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Wow, I'm so honored to have you all as my audience for this story; I never could have imagined that it would be embraced by all of you! I'm truly touched, thank you SO MUCH for your support! As a token of my appreciation, I had Jake whip up a little something for ya'll... It's posted on Deviantart, and the URL can be constructed as follows:

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Phase I, Level 10: The Flight

Part 2

Three… Two… One… GO!

Off they dashed on the race of their lives, racing the clock more than each other. For once they didn't use their sweet seekers or cherry bombs, 'cause this race wasn't about beating each other, it was about helping one another and getting out alive. With hearts pounding and adrenaline coursing through their veins, they all kept pace as they made it through the gumball alleyway and the tiered tower of cake. Soon they were making their way through the frosted passes of the ice cream mountain. Morale began to soar as they began the final stretch – the rainbow road! – and knew that the finish line was built! Just a few more turns to go!

Ralph was too excited as he rode on the train to be annoyed by the shouting going on in the seat behind him. Sonic was reaming Jake out for 'not taking things seriously' when they were on the plane. Ralph supposed Sonic just couldn't help it since he was the spokesperson for safety; that he felt it was his duty to give Jake the lecture on how you don't regenerate if you die outside your game. However Jake just didn't seem to get it no matter how Sonic explained, and was too hung up on 'how rad' the experience was and how he couldn't wait for the next thrill.

Kitty had stayed behind to oversee the wreckage clean up; she was really in her element ordering them all around. Since she had just saved all their lives, not a one had dared to argue with her when she gave the orders. She had given Calhoun directions to the IP address Sugar Rush was at, and so the sergeant was now leading them through busy train stations to get there. They were now on the last train connection and Felix was sitting in the seat next to him, voicing his concerns on what they might find.

"Why do you have to be such a downer, Felix? I'm seriously excited to see Sugar Rush again, why can't you just be happy for me?" Ralph finally asked.

"I just think we all need to be prepared for the worst, Ralph… We don't know why Sugar Rush is here, or even if it's plugged in! And stop beating around the bush, Ralph, you still haven't been able to say Vanellope's name; you keep referring to her as "Sugar Rush", even though we all know you mean just her."

Felix really had a way of replacing excitement with annoyance. Just because he was right didn't give him a right to burst his bubble, right?

When the train pulled to a halt, Ralph took a deep breath to steady himself, hoping for the best but now, thanks to Felix, fearing the worst. Unfortunately that calming breath didn't effectively prepare him for the sight that greeted him on the other side of the train doors.

Hundreds of Sugar Rush characters lined the platform of the train station, and clearly not for an afternoon stroll. Pandemonium ran rampant as their panicked cries echoed through the surrounding tunnels. A few sympathetic passersby had tried to console a few of them and assess the situation, but they would not be appeased. Eyes scanning the madness, all he knew for sure was that none of the racers – who would be at least a whole head taller than the tallest candy – were present.

Ralph jumped into the madness, trying to get information – anything coherent, really – out of the startled candied citizens, but to no avail. One piece of candy after another, they were just screaming their oversized heads off. He had been trying to deal with them gracefully, but he was quickly running out of patience. Long flights, sleep deprivation, and a flipping plane crash for crying out loud were more than enough to lower his patience level for the day, and he was only able to calmly speak to a handful of the candies before his passion bubble burst.

"Will everyone just QUIET DOWN!" He roared, his hands balling into fists instinctively. That certainly stopped the noise… for a few precious seconds. He realized he wouldn't have long to talk before the sheer shock of the moment wore off and they'd be back to their frantic crying. "Will someone PLEASE tell me what's going on!? Hey, you!" He called, pointing out a particularly frightened looking gingerbread man, "You tell me why you're all out here and where the racers are."

"O-our game is about to be un-p-plugged!" he answered, fresh tears welling in the corners of his frosting eyes. Ralph blinked to let the information settle in. Although being unplugged at Litwak's has always been cause for panic and dismay, it might not be such a bad thing here. He could take Vanellope and all the others home with them and enroll them in his H.E.R.O. program. It wouldn't be hard to pull a few strings considering he knew people in high places – duh, he ran the whole shindig himself! Take that, un-pluggers of the game! Self-assured of his rescue plan, Ralph continued to prod, "So if you're all here, where's the racers?"

"Th-they're still in the game!" The words hit him like a punch in the face.

"WHAT!?" He yelled, sending the poor cookie into another bout of tears. "WHY!?" He cried, having no time for formalities and gentility.

"Th-they have to s-stay for Candlehead's roster race! Or she won't be able to leave the game!"

