Granny Panties: Well, I don't have to worry about snow too much where I'm at, so that's not a problem for me! And this is actually the THIRD story, the first one was a shorter fic called "Going Turbo" about what happened when RoadBlasters got plugged in and how Turbo got the Konami Code. Also, I agree Vanellope's a better person too and more understanding, but I'm also trying to convey that Turbo himself is not a bad person, he just made some very bad choices and doesn't know how or if he can go back to the way he was. Thanks for reading! :) (I cracked up at your username btw, lol, awesome!)

Save Me from My Dark Side

Chapter Fifteen

The question blew him away, definitely not expecting to hear that come out of her mouth. Turbo stared at her in a form of shock, blinking a few times in disbelief. Surely she was joking! There's no way she could be seriously wanting him to answer that. He waited a beat for her to laugh and say that she was just kidding.

She didn't.

Turbo felt sweat drip from his brow, feeling hot at the idea of having to answer this. It was more than awkward to say the least. He reached a hand up and wiped his head with the back of it. Vanellope kicked her legs to and fro impatiently as she sat slumped down in her throne.

"You know, instead of making me a glitch," she elaborated further, thinking he hadn't fully understood her. "Why didn't you just kill me? Wouldn't that have been easier than worrying about whether or not I would eventually cross the finish line in a race? Or heck, easier than you having to come up with that payment plan for the Random Roster Race to ensure I could never enter?"

Turbo stood silent for another moment, the memories of that day rushing into him like a freight train. Just when Vanellope thought that maybe she'd shocked him into a coma of some sort and was starting to regret asking the question, he finally replied,

"I couldn't."

Sugar Rush - 1997

He had done it! Victory was his!

Turbo had been able to sneak into the castle every day that week while it was unoccupied during the arcade's opening hours. It had been so easy. He had gathered all memories of the citizens and racers together to have them forget about Princess Vanellope and put them all in a designated area of the Code Room, even forming a locked chest to toss around them to guarantee they would never be released...unless by chance the game went through a "reset" but he had no reason to believe that would ever happen.

He had also used the abandoned Avatar Creator mini-game to create his new alter ego...he opted for the simple name of King Candy since, for one, it was the only thing he could think of that would be appropriate; and two, at least it was able to be pronounced easily unlike those other little freak racers with the five-plus-syllable names. What formed was a type of skin that he could absorb into, a rather strange almost supernatural process, and his transformation was complete.

He even had his very own crown! He looked nothing like his old self, which had been the point. Nope, he was just some kindly old grandpa-figure in charge of running a game full of happy cheery folks. Everyone would love him, he'd be the star of the show...just like before.

Now to get rid of the princess herself. Turbo had waited for her to come home from the races and the stupid child had been foolish enough to send her guards away while she went to her bedroom. It had been so easy to knock her out...she never even saw him coming. Just one hit to the back of the head and the little princess was unconscious.

In order to kill her, he had to get her out of the game or else she'd regenerate. He very well couldn't drag her to Game Central Station, he knew that, but he reasoned the electrical cord tunnel would suffice. That's what he had done to the twins after all. After killing them, he'd been scared that they would regenerate so he had dragged their corpses into the tunnel just outside the game's actual entrance and left them there. Yes, he could drag the child there and snap her neck and she would be dead to the world.

And once he returned to the palace, he could lock away the memories of her forever.

Since the inept guards were nowhere to be found, it was easy for Turbo to drag her back into her parked kart, that he would later use as his own, and drive her...God, it felt so good to be driving again!...undetected down a back way to the Rainbow Road.

Almost there, he was so close he could taste it! The princess was a little heavier than he expected, but he managed to get her just across the barrier of Sugar Rush and dropped her carelessly on the floor of the electrical cord tunnel. There she lay, the innocent babe with candy in her hair and a little tiara on her head. She would not ever experience life in its fullest, never live to her full potential as a racer or a ruler.

Turbo grabbed the girl's head firmly with both hands and braced himself to snap her neck, fully prepared to get rid of the one thing standing in his way of being the game's monarch and...

He couldn't do it.

