Chapter Text
There’s not enough words in the English language to accurately describe how it feels, flying into a pillar of broiling hot Coca-Cola. Even if King Candy wanted to try, Sugar Rush’s auto-censors likely wouldn’t allow him to say such colourful phrases out loud.
He should have died along with the rest of the Cy-bugs. The only plausible guess he could come to was that he had entangled himself so deeply within Sugar Rush’s code over the years that the game thought he actually belonged there. Tried to regenerate his character regardless. Keyword being tried.
When he was eventually able to open his eyes, he was hit with a searing pain so intense, it almost made him prefer not to wake up at all. His body curled up on itself, which only made everything hurt worse.
Burns, he soon realized. His body was covered in burns. Great. That’s just fantastic …
With a begrudging groan, he forced himself to unfurl in spite of the burning sensations that assaulted him with every tiny movement. The wave of relief that washed over him when he saw his bug-like attributes were all still in place was almost enough to distract him from his wounds. Almost.
If he gets out of here alive, he’ll still be a reigning terror throughout the arcade. And if not… well, at least he’ll get to enjoy this form for a little bit longer. He couldn’t help but feel bitter that he had so little time to truly enjoy it before getting toasted like a marshmallow.
In spite of his body’s aching protests, he managed to drag himself up off the ground, propping himself against a nearby rock wall. While standing upright would prove to be a bit of a challenge yet, at least he wasn’t a slumped mess in the dirt anymore. He folded and unfolded his talons a few times, testing range of motion a little bit. When it came to baring his wings, that came with a much harsher jolt of pain, causing Candy to flinch. The wings themselves, surprisingly, weren’t too badly damaged. He could flutter them just fine, though held back on trying to force himself to fly right away. Might put too much strain on them at this point… It was mainly the act of retracting and exposing them that was causing him issues. Still, for the sake of protecting them, he forced himself to draw them back within their folds, wincing again as his nerves punished him for it. After taking another moment to find his bearings, closing his eyes and taking one deep breath, he finally had a moment to really look around.
It didn’t take him long to figure out where he was.
A half-finished racetrack ran in a circle around a pool of scorching-hot, bubbling Coca-Cola, above which hung a plethora of loosely-hanging Mentos that threatened to fall in. Instinctively, his body winced back at the sight. The Cy-bug in him was enthralled by the liquid’s warm glow, but this time, his rational side was winning out, and he firmly kept his distance.
Obviously, he was inside Diet Cola Mountain. He had vaguely remembered seeing some discombobulated, unfinished shreds of coding about this location on some of his deep-dives into the game’s code hub, but had never given it much thought before now…
Now he wished he had at least taken a brief look at it, because from what he can currently see, there appear to be no exits.
Seeing the ceiling of Mentos still intact also confirmed King Candy’s most infuriating suspicion. That little brat made her way across the finish line and reset Sugar Rush. How dare she steal the throne that he worked so hard to steal!
Well, in any case, he supposed that it didn’t really matter too much. As soon as he got out of here, he could just kill the glitch himself and do as he wished with Sugar Rush, or any other game, for that matter. He’d have to remember to hunt down that bumbling barbarian, Wreck-It Ralph, while he was at it…
Alas, he was getting ahead of himself. First thing’s first, he’d have to find an exit. Then, perhaps some healing items… Unfortunately, this being a racing game that didn’t need to prioritize health items, those would be few and far between. Oh well, he’d cross that bridge when he got to it.
The first day, he spent resting. Sleep wasn’t exactly easy, given all the damage to his body, so he’d do some occasional shifting and stretching, trying to accustomize himself to the pain that came with moving around.
The second day, he started his exploration of the bonus level. His legs wouldn’t let him go far, so it was agonizingly slow, barely covering any ground at all before he had to give in to his injuries.
By the third day, he’d realized that someone used to live here. Red licorice adorned the pretzel pillars of a small, makeshift room, covered with other sorts of treats and wrappers that surrounded an angel food cake bed. It was honestly kind of pathetic-looking. But hey, at least it was something handy to eat, and if anybody came back in here for their things, he could find out where the exit was.
With each further day that passed, impatience steadily got the better of him. He’d push himself harder and harder until his legs couldn’t support his weight anymore, and when that happened, he’d just switch to his wings until those had tired out too, and he’d be forced to rest into the next day, where he’d start the cycle over again.
This was beyond rage-inducing. Somebody clearly has lived here before, there has to be an exit somewhere.
