A.N. Hi guys! I'm back! I apologize for the lengthy wait. I wanted to take some time off, but then this story began beckoning to me. I didn't really want to end this story, but I feel like there isn't very much more I could go into. So this is the concluding chapter. I really hope all of my readers have liked this, because I know for sure that I liked writing it. In fact, this is probably one of my favorite pieces that I've put on this site. So without further ado, I invite you to read, review, follow, favorite, and above all, enjoy this. Oh, and please remember, I DO NOT OWN WRECK IT RALPH! Thank you! Have a good day!
If King Candy thought that there was anything in any way, shape, or form fun about the dungeon he'd locked Vanellope up in, she seriously thought there was something wrong with his brain.
The only thing that she might consider sweet about her location was the sugar cube she was sitting on in the middle of the circular cell, and even that had its downsides. For one thing, it was incredibly hard and created a pain in her backside. There was no clock on the wall, so she couldn't tell how long she'd been down there, but from the way the pain in her backside had gone to a dull throbbing and her muscles were beginning to stiffen up from lack of use, she felt it had been hours. But even if the round lock around her waist that was chained to all the walls around her hadn't been there, she doubted she would have tried to get up. She felt like she wanted to fall on the floor and never get up again. Instead of squirming around in a desperate effort to get comfortable, she was staring blankly down at the floor. She refused to gaze up because she didn't want to see the paintings on the walls. They had all been made to look sad, but she felt that the clowns and circus animals were looking down at her tauntingly, the words in their little speech bubbles written to mock her.
Her eyes begged to be closed, and she blinked rapidly to somewhat comfort them, but she refused to give in and close her eyes fully. Every time she did so, she could vividly remember what had happened in the bakery. It was as though it was still going on; she could see the flames eating up her cart, she could hear her own tormented screams and the uncaring blaze, and she could feel King Candy's iron grip on her head and eyelids, forcing her to watch the result of her resistance.
The tears sliding silently down her cheeks were unstoppable. To be fair though, she hadn't really tried, and she honestly had no desire to. She considered them part of her mourning process.
The thing that really discouraged her was that everything bad that had happened to her was the result of something else good that had happened. It was as though she was forever being punished instead of rewarded. How could she be strong and fight for what her code was telling her to believe if that was the case?
She suddenly heard the sounds of locks being opened and the squeal of hinges that needed oiling, but didn't take her gaze off of the floor. "It's probably just one of the cops coming to bring me some food," she thought to herself. "They may keep me in here unable to do anything, but at least they keep me fed. At least I'm alive."
So she ignored the sound of the footsteps walking down the dark tunnel in front of her, planning to refuse acknowledging whoever it was that was coming.
"Hoo hoo! Are we having fun yet Glitch?"
That voice. It was the one voice Vanellope had not been expecting to hear, and the one she really didn't want to hear. Her entire body tensed up, and she made no motion to make it seem like she'd heard it. She couldn't smell anything that didn't smell like the fungeon, so she got the feeling the person in front of her hadn't come to bring her food. She hoped he just planned on gloating for a little while and then getting bored and leaving.
King Candy walked forward so he was so close that Vanellope could see his shoes. "Oh, that's right; you don't go by that name. You call yourself a Flash."
Vanellope's body stiffened up even more. Her body and sight turned blue from disbelief. It was the first time that King Candy had actually called her a Flash. But instead of being happy about it, she found she hated him even more for it. She had given up calling what she could do flashing, as every time she heard or thought that word it reminded her of her destroyed first cart and made her feel worse. Keeping her eyes trained on the floor, she tried to tune out the monster in front of her. His words began to turn into a babble of nonsense, but the instant he began calling her a glitch again, she found his words impossible to ignore. Even though she felt hopeless, she still hated the term and refused to call herself a glitch. She could still feel that King Candy and the other racers were wrong about her.
"I bet you wish you could leave, don't you?" King Candy continued speaking as if he hadn't noticed that Vanellope wasn't looking at him. "You gave me quite a run for my money, you know. I was almost concerned that you were going to get away with what you'd done."
Suddenly Vanellope felt a nervous lump forming inside her throat. She had thought she'd be able to handle the king's gloating, but the shame building up inside of her told her otherwise. "Get out," she barely managed to mutter under her breath, still staring only at the floor.
But now it was King Candy that was acting as if he hadn't heard her. "But see, the reason I wasn't concerned is because I wasn't about to allow myself to lose to a glitch. I don't take kindly to losing. I always win."
His threatening tone suddenly turned from dark and sinister to light and taunting. "It's a shame you'll never know what it feels like to win," he sighed, placing his hand on her shoulder and gripping it so tightly that she could feel his nails digging into her skin. "How does it feel to know that you will always be a loser, Glitch?"