A single shred of humanity worked its way into his conscience and guilt flooded into him from out of nowhere. Turbo looked down at the little child that he was intending to murder and he placed her head back down carefully on the ground, just staring at her in befuddlement.

Why couldn't he kill her? He had killed before, this time should be no different! What the hell was wrong with him?

Frustrated at himself, he backed away a few paces and ranted several colorful words about his situation. All these years of waiting to take over a game...all his work this week at making sure that happened...all he had to do was kill this little brat of a girl and it would all be his!

And he couldn't do it. He couldn't kill her. Something seemed too evil, too heartless, killing a small child that had barely begun to live, who had done no harm to anyone. The others...they had wronged him so they had deserved it in his eyes. But this child...she hadn't done anything to deserve death.

He kicked the side of the tunnel angrily. Okay, so if he couldn't kill her, then what was he supposed to do with her? He couldn't very well let her stay a princess or even stay in the game as a racer. It would ruin everything.

A glitch.

Turbo suddenly remembered that pesky uni-candy-corn (he'd found out its name was Skittles while in the Code Room) and the fact that it had a glitch in its programming that would not allow it to leave the Candy Corn Fields. That gave him an idea. He could turn her into a glitch. She would be alive, but she would not be part of the game. Sure, she would be an outcast and there was that deal about her not ever being able to leave the game (he had known of a few glitches and he knew very well that they could not leave their games), but she would be alive. He wouldn't have to add another murder to his ledger.

That would be easy enough. All he had to do was rip her coding out from where it was located amongst the other codes. He would have to go back and erase her own memories before he did that though and prepare to lock them up as well, which he had not yet done thank goodness. He would also have to alter some of the game's rules, since he was fairly sure that she would feel in her code that she was meant to race and maybe even sneak into one. Racers were all the same, they all felt that strong desire to do what they were designed for.

He knew that more than anyone.

Turbo looked down at the soon-to-be ex-princess, still laying there on her back with her head turned to the side, the only sign of life being her breathing. Yeah, he could handle keeping her alive. It wouldn't be so tough. Just enforce strict rules everywhere and she'd be bound to not cause any trouble for him. At least he could keep his hands clean of any more blood. He felt a little better about himself at this choice he'd made. It would be less cruel to keep her alive, right?

Present Day

Turbo stared off to the side after he finished talking, not sure if he wanted to see Vanellope's reaction to the story. She didn't say anything for a while and the silence in the room was strangely deafening. Finally, he heard her shift in her throne to sit up straight.

"So you didn't do it because deep-down, you're really not bad."

He turned his head towards her, his eyes widened at her analysis.

"Don't get me wrong, it wasn't fun being picked on and treated like a virus," Vanellope continued, waving her lollipop around in her hand as she gestured. "But from what you just told me, you thought you were doing me a favor by at least letting me live."

She hopped down and walked up to him, a little bit of fear evident in his eyes. He wasn't sure exactly what she was getting at with this. He didn't like having people analyze him, it made him feel...violated. Exposed. It was embarrassing to have someone figure something out about his psyche that he would prefer to keep private. He had felt the same way when General Hologram had done it.

"Even though you did a really bad thing, I don't think that's the real you," Vanellope went on to say, an air of gentleness in her words as if she herself were talking to a young child. "You just got all mixed up in your head and thought that was the only way to go about getting what you wanted. If you were a really bad person, you wouldn't have hesitated to kill me, right?"

He looked down at her blankly and, not knowing what to say, simply nodded.

"And you probably didn't want me knowing this, but I heard you were having problems with people bullying you," she kept on, her over-sized hazel eyes full of understanding. "I know how that feels and even though it was kinda your fault I had to deal with it, I already made sure it wouldn't happen to you here."

Why was she being so nice to him? Turbo's eyes shifted back away from her uncomfortably and he rubbed the back of his neck. She had been bullied because he had decreed that she was a danger to the game, thus causing everyone to do any cruel thing they could think of to keep her from trying to race. A lot of good that did. She had went through the same thing that he was dealing with (because of him, no less) and it baffled him completely that she had gone out of her way to ensure that he would be perfectly fine here in Sugar Rush. It didn't make sense to him.

"Thanks," he said once he forced his eyes back onto her, feeling embarrassed at the generosity. "And...sorry about that."

