((Woo-hoo! I'm finally at the most exciting climatic chapter! We are nearing the end of the story, can you believet it?! But will Vanellope finally get her dreams come true and stop Turbo? Find out what happens here.

BTW, the climatic battle is inspired by some elements of video game final stages or boss fights.))

Chapter 27

Back at the arena, there was no cheering or talking. The unbearable silence is then broken by a few cries and then mutterings. The citizens and the racers had listened to Sour Bill's confession after seeing the truth with their own eyes on the jumbo screen. The race was interrupted and the kids were all gathered near the finish line, trying to make sense of what just happened.

"I... can't believe it! I don't want to believe it!" Taffyta shouted. Her expression was wild, like a mix between distraught and anger. "King Candy can't be monster! He... he's been kind to us, and he protected us during all these years!"

Rancis and Candlehead looked at each other; for the first time, they are at lost for words.

"I'm going to be sick," Snowanna muttered. Gloyd and Crumbelina felt the same thing too. The recolors were clumped together avoid looking at each other or at anybody else.

Adorabeezle and Jubileena, with tears in both their eyes, are trying to comfort a sobbing and screaming Minty, who had collapsed on her knees after all three saw Swizzle saved Vanellope at the cost of his own life before fading into a non-respawn death.

"Th-that idiot!" Minty wailed. "W-why did he have to go and get himself killed?! I... I never even properly apologized to him!"

"Minty..." Jubileena whimpered, her lips quivering.

Back with Vanellope, she weakly stands up after wiping her tears and her body flickering every once in a while. She has to get to the finish line and cross it. If she game resets when she becomes a racer, maybe Swizzle will regenerate... It's the only possibility. Still, if she had acted quickly, he wouldn't have gotten shot for her. It's her fault now that her friend is gone...

"I gotta... keep moving," she muttered to herself. "I gotta win for Swizzle... Swizzle..."

Vanellope slides into her seat and tried to force herself not cry again. Then she heard the wild roar of a kart approaching. She quickly looked back and saw Turbo, now returned to his King Candy's form, approaching fast. His expression deranged and he was holding the Hero's Duty gun in one hand.

"I FORBID YOU TO CROSS THAT FINISH LINE!" he shrieked like a madman.

Vanellope stepped on the pedals and her kart rocket forward. Turbo is now hot on his wheels and he keeps firing the blasts at her. She keeps making sharp drifts to avoid and glitching to different sides of the road to avoid getting shot.

"Come on, Vanellope! You're almost there!" Adorabeezle screamed at her. Everyone had backed up against the stands so Vanellope can cross the line without crashing into anybody.

"RACE, VANELLOPE! RACE!" the crowds chanted.

Vanellope was now almost at the finish line; he was about to cross it for the first time! Turbo made an inhuman scream and fired one last time. The bullet blast found its way into her back and she arched in pain. Everyone gasped.

However, just the kart just rolled over the red-and-white tiles and it began to glow. Then something incredible happened... Vanellope was then lifted into the air as glowing sparkles began to form around her. Everyone watched with amazement.

"Wha... what's with all the magic sparkles?" she asked in confusion, still trying to get over the shock of the unfamiliar pain in her back. Deep inside the code room, everything is slowly getting restored...

"Nooo... No! You cannot win!" Turbo shrieked as he drove up to the finish, his body flickering in his anger and his disguise falling away thanks to the game being reset.

He leaped from his kart, the HD gun in hand, and grabbed Vanellope. The moment he did that, the beautiful sparkles began to transform into red, flashing lights and their bodies twitched and glitched. The racers and the citizens couldn't do anything but watch with shock. Vanellope tried to push Turbo off her, but he wouldn't let go. The two even struggle for the gun, but during all the confusion between the flashing, blinking lights and the glitchy codes around them, Vanellope accidentally shot Turbo in the face.

Deep inside the Code, the lifeblood of Sugar Rush designed to keep the citizens, racers and everything else in the game existing... something went terribly wrong. The giant code box which Turbo used to programmed himself in the game made spark noises, before it glowed red entirely. A chain reaction was set off; red electrical sparks quickly travel down the cords that connect nearly half of the code boxes in the darkness. The only thing that wasn't untouched was Vanellope's code box, which was still floating by its lonely self away from the others.

