HOLY GOBSTOPPERS, you guys, I almost cried with joy when my inbox kept getting bombarded with such lovely reviews! XD Keep them cooomiinngg *sing song voice*

Turbo: I DID cry when I realized how much chocolate I had to give away...*gives everyone that reviewed chocolate as promised then cries in corner*

( Thanks, mosspath, I try to treat her like a real person and work hard to steer away from the dreaded Mary Sue-ness. I'm so relieved that everyone seems to like her! And to Apple, I sort of dubbed them "Turbosie" lol ;) )

Save Me from My Dark Side

Chapter Twenty-Six

Gloyd raced towards his pumpkin house as soon as the arcade closed. Tonight was the night of the Anniversary Party at Dance Dance Revolution! He couldn't wait to prank some fresh victims outside of Sugar Rush for a whole night and was mentally preparing a list in his head of whoopie cushions, hand buzzers, that stuff you put in people's drinks to make them pee blue later, and-

SPLAT!

A pumpkin pie was unexpectedly slammed into his face as soon as he opened the door. Blind but not deaf, he could only hear someone slowly stroll up to him and pull the dessert off his face and then wipe his eyes to where he could at least open them. Turbo grinned down at him victoriously and spun the pie plate on one of his fingers.

"Payback's never been sweeter."

The arcade had been closed for roughly ten minutes when one of Yuni's bouncers was walking along to go to his designated station when someone in a blue uniform jumped out and shoved a stun gun right at his abdomen. A jolting spark surged through the bouncer's code as he flickered himself into a near coma, collapsing face first on the ground. The mysterious attacker grinned darkly and dragged the unconscious man to a nearby closet, making sure no one could see him, and tossed him inside. Then he straightened up his tie and sneaked into Dance Dance Revolution...to hide and wait.

"Hold still!" Turbo said firmly as he was stooped down in front of Gloyd to fix his little brown bow tie that went along with his orange suit.

The annoyed prankster had his eyes fixed in a glare with his shoulders sagged down and his back hunched over. "I don't wanna wear this dopey outfit! We never had to dress up when you threw the Anniversary Party."

"Quit your whining; if Schweetz wants you guys to dress up, then you'll dress up. There, done."

Turbo tried to hold a chuckle back at the deep scowl on the boy's face, who trumped over to the mirror in the bathroom to look at himself.

"Ugh, I look like such a loser!" he groaned, running his hands through his perfectly combed hair to make it messy again.

"Hey, it took forever for me to fix that!" he heard Turbo whine from his place at the door, even though he himself had his hair messed up in a controlled tousle.

"I'm not going out in public looking like a dweeb!" Gloyd insisted, tugging at his shirt collar as if it made him uncomfortable. "It's bad enough I'm wearing a stupid bow tie!"

"Hey, don't knock the bow tie, pumpkin head."

Gloyd stuck his tongue out and crossed his eyes in response. At that time, Rancis and Swizzle dropped by; Rancis had a milk chocolate suit on with a darker brown bow tie, fixing the curl on his head as always and looking right at home in his fancy clothes; the Swizz had a blue suit on with a green bow tie and had his hands in his pockets looking just as cool as usual, a relaxed look on his face.

"I think I should wear this more often," Rancis was saying as he shoved Gloyd out of his way to check out how he looked...for the hundredth time. "I look exquisite."

Gloyd stuck his finger down his throat and made little gagging noises, to which Turbo had to stifle a laugh at. Rancis could be so dramatic sometimes.

"You think the ladies will like?" Swizzle asked as he pointed to himself with a smug grin.

"Only if they like total losers," Gloyd muttered under his breath.

Turbo buttoned up his own tux, the same one he wore for his wedding since he didn't much other option, and swung open the front door before clearing his throat at the boys.

"Speed it up, ladies," he told them, motioning them to go out the door.

Rancis had a huge grin on his face as he paraded himself out at the front of the line, Swizzle playfully rolled his eyes at him as he followed with a lazy smile on his face, and Gloyd brought up the caboose with the same scowl he was wearing earlier.

"Hey, turn that frown upside," Turbo grinned at him as the boy passed him, then shut the door behind him as he exited himself.

"Very funny. All things considered, I guess I'll kinda miss having a roommate, even if it was you."

"Thanks, and I'll miss being having you as a gracious host even if you did greet me with a pie to my face and turned me into your maze slave for two weeks."