Eventually, he thought it might be easier to just eat his way through the mountain, making a tunnel to escape. One of the many perks of being part Cy-bug was their ability to consume pretty much anything, after all. Unfortunately, in trying to do so, he was unpleasantly reminded of one of the cons of his Cy-bug coding.
This mountain’s foundation was beyond delicate, and his attempt to start a tunnel resulted in several Mentos dropping into the Coca-Cola, shooting geysers of light upwards. While he could ignore the temptation of light when it was just a bubbling pool beneath him, when the glowing liquid shot upwards like that, he could not control himself, and his wings drove him unwillingly towards it. Luckily for him, these geysers were short-lived, and he was able to regain control of himself just shy of scalding to death again.
At some point, he lost track of the days. Frustration and desperation sometimes drove him to try again and again to dig a hole out of the mountain, but each time, those cursed little mini-beacons drew him away with each Mento that fell. There was even one or two times that he couldn’t stop in time to avoid getting obliterated by boiling Cola. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the game would just regenerate him properly, or let him die at that point if he was going to be trapped in here regardless, but he had no such luck either way. The game would bring him back, burned all over, stuck in this blasted mountain, each time. Not to be overdramatic, but it was really starting to pick away at his sanity.
But it didn’t stop him from trying, even if the burrowing idea was a no-go. He’d just have to keep looking for an exit. He knew there had to be one somewhere.
Every day yielded the same results. Every day, until one. One day, something had changed. There was a noise that hadn’t come from him.
He had been flying when he first heard it. Some sort of odd skittering along the ground. He’d immediately looked around, but couldn’t find a source. Landing on the ground, he withdrew his wings to silence them, wondering if he’d simply started imagining things.
Then he heard it again. A slow, steady clacking sound, somewhat similar to his own steps.
There was something else here. Something strangely familiar, even if he didn’t fully understand why or how he could recognize it at first. But, as it stepped out of the shadows, realization hit King Candy like a ton of bricks.
—
It had been far too long since Vanellope von Schweetz had checked in on the abandoned bonus level that was once her home. For as nice as it was to have a whole castle, she’d been feeling a little nostalgic for her old haunt in recent days. Sure, it was a dump, but it had been her safe place when everything was against her. And who knows, maybe they could actually do something with the bonus level one of these days, incorporate it into their race selections sometime. Either way, she wanted to take some time to herself over there, and maybe pick up a few of her old things.
The absolute last thing she’d ever expected to see was a massive, horrifying Cy-bug monstrosity laying motionless in the middle of the racetrack. And not just any Cy-bug, but a very, very distinct-looking one.
“King Candy?!” Her mouth had moved faster than her brain at that moment, and she immediately regretted her outburst when the Cy-bug startled awake at the sudden noise. His head whipped up to see an all-too-familiar blue flash glitching away from him, hiding behind one of the many pillars of peanut brittle protruding from the ground.
“Glitch.” A very irritated snarl rumbled in his throat. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m the one who should be asking that!” She shouted from behind her pillar of brittle. “You’re not supposed to be here! Why, I oughta drop you into the Cola for everything you’ve done!”
King Candy let out an annoyed snort, laying his head back down. “Get it over with, then.” He growled at her, completely unmoving. If this had been a few days ago, he would’ve jumped at the chance to kill her right then and there. But now, he just doesn't have the energy anymore.
That… was not the kind of response she’d expect out of him. She peeked around the corner, suspicious eyes locked onto the Cy-bug. Weirdly enough, he looked just about as dead outside as he sounded inside.
Very slowly, she stepped out of her hiding place, keeping a cautious eye on him. The closer she got, the easier it was to see just how thoroughly roughed-up he was. Her eyes wandered the cave for a few moments, wondering if it’d be better off to just leave while she still could, but her gaze eventually fell back to him. “... How long’ve you been down here?”
“I haven’t exactly been counting the days, glitch.”
Judging by his whole ‘stuck here’ and ‘doom-and-gloom’ attitude, he definitely didn’t seem to know about the secret entrance, otherwise they would’ve seen some sign of him wandering about by now, right? Though, come to think of it, Vanellope wasn’t sure if he could fit through that door in the first place.
Part of her was kicking herself for not glitching out of here immediately and getting Ralph to drag his ugly mug out of her game, but… at the same time, it was kind of hard to be scared of him when he looked and sounded so… defeated. She shuffled warily closer, kicking at some dirt along the way. “Kinda thought you died.”
“You don’t say. ” King Candy sneered, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Clearly, Sugar Rush had different plans.”