There was a blinding flash of light followed by a terrible high-pitched sound which made everyone avert their gaze and covered their ears. When the lights cleared, Vanellope and Turbo were nowhere to be found. It's as though they have disappeared in a blink of an eye.

"What just happened?" Candlehead asked in a little voice.

"Where's Vanellope? Did she became a real racer yet?" Adorabeezle asked, turning to Minty and Jubileena. "I... I thought the game would reset after she crossed the finish line!"

"The arcade would open very soon and there's nobody in the roster list yet!" Snowanna said.

They heard a distant booming sound in the distant. Everyone looked up to see the sky darken and to their horror, it began to glitch, as well as the surroundings around them. The candy crowd scream and run around when they saw their bodies slowly becoming unrecognizable and falling apart. Even Sour Bill was affect; when he tried to say something, all his words came out gibberish and his jelly bean hands fell off from his body.

"Quick! Let's head to the exit before it happens to us!" Minty shouted.

The racers, and a few fans who haven't been affected by the glitch yet, ran fast toward the exit tunnel on top of the rainbow bridge. The sugary world around them began to be torn apart by pixel. Anyone who wasn't lucky became mangled and either lost control of their movements or they froze, every bit of them falling apart and they're helpless to stop it.

The racers were the only ones left and they climbed up the hill, finally reaching the top. They could see the tunnel ahead of them, and the kids didn't care where it lead them. They can escape!

They ran into the exit... and they were sent flying backwards after rebounded against what it looks like shimmery veil.

"What just happened?!" Rancis demanded.

"We can't get out!" Crumbelina yelled when she touched the invisible wall, and it flashed blue and white. "We're trapped!"

"But that's impossible! It wouldn't happen unless we're glitches-" Taffyta's words were drowned out when her body collapsed to the ground, her face split in half. Everyone screamed in terror.

"Hehehellllp memeMeme!" Taffyta's mangled voice cried.

Gloyd's left arm then fell and everyone saw his eyes began to twirl around in odd circles; it doesn't look funny at all. Jubileena's body began to twitch and flash, and whenever she tried to move, she ends up in somewhere opposite.

"HEL,P I'M G-g-G-G-GL!TCH-CH-CHINnG!" Jubileena stuttered in horror. Adorabeezle stepped back to avoid her, but her lower body accidentally passed through Crumbelina and both girls couldn't pull themselves apart no matter how hard they tried.

"So this is it," Minty muttered in disbelief as she watched her friends and entire world fall apart. She looked down saw that her hands have just dislocated from the wrists. "I guess this is our karma for all our sins..."

Meanwhile, Vanellope reappeared in a flash and found herself floating in the darkness. At first, she was confused about where she was but then she remembered that she's inside the Code room of the castle. She looked down and saw that she's wearing what it looks like the white racing tracksuit that she wore based an image of herself on the old tapestry. She's even wearing a matching helmet and her red goggles.

"What's with this get up?" she asked herself.

She's looked down at her hands and saw that she's still carrying the HD gun she unintentionally took from Turbo during their scuffle. She had seen similar guns like this around sugar (mostly used by the Donut Police) but they're usually made of candy and she has never held one before. She almost dropped it when she saw what made her gasp in shock.

The Code, save for a few boxes and cords that were spared, was corrupted with a red virus-like electricity, eating away it's programming. The dark background surrounding her and the Code appeared unstable, pixels and numbers flashed viciously which would give someone a seizure of they stare too long.

"What's going on here?!" Vanellope shouted out loud. For the first time, she felt absolutely terrified. Then something whacked her from behind and sent her flying into a red code box but was then knocked back by an electrical shock from the code. Electrical waves of pain coursed through her body, it was worse than the time she was tasered. She quickly recovered and made a mental note to not touch any of the red boxes.

"Welcome to the boss level!" A distorted voice declared.

Vanellope looked up in surprise and couldn't believe who she saw. "No way..."

It was Turbo, except he looked far different; in fact, his head is now giant-sized and it's in his original 8-bit form. To make matters worse, there's a huge gaping hole where his left eye was supposed to be and he was twitching like a glitch. But his maniacal smile still remained.

