The biggest threat—the princess— is out of the way. She's no longer the ruler of this game—he is. And he intends to keep it that way.
Turbo grits his teeth as he pushes her character box away and into the void. He'd really rather prefer it if he could just delete her all together, but the entire game is practically based around her (the first part of it, anyways), and deleting her runs the very high possibility of getting the game unplugged, leaving all his hard work for nothing.
No. All he can do is strip her of her titles, throw her to the bottom of the hierarchy. Can't do much if she's ranked below everyone else as a 'glitch'. He can't help but grin at the sight of the girl's character box hurdling into the darkness, before it's swallowed up and gone from sight.
He watches it until it's gone for good, vanished from sight, and when he's satisfied he turns his gaze to another character box, the grin slipping off his face. As big as a threat the girl is to him, this one may very well be bigger.
Turbo had done his research on this boy—what was his name? Ovalgourd or something? Whatever it was, he hails from the unlockable kingdom (which, fortunately, isn't anymore, but that's neither here nor there) that lies on the other side of the map. Turbo isn't entirely sure why the developers decided to have him in the main kingdom and not his own (perhaps the boy was visiting for diplomatic purposes?) , but he's here now, and Turbo will ensure that he does not— will not—remember his kingdom.
Turbo taps the boy's character box, and an array of options pops up. He flicks through them, muttering to himself, until he reaches the memory box.
He's aware that what he's about to do is very dangerous—tampering with memories always is. Sure, he'd locked away the memories of the citizens and the racers, but that's different. It was a mass wipeout, and no harm can be done if there is no one to remember the way things should be.
But messing with a specific character's memory? That is risky. If he accidentally locks up a wrong memory, who knows what will happen? Nothing good, at any rate.
He focuses intently on his task, painstakingly picking out any memories that have to do with the boy's backstory and his kingdom. He carefully pries them out, and they ripple and materialize into the physical world.
Cradling them in one arm, Turbo pulls up a decently sized chest from his belt. He unclasps its lock, before placing the memories inside, closing the lid, and locking it tightly with significantly more chains than the one that houses everyone's memories.
(He knows that he's being ridiculously careful, but it was better to be safe rather than sorry. He's learned from his last mistakes.)
He debates his choices, for a moment, before calling out, "Sour Bill! I'm entrusting you with a very important chest! You are not to speak of it or open it at all!"
At the grunt of acknowledgment, Turbo grins again, and opens the sour ball's inventory. He drags the chest's icon over from his own inventory to the sour ball's, and the corners of his mouth curl up into a pleased smirk as the small chest in his grip dematerializes into bits of code. He knows it's appeared in Sour Bill's inventory, if the flashing icon that appears in it is anything to go by.
He does one last thorough check, before tugging on the rope secured tightly around his waist. The grin on his face only widens as he's pulled out of the code room, the many boxes of code gradually growing smaller and smaller.
Turbo can't help it. He waves to them, for fun's sake.
0-0-0-0-0-0
"I'm bored," Vanellope complains, sighing tiredly as she rolls to a stop, just a bit away from the finish line. Swizzle pulls up slowly next to her, giving her a look as he leans out the side of his kart.
"Well, sorry that the track isn't entertaining enough for you, your highness." He punctuates the words playfully, a cheeky grin stretching across his face. Vanellope makes a face.
"It's—it's not that!" she protests. "It's just—I dunno, the tracks are getting—boring, I guess. Predictable." She sighs, leans back in her seat, observing the cotton Candy clouds lazily drifting in the sky. "I feel like there's more, I guess. In a way. I dunno. It's stupid."
Swizzle says nothing, and it makes Vanellope remember why she never goes to him to talk. She grimaces, absently fiddling with the strings of her hoodie. A particularly funny shaped cloud—it sort of looks like an oddly shaped pumpkin, one of its sides more squished than the other, and its stem slowly disconnecting from its body—drifts by overhead. She stares after it until it vanishes from sight, and it's only then does she crane her head to face Swizzle. A rather bemused expression is plastered onto his face.
"Aww, c'mon!" She sits upright in her seat, her tone almost pleading, in a way. "You're telling me you've never ever once felt like this?"
The green-haired boy shrugs nonchalantly, but the slight frown on his face betrays him. "I dunno. Maybe. Kinda." He motions with his hand vaguely. "I mean, sometimes, I guess? Not as strong as whatever you're feeling, and it only really happens after we complete, like, a race or something."
"Like there's a continuation," she offers.
"Sure," he absently agrees. "Let's go with that." And the frown deepens a little bit. "Why're you asking?"
Vanellope shrugs. "I dunno. Random thought, since I gotta do maintenance in the code room."
"Ahh." Swizzle nods at her, the frown fading into something like a grin. "Lemme know if you find anything."
