Opposite Sides of the Track

Ready to Go

"There's something I'm not getting," Vanellope said, "No, actually, there are a lot of things I'm not getting because, surprise, surprise, I wasn't told anything!"

Hiro looked up from his files and held back Tricky, who looked about ready to attack her.

"I told you; there's something off about Travis King and you're mutually helping because he has something to do with your parent's deaths." Hiro replied.

Tricky added, "Unless you want to be back in your cell."

Vanellope glared, "Yes. The cell that's apparently, and here's the kicker: IN THE BASEMENT OF A MANSION!"

Vanellope had been furious the entire way up the elevator. She realised she was held captive in a basement. And, yes, it was extremely hard to put the pieces together; she'd broken into an underground laboratory that went on for miles. Yet she found herself in a BASEMENT!

"Um," Comic Boy added, "It's Stan Lee's basement." He thought about it for a moment, "But, yeah, you were held in my dad's basement."

Vanellope groaned and hit her seat on the desk that she was chained to which was, by the way, filled to the brim with comic books. Good god, she hoped P.L.U.G would "pull the plug" on her soon. She deserved it.

Penny shrugged, "Hey, we've taken down tons of more notorious villains and they're held in a holding chambers several rooms away."

Gee, thanks. Vanellope thought, Perfect confidence booster. Feel sooo much better now.

Laser Beam shrugged "It's true."

Vanellope sat there, confused for a moment, and then realized there was a more obvious answer than him having mind reading powers. With that realization, she banged her head on the table some more.

"Eh, maybe you should just say what you think and this wouldn't be a problem." Hiro said, matter-of-factly.

"That is the problem." Vanellope retorted.

"Is it?" CotC asked.

Vanellope's brow stitched. What did she- not, she couldn't have known about. Vanellope bit her tongue to make sure she didn't say anything and was 99% sure she hadn't before. Vanellope looked away from CotC.

"Hey, Wasabi," Hiro called over to Laser Beam, "Do you have anything with the medical records on Vivian and Victor?"

"None," Laser Beam replied.

"Wasabi?" Vanellope said skeptically.

Hiro nodded, "Yup."

CotC thought for a minute, "You don't know our names, huh?"

"I do; I just know that there isn't a Wasabi in the mix." Vanellope replied.

CotC smiled, "They're nicknames. I'm Honey Lemon, Tricky's Gogo, Comic Boy is Fred, and I think you know the rest."

Vanellope blinked, "And you're just telling me that, like, no problem?"

Gogo crossed her arms, "But you're not calling me that."

"Okay, Gogo."

Fred bit his tongue and Wasabi cringed. As Gogo was ready to sock her, Hiro and Honey Lemon held her back.

"No killing people," Hiro said jokingly.

Gogo, furious, grabbed Hiro and Honey Lemon's arms and dragged them out the door, presumably to talk to them. Violently.

Vanellope looked around the room some more and finally decided to pick up a random file with one hand.

"You can call me Fred," Fred said, "You seem nice."

"Nice in the way that murderers can be," Wasabi added pointedly.

"Actually, since I'm paid to do that, I'm either an assassin or a hitman." Vanellope corrected, "Which sound way cooler."

Penny snorted from where she sat. Vanellope tried not to glare, as she was pretty adamant about pretending the teen didn't exist, but found it hard not to. In her attempts, Vanellope looked back down and found herself looking at a file folder labeled 'Sightings'. She opened it, and found information about where villains which simply went under the names of "King and Queen" were seen. Vanellope vaguely remembered hearing Hiro say that he believed they were the same people because, although they were never sighted, the couple was Travis's biggest case.

Vanellope read through the papers. If these were her parents, they did a ton of crimes; part of their biggest crimes were stealing machinery from high-tech labs (not to mention disposing of anyone that got in the way in the process) and their pettiest crimes had something to do with murdering gangs. To be fair, a lot of these incidents were only very vaguely backed up by the survivors claiming it was a couple. Nothing more.

