Kahan 6

Vanilla Turtles

Chapter 4

"Daaaaaaad, you're going too sloooooooow," Jr whined, pulling on his dad in the direction of Sugar Rush.

"Kid, it's eight in the morning on a Sunday. Your buddy probably isn't even up yet, I'm not all the way up yet!" Bowser growled in annoyance, but he retained a slight smile from seeing his son so excited. Jr and Vanellope had been friends for a month now and Bowser had demanded to meet her as soon as Jr mentioned her. The arcade closed on Sundays so Bowser spent the entire day with one of his kids, and they took turns of course and today was Jr's.

Bowser fought the urge to yawn as his youngest son practically dragged him through the station. He was curious to meet the person who made Jr so excited. Bowser tried to spend as much time with his kids as possible, but being a king was a full-time job, so knowing Jr had someone his age to play with took some of the guilt away. Bowser was so groggy and deep in thought that he almost didn't notice Jr had stopped. They had reached Sugar Rush.

"What the hammer kid!? Why didn't you fireballin' warn me!?" Bowser complained as he lay flat on the ground with his hands clamped over his nostrils and his eyes shut. Sugar Rush's smell had been a shock to Jr, but Bowser's adult nose was even more perceptive, making the candy kingdom's scents hit him harder than a raging chain chomp.

"I thought you would figure it out. You knew it was made of candy," Jr said rather guiltily and looked at the ground.

"Jr, you've lived with me long enough to know I'm terrible at thinking ahead." Bowser was starting to crack his eyes open and relax his hands.

"Sorry pops," Jr shrugged.

As soon as Bowser got over the new stimuli his son was once again dragging him forward. After passing through the candy cane forest Bowser got an eyeful of the candy castle. It wasn't as cool as his castle but still pretty impressive. Jr stopped next to a very… unique race kart and looked around, confused. "She said she'd be right here." Jr twitched a bit and took one more look around, "I'll go find her, she's probably just in a different part of the yard." He was sprinting through an army of peanut buttercups before Bowser could respond.

A second or three later Vanellope walked onto the large patch of grass coming from the opposite direction, and she was carrying what looked like a spare tire for the kart. When she saw Bowser she dropped it and just stood there, staring at him. Fantastic, now Jr's new friend will be scared off and it'll be all my fault, Bowser thought bitterly. But instead of running away screaming she ran toward him, "You're Jr's dad, right?" She stopped in front of him and stared up at him almost in awe.

Bowser smiled proudly and stood up straight, "Yup, that's my boy."

Vanellope was a bit shocked seeing the already large creature seem to appear bigger, "Holy mother of monkey milk, you're ginormous!" Bowser held his head higher and even puffed up a bit in pride,

"Of course I am. You have to be to intimidate enemies and lazy minions." Vanellope gagged dramatically when Bowser's breath hit her.

"I think your breath is scary enough. I can't feel my sinuses." Bowser grinned, displaying his fangs,

"Yup! It really distracts Mario sometimes, he even turned a bit green once! The secret is in my brimstone and pirahna plant oil toothpaste." You could say what you wanted about Bowser, but it wouldn't be able to damage his impenetrable ego.

Vanellope stared at the Koopa for a brief second before asking, "Are you as strong as Ralf? You look really strong but I've never met anybody tougher than Ralph." The ego has been challenged, on purpose just so you're aware.

Bowser frowned and stood up as straight as he could, "Ain't nobody tougher than me! Ralph's a bruiser but I'm the king here!" Now it was Vanellope's turn to frown,

"No you're not, Sugar Rush is a democracy. There is no king! The last time we had a king this whole place became a candy coated heart of darkness! And not the good kind with awesome explosions and cursed swords, but the kind where everyone is secretly brainwashed and it's super boring!" Kings were a touchy subject for Vanellope, and yet she was starting to like Bowser since he was pretty much the opposite of King Candy.

"Yeah, I heard about that. But I wasn't really surprised. Turbo was always a rotten little stinker. It's like he had the 'Soul Edge' but without the power and style. Just the annoying personality." Bowser growled a bit, remembering when he had first met the little psycho, "He never shut up about himself it was like talking to broken record stuck on 'That nails on chalkboard sound'. Loser still owes me a hotdog too." Some smoke and sparks floated out of his nose in annoyance.

"But if he's dead wouldn't it be a zombie hotdog? That doesn't sound like it would taste good." Vanellope's nose wrinkled in disgust at the thought of the living piece of mold and meat.

"That sounds a bit too disgusting for me. But if it's alive, or at least undead, I could put it in a terrarium and give it to one of the kids! They love dangerous pets. Well, dangerous to everyone but them anyways." Bowser was grinning again, Vanellope had to give the guy credit. Even Ralph couldn't follow a conversation this random.

"But what if it grew too big for its cage and started trying to eat everyone? I bet it would become a giant undead worm thing and eat entire kingdoms without becoming satisfied!" Vanellope's voice deepened and became more dramatic as she mimed being a zombie monster.

Bowser took a pen and notebook out from his shell, it said 'Evil Ideas', and scribbled something down muttering, "Zombie… Hotdogs..." the pen and notes were put back just as Jr trotted back into the clearing and did a double take when he saw his father and Vanellope smiling jovially at each other.

Bowser didn't often take a shine to anyone, much less smile at them. "Vanellope, where were you? I looked all over the garden!" Jr whined.

"I was just getting a wheel for the cart ya big baby," Vanellope playfully jabbed.

"I know you are but what am I?" Juvenile, but affective.

"Ok, that's enough you two! I didn't come here to watch a couple of kids poke fun at each other. I could have done that at home." Bowser intervened, "Now what were you kids planning on doing?"