"It seemed like yesterday when I saw you wearing those very same clothes... on the same time I reprogrammed this world," he said.

"What's happening to Sugar Rush, you jerkbreaker!" Vanellope demanded, trying to look intimidating. She glared at the giant Turbo's head straight in the eye while she floated in the dark void. "The game was supposed to reset when I crossed the finish line!"

Turbo's yellow eyes glowed with loathing. "Because you shot me in the face, I actually died while holding unto you, and the game couldn't reset properly because of my interference. I hadn't programmed bits of myself into the game, I would actually have died permanently Instead, I'm brought here, along with you, and the only thing that has been restored is your piece of clothing!" As he laughed, his image flashed and became fuzzy. "And now I'm stuck here in Code Limbo with no chance to go back to my true form again, so I'm gonna take everyone in Sugar Rush down with me! I should thank you making me like this... But I think it'll be more fun to kill you first~!"

Then the 8-bit head lunged at her. Vanellope pulled the gun up and shot Turbo in the face. The recoil knocked her back and made her spin in mid-air. Turbo also fell back, groaning in annoyance rather than pain. His form flickered momentarily, but he chuckled.

"What a stupid girl you are!" the head sneered her as it floated around, leaving trails of pixels behind. "You cannot kill me easily with that toy, because I'm still part of this game more or less!"

Vanellope looked around saw the giant, code box, colored dark red with the name 'King Candy' still written on it. It was far away from her reach. She gets an idea about how to defeat Turbo, but she needs to do it fast before Sugar Rush completely crashed...

She concentrated and used her glitching to swim towards the corrupted code box like a firework. She can sense Turbo advancing close behind her, and the last thing she wants is for him to catch her. When he does, it's instant game-over for her. The only things she has to worry about besides him, are the corrupted code boxes that would seriously harm her and the tangled cords that makes it a little difficult to pass through.

"Come back here, little girl!" Turbo giggled ominously. Every blue code-box that he pass through glitched at his touch and became corrupted, turning the color to red. He often muttered his "Turbo-Tastic!" catchphrase between his laughter and taunts.

Vanellope landed on one of the blue code boxes to hold her balance. She crouched down and quickly jumped to the next blue box, trying to get nearer to King Candy's code. Just think of this jumping on a platform mini-game, like the double-striped candy branches, she thought to herself. Just don't think of giant monster head chasing me!

Everyone once in a while, Vanellope had to stop to shoot Turbo, the recoil does help making her fly backwards faster but it gets annoying tired after a while. The bullets doesn't hurt him, but they can stun him enough to slow him down. His head twitched furiously and he began to growl like a wild animal.

"HAVE SOME CANDY!"

Turbo's giant, twisted mouth opened wide and began shooting the little racer with a myriad of candy-based projectiles. Vanellope tried to avoid the pixelated candies but a couple of them struck her arm and the wound in her back where Turbo had shot her earlier. She screamed in pain, and her body flashed and flickered. Luckily, her glitching had seem to give her a temporary mercy invincibility since more candies had pass through her without damaging her further. As soon her body revert to normal, Vanellope continued to leap and swim toward the giant code box with Turbo hot on her heels.

She finally arrived at the giant red box; it had cracks all across the surface and she can see the tangled mess inside. She stood on top of a blue box whose name she didn't bother to check. She balanced herself and adjusted her posture firmly so she won't be knocked over by the recoil like last time. She tried shooting at the box, but the first bullet rebounded and it missed her by an inch.

"It doesn't work!" she gasped. "What do I do now?!"

"Shoot the cords first," a faint, disembodied voice told her.

She looked around to find the unknown speaker, but there was no one else around. "Who said that?!" she squeaked.

"I'm just a friend. Listen... The cords are connected to the game. If you destroy it, Turbo won't corrupt it any further, and you can destroy the box. Save our game, Vanellope."