Vanellope’s brows furrowed at that. Why would the game be respawning him when this isn’t his original console?
She made her way further into the forgotten bonus level, giving King Candy a very wide berth, just to be safe. Sugar Rush’s reset happened over a month ago at this point, but Vanellope had been too preoccupied with her new presidential duties to check on this place until now. Had he been stuck down here that whole time?
“Surprised ya haven’t eaten the place down yet.” She remarked, noting that the walls of the cave were surprisingly intact after storing a Cy-bug for this long. “What’sa matter, not a fan of peanut brittle?”
She didn’t get much of a response aside from an irate grumble.
“Didn’t know Cy-bugs could be picky.” She commented under her breath, continuing on her little venture through the cave.
As much as King Candy tried to ignore her, her ear-grating voice was basically impossible to escape from.
“Aw man, you ate my room!” Vanellope exclaimed from around the corner, “I was gonna keep some of that stuff, y’know!”
“Oh, but of course, we can’t live without our stale angel food cake and dirty old wrappers, now can we!” He mocked back.
The glitch had poked her head back out from inside the nook that’d once been her home, giving King Candy the most completely and utterly unimpressed look she could muster. “Have you always been this much of a fartface, or do the bug bits just amplify that part?”
When the thrum of wings and a warbling Cy-bug growl arose from the former ruler’s body, Vanellope’s sarcastic jiving was quickly silenced, replaced with alarm and a readiness to glitch out of the mountain at a moment’s notice.
Mangled as he may have been, his sheer hatred of Vanellope granted King Candy enough energy to pick himself up off the ground, facing her at his full height in that moment. “You should consider yourself lucky I don’t eat you next.” He snarled at her, itching to tear her code to shreds. “Now get out of here before I make you. ”
For as beaten down as he had been, King Candy’s frankensteinian form was still utterly terrifying … for all of about five seconds. With each passing moment that he’d forced himself to stand, it got easier and easier to see just how debilitated he really was. His legs could barely support himself, and while he fought to keep from staggering, the conscious effort he had to put into not wobbling was obvious in and of itself. His wings buzzed haphazardly, not strong enough to lift him off the ground, but enough to take the burden of his full body weight off the rest of his limbs. Despite how unwell he clearly was, his growling words had still held such burning ferocity as if he could strike her down with ease.
Vanellope didn’t say a word. She simply stood up, turned tail, and glitched away.
Thinking he’d finally driven her off, he pretty much immediately had to let his body rest again, wings folding in and slumping to the ground once more. Part of him wondered if it would’ve been worth trying to see where she was coming and going from, but given the nature of her power (and all of his recent horrible luck), she was probably just glitching right through the walls, anyways. King Candy curled up in an attempt to just go back to sleep or die (again) trying, whichever came first.
Unfortunately for him, his relief was short-lived, and the sound of electricity popped back inside the mountain once again. With an exasperated groan, he lifted his head to see what she was up to, and–
–... she had plopped a Twinkie almost as big as she was down in front of him.
“Not that you deserve this, but…” Vanellope rolled the Twinkie towards him. “Here.”
King Candy did not react. Just stared at the confection with a blank look on his face. When he didn’t take the offering, she risked getting a tiny bit closer.
“For you.” She emphasized, shoving it further within his reach. She followed it up by doing a quick jazz-hands and mimicking his voice, albeit with an overdramatic gruffness, as she repeated his little catchphrase. “Have some candy! ”
The way King Candy’s face contorted with sheer puzzlement, one would think Vanellope had short-circuited his whole character interface. “... Okay.” His eyes narrowed, shifting from confusion to outright suspicion. “What’s the catch?”
Vanellope gave him such a judgmental look. “I’ll break it down real slow for ya. You get food.” She drawled out, gesturing to him, then to herself. “I get to know I didn’t let some guy starve to death in a volcano.”
‘Some guy’? She calls the best racer in the world, her attempted murderer, and former king, mind you, just ‘some guy’?
On top of that, the fact that he’d literally just threatened her and this was her response was simply incomprehensible. How did he ever get outplayed by such unfathomably moronic characters?
He stood again, taking a small gleam of pleasure in the unease that’d pass through Vanellope’s eyes every time he moved, and gave the Twinkie a hard thwack with his tail, sending it flying across the racetrack.
Vanellope watched the treat soar past her, landing with a messy plop. “Okay, first of all, rude.” She said, giving him a quick stink-eye. The bug completely ignored her, and in fact walked to the furthest-away wall and settled down with his back completely turned to her as an extra little ‘fudge you’.
