((Here's the newest chapter you all have been waiting for!))

Chapter 20

Vanellope had managed to pull her kart from the river and waited for it to dry out after being soaked from all the milk. However, she was unable to start up her kart. She checked her engine and saw that it was damaged from the fall at Cereal Box Canyon.

"This just peachy," she sighed. If only she had her tools right about now, she can fix it up lickity-split. But all her equipment are back at the Junkyard so she was forced to push the Whipper Snapper, with all the strength her little body can muster, all the way to her destination.

When she finally arrived, she was panting with exhaustion. "I wish I was eight feet tall and strong like a gorilla, so I can push this baby much easier!" she said out loud.

She waited for someone, perhaps Swizzle, to reply or pop out of nowhere but then she remembered him ratting her out to Taffyta and the other racers, and remembered how sad and guilty his expression looked. She can feel her tears forming again but she stubbornly rubbed her eyes.

"I don't need him," she muttered. "I can win the race by myself..."

Vanellope goes over to pick up the few broken pieces from her kart that were smashed by the racers and throws them into her seat. Then she opens the hood of the Whipper Snapper and carefully removes the engine. After closer inspection, she realizes that fixing the engine is actually more sophisticated than it seems and she is lacking the proper tools to fix it.

She grew so frustrated that she kicked her own kart, and ignored the pain her foot is feeling.

"You stupid piece of junk!" she screamed at it. "You're supposed to help me achieve my dream! Instead, I lost a friend, an engine and a chance to race!"

Vanellope sat on the ground and hugged her legs burying her face into her knees and trying so hard not to cry.

"Am I really a racer, or am I just doing this to get attention?" she whimpered. "This is hopeless..."

Suddenly, her ears perked up when he heard someone approaching. Acting quickly, she threw a tarp over her kart and hurried to hide behind row of moldy and thrown-out wheels. She saw it was Sour Bill who was rolling a trashcan into the junkyard. Inside the trashcan is the huge tapestry Vanellope had seen earlier all rolled up.

"Sour Bill do this, Sour Bill do that..." she heard the sour candy grumbled in his usual monotone voice. "Just because I look sour doesn't mean I don't have feelings."

Vanellope quickly ducked behind the wheels when she saw him approaching to her direction. Sour Bill, who didn't notice the glitch was hiding a few feet in front of him, dumped the tapestry over Vanellope. He coughed from the dust and then turned around to leave with the empty trashcan.

Vanellope crawled out from under the tapestry and tried to suppress her cough from the dust as well. She looked at the lickable tapestry from the corner of her eye, and noticed something she didn't see before. She unrolled the tapestry on the ground and got a full entire view of it. On the one corner that she never saw behind the velvet curtain is a picture of her! She was wearing a white and green racing tracksuit and a cocky smile. She was driving a pure white kart, much like the one King Candy owned.

She rubbed her eyes, hoping they weren't playing tricks on her, but her image on the tapestry was still there. She gave it a good lick for good measure and it tasted familiar vanilla. Her jaw dropped heavier than a gumball from a dispenser.

She looked up to see Sour Bill hadn't left the junkyard yet. "Hey, sour snatch!" she called out.

Sour Bill stopped and turned out around just in time to see Vanellope looming over him, her hands on her hips. She was wearing the angriest and most suspicious glare, and her image was flickering and twitching.

"Tell me something," she demanded. "If I was never supposed to exist, why do I have a picture of me on a tapestry that has been around for a long time?"

Sour Bill froze with fear. He was about to make a run for it, but Vanellope was faster. She grabbed him and put her face next to his hard-candy body.

"Talk!" she barked. "I wanna know what's going on here."

"I'm not telling you anything," Sour Bill narrowed his eyes. "You don't scare me."

Vanellope raised a sneaky eyebrow. "Oh, yeah?" She grabbed a piece of gum from her dirty hair and popped it into her mouth. After a couple of good chews, she took the sticky gum wad out from her mouth and stuck it between Sour Bill's eyes.

"Ahhh! It's unhygienic!" Sour Bill howled.

"There's more where that came from!" Vanellope snickered. She chewed and spat out more gum. Then she stretches the wad into lengths and began wrapping up Sour Bill like a weird-looking round mummy. The sour assistant screamed since he can feel the sugar-free chewing gum sticking all over his body.

"Ready to talk now, Sour Patch Baby?" Vanellope asked in her sweetest voice. Despite feeling a little guilty tormenting him like that, she actually enjoyed it.

"Okay, I'll talk! I'll talk!" Sour Bill cried. "You were a real racer until King Candy came along and tried to delete you! But he couldn't destroy your code, so he was forced to turn you into-"

"A glitch," Vanellope finished for him, almost dropping Sour Bill in shock. She couldn't believe what she just heard.

"Why is he doing this to me?!" she asked angrily.