Turbo had to admit that he was more than nervous about entering Game Central Station for the first time in two weeks. His last few trips there had not exactly been welcoming, not to mention he was concerned about seeing Officer Bob. Not that he was scared of him of course, he was worried that he might not be able to control his anger upon actually seeing the man after what he had done to Rosie.

Vanellope was in her formal princess attire for once, much to her disliking, but she had reasoned that if she was going to play hostess at her own party that she had better wear it, especially if she was visiting another game. Then she decided that if she had to wear this goofy get-up, then everyone else should have to dress up as well. All the little girls looked cute in their own dresses, not as fancy as Vanellope's of course, but they still cleaned up nice.

"You still nervous about being out here?" the president asked Turbo after they had exited Sugar Rush and made their way over to DDR's portal.

"Just a little," he confessed, looking around him out of habit for any sign of danger.

Vanellope patted him on the arm comfortingly. "Don't worry, you'll be okay with us."

He gave her a warm smile of appreciation. "I know I will."

Almost as if he jinxed himself, that's when he saw Bowser of all people coming his way. Oh crap, last time Turbo saw him, the giant Koopa King had nearly incinerated him! Not unsurprisingly, the racer was a wee bit anxious upon seeing the iconic villain again, who now towered over him as he looked down at him.

"I just wanted to say..." He seemed to be struggling with the next part. "I'msorryforalmostkillingyou."

Turbo relaxed considerably upon hearing the apology and he blinked in surprise.

"We were all talkin', us guys at Bad-Anon, and we all reasoned that we jumped the gun with you," Bowser continued as he fiddled with one of his spiked arm bracelets, not looking very comfortable at having been the one to pick the short straw on who was going to apologize to Turbo. "We didn't give you much of a chance to really show that you changed and all so...yeah, we're all sorry."

Turbo was rather shocked at this unexpected mini-speech but he smiled nonetheless and said, "No hard feelings. I probably wouldn't have wanted me around either."

"All right...well, if you ever want to hang out or something, you're more than welcome to." Bowser looked around to make sure no one else was listening before adding, "And if anyone gives you any trouble, just tell me and I'll spit fire on them."

Even though the arcade had only been closed for an hour, DDR was already hopping with life as the music blared and the colorful lights lit up in random patterns in the otherwise darkened game. Pink's "Get the Party Started" was currently playing and many people were dancing on the floor to it in an almost feverish state, most of them not really knowing what they were doing. Turbo thought to himself that the music of the current time was much different than what he remembered listening to.

Yuni had not ordered the gray-skinned racer thrown out as he had expected she would; in fact, she didn't give him any trouble at all. It was rather perplexing yet at the same time it felt perfectly natural because this was how it was supposed to be...how it used to be. He never got thrown out of places back in the 80's so it was nice to get treated like a normal person again.

Come to think of it, most everybody that was visiting the game were leaving him largely alone, save for a few telling him "well, hey there!", "how's it going?", "haven't seen you in a while". It weirded him out at first but it didn't take long for him to get used to it. After all, this was the normal way of doing things.

Felix, Ralph, and Calhoun had all shown up of course; Felix was in his light blue dress shirt with darker blue vest over it; Calhoun was wearing a knee-length navy pencil skirt and matching uniform top as it was her professional officer's outfit; Ralph simply wore a white short-sleeved dress shirt and some black pants as he blatantly refused to wear anything more and no one was dumb enough to argue with him, not even Vanellope.

"I don't like this lousy no-weapons policy that blondie has," Calhoun fussed out loud, referring to Yuni, as she sat with one leg crossed over the other and her arms crossed, wishing that she was anywhere else but here in this dumb skirt.

Felix patted her hand soothingly. "It's probably so someone doesn't get all excited and shoot off by accident."

The sergeant threw her head and laughed as her more perverted mind twisted his innocent sentence into something else entirely, and poor Felix just sat there with this adorably befuddled look on his face, scratching the side of his head in confusion.

Ralph just stared at her blankly then muttered something about married people and took a bored sip of his punch.

Yuni had allowed an ice cream station for the night against one wall of the expansive dance floor and everybody that came in tonight would be allowed to get a free bowl (so long as they cleaned up any melting drips that fell on the floor). As to be expected, the kids all were hungry after a day of racing so most of them headed straight for their favorites. Turbo took the oppurtunity to head for the adults, careful not to get in anyone's way. Felix smiled in his usual friendly manner and said,

"So, how's it feel being out in society again?"

The racer took another look at the huge crowd of people that had gathered in the game and it felt oddly relaxing that none of them were really paying him much attention.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually glad I'm not in the spotlight."