Alright. So, not being picky, just downright refusing food.
Why he’d be choosing not to eat, she couldn’t understand. Why the Cy-bug coding within him didn’t drive him to eat regardless of personal choice, she understood even less. He shouldn’t be able to deny instincts embedded that strongly in his coding, should he?
“Well, somebody’s moody…” Vanellope muttered, walking over to retrieve the Twinkie once more. Despite being a little smushed up, it was still (mostly) in one piece, to her surprise. She looked King Candy’s way, back at the Twinkie, then again at King Candy. With a small huff, she picked it up again, glitched it closer to King Candy, and then glitched back to keep out of slashing reach. The buggish monstrosity didn’t seem to react at all. She took a seat where her old bed used to be, pondering on what other options she might have, here.
Technically speaking, she could heal him up quick and easy by simply borrowing Felix’s hammer. For as boring and drone-y as wedding speeches could be, hearing Sergeant Calhoun’s recounting of how she and Felix escaped the Nesquik Sand had been pretty funny. Knowing that his hammer could not only fix broken buildings and karts, but also heal wounds in an instant, was pretty darn handy.
Here, however, it didn’t feel like the safest of plans. It’s not like King Candy was the honourable type, so who’s to say he wouldn’t immediately start wreaking havoc if she got him all healed up right away? Sure, he was stuck in Diet Cola Mountain for now, but for all Vanellope knows, it’s possible he could bust his way out of the mountain if he were at full strength. Not to mention, borrowing the hammer would mean having to explain why she’d need to borrow it, which would open a whole other can of gummy worms…
Not helping King Candy at all meant he’d probably die, and if the game regenerating him is the reason he survived in the first place, then it clearly wasn’t regenerating him properly, and the cycle would just repeat over again. All things considered, it’s not like he didn’t deserve to die, and she had certainly shed no tears for him when they first thought the beacon had killed him, but knowingly leaving him here to suffer for who knows how long just felt… excessively cruel.
All of a sudden, she was struck with an idea. Whether it was a good idea or not remained to be seen.
She stood up from her place, stating, “I’ll be right back! Don’t go anywhere!” before bolting her way out of the mountain.
“As if I could?” Candy muttered to himself, mildly offended.
Oh, well. He’d just have to enjoy the brief moment of silence he’d been gifted in her absence. He closed his eyes, and despite having been sleeping for most of his recent days, it didn’t take him long to drift off once more.
-
There was something else here. Something strangely familiar, even if he didn’t fully understand why he could recognize it at first. But, as it stepped out of the shadows, realization hit King Candy like a ton of bricks.
Another Cy-bug. Not just any Cy-bug, but another hybrid at that, for King Candy could recognize the metallic silver-blue face and piercing red eyes staring him down. This villain’s game had been unplugged years ago, not long after Turbo-Time itself, and its only sentient character had died along with it. Or so everybody had assumed. Considering his own history of going into hiding after a presumed death, perhaps King Candy shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was.
“Sinistar. ” King Candy blurted out. “What are you doing here?”
“You of all characters should understand,” Sinistar’s garbling speech hissed back. He began to circle around him, recounting the recent catastrophic events of Sugar Rush that’d made its gossip rounds throughout the arcade. “Game-jumper Turbo, hiding in plain sight, attaching himself to a new system… Very clever of you. You had the whole arcade fooled.”
Sinistar, like most of the other arcade characters, was far more intelligent than his game’s limited system could convey, but after so many years, it was a bit jarring to hear more than just ‘Run run, beware coward, I live!’ on a constant loop during the work day. Regardless, King Candy recognized hostility when he heard it, and despite having his own lovely Cy-bug strength, being as injured as he currently was left him in a very disadvantaged position. Still, he did his best to stand firm, watching Sinistar like a hawk. “Yes, I know. I was there.” He responded dryly, talons at the ready. “That doesn’t answer my question in the slightest.”
A robotic chuckle came from the other bug, tilting its metallic head at him. “When I heard about what you turned into … why, I couldn’t resist.” Eyes went narrow, silver fangs gleaming in the lava glow. “This form is far less limiting.”