"I won't. The game reset after I crossed the finish line, remembers? G'doi." She sticks her tongue out at him.
He shrugs again. "You never know. Maybe Turbo hid a few extra things."
"Extra things that didn't get revealed when I reset the game?"
"I'm just saying!"
Vanellope snorts, revving up her kart. "Well, it's stupid. Later!" And with that she speeds off, leaving Swizzle behind in a cloud of dust.
0-0-0-0-0-0
"Are you sure about this, your highness?"
"Sure I'm sure." Vanellope swallows, readjusting the rope secured tightly around her waist. "I'm the president, aren't I? I gotta check to see if the code is fudged."
If Turbo left any gifts behind, is left unsaid.
"Be careful." Sour Bill's tone is monotonous, despite his words of caution. But Vanellope knows he does genuinely care, and she flashes a grin at him. He nods in acknowledgment, and she turns back to the code room, sucks in a breath, and jumps in.
The code room is very dark, nothing but the glow of the code boxes filling the space. It's oddly comforting and yet foreign all at the same time, and the president closes her eyes and sighs, collecting herself before moving on.
She really, really hates messing with code, good intentions or not.
Vanellope shakes her head lightly, pushing those thoughts aside. Whatever. She can do this. She needs to do this.
Still, her hands tremble ever so slightly as she flicks through the coding of the citizens. She wonders if they can feel her looking at their coding.
Nothing out of the ordinary, she notes, so she closes the last box and pushes it aside as she floats on. She supposes she should check the background too, just to make sure it's running up to standard.
(She's putting off checking the racers' code. She knows this. But it's not like she's blowing off examining them. She's just. . . Saving them for last is all.)
She sighs, once again brushing her thoughts aside and forcing herself to focus on the task at hand. The sooner she gets out of here, the better off she'll be.
After a through inspection, no signs of defection can be found, and while Vanellope is happy about this—less work for her!—she can't help the dread that pools in her stomach as she turns to the racers' codes.
She swallows, steeling her nerve, and she gently pulls one of the racer code boxes closer to her. Ahh, it's Adorabeezle. The blue-haired girl was always rather sweet, even when she ostracized the now president.
Just as Vanellope is about to tap into Adorabeezle's code, a rather peculiar code box catches her attention.
She blinks, baffled, and pushes Adorabeezle's code box away, moving towards the mysterious box.
It's unlabeled, she notices, and it feels different, looks different, than any other Sugar Rush coding she's ever seen.
She hesitates, for a moment. Should she touch it? It's more than likely something Turbo tampered with, but it doesn't make sense. . . Everything reset after she crossed the finish line, so why is this still here?
Unless he added it to the game. For good.
Vanellope frowns thoughtfully. It can't be a virus then, right? There's no way Turbo would ever dream of adding a virus into Sugar Rush because of the risk of being unplugged. So it's safe to open it.
Right?
She sucks in a rattling breath, reaching out an extremely tentative hand towards the box. There can't be anything too dangerous about it; probably just something to keep Turbo on top.
She opens the code box.
And blinks.
And blinks again.
Well, it most certainly isn't a virus, at least.
A tug pulls at Vanellope's lips as she leans in to take a closer look. It's beautiful coding, she begrudgingly admits. A lot of effort was cleverly put into making it.
But why was it made? she wonders. Why did Turbo feel like he had to make this?
She stumbles upon the answer soon enough, and her frown only deepens.
It's a second kingdom, she notes, that's some ways away, on the other side of the map. And Turbo, for some reason, had sealed it off. Probably because it threatened him and his takeover of the game.
"Hey, Sour Bill?" she calls, not once taking her eyes off of the peculiar code. "Did—uh, did King Candy ever, y'know, tell you anything about a—a second kingdom?"
". . . Doesn't ring a bell, no."
Vanellope sighs. She supposes it makes sense; the fewer people that knew about the second kingdom, the less likely it would resurface. And Turbo seemingly couldn't trust anybody with this information, not even Sour Bill.
She tugs on the rope, closes the box, and before she knows it she's being pulled out of the game room, the tangle of wires that connect everything and everyone shrinking out of view. She blinks, grimaces, as she lands unsteadily on her feet; coming out of the code room was never a pleasant time.
She continues to stare at the code room, even after the door has closed. The rope is still tied around her waist.
"Your highness?" Sour Bill's perpetual frown deepens a bit at the president's strange behavior. His end of the rope is still in his hands.
"Sour Bill," she says, her voice steely, "I need you to round up the racers. Something—something's come up." She fumbled with the knot secured around her waist, if only to give her something to do. It falls to the floor, and the sour ball scoops it up in his arms, giving the president a baffled look. She turns to him, her lips pressed into a line, and continues, "Something big."