Ralph hardly knew what he was doing – indeed, he had dropped the poor gingerbread man without a second thought - but his body seemed to have a mind of its own, and it took him down the tunnel into Sugar Rush. He vaguely registered the sound of Felix, Calhoun, and Sonic yelling after him to stop. But he didn't care, he had to go; he had to find her.

When he reached the top of the rainbow bridge that would lead him down into the game, he nearly burst into tears of joy when he saw eleven brightly colored racers rounding the last bend of the track, headed for the finish line. In the back of his mind, he had dreaded that he might never see Vanellope again; but here she was, right before his eyes, doing what she did best! He couldn't resist taking a moment to just stand and watch her as she approached the finish line – first in line of course – ready to cheer when she reached it, like a proud parent might do at a little league game.

His moment of peaceful observance was shattered when he felt a jolt that nearly sent him to his knees. Glancing behind him, he paled when he saw the tunnel behind him start to disintegrate. The game was being unplugged right now! No! He couldn't admit that, he had to hold on to hope that Vanellope and the others could get here in time, if she zapped them all over with her glitch. If he could just grab her attention and get her to come this way… "Va-!" he tried, but it came out a strangled whisper. Come on, you can do it Ralph, just shout her name! And with all his might, he drew in the biggest breath he could muster and bellowed, "VANELLOPE!"

Next thing he knew, however, he was being yanked down the tunnel and the turquoise clad racer was shrinking, disappearing farther and farther away, until she was no longer in sight. Before he could wrap his mind around what was happening, it was all over. He was sitting on the platform among the other citizens of Sugar Rush. Calhoun and Felix were bending over him in with looks of concern, and Sonic was releasing him. Realization dawning on him, Ralph asked, "Sonic… you…? You pulled me out of the game!?"

Nodding, the hedgehog panted a bit from his excursion, "In the nick of time, too. We were nearly both goners."

Now over his shock, Ralph allowed a more powerful emotion to take over: anger. At himself, of course. If he had only been a little sooner, he could have saved her. Scratch that, if he'd paid more attention before, he could've saved them all before they'd ever left Litwak's! Of course anger, once raging, rarely likes to exert itself inward, and so instead it flared itself outwards.

"How could you!? I didn't ASK to be saved!" He yelled irrationally, telling himself he would've been able to live with himself if he had stayed beside Vanellope in the game and died with her – even though that didn't make a whole lot of sense. He didn't even remember balling up his fists, but before he knew what he was doing, he had taken a swing at Sonic. The guy was too fast, of course, but he managed to surprise the others. If the Sugar Rush citizens weren't scared of him before, they certainly were now. Felix stood aghast while Calhoun went into military mode, striking a pose that said she was ready for anything. Reactions Ralph certainly expected. What he didn't expect was –

WHAM! Jake's fist had come out of nowhere, and Ralph could tell already that it was gonna leave a mark. Who knew the guy had it in him? Sure, he never doubted he was strong enough – the guy was programmed to fight riptides and battle sea monsters for cryin' out loud – but his disposition, that fun loving, no worries kind of attitude had never prepared him for this turn of events in Jake's demeanor.

"What was that for!?" Ralph demanded, though he was pretty sure why. The two of them – Sonic and Jake – had become so buddy-buddy, Ralph was suddenly the bad guy again towards their brotherhood they conveniently left him out of. Or perhaps it was just the poetic justice of his 'happy thought' to punch Jake after the plane crash backfiring on him. He'd have to remember that thoughts made under the influence of pixie dust could be dangerous.

"Cause you could have DIED, idiot! And if you die outside your game, you don't. regenerate. dude." Beyond his surprise that Jake had paid attention to Sonic's rant on safety when he was all gung-ho about how awesome the plane crash was, he was furthermore moved by the genuine care Jake expressed. He hadn't expected that at all. He was stunned enough to be directed into a train car by Felix and Calhoun, and by this time, the shock of Vanellope's death was hitting full force as well, and he didn't try to resist.

"What should we do about them?" Felix asked, nodding his head towards the citizens of Sugar Rush who had managed to escape.

"We take them along." Calhoun replied simply.

"Really?" Felix asked, shocked, beginning to wonder if she was suddenly over-embracing the idea to adopt. Of course he'd like a few kids, but hundreds was going a bit far.

"Yeah. If nothing else, it'll help Ralph keep busy, enrolling them in H.E.R.O., and I imagine he'll have to make allies over the internet now to find placements for them all. He could kick start a revolution for abandoned games all over the networks. It would give Vanellope's death purpose and Ralph a reason to go on."

Felix hadn't thought about it like that. Boy, did his woman have vision! Maybe he'd even be able to convince her to work hosting a mid-way house into her plans. They could foster characters until they could get placed!

With bittersweet feelings of despair and hope, the whole lot of them began a long journey back to Litwak's.

