A/N: And so...

Chapter 5: A New Look

When the racers of Sugar Rush woke up from their nap they'd never been so shocked in their lives. With, perhaps, the exception of finding out Vanellope was a princess.

"Vanellope... You said we wouldn't change so much!" Taffyta gasped as she examined her new look. Taffyta was sporting pink cargo capris and a pink and white striped belly shirt. Her hair came down to her shoulders now and they'd changed out her hat for a wide headband. She had white scarf and gloves and a wide leather belt and boots. She didn't mind the outfit so much, it was trendy and in her favored pink and white. But the way she looked, the way EVERYONE looked... The way Rancis looked, she noted with a completely unfamiliar satisfaction. She shook her head and turned her attention back to Vanellope.

"But Yuni said..." Vanellope barely got out as she examined herself... "Yuni said we wouldn't change so much. She'd been through so MANY updates, I just thought..." Vanellope looked at her dramatically longer limbs. She rubbed her throat as she noticed the slight change in her voice. This... this was going to take some getting used to. She let her hands drop and jumped as she noticed her front.

"Ah geez..." Vanellope sighed. She wrapped her arms around her waist with a frustrated and worried frown.

"Well... Should we... do something?" Candlehead head asked as she fiddled with her pigtails, which were now longer and pulled forward.

"Alright... alright." Vanellope waved her hands at them to hopefully calm everyone down.

"Why... don't we take care of the Random Roster Race first, before we freak out?" Vanellope asked. That sounded sensible. If they did the race first then they could all go off and freak out about this quietly with plenty of time before the arcade opened.

"Ralph! I forgot I was going to go visit Ralph!" Vanellope thought in a panic. She looked over at the Rainbow Bridge and then back at the racers. They were all getting into their cars now. Vanellope rubbed at her, now bare, arms and sighed. She looked down at herself again.

"I'll take care of the race first." Vanellope affirmed. "I can talk to him later..." After she won the race she'd be feeling much more confident.

"Vanellope! What about the new racers?" Swizzle asked. Vanellope turned to him and found him pointing to 5 people she'd never seen before.

"What?!" Vanellope squeaked.

+++[At Tappers...]+++

"The tunnel opened and I waited a while, but she didn't come out." Ralph explained. "I thought about going in to see her, but I wasn't sure if the upgrade had actually finished."

"If the train went down the track then the upgrade definitely finished." Tapper answered.

"Well..." Felix hedged. He and Calhoun were both seated at the bar Ralph was leaning against.

"After an update the civilians were probably a little unruly. You've got to remember, she's supposed to be their leader. She probably has to take care of all the little bugs that might be in the system. Plus weren't they getting new characters? She'll need to show them the ropes." Calhoun said with a rational air.

Everyone nodded at that. Ralph had forgotten that there might be complications that needed to be taken care of.

"Think maybe I shouldn't bug her tonight?" Ralph asked after a minute of thinking about it.

"What? No way. I say we go now! See how she works under fire." Calhoun answered. She downed her beer and headed for the door.

"What?" Felix asked. "Well wait for us!" Felix and Ralph rushed out of the bar and went after her.

+++[Sugar Rush...]+++

Sgt. Calhoun, Felix, and Ralph made their way over to the stands near the finish line. The candy stands were bustling and cheering.

"Looks like they're in the middle of a race..." Calhoun commented as she examined the JumboTron. It showed several of the racers going around a tight curve in a blur. There were several small differences in the environment around them, she noticed as she looked around.

Ralph was looking at the racing list. There were twenty names on it instead of fifteen. But more interesting than that were the thumbnails of the racers. Vanellope, of course, was in the lead, so her thumbnail was the hardest to see. There was definitely a difference... It was just too small.

"Oh look! Here they come!" Felix said as he pointed down the track. Ralph stretched his neck with interest.

A familiar chocolate coated multicolored kart went barreling down the track and past the finish line. It seemed to have an amazing new gloss to it, and the edges seemed much sharper. As it slowed down a mass of familiar black hair became visible. The driver parked the car off to the side of the track.