Vanellope pounced on the question, "We were gonna ride the Mountain Dewm rapids! But I don't think you would fit in the boat." She went from hyper to deflated in two sentences.

"Don't worry about it, I can get my own boat no problem." The ego rears its head as Bowser puffs himself up once more.

"The rapids are super fast too. What if you bump into something?" Vanellope asked, concerned.

Jr held back a sigh knowing no amount of danger would prevent his dad from doing something once he set his mind to it. "Quit your worrying already sweety, this is me we're talking about. I can take anything!"

The Mountain Dewm rapids are one of the top five most dangerous places in Sugar Rush, there are multiple drops and obstacle peppering the course, and the water flows at sixty-three miles an hour on average. Vanellope and Jr are riding in a partially hollowed out half of a jawbreaker, while Bowser is using a much bigger version. It's not difficult for small vessels to dodge the cliche tall pointy rocks, but large ones on the other hand…

"AAARRRGGGHHH!" That was the closest Bowser's vocal chords could get to 'EEEEEEEK.' Considering the speed of the water and amount of obstacles, Bowser was doing very well in controlling his vessel. But that doesn't mean he didn't crash into things. At this very moment he's about to hit a large fallen-"SHELL THAT HURT!"-tree. Though most of his mind was focused on not getting a game over, a smaller yet still substantial part was listening for any noises his son or Vanellope made. Bowser heard a lot of laughter and joyful exclamations but occasionally there was a surprised yell that made his heart drop into his stomach in worry.

Meanwhile, Jr and Vanellope were speeding down the river having the time of their lives. "Hey Jr, check this out!" Vanellope leaned right and sent them flying off a ledge, and they were airborne for several seconds before landing back in the soda rapids.

"That was awesome! We were, like, twenty feet in the air!" They both laughed excitedly, then they floated swiftly into a calm patch of the river. The friends were back to back, with a marshmallow between them so Jr's spikes wouldn't hurt Vanellope, and this position allowed them to take turns steering. When the boat twirled in the current whoever was closest to the front would steer.

Jr was currently in front since Vanellope's stunt had caused them to spin quite a bit. The current pulled them swiftly but smoothly for about a minute before Jr heard a rumbling and saw what looked like steam in the distance. "Uh oh."

Vanellope heard him and responded monotonously, "Let me guess, we're about to go over a huge waterfall?"

Jr gulped, "Yup."

Vanellope's tone remained unchanged, "Sharp rocks at the bottom?"

Jr gulped again, the rumbling was much louder now. "Most likely," he squeaked. The boat was forced to do a one-eighty by Vanellope who gripped the rim tightly and ducked down in a pose similar to the one she had while racing.

"Bring it on!" Vanellope sounded a bit too happy for someone who was about to go over a waterfall. Jr just gripped the boat and silently prayed to Shigeru Miyamoto that he would survive this.

Bowser sighed in relief and when he reached the calm patch he stared ahead looking for the daring duo. He spotted them and smiled before he sensed a rumbling and saw steam. He immediately started clawing at the water, desperately trying to reach his kid. This did almost nothing to speed him up and he was starting to panic when he remembered something rather important. "Hey wait, I can swim." Bowser leaped out of the boat and shot toward the kids. He noticed Vanellope force the boat around so she could steer and thought. Kid, if you mess this up and my son gets hurt you are in for a world of misery!

He was ten feet away and Jr was looking at him with hope filled eyes when Vanellope yelled "BONSAI!" and they fell off the edge.

In retrospect, Jr really should have seen this coming, for it wasn't a sheer drop but extremely steep. Vanellope was laughing like a maniac as she dodged cliffs and spun into currents, and Jr was screaming his lungs out in alternating terror and excitement. Vanellope was in a kind of personal heaven with the roar of the soda in her ears, spray in her face, and a speed that would make Sonic whistle in appreciation. Adrenaline ran through her system and as they approached the end of the falls, a crescent shaped cliff, it spiked and made her glitch noticeably.

Vanellope managed to scream louder than Jr as they rocketed off the cliff and sailed through the air before they started descend rapidly. "Weeeeeeeeeeeee!" "Eeeeeeeeeeeeek!" Vanellope and Jr exclaimed respectively. Jr had plummeted toward the ground before but that had been in his game where he couldn't die. He closed his eyes and was struck by the question of why everyone he cared about had to be nuttier than a sack of trail mix.

Sploosh! Vanellope and Jr landed in the middle of a strawberry milkshake lake, completely unharmed of course. Jr swam to shore where Vanellope was already wringing melted icecream out of her hair, a pointless effort since the splash Bowser made when he landed soaked them both once again. Maybe it was the near death experience, maybe it was seeing his dad coated in pink, or maybe it was just Vanellope's "We should totally do that again!" but whatever it was, it made Jr laugh harder than he had in what felt like forever.

Author notes:

Another chapter! Finally! It took so long! Ok on to the notes:

I don't know why the arcade is closed on Sundays, probably the same reason most things close on Sundays.

Bowser has eight hyper and creative children, it stands to reason he could follow a crazy conversation.

Yes Bowser knew Turbo, Mario is a very old game so it was probably there to witness Turbo's meltdown.

Beneath his tough act Bowser is truly worried for his son and feels a large amount of guilt over the lack of interaction he has with him. So of course he's overjoyed Jr has a friend, especially one as cool as Vanellope.

The soul edge is a cursed sword that turns its bearer evil.

Hammer, fireballin, and shell are all swear words in Marioland but since the M rated games got plugged in they are seen as equal to darn or dang.

Message me if you got the Emperor's New Groove reference!