"Don't sweat it," Vanellope shrugged, waving it off with her free hand as she used the other to stick her treat back in her mouth. "Past is past."

Too bad everybody else didn't think that way.

"But that doesn't exclude you from pranks and good-natured teasing, so you know."

He sighed with a slight groan mixed with it, even though he'd already expected that to happen anyway.

"So even though you knew I'd regenerate, even with my glitch status, how come you tried to kill me during that race last year?" she prodded on, referring to when his true identity had been revealed.

Turbo winced at the memory but he forced himself to glare down at her. "Hey, I thought you were only going to ask one question?"

Vanellope rolled her eyes and talked around the lollipop in her mouth. "I'm pwesident, I can change da wules."

He sighed but his glare disappeared and a more sheepish look took its place.

"I...I...got desperate," he answered her quietly, turning his eyes away from her. "I...didn't want to lose another home...I wouldn't have belonged anywhere...again. I knew I couldn't really kill you, I..."

He wasn't sure if he had a decent enough explanation for it, his hands moving in a slow circular gesture as he thought. Vanellope didn't rush him, she stood there quite patiently waiting for him to finish. It was really unnerving having her standing there staring at him like that.

"I just lost my temper, I guess," he finally offered up, even though to him it sounded pretty lame. "Everything went spiraling out of control and...it just went..."

He softly pounded a fist into his palm to demonstrate the rest of his sentence. Crash and burn.

Vanellope rolled her candy around in her mouth as she considered that, the stick portion of it turning in little circles from her little puckered lips. Turbo was reminded of how Taffyta did the same thing all the freaking time and how he always was so tempted to slap it out of her mouth. She finally stopped doing the irritating motion and pulled it out of her mouth with a pop!

"All right, I'll buy that," she said casually.

Turbo literally was startled at the way she responded, as if it wasn't a big deal that he just confessed to trying to kill her.

"That's it?" he asked dubiously, waiting for her to say something else.

"Yeah, that's it," the candy-haired child responded before biting off the remains of her lollipop and lazily placing the stick part of it between her head and ear like a pencil, planning to throw it away later.

This was bizarre to say the least. He had just confessed that he had tried to kill her twice and she was just accepting it with no further questions? If he hadn't had his helmet on, he would've scratched his head in confusion. This made no sense! She should have been furious with him! He deserved to go to the Fungeon for this, why in all of Litwak's was she being so forgiving?

Interrupting his thoughts, Vanellope cleared her throat and straightened herself up to look more authoritative. "All right, so you're stuck here for two weeks in our care. Don't think this is gonna be a vacation though, you're not just gonna sit around and be a lazy-bones. We have plenty of things for you to occupied."

"I was afraid of that."

She smirked at him, the more familiar spark of mischief returning to her eyes.

"So...I hate to ask, but where exactly am I staying?" inquired the former racer, feeling knots in his stomach already.

The smirk she was wearing seemed to deepen which only increased Turbo's anxiety.

"At Gloyd Orangeboar's."

His eyes popped open as dread entered into him. "The prankster kid?"

"Yup."

"Are you nuts? He probably has his house booby-trapped!"

Turbo stood right outside the opened door to the giant mellowcreme pumpkin that Gloyd called home, his eyes closed due to the chocolate pie that had been slapped in his face. He should have known that the little trickster would have rigged something to happen to him once he opened the door, and in this case he had triggered a pie to fly through the air and directly into him. The unmistakable sound of boyish laughter was the only noise he could hear. Turbo counted to ten in his head to calm down and he slowly reached a hand up to wipe the whipped cream, chocolate, and the crust from the pie from around his eyes so he could open them, then proceeded to fling the destroyed dessert to the side to get it off his fingers.

Gloyd was literally rolling on the floor laughing at his simple yet effective prank, the pumpkin hat he normally wore now laying off to the side since he rolled around so much. The laughing wasn't mean-spirited though, at least it didn't sound like it, it was more of the "that was too funny!" kind. Turbo licked the pie that was around his mouth, grateful that at least it had been chocolate pie that he had been splatted with, and went on to try wiping the rest of it off his face.

"Not bad, pumpkin boy," he commented dryly.