From where Ralph stood he could on the see the back of her head but the hair, albeit much much longer and pulled back into a loose ponytail, was definitely the same black licorice glossy color. The candies were gone now. It was most certainly Vanellope.

She fiddled with something that she adjusted on her head and then stood up and got out of the kart. She turned around and...

A few more of the karts zoomed past and her hair blew back as she made her way back towards the finish line. Her confident strut and the sway of her hips, emphasized by the heels on her boots and the stiff foil skirt that just peaked out of her new elongated sweater, made all three of them take pause.

"That can't be..." Ralph started to say. Just then she seemed to spot them.

"Ralph!" Vanellope squealed and ran towards the giant of a man. Ralph barely had the presence of mind to catch as she jumped into his arms.

"You came to see the race! Didja see me win? The new cars are so awesome, they go way faster than the old ones!" Vanellope rambled as she hopped down. She spun around and pumped her fist in the air. She calmed down a bit and noticed the way the they all seemed to be looking at her.

It took her a minute to realize what was going on. The heat of the race and the new handling on the cars and the additions to the track had completely distracted her from the other parts of the upgrade. They were staring at her because of her new look. She looked down at herself and then back up at Ralph.

"So... What do you think?" She asked with a sheepish smile. She just knew her face was going a little pink, but she tried to ignore it. She did a little twirl to show off her new look.

Ralph took the time to look at her a little more closely than he was really comfortable with. She seemed to be in her late teens now. Her limbs were long and slim... He blinked and started again.

Her glossy black hair was tied back loosely with a silver foil wrapper piece and it fell almost to her knees. Instead of little hard candies littering her hair, perched atop her head were dark pink racing goggles. Her hoodie had two pockets now, it no longer had sleeves and the short pink sleeves of the t-shirt she had underneath peeked out of the arm holes, her hoodie also went down well past her hips, it held tightly to her waist with a strand of red licorice and then flared out where a stiff foil skirt held it out away from her legs. She sported the same asymmetrical leggings, but instead of ending in short black boots they ended with loose white boots that came up to nearly her knees. To finish the look it appeared that she now had white fingerless racing gloves.

"Uh..." Ralph tried. "Wow." He opened his mouth again, but nothing more seemed to want to come out.

"That's it?" Vanellope asked in a worried tone. Ralph tried to hurry to reassure her but Calhoun beat him to the punch.

"Well, you're all grown up now kid. Ya gotta give him a breather to get used to it." Calhoun explained.

"Yeah, what she said." Ralph said quickly.

"Remember, you promised you'd like me even if I looked like a stinkbrain." Vanellope reminded him in a warning tone.

"Something tells me that's NOT the reaction you'd get if he thought you looked like a stinkbrain." Felix said with a smirk. Ralph rolled his eyes at that.

"You're lookin' good kid." Ralph patted her on the head, which he noticed wasn't nearly so far down as it used to be. She was a good head or two taller than Felix now, which put her just shy of reaching his shoulders.

Vanellope squealed with delight and clung to his arm.

"We should go to Tappers and celebrate!" She exclaimed.

She said it with such conviction that really, how could they say no?

A/N: Did I really spend two whole paragraphs describing outfits? Augh. I hate doing that. Ah well, necessary evils. Anyway. I drew a little sketchy thing, which I then took a crappy picture of, and uploaded it to Deviantart. So, rather than trying to give you a link that I need to post in weird bits... If you go to deviantart and then search "Vanellope adult design sketch nekuyo" you will find it. I'm getting my new tablet sometime this week, then I will do a full color finished artwork of Vanellope's new look.

Review Response:

Malstar1000 - I actually haven't seen that show in years. But just TRY getting that out of your head now.

SlipknotGhidorah - The DDR problem was a reference to what Yuni said in a previous chapter about how it crashed after all the characters went back in after an upgrade.

BoredParanoia - You shall never be free from cliff hangers. I actually really enjoy writing chapters that way. But here. I've dropped the other shoe.