Vanellope looked back up to see Gogo, Honey Lemon, and Hiro coming back into the room looking tired. Uh.. what went on back there? Vanellope thought to herself.

"Everyone okay?" Vanellope asked jokingly, "All alive and well?"

All three glared at her Vanellope held up the one hand she could in a 'Well, sorryyyy' way.

"King and Queen make me look like a saint," Vanellope decided to remark.

Hiro looked up bitterly, "Do they really?"

Vanellope looked away. She never really looked at her track record, but she knew it wasn't good. Starting from even ten it was pretty bad. But what did he know? Nothing. He knew nothing. None of them did. Or would.

Vanellope read the papers some more, before hearing a gasp coming from Penny.

"Guys, we're being infiltrated in Quarter 13." she announced.

Vanellope sighed. She knew that they would pull the plug eventually. But he security camera angled popped up on the screen and Vanellope gasped and leaned forward. It was definitely him.

"You know him?" Hiro asked.

Vanellope nodded, in awe.

"He's my boyfriend."

Everyone had things that they try to run and hide from. If you worked in for Playing Life's Ugly Game (P.L.U.G), you definitely had things you were running from. And Rancis thought he knew what his girlfriend was running from; her illegal run ins with almost anything. It was what Vanellope always spoke of with zest. But there was that keyword: thought.

Rancis wasn't the best criminal in the Station. But he tried, even a little too hard sometimes. Not to mention, he was good at doing the dirty work and, since he was OCD, the clean up crews had very little to do. The whole 'dirty work' was usually assigned to him by the people in higher power at Sugar Rush. But, this time, he was traveling to meet the guy in highest command; the one that ran GCS.

Rancis had gone through a lot of anxiety while going there and being called into the meeting room (with maybe 6 different guards surrounding him). He came to meet the man in charge, and was completely surprised by the friendly tone and… lisp.

"Welcome! Ranthith Fluggerbutter. Please, take a theat why won't you?" The man had a bulbous nose and wore a crown. Rancis guessed that, if you ran the best and largest criminal base in the world, you'd consider yourself a king too.

Rancis took a seat uncomfortably and looked up at the extremely high desk.

"Good, good," The man in command said. Some people called him "Boss", but Rancis called a lot of people "Boss" and decided just to go with describing him. "Ath you know, one of your… playerth hath gone mithiing."

Rancis's breath quivered, but he nodded. Yes, he definitely knew.

"Yeth, yeth. Well, we need you to bring her back." King said. Rancis just came up with that name on the spot.

His eyes lit up. Find Vanellope? It was what he'd been asking for for weeks! To find her, before they decide her word is a threat to the system and-

Rancis looked up. "Not that I want to kill, or, or even really hurt Vanellope in any sort of way, but, isn't it protocol to…" Rancis trailed off.

King nodded, "Whiltht I can't tell you, Ranthith, let me asthure you that if I wanted to kill Vanellope, I would have done tho already. But she'th better off here than dead. But, Ranthith, remember to kill anyone she'th told anything to."

Rancis nodded. So long as he didn't have to kill her. But a question lingered in his mind; what made Vanellope, who had specific instructions to never meet King, so special as to exceed above protocol?

You've got these little things

That you've been running from

You either love them or I guess you don't

~Ready to Go by Panic! at the Disco

A/N: So the separate part with Rancis was supposed to be in the beginning, so some of the terms that weren't explained until the end were supposed to be put in the beginning, but I felt as if it would have more shock value if I put it at the end. Or maybe the real twist is I didn't use ANY of the songs I asked you to pick from last chapter XD Sorry!

'cmon! Show some Vaniro love (because there's like, none) and review! Oh! And Happy Early Valentine's Day! (I might to a Vaniro one-shot ON Valentine's Day if I feel inspired enough :D)

~ Sam