Vanellope knew that he was baiting her, intentionally trying to make her snap, but she couldn't stop herself from mumbling, "Get out," again. This time it was the tiniest bit louder but again, she was ignored.
"I bet you thought I was going to change my mind about you when I saw you with that precious cart," he continued, wallowing in Vanellope's discomfort and his own pride. "You probably thought that if you somehow managed to learn how to drive, it would change our opinion of you. But you were wrong Vanellope. You will always be a pesky little glitch that causes trouble and problems for everybody."
That was when King Candy got what he'd been looking for: a reaction. "I SAID GET OUT!" Vanellope suddenly screamed. Her shrill words echoed around the small cell and rang in her eardrums, and she finally jerked her head up and glared at him with wet eyes filled with all the hatred and pain that the day had allowed her to build up. Her entire face was now soaked. As her head jerked up, she tried to jerk her body back and out of King Candy's grip. As she did so, her entire body shuddered and she felt the symptoms of what she used to call a flash. She still saw blue, but like the last time she'd flashed by King Candy, she saw little pixels of red as well. But by the time she was back to normal and successfully wrenched free from King Candy's grip, it was all gone. Luckily her sweater protected her skin from getting scratched and bloody, but the sensation of his fingernails being pushed down her arm made it sting.
As she brought her opposite hand up to rub it gently, King Candy sneered, obviously not bothered by her outburst. "Oh, I heard you, Glitch. But you're not the ruler of this game; I am. That means you have to listen to me, which is something you don't seem very good at doing."
Vanellope knew she wasn't good at listening to him, but that was because she chose not to. It was a conscious decision she made, and before her cart had been incinerated, she hadn't regretted it. Now she wasn't so sure what she wanted to do in the future. If she didn't listen to him, she could continue to fight against him and try to get into a race so she could do what she felt in her code she was meant to do, with the risk of getting caught and punished again. If she did listen to him, she would be safe, but she would live her life unhappily, never getting the chance to reach her potential. Was she willing to give up her fight? She couldn't live safe from his wrath and strive to become a racer. She had to decide what she was more willing to give up: her security and safety, or her dream.
"I don't understand," she finally gasped out, needing time to think everything through, but knowing King Candy would not give it to her. "If I can't bake a cart, I can't race, and I can't leave the game, then what's my purpose?"
She watched as King Candy paused at her words, and immediately she knew, from that pause, what he was about to say. Just as he started to open his mouth, she interrupted him, not wanting to hear the words. "Oh no. Don't you dare say I don't have a purpose in this game! Don't you DARE!"
"Vanellope, glitches are mistakes that programmers make that are not dealt with and are forgotten about. They are not meant to exist, and therefore, they have no purpose."
"No, it's not true! I'm a racer; I can feel it in my code!" In the end it all came down to those two final sentences, and as she spoke them, Vanellope felt a sudden spark inside. She wasn't going to give up and listen to anybody who believed she wasn't meant to do anything. There were a lot of things that she could deny, but her code was not one of them. The idea that the intricate combination of letters and numbers that made her who she was wasn't supposed to exist was inconceivable. She wasn't a mistake; she was unique. She didn't just enjoy the idea of racing; it really was a part of her that she couldn't get rid of. She could not deny that it was built inside of her. All the times she'd quivered with excitement and felt truly alive and full of purpose had been when she'd been thinking about getting the chance to partake in the ritual. That couldn't be a coincidence or a mistake. And reminding herself that she wasn't a mistake helped build Vanellope up just enough to feel good about herself again. Her life wouldn't be safe, but at least it would be a heck of a lot more enjoyable.
But King Candy did not share her feelings. His face darkened and his eyes sparked up like lightning strikes. His shouted words came out in a boom like thunder and the combination turned him into a thunderstorm of rage. "I told you that you are a glitch, and that's all you'll ever be!"
In that moment, as he raised his fists in rage, Vanellope saw her method of escape and it gave her another pinch of confidence, even though what she planned to do was incredibly dangerous. Hanging around the king's neck as the pendant on a candy necklace hidden underneath his bow tie, was a single shiny golden key.
In the seconds that followed, everything that happened occurred so quickly that if anybody had watched, they probably would have missed some of the events. King Candy brought down his fists, and as soon as they were away from his face, Vanellope lunged forward. Seeing the key had cleared her head and rejuvenated her muscles, and she stretched out one arm to grab the key's chain. As soon as she had it in a firm grip, she pulled so hard that even she became slightly amazed by her strength. King Candy was pulled down in a bending position, and the candy necklace broke, scattering assorted hard candies on the floor. But because the key was tied to the chain, it stayed firmly in Vanellope's grip. She then kicked the vulnerable king, sending him backwards. Not expecting the attack, King Candy's feet skidded and slipped on the mess and he ended up flying backwards a considerable distance from Vanellope. Finally he fell backwards and hit his head, which allowed Vanellope to stick the key into the lock and open the padlock. King Candy eventually managed to sit up, but the seconds it took him were the ones that counted. By the time he got to his feet again Vanellope was giving him a curtsy laced with as much taunting as his words to her had been and crowing, "Sayonara King Cavity!" As Vanellope disappeared in a flicker of blue, she left behind the sounds of the now empty chains clattering to the ground, screaming of freedom, and King Candy's insane roar of, "GLITCH!" It really was unnecessary. He was too late.