Vanellope took a deep breathe and aimed for the cords connected to the red code box. Without a moment's hesitation, she pulled the trigger and the blast blew apart a few threads. She heard an inhuman shriek and glanced back to see Turbo glitching, his 8-bit face contorted in pain. He advanced to her again but Vanellope glitched away and landed on another blue code box. She saw Turbo swallowed the previous box but he spat it out in disgust, but still had corrupted it. The racer wasted no time to shoot the the cords again, and jumping to the next "platform" box before Turbo goes after her.

She realized she has ran out of more safe code box jump on, and she's standing on the last one, trapped and surrounded by red sparks, blinking lights, and corrupted code. The threads for King Candy's box were almost gone, and she can finally save the game after she completely destroys the box.

She grip the gun and was about to aim for the last few cords... and then released a cry of pain. The bullet wound on her back turn began to act up and glitched. It was like being stabbed and twisted by a red-hot knife. Vanellope look down and bits of her body falling away into small pixels.

"Oh no," she whispered. Her own code is slowly falling apart too.

She heard Turbo's laughter echoing and she turned around to see Turbo floating nearby behind her, now reverted back to his original size and form. Well, not entirely. Parts of his body look like King Candy, and other parts are mostly Turbo's; he looked liked a monster created by two beings.

"Why are you fighting to save this game?" Turbo asked, snarling. "The very same one who ostracized you and tormented you for years. You should have been resentful towards those who broke your heart and hurt you, especially Taffyta and the other racers. This is your chance to make them suffer for what they've done to you!"

Vanellope glared at him. "Because YOU made them into selfish bullies,manipulated them without their memories, and mold them to become like you!"

"You don't know what it's like to be thrown away and forgotten by someone more popular!" Turbo yelled, as his form glitched in red sparks.

"I don't think stealing someone's life and reprogramming a game gives you sympathetic points!" Vanellope said as she stood her ground. "You're a bully, Turbo!"

"SHUT UP!" Turbo lunged at her and Vanellope saw his right arm is mangled and little bigger, made of mismatch pixels.

She tried to fire her gun at him but nothing happened, she had ran out of bullets. "Uh oh," she said.

Turbo slashed her chest and sent her flying backwards, making her drop the HD gun. Her back hit the giant King Candy code and her entire body glitched and twitched. Then she got rebounded by the red sparks and is now floating in mid-air, weakened and the pixels of her body are falling apart faster. She doesn't have much to live... She failed to become a playable racer again and restore Sugar Rush... It's a good thing the other racers aren't around to see her breaking down like this... She failed them too, just like she failed to save Swizzle...

Turbo stood on top of his code box and looked down at Vanellope with venomous glee. He giggled, preparing to lay the final blow on her before he fully destroys Sugar Rush.

"So long, Vanellope von Schweetz~!" he smirked. "It hasn't been a pleasure, woohoohoo! Turbo-Tastic!"

"I don't think so," a calm voice said.

A pair of kid-size arms wrap themselves around Turbo, preventing him to move or free himself. Vanellope almost fainted when who was holding him.

It was Swizzle.

"You?!" Turbo screeched.

"You still got much to learn, Turbo," Swizzle told him coldly. "I'm still part of this game and no outside weapon can permanently kill me." Then he looked at Vanellope's direction and his expression softened. "That girl means so much to me. I would do anything for her..."

Vanellope glanced at the last, lone blue code box that she stood on top of earlier and saw Swizzle's name written on it. It flickered weakly. Vanellope then remembered the previous voice she had heard earlier; Swizzle had been talking to her! She even noticed that his image looked a bit transparent and fuzzy. He's still alive in some way, but now he could not exist in the playable world. He has become some sort a 'dead code' or something.

Swizzle continued, "I remember everything now... and I know who Vanellope really is. It's so obvious, I should have seen it sooner."

"Bah, you're just a naive child!" Turbo spat. "Let me go!" He glitched and finally forced Swizzle to let go of him. However, he accidentally got himself stuck on the side of his code box. "Oh no..."

Vanellope then floated to the top of the code, while trying to avoid touching the surface, and glared at Turbo, who was trying to claw at her while still stuck. She wrapped her entire hand around the last cords.

"This... is for Swizzle!" She said as she pulled the first thread. It released a bright spark and Turbo screamed. Then she continued to pull more. "This is for Sugar Rush! This is for the racers!"

