New Home

This is, without a doubt, my least favorite part of the day! Vanellope thought to herself. Not the Random Roster Race, of course; that was fun, as is the time afterwards when she can just hang out with Ralph, Felix and Calhoun. No, the part she disliked the most was the waiting, the time in between when the arcade closed and when the race starts. Of course, she could always decide to just start it right away, but she just couldn't do so without her friends there, it just wouldn't be as much fun.

Of course, this waiting would be a lot more tolerable if she could just get out of here in the meantime, but that jerk Turbo fixed that. When he invaded her game, he took her place (and her cart, that jerkface!) and tried to delete her code. Even though he wasn't able to completely erase her, his efforts to do so had damaged her memory and turned her into a glitch.

Of course, when she won that Random Roster Race with the kart that Ralph helped her build, the game's reset was supposed to restore the proper code of everything that originated within it. However, even though it did restore her code as a princess and a racer, apparently the damage Turbo had done to her memory and her glitchiness was beyond the capability of a mere reset.

As she wasn't the kind of person who wanted other feeling sorry for her, she played up that she was keeping her glitch powers of her own free will. Of course, while she did like the abilities that her glitch status afforded her, the fact that the barrier still wouldn't let her through kind of stunk.

To cover up the fact that she couldn't leave, when she was asked to be Calhoun's maid of honor, she had their church built here. You couldn't even tell that it was made of candy (of course, the furnishings brought in from outside helped). Later, she'd divert their attention in various ways: giving them a full tour of her castle (that took about 3 weeks), having them help repair her kart, asking about their days, and so on.

The worst part of the situation she was stuck in was that it was so lonely and boring! She had went from living alone in Cola Mountain to living practically alone in a castle! Sure she had servants that worked there (who still refused to not call her "princess" or "you're highness"), but it just wasn't the same as living near friends and family, and Sour Bill was not good company at all! Furthermore, the main reason she'd instituted the position of president was that she'd hoped that someone would take her place in this castle and that she'd be able to move into the village and be surrounded by other people. The problem was that no one wanted to vote her out of office! What's a girl have to do, act like a tyrant like King Candy?

Oh well, maybe one day Mr. Litwak won't be able to repair the damage that the players cause to Felix's game and would place it out of order for good. Not that she really wanted something bad like that to happen: after all, Ralph has an important job to do there, and he's finally enjoying it! However, she knows as well as anyone just how old that game is, and she imagines that certain parts are getting hard to find for it, and if the game ever got unplugged, then she could invite the displaced Nicelanders, including Ralph and Felix, to come and live with her in the castle instead.

Vanellope sighed. It'd probably be easier and much more satisfying if she could figure out her glitch problem instead. She was tired of being on the outside, looking in. She didn't just want to invite others into her home, she wanted to go out and visit theirs. She wanted to go and visit the Mushroom Kingdom and to see an alien world up close. She wanted to see the place where Ralph and Felix lived. She wanted to live with a real family, darn it!

As she was deep in thought, Sour Bill came in and announced dully, "Your Highn….I mean Madame President, an incoming tram from Game Central Station has been reported."

About time! Vanellope thought excitedly. Out loud, she said, "Get the word out to the others that the Random Roster Race will soon commence!"

"As you wish," Sour Bill replied as he left.

As Vanellope hurried down to where she kept the kart she now used frequently, she thought of how this day was about to get so much better.

Elsewhere, deep within the game's code, some random bits and bytes leaked out of the CPU's Recycle Bin. These pieces of code grouped together in an amorphous blob that at first had no set appearance but appeared to be a sickly red in color. However, as more and more was pulled from the bin, a face became apparent: an evil looking face wearing a crown.

End of chapter