"I don't know!" Sour Bill shook his head.

"Don't lie to me!"

"I'm not lying, I swear! I literally can't remember! He locked up all our memories!" Sour Bill motioned Vanellope to lean closer to him. "I do know this: King Candy will do anything to keep you from racing. Because once you cross that finish line, the game resets and you won't be a glitch anymore."

"Why would the game reset if I just had to cross the finish line?" Vanellope inquired. "Who am I, Sour Bill? Talk!"

"I don't know! I'm sorry, that's all I know!" the sour candy whimpered. "Now PLEASE take all these disgusting gum off from my body, and let me go!"

Vanellope stared at him for a moment before she stuck another gum which sealed Sour Bill's lips. She didn't want him running off to King Candy and telling him what happened.

"You're still sticking around," she declared. "Before I go race and cross the finish line, take me to where my code is."

Vanellope soon arrived at King Candy's castle, still carrying the wrapped-up Sour Bill. She sneak past the Oreo guards and entered from the back door. Sour Bill, who couldn't talk thanks to the gum covering his mouth, showed her the way and she found herself in the throne room. Thankfully, King Candy wasn't around but Vanellope didn't want to stick around and wait for him to return.

"I see he's a fan of pink," Vanellope smirked when she looked around the room. Then she turn to Sour Bill. "Now tell me where the code room is."

Sour Bill trembled with fear but he pointed a hand toward the curtains behind King Candy's throne. Vanellope still didn't trust him, but she peeked behind the curtains and found a passageway. She cautiously strode through it until she came to a halt in front of the heavy door, in the form of a large game controller with combination buttons. She was curious to see the hidden chamber behind the door; she wanted to see broken code with her own eyes and can confirm Sour Bill is telling the truth.

Vanellope sets Sour Bill down. "Okay, Sad-Eyes, what's the password?"

Sour Bill looked from her to the lock. He was reluctant at first, but he began to type in the password while she watched him.

"Up, up... down... left, right... B, A, and then Start," Vanellope muttered to herself, trying to memorize it by heart. She felt an odd feeling tingling all over her body. It's as if she has known this password for a long time, but it's impossible, since she has never been to this part of the castle before...

The door clicked open and Vanellope looked inside and let out a huge gasp. It was no ordinary room-before her is a sea of darkness stretching off into what it seemed like infinity. Not far away is a delicate but complicated-looking floating structure, and it appeared to be made up of thousands of rectangular digital boxes, suspended together by delicate glowing cords and threads.

"The Code... the lifeblood of the game," Vanellope murmured in awe. She peered through the confusion of cords and boxes, and found a battered-looking code floating by itself, a good distance away from the others. She couldn't make out the name but when she glitched, the code flickered weakly. Vanellope put on the biggest and happiest smile.

"I can't believe it," she gasped and danced with joy. "I do exist after all!"

Suddenly, her body shook and glitched violently; she was being electrocuted by a hidden attacker! She shrieked with pain before she crumpled to the floor. Sour Bill looked up with wide eyes to see King Candy standing triumphantly over Vanellope's incapacitated form. He was holding a Zappers Taser.

"I've always known extremely sour treats give you quite shock," King Candy giggled in a menacingly way. He helped remove the gum from Sour Bill's body. "She forced you to spill the jelly beans, didn't she?"

"Forgive me for betraying you, sire!" Sour Bill begged. "She was ruthless!"

"Tut tut, it wasn't your fault," King Candy happily patted his head. "I'm just glad you managed to bring her to my castle just in time for me to throw her into the Fungeon. I don't know how she survived falling into a ravine, but I am certain that this time, she will not escape..."

Vanellope woke up, groaning in pain. She found herself in a dark cell where the only light is coming from the only window which is too high for her to reach.

She weakly gets up and tries to move around, but she was suddenly held back by something clanging. She looks down to see a thick glitch-proof chain fastened around her waist.

"Oh no," she groaned again.

She realized where she was and sat on the prison floor, sighing with sadness. She now knows that she's supposed to be an existing racer but King Candy, for some selfish reason, made her into a glitch and an outcast. When she found her code, she thought she also found a hope spot... but she let her guard down and got herself captured. She would be stuck here in the Fungeon forever, she was sure of it.

Vanellope has never felt so much loneliness and desperately wished Swizzle is beside her right now. She doesn't care anymore that he betrayed her, she just wanted to see his cocky smile and warm eyes again...

She thought was alone in her cell when she heard a familiar voice calling out her name from the shadows.

"V-Vanellope, is it really you? You're alive?!" the voice asked, there was hint of joy in his tone. The pony-tailed girl quickly turned around and couldn't believe her eyes. Speak of the dare-devil...

"Swizzle!"

((Finally, Vanellope learned the terrible secret of King Candy and she's finally reunited with Swizzle. But will she forgive him? And will they escape from the Fungeon?))