbo. Fuck you for making me even try to care."

Alone in his cell, Turbo dreamt.

|\|16|-|7/\/\4|?35

Everywhere was pain. Bright, blinding pain the colour of foam.

Burning, his skin was burning. It shouldn't burn like this! He was pixels, ones and zeroes, not flesh and blood! He shouldn't hurt like this! This was wrong!

The smell pervaded his nostrils, suffocating him in CO2 and sugar and burning graphics. (Did he forget to remove the pot roast from the oven again?! Throttle was going to be pissed if he burned the roof of their oven again.) Soda and bile spilled past his lips. (Oh Edison, it hurts! Make it stop!) Graphics breaking, wings tearing, he was one with the Void. (Please!)

There is nothing but the pain. Nothing but the hurt. (You are a failure. You couldn't be number one, you couldn't save your Game, you couldn't even take over another one.) In the Void, he remembers.

She smiles at him, "Heya' Tur-butt!"

"Turbo to you, ragamuffin." A smile, when was the last time he smiled? Ten, twenty years ago? So long...it had been so long.

"Fool Candy, if you wanna' keep living here." She is bright, she is the sun illuminating his way in the darkness.

"Well what do you have planned for today?" She is his reason, his purpose. Make her happy. When had he changed?

"Nuthin' much. None of the players have unlocked me yet, so I was just gonna' fart around in Kandy Kein forest for a bit. Escort me?" Cheeky little bitch. He had come in here, looking for an opportunity to hit the Code Room and make himself number one again. She had made a fool of him.

"Only if you beg." He could never reach her, she was unattainable and his hands were stained with the binary of too many Programs.

"Fool?! You dare defy your reigning royalty?! I shall have you executed for this offence!" Smiling, always smiling. How could she smile when she never was, never won? It baffled him, enchanted him, drew him in.

"Alas, my princess, I must refuse your kind offer of beheading. You see, there would be no point since I have long since lost my head!" If he could make her laugh, he would be forgiven. If he could race with her, it would be perfect. If he could forget, this could be home.

Blurring at the edges, pain and torment, bright, bright light, saccharine regurgitation, happiness turns to hate. Somewhere he forgot who he was and became what he wasn't. He could never forget his Code.

"I've been thinking—"

"Well that's dangerous."

Bitch, brat, shut up! Let me speak! "The deadline is so close now—"

"Fifteen minutes left and then we're golden!" Stop lightdamn interrupting me!

"—and I was wondering if I could race with you. Just once before I try for the Roster?" Hope, sunshine and warmth, he was waiting for the answer.

"No." Shatter, scatter, like glass in the wind.

"Why the Void not?!" Forget your manners, lose your temper, give in – give in! "One race, that's all I ask for! One race before the Roster!"

"No racing. Ever." No. Liar. He had almost forgotten for her. That bitch. "They don't like you and I'm not too sure that the Integration would actually work. It's still just a theory, and I'm not too keen on testin' it. S'pecially not on you."

"I—you promised!" Liar, she was a liar. Fucking bitch! Lightdamn liar! She promised, she promised, she promised! "You promised me!"

"I said you could stay." Queen of ice, princess of sugar frozen deep in her heart. If she even has a heart, that conniving brat. "Never said you could race."

"One race. You and me." Pleading, bargaining, anything for one last race. "Gimme a standard kart and one lap against you, no power-ups. If I win, I get to race. If I lose, I'll stay here with you forever, I promise. Just one race..." Begging, what a fucking laugh. He never begged. Not even in the face of Rocky, he stood his ground.

Pity. She pities him. Sick. "Okay. One race."

Blurs, time passes, so close—so close! They race—so close—he's in first—just a little more—she bumps him—ten seconds—he spins and spins and spins—five—hits the wall—four—spins away—three—teeters on the edge—two—falls—one—he is gone.

She cries, lamenting his death. She is a liar.

He lives. He breathes. He is pissed!

She killed him! He could have died!

He didn't forget anymore. He would erase her. He would make her suffer!

He would...

He...

...