Chapter 1- The Past Can Hurt

"ITS AROUND GUMMY BEAR CANYON AND ONTO THE NEXT LAP!" yelled the overly excited Sugar Rush announcer as he watched the daily. Vanellope and Taffyta were neck and neck, as usual as they made the final miles to the finish line. Vanellope could hear the sweet calls of victory coming nearer but Taffyta had other plans.

"Okay, Ms. SCCCCHWEETZ!" Taffyta laughed as she eased up on the gas, surprisingly slowing down Pink Lighting "Let's see ya get outta this one!"

Vanellope made a quick glance towards her mirror, shocked to see that Taffyta was slowing down. She then smirked; that Taffy. It had to be a trick. It always was. Vanellope looked at her race gauge beside her, noticing she only had one more glitch star left before her kart couldn't take it anymore.

That was one of the disadvantages of glitching; while she could glitch herself and a person anywhere she wanted, her powers were a bit too much for some of the karts in Sugar Rush, especially when they were already under so much stress during the races. One too many glitches and boom! Something would come apart so Vanellope learned to time her powers just right to use to her advantage as not to use them up and cost her the race.

This was one of those moments and she was planning on using it wisely.

Vanellope swerved to the right, blocking Taffyta from coming up beside her and was prepared to make the inevitable left swerve but Taffyta remained still.

"What is she thinkin'?" Vanellope thought to herself, trying her best to keep her eyes on both the road and her challenger behind her. Taffyta on the other hand knew exactly what she was doing. Thanks to the randomness of the game, power-ups would be placed in different points of the track to add to the challenge of the game and unbeknownst to Vanellope, Taffyta saw on coming up with her name on it….

On the ceiling.

"Good thing I've been talkin' ta Sonic!" Taffyta said to herself "Without his help, I would have NEVER learned this move!"

Taffyta then speed up gently but began to ease her kart onto the circular curve of the wall around her, crawling her way ONTO the wall! Vanellope gasped in shock once she noticed Taffyta actually beside her on the wall.

"Hey Taff? Might wanna check them tires! Ya might have something sticky in the grooves!" Vanellope laughed as she began to speed up towards the exit of the tunnel.

"Thanks for the warning, Prince-es-ident!" Taffyta laughed as she too hit the gas "But my tires are just fine!"

Vanellope was still focused at the end of the tunnel that the power up didn't even cross her mind until she neared the end. She gave a frustrated cry as she rolled right under it, finally realizing what was happening.

"GAAAAAAH! I can't believe I missed that!"

To her great disappointment, Taffyta HADN'T missed it and at that moment the strawberry racer ran right into the power up and activated it.

SUGAR JOLT!

"YES!" Taffyta cheered to herself. A speed boost! Just what she needed!

Taffyta then managed to steer her car along safely from the ceiling of the tunnel onto the track, landing right in front of Vanellope and speeding in front of her.

"What's this?!" cried the announcer from the main stands "It seems that Taffyta has caught the lead! She was lucky enough to find that power up at the final lap but it can still be anyone's race!"

"Darn right!" Vanellope grinned, ready to activate her glitching powers.

Three.

Two.

ONE!

GLTICH!

POOF!

Vanellope managed to glitch right beside Taffyta again, the other racer sneering at her.

"Bout time ya caught up!" Taffyta laughed.

"Yeah, I figured it would be best to give ya a little running start to the finish line!" Vanellope snickered.

Things had never been so close; the finish line was right ahead of the two and Taffyta's power boost was counting down but at the same time, Vanellope had only one more glitch left before she was out. Both racers would have to use their skills carefully in order to win this one!

"Gotta keep up, gotta keep up!" Taffyta thought to herself, gripping onto her steering wheel.

Vanellope held tight to her steering wheel as well, trying to find the perfect time to glitch without losing her chance.

"Okay, Nelly. Gotta time this right….."

The finish line seemed only inches away yet it was still out of reach.

"So close!" Taffyta said.

"Almost there."

Both girls began to count down. They only had one chance.

"Okay, I can feel it! Three, two, one-!"

POOF!

Vanellope glitched ahead! The crowd cheered!

"YEA! YEA! YOU SHOW HER VANELLOPE!" someone from the crowd shouted.

But things weren't over yet.

"Just what I thought you were gonna do!" Taffyta said, slamming the gas pedal and adding just the right about of speed to the final seconds of her power boost.

BOOOOOOOOM!

Taffyta tore ahead of Vanellope by near inches, just in time to cross the finish line and win the daily roster race! The crowd went wild as the racers finished, slowing down as they made their way to the winners circle.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE IT BUT THE WINNER IS TAFFYTA MUTTONFUDGE! BY A BOOST!"