Flickering on the precipice of consciousness, Vanellope heard the sound of voices – the voices of the three who had Sugar Rush in their custody. She tried to open her eyes, but it didn't make a difference, she still saw the same nothingness. Did she even have eyes? Where was she?

Rather than getting caught up in her own questions, she tried to focus on the voices, although they were fuzzy.

"- figure it out, strangest thing I've ever seen." She caught the tail end of a male's voice.

"What do you mean?" another male asked, voice heavily accented.

"It's royally screwed up for one thing. Looks like it's been hacked together; I have no idea how it ever worked! It's like there's code from TWO characters here, and this… I have no idea what to make of this last bit of code; by all accounts it shouldn't even DO anything."

"Then just scrap it entirely. Working with broken code will be more hassle than it's worth."

Vanellope grew worried that they were talking about her, that she was about to be 'scrapped'. She tried to move – to run – but found herself unable to do so, she was completely immobilized, wherever she was.

"No, you can't do that!" Another voice – female this time – broke in.

"Why not?" The two males questioned in unison.

"She's Candlehead! She was originally Minty Sakura, but was changed in the American game to Candlehead. That's probably why there's like two characters' code in there! And the game originated in Japan. Everyone will hate you if you don't include the most Japanese character in the new version!"

"Alright, alright, fine." The accented male consented, "If you're certain she's that crucial to marketing."

"I'm sure."

"That's all fine and dandy – " the other male voice, presumably the one that was invasively prodding the code right now, cut in. "But this isn't Minty Sakura's or Candlehead's code at all I'm worried about. In fact, most of her code appears to be gone and I'd have to re-code more than half her code after I split it from the rest, there's not much I can use from this copy. The other half doesn't appear to be like any of the other racers, and has a lot of permissions to access other areas of code."

The other two seemed to ponder this for a while, then the girl, who Vanellope guessed was the content expert or something, replied, "You know, there –was- that King Candy character… then he mysteriously vanished around the time Vanellope-hime reappeared. The system was messed up to begin with since it had Vanellope-hime locked for so long, it wouldn't surprise me if somehow King Candy's code got mixed up with Candlehead's somehow… so just separate the two again."

"Whatever you say…" the programmer replied in a slightly sarcastic tone that seemed to say 'easier said than done, but you're the boss.'

It was then that the weight of some of the things they said began to sink in. New version? Programmed? Character splitting? This didn't sound good, for Candlehead, or herself. What if they changed them? Wait… change them how? Who were they? She grew more frightened when she realized that her memories were slipping away from her… a moment ago a thought stood teetering on the brink of her mind that something very important had just taken place, before they'd gotten to this weird place of pseudo-existence. There was something else… a voice that had called out… a voice she felt she might care about… It had called out her name… But a moment later it was gone, and she didn't care about that voice, about the one named 'Candlehead', or anything else… she barely remembered a thing… all she knew now was that her name was Vanellope Von Schweetz, she was a racer… and she was a winner.

Congratulations, Player 1, You have completed Phase 1...

True word count for The Flight, Part 2: 2,584
True word count for Phase I: 41,518
True word count for story thus far: 41,518

Congratulations, Player 1, You have unlocked a mini-game...

While Phase 2 loads, entries will be accepted for Sugar Rush-esque character names. The winning entries will be used (either in whole or in part with a variation) in Phase 2! Keep in mind the following keyphrase / clue: "Caffeine Craze". Have fun speculating and creating!

A/N: Just wanted to give a personal word of thanks for all your wonderful support! You've all made the writing of phase 1 such a pleasure, and I can't wait to get started on phase 2! On that note, expect a bit of a hiatus as I get things prepared for phase 2, there are still several things about it I haven't got sorted out in my head just yet... Thanks for your patience!

Review Responses

Becky Blue Eyes: Hahaha, Ralph as an airport terrorist; I love it! This may require a spin-off of one-shots... (complete with Jake & Sonic's bromance and airport shenanigans, of course). I'm so glad to hear you're still shipping Muffin x Candle; I had so much fun writing their romance for this first phase!

Dixie Darlin: I'm sorry... I had to do it... Y_Y

CraftyKeronian: Yes, the spoon was made from random code that was leaking out of the game... maybe some of Candle's, but probably a lot more came from the crater in the fungeon, that's where most of it leaked from. I kind of imagined it like a pheonix, rising from the ashes, you know? Something beautiful and sentimental arising from the dust of a dungeon... and the hope that something beautiful can come from the tragedy of Muffin Man... and as for the communication via the spoon, it really was the Muffin Man. He's still part of the game; part of its hardware... he just doesn't have a physical form anymore. He has access to all the code as the doctor of the game, but since the code was all very unstable, he only dared manipulate a little bit of code to communicate with her - hence the warming of the spoon.

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