Now there are no longer cords connected to King Candy's corrupted box. However, the Code is still blink red colors and hasn't been restored yet. There's one last job to do.

Vanellope swam to face in front of the giant code box and tried to think of a way to destroy it without hurting herself. Then she heard Swizzle screamed. She turned and saw that Turbo had dislocated his upper body, leaving his lower still stuck in the code. Turbo than swam to Swizzle's untouched box and began ripping apart the cords, and his touch began corrupting the code. Soon cracks began to form in the box. Swizzle's body twitched and became more fuzzy, his expression pained and terrified. His screams were terrible.

"Swizz!" Vanellope screamed, tears now streaming down her face. She wanted to save him but then Turbo yanked her away and dragged her farther away from his code box and Swizzle.

"Oh, look! Your little boyfriend is going to die again!" Turbo pulled Vanellope's head up and forced her to watch Swizzle slowly deleting. "Let's see if he's deleted for good, shall we?"

Vanellope looked down at herself and then at Swizzle, and the giant code in the distance. Finally made her decision, she twisted, breaking free from Turbo's grasp. She used her glitching to rocket toward King Candy's code, aiming for the weakest spot where most of the cracks are linked.

"V-Vanellope! No!" Swizzle's distorted voice screamed as his pixels began to fade away. "It will cause an explosion and you might die!"

As moved toward it, she took out the heart cookie and grasped it close to her. She knew she was doomed, but she also knew she would do anything to save Swizzle and Sugar Rush. Even if it she would give up her dreams and existence...

"I will never be racer," she recited to herself. "Because I'm a glitch... and that's all I'll ever be."

Vanellope closed her eyes and braced herself for the end. Her tiny body slammed against the red code. The box cracked and it shattered into millions of piece. A glowing light filled the room, and everything began to restore to its proper programming. All the code boxes reverting back to its proper colors and Swizzle stopped flashing and flickering. Turbo screams echoed as his body disintegrated, spilling all kinds of random codes and candies everywhere like a piñata. Among them is the 1-Up Mushroom, which Turbo had pocketed from the Lost and Found box.

Swizzle recognized the green mushroom from a distant memory he had a long time ago. He quickly snatched it hurriedly reach to Vanellope's body, or what's left of her, still floating in the sea of light. She looked like she was torn in halves and bits of her were falling apart. She looked pale and she glitched in reddish codes.

He cradled her close to him and was relieved that she's still alive. He then popped the mushroom into her mouth, and her body immediately reverted back to normal; her body stopped falling apart into pixels, the wounds she received completely healed up. Vanellope's eyes widen and she gasped for air.

"Sweet mother of monkey milk!" she started to laugh. "I thought I was a goner!"

Swizzle laughed as well and pulled her into a tight hug, which she returned. Then he beamed happily at her, while he began to fade back into his code box. Vanellope held him tight, hoping he might disappear and never return to her.

"It's been a long journey, huh?" he said. "I can't wait to get to Tapper's and drink lots of root beer. I wanna forget what I saw here, hehehe... You know, if it weren't for Turbo, I wouldn't have gotten to know you like this, and experience all the times we've gone through."

"That's kinda ironic, huh?" Vanellope smirked.

"If it weren't for you," Swizzle continued, his face blushing, "I wouldn't have appreciated the joys of racing, and I would still be a spoiled little cavity-butt. You saved me, Vanellope..."

"You saved me," she said as they held hands while floating in the void. They gaze deeply into each other's eyes, not caring for anything else in the world. "You'll be okay, right? I mean, once the game is finished resetting, you'll regenerate?"

"Of course, I'll be!" The beanie-wearing racer grinned. "I'll be fine, don't worry... Just... promise me one thing."

"What is it?"

Another flash of light burst, which blinded Vanellope. She is suddenly pulled away from Swizzle's grip by an unknown force. Then she heard his distant voice.

"Don't stop being a racer, you were incredible! Promise me that we'll race side-by-side again!"

"I promise!" she replied. Then she was gone.

"Vanellope! ... Thank you for being my best friend!"

((Finally, the selfish reign of Turbo is over. Vanellope saved Sugar Rush and restored it. One more chapter to go and my fanfic will end!))