"I can't believe you fell for it!" Gloyd chuckled as he stood himself up, propping an arm against one of the chairs that was positioned around his small table. "You didn't even duck down or nothin'!"

Turbo spat a little to the side to get rid of some crust that was annoyingly staying stuck to his lip. "Yep, you really got me there."

"You're gonna have to be more on your toes if you're gonna live with me," the boy playfully warned with a lopsided grin.

The front door opened straight up to the kitchen area, which in Gloyd's house was decorated with candy corn, pumpkins, and various shades of orange and brown. Fitting for a Halloween themed racer. To the right was two doors that led to the two bedrooms, main and guest. The left side of the house contained a full bathroom. The other racers' houses had similar layouts, save for of course Vanellope's castle which had about three guest rooms with their own private baths and balconies, a giant dining room with an extra-long table to house all the racers at once should they ever eat there, a much larger and fancier kitchen, and even a treasure room full of an infinite supply of gold-wrapped chocolate coins ("King Candy" had quite enjoyed that room).

Gloyd grabbed a dishtowel from his sink and threw it unceremoniously at his disgruntled guest, who caught it with his clean hand before turning to the side to remove the rest of the pie from his being. He had to tug his helmet up a little bit to get whatever had sneaked in underneath it.

"Your room is the one farthest from the door," Gloyd instructed him when he was done, pointing a thumb towards the guest room. "The bed might be a bit small for you but it shouldn't be uncomfortable. Vanellope said she was told that you were used to sleeping while the arcade was open so we'll just keep it at that to make things easier. We hardly sleep around here to be honest since we're all hyped up on sugar."

Yeah, Turbo remembered that about the kids. He'd be trying to catch a nap after the arcade was closed in his cushy royal bedroom and he'd still be able to hear them all goofing around as far out as the Ice Cream Mountains where Adorabeezle Winterpop and her twin Nougestia Brumblestain lived. He also recalled his constant use of gummy ear plugs during those times.

"Well, you gonna become part of the yard decor or are you gonna come in?"

Turbo gave him a small shooting glare and then proceeded to very carefully step one foot in the door and glanced around warily, not trusting this kid for a minute. Who knew what other booby traps he had set up around the house? Gloyd couldn't help but snicker behind his hand watching the older racer tiptoe towards the guest room with his nerves on edge, even tapping the door knob quickly to make sure it didn't jolt him when he touched it. When he figured out that the door itself wasn't going to kill him, he slowly twisted the handle and threw the door open, ducking back behind the wall once he did so.

Gloyd was cracking up at the show. "Man, Vanellope wasn't kidding when she said you were paranoid."

"Cautious," Turbo corrected him bluntly as he ducked his head in the room on the lookout for anything that might get him.

The room appeared to be safe. It consisted of orange walls and brownish taffy curtains that were currently opened to let natural light in. The bed was a twin-sized rectangular sheet cake with the usual tightly-woven cotton candy sheets that most everyone's bedsheets were made of. These were orange of course and the bed frame was carved from dark chocolate. The furniture was made of candy bark, again like most everyone else's, and these were colored to match the bed frame. The carpet was a neutral tan color and it was the deep fluffy kind that you can make your toes disappear in. Turbo tossed his bag on the bed, jumping back a little bit just in case the bed was rigged.

"Yeah, I'm still going to go with paranoid," Gloyd insisted, his arms crossed and shaking his head with a smirk on his face.

Turbo rolled his eyes but he was relieved that there weren't any more surprises in store for him...yet. He turned around with his hands folded behind his back to face the young rosy-cheeked lad.

"So what fun-filled activity do you have planned?" he asked with a bored expression.

Gloyd grinned and held up a finger to signal "hang on a sec!" and dashed off to his own room. Turbo just stood there and began to check the underside of his nails when the boy didn't return after a good full minute.

"Take a wrong turn somewhere?" he joked after another minute ticked by.

"I'm back!" Gloyd announced as he slid back into view, holding a folded sheet of paper in one hand.

Before Turbo could ask what it was, the boy had leaned over and grabbed him by the sleeve with his other hand and was dragging him out towards the front yard.

"I'll explain when we get there!"