The handyman's smile grew bigger, never thinking he would ever hear that. "You'll be happy to know that Ralph and I already started working on your garage. We're trying to make it match the rest of the house, but don't expect anything too grand."

Turbo waved a dismissive hand. "Ahh, don't worry about that, I just need enough room for when I need to do repairs."

He felt someone poke him in the ribs from behind and say, "Hey, handsome", which prompted him to turn around and then deliver a slight jaw drop. Rosie looked remarkably fetching in her classy black dress with a scooped neck and little scalloped sleeves which showcased a pearl necklace she had borrowed from someone. It hit about mid-thigh which wasn't too terribly short but it was much shorter than what she was accustomed to wearing. She had her hair up in a pretty up-do and had a pair of pearl earrings on.

Where the heck she got all that from, Turbo didn't know and he honestly didn't care.

"You look beautiful," he finally complimented her once he got over the initial shock at seeing her all fussed up.

Rosie smiled bashfully and picked at the dress's hem, worrying that it was too short when it really wasn't.

"You clean up real nice, Missus Turbo," the Swizz suddenly spoke up from out of nowhere, giving her a lop-sided grin and having his thumb and pointer finger in an "A-okay" gesture.

"Beat it, Malarkey," Turbo said bluntly, not even bothering to look down at the boy.

"Fine, I'll just go talk to Candlehead then."

"Fine, go talk to..." The older racer quickly glanced down when it hit him what Swizzle had just said. "Wait, what?"

He didn't get an answer but he thought it was odd that the pint-sized Romeo would single Candlehead out. Apparently, he thought that her obtuse nature was the same thing as playing "hard to get". Turbo watched the Swizz casually stroll his way over to the ice cream station to hang out with his current target, and she cheerfully handed him whatever his favorite flavor of the frozen dessert was.

"Oh my lands!" Felix groaned suddenly from his seat, placing a palm against his cheek as realization struck him. "I just got what was so funny about what I said earlier."

Calhoun laughed some more then ruffled his hair affectionately, which only deepened the shade of the honeyglows he now had. "Don't worry, short stack, just be glad you don't have that problem."

"TAMMY!"

One Hour Later

After countless glasses of punch, Ralph had to take care of some personal business and he carefully made his way towards where the men's bathroom was without tripping or falling on top of someone. There was a wall partition in front of the rest area so that people could wait in privacy. Ralph was just about to go inside when he realized the door was locked. Occupied. Great.

So he stood there with his back slightly turned away waiting for whoever was in there to hurry up and get done already. After an eternity of mentally telling himself to hold it in just a while longer, the door finally swung open and he was about to run over whoever had come out but-

He gave the couple a flat look. "Really, guys? The restroom?"

"She was helping me with my zipper," Turbo replied cheekily with a self-satisfied air of smugness about him, his tux in complete disarray what with the tie undone and a hastily tucked in undershirt. Rosie had such a red look on her face it almost matched her hair color and she tried to tuck a few stray locks that had fallen back where they had originally been placed.

"Yeah, it...um...got stuck, haha," she chuckled weakly, avoiding the wrecker's gaze.

All Ralph said was "uh-huh" and then muttered something about married people for the second time that night and disappeared into the men's room.

Turbo lightly patted his humiliated wife on the butt and whispered, "Might want to go to your own restroom and fix yourself back up better, love."

"Speak for yourself, champ," she quipped back, pointedly twirling her fingers around his undone bow tie before turning around to do as she was told.

"Hurry up, we have a staircase and a dining table calling for us," he told her jokingly as she disappeared behind the door, knowing that she heard him because she giggled.

"SWEET MOTHER OF BRICKS, MY PEE IS BLUE!" he heard Ralph scream from the men's room. Turbo watched with amused interest as the wrecker came out a mere fifteen seconds later, taking time to pull his pants up thank goodness, and issued a glare towards the racer.

"Where...is...Orangeboar?" he demanded through clenched teeth.

"Last I saw, he had Vanellope's tiara and had her chasing him around the dance floor with it."

Ralph nodded once and then set out on his mission to punk the prankster. Turbo chuckled to himself and shook his head, wondering where the heck the kid had managed to find something that turned pee blue. He wondered how long it would be before everyone hunted down the little pumpkin prince. Just imagining it made him laugh. He saw Candlehead out the corner of his eye in her little pink dress with brown polka dots but instead of wearing her usual enthusiastic grin, she looked frightened.

"Mister Turbo, watch out!"

He turned around only to be greeted with a punch to the face.