When Vanellope rematerialized, she was back in the junkyard and luckily, the other racers were no longer around. Though her glitching hadn't used up much energy, she found herself panting and feeling winded. There was no way that anybody would come here to chase after her. Nobody, not even Vanellope, had known that she would end up where she was. So she was safe. For now.
Thinking those words, she suddenly paused, taking a moment to let them sink in. She was safe. Her chuckles of disbelief began slowly, but very quickly she was whooping, hollering, and laughing as she jumped and glitched around in celebration. Her dance made her look insane, but it was a different kind of insanity from what King Candy had just shown. This was an insane kind of joy. She was safe, and that was a wonderful miracle.
She thought she would be able to keep on dancing forever, but the exhaustion that eventually overtook her proved her wrong. She bent down and started to pant again, slowly trying to get her breath back so she could start again. As she waited, she glanced around the junkyard and as she did so, her gaze fell on something nearby. Straightening up, she walked slowly up to the unmoving object, which turned out to be a trash can. It seemed fitting, considering where Vanellope was, so if it hadn't been for what she saw when she peeked inside, she absolutely wouldn't have continued being interested in it.
The ashes of what had once promised possibilities sat in unattractive piles at the bottom of the can. Black and grey stood out in the worst way in the cheery game that was made up of bright colors everywhere. Though the burning had stopped and there was no smoke, its scent burned in Vanellope's nose as strongly as it had when she'd witnessed the execution.
Her throat seemed to close up, and she forced herself to swallow the invisible lump inside it as she reached down and scooped up a handful of ash. It fell through her fingers and back into the trash can as though her hand was a sieve and she watched it silently. This told her what she should have already known: The Flash was not fixable.
Silently she stood staring down into the trash can, but then suddenly she lifted her head. The sombre expression on her face slipped away, and a blank look took its place. It was the sort of look that told others that you'd magically been given a thought that you never saw coming. It took a couple of minutes for her to read it through her mind and register it, and finally once that was complete, a smile crept up her face. It stayed there as she picked up the trash can and began walking away with it.
She knew what she had to do to finish her mourning and move on…
"…So I know we never actually got to race together, but just by looking at you, I knew you would be an incredible kart."
Alone and back in Diet Cola Mountain, Vanellope stood gazing down at her handiwork. It had taken a lot of time, but she'd successfully managed to dig a rectangular hole in the ground with her bare hands, which she'd then buried The Flash's remains in. At the head of the mound that served as a grave was a jawbreaker. The Flash: A Great Kart Sacrificed for the Rebellion had been painstakingly carved into it, turning it into a tombstone.
"But you were taken away from me. And the truth is, I can't follow the orders of somebody who wants to take away what makes me happy. I considered it after you were burned, and I was at my lowest, but now I realize that while it is a safe decision, it's not one that would help me feel good about myself." After this realization, Vanellope took a deep breath in and out, trying to sound brave and confident. What she was saying wasn't easy, (the way she was rubbing her hands was proof enough of that) but in her head she kept reminding herself that it was all for the better.
"So I'm going to keep trying to race. Not right away; I need to try to turn this place into a more liveable environment, give my leg some time to heal, and see what kinds of security measures King Candy adds to the bakery and the tracks. But I'm not going to give up. I can't. I know that life is gonna be lonely, and sometimes I'm going to want to give up but it's all worth it. I need to be able to race."
The inside of her chest seemed to warm up, as if her code was agreeing with her, and Vanellope felt lighter than before. Even her burnt leg suddenly felt considerably better. She knew that everything that happened to her from here on out was only going to make her skin thicker and herself stronger. She would learn how to stand and fight on her own.
"So in conclusion, wish me luck Flash. I'll sure miss you." Vanellope took one step back and lifted her arm to give a soldier's salute to the fallen martyr and her only true companion. As if on cue, some Mentos broke apart from the stalactite structures above the scene and fell into the hot springs, producing tall explosions. This time the broiling droplets from the geysers avoided Vanellope and she was able to stay where she was and observe the glorious sight. Then, with the show and funeral concluded, she dropped her arm and turned around, ready to set to work and thinking of the many rewards that she would hopefully soon be reaping.
As for receiving the opposite and being punished, so long as she stayed strong and kept one step ahead of King Candy and his crew of goons, she figured that wouldn't be a problem.
End