King Candy finally started putting the pieces together. How Sinistar would’ve managed to sneak into Hero’s Duty, he had no idea, but it was clear he’d gotten himself eaten by a Cy-bug on purpose. In that split moment Candy took to sink that information in, Sinistar pounced, catching claws into his burns. King Candy shouted in pain and anger before ramming the other bug into the cave walls, forcing him to let go. The next time his opponent lunged, King Candy blocked the strike with his talons, locking Sinistar in place for a few moments. Injured as he may have been, he wasn’t going to make this easy for this tacky little spaceship. “Why are you here? ” King Candy demanded again to know. “Here, in an empty racetrack of a game that has nothing to do with you? ”
“The other characters are so fragile, Turbo. They drop like pathetic little flies.” Sinistar droned, gnashing his fangs, “I want to test my new power on someone who won’t break so easily. Is that too much to ask?”
Sinistar broke out of Candy’s grip, taking cheap shots at his burns once again, before pinning him down. “At least I know you will put up a fight. ”
-
King Candy was awoken from his slumber by what was becoming an annoyingly familiar sound of jittery code as Vanellope glitched her way back into the mountain. Still, as annoying as it was, he supposed it was better than the alternative scenario his brain was still taunting him with…
“Tah-dah!” Vanellope exclaimed, proudly lifting up an odd-looking box in the air. It certainly didn’t fit the aesthetic of Sugar Rush, instead having a high-tech, futuristic kind of look, with dark gray-green colours.
“... Am I supposed to know what that is?” King Candy jeered at her.
“It’s a heal kit! I snuck it outta Hero’s Duty!” It took all of her willpower to not make more ‘doodie’ jokes every time that game gets brought up, but somehow she managed to hold her tongue in that regard. This time. “Now, let’s see, here…”
As she got closer, eyeing his wounds, King Candy’s body instinctively twitched away from her. (He would never admit to it being a flinch. Of course not. A little twitch, nothing more.)
Still, upon seeing that, Vanellope took pause. It was so bizarre, seeing him like this... “Yeesh, I ain’t gonna hurtcha.” She stated, adding on with the smallest touch of bitterness, “It’s not like I’m you.”
For that, King Candy had no snarky response, or any response at all, for that matter. Perhaps that past Sinistar attack left him feeling a bit more on edge than he initially thought. She is a literal child, and he is a Cy-bug hybrid, she probably couldn’t do much to him anyways. Even so, the thought of being touched by anybody right now left him feeling… not Turbo-tastic, that’s for sure.
That being said, he wasn’t left with many options, and frankly, not being in excruciating pain sounded pretty nice right about now. In spite of every murderous thought within him that’d find far much more enjoyment in obliterating her, he forced himself to settle down enough so that she could safely approach. If this infuriating glitch wouldn’t leave him alone, he might as well get something out of it.
Vanellope sat down next to him, deciding to start on his legs first, and opened up the heal kit. She knew she’d likely need several to get all of his wounds treated, and hopefully the constant game-jumping trips and slower healing process would buy her some time to figure out what in the Hi-Chew heck she was going to do about this whole ‘murderous tyrant still being alive in her game’ situation.
As she worked on him, Vanellope couldn’t help but notice that not all of these injuries looked like burns… some looked more like slashes, or maybe bites…? But before she could ask, she was distracted from her thoughts by an offhand comment made by the Cy-bug.
“I don’t get what you could possibly be gaining out of this.” King Candy commented, confusion getting the better out of him. “Why go through the trouble?”
“Yeah, see, it’s this cool little thing called ‘having a conscience’.” Vanellope deadpanned as she worked. “Guess you missed out on that add-on from the mods.”
Well… he had no real retort for that.
The pair of them fell into a somewhat tense silence, and it was easy to see how on edge Vanellope was, being this close. She kept eyeing his talons as though to make sure she could avoid it if he’d tried to strike her, glitching ever so slightly if he’d made even the smallest of moves just to reposition himself. And yet, as uncomfortable as she was, she kept applying heals to him, foolish as it all seemed.
Now it was King Candy’s turn to be hit with an idea, although this one definitely was no good. Not for Vanellope, anyways.
He knew she wasn’t outright stupid. She was, however, at least a little bit naive if she thought that whipping out an old Twinkie and some dinky little heal kit would chip away at any of the lingering hatred he held for her and that dimwitted oaf friend of hers.
But a little bit of naivety is all he’d need. He could definitely work with this.
Maybe, just maybe, this glitch could still be of use to him yet.
To Vanellope’s surprise, King Candy had finally reached for the Twinkie she’d brought for him, plucking it up with his claws. She raised a curious eyebrow at him, and he merely gave a shrug in response. “Waste not, want not.”