Her car finally powering down from the boost, Taffyta leapt out and cheered for the crowd surrounding her, taking off her helmet and throwing it to one lucky spectator in the first row.

"I'M GONNA HANG THIS OVER MY BED!" they shouted before passing out from glee.

"Stay sweet!" Taffyta replied as she jumped into the air and spun into her signature move. Finally landing back on the ground, she heard the sound of laughter coming behind her as Vanellope pulled up, much too excited from the results to say anything else.

"Holy COWTAILS! I've never seen ya pull of a trick like that!" Vanellope laughed as she bounded over to her friend.

"Truth is, I didn't think I could pull it off!" Taffyta said as she wiped her brow "I mean, when SONIC does it, it looks so easy on his feet but he doesn't have to worry about hauling a huge kart on the wall!"

"Either way, it looked AWESOME!" Vanellope said, giving Taffyta a hard slap on the back "Man, can you imagine me doin' that and glitching at the same time?! AN' GETTIN' A POWER-UP?! Sweet monkey milk, I think I'd EXPLODE from all that power at once!"

Vanellope then stopped and thought for a second before smiling again.

"An' it would be the most epic thing ever! I'm seriously gonna do that on our day off!"

Taffyta smiled as she watched Vanellope talking it up with her and the other racers; this was more than nostalgia for her. This was pure joy. For fifteen long years, events like this would have been marred by the meddling of a certain Turbo-Tastic racer masquerading as a Sugar Rush racer but no more. Things were back to the way they should be and Taffyta couldn't be happier.

She just wanted Vanellope to be her friend again and after so much time, she was happy to see that she was.

"Ya know what we should do next?" Vanellope said sly as she approached Taffyta.

"What?"

"We should gathers as many power ups as we can and go DOUBLE-DASHING with 'em!"

Taffyta gasped at the prospect, "Double-dashin'?! Nelly, can this game even handle that much power at once?!"

"I dunno, but we're GONNA find out!" Vanellope said as she took Taffyta by the arm but before the two could escape the ever growing crowd around the winner circle, something happened.

Something that Taffyta had hoped ended long ago.

"Hey! The race must have been fixed!" someone said.

"Huh? Who was that?" Vanellope asked as she peered around, finding no one.

"I'll say! There's no way that race was fair!"

Vanellope pushed her way out of the crowd to find the source of the complaints; two of the many other games' NPCs that had shown up for the free race. The raven-haired racer stepped forward and cleared her throat as she approached the two.

"Ahem, excuse me. IS there a problem here? Ya know ya can always tell ME" Vanellope said smugly as she placed her hands on her chest.

"Yeah, how could you NOT win, President Vanellope?!"

Vanellope shook her head and chuckled, "People, people! Please! It's just Nelly! No need to be so formal, ya know?"

The first NPC shook its head as it frowned, "Still willin' ta put up with such riffraff. You're a lot more patient than we thought…."

"Please tell me what ya mean by that…." Vanellope asked again, a little confused by the attitude of the people before her.

"What we're tryin' ta say is that Taffyta must have cheated! There is no way she could have beat you!"

Vanellope jolted back a bit at the outburst. Not too far away, Taffyta felt a chill go down her spine.

Here we go again.

"Cheated?! Pish-posh an' all those fancy words that fancy people say! Taffy did not cheat! Did ya see her moves?! It took some skills to pull that off without landing and SPLAT! Flat as a pancake!"

"Ya mean if she didn't put somethin' on the bottom of her tires!"

Vanellope gave a loud and mighty laugh as she walked over to Pink Lightening before smugly wiping her fingers on the shiny pink tires.

Not a speck or a drop of anything foul. She then licked her fingers, sticking her tongue out rather teasingly to the NPCs as if to get on their nerves even more.

"Mmmmm, strawberries! But….I don't taste anything else!"

"Well, she HAD to do something! There's no way I'm gonna belive that Taffyta Muttonfudge is HALF as good as you!"

"Hey, hey, hey now! This is supposed to be a FRIENDLY game an' we all have different skill sets ya know! Whoever wins, wins and I can't win 'em all the time! I DON'T win 'em all the time!" Vanellope retorted, getting a little annoyed by now.

"Nelly, ya don't have to do this…." Taffyta replied cooly as she walked over to the NPCs "Look, if you have a problem with the way I race, then tell me! Don't get mad at Vanellope! She didn't do anything!"

"Maybe she didn't….or maybe she did…." The other NPC replied, crossing their arms against their chest.

"What are you implying…." Vanellope said in a low tone "A-are you sayin'…..I LET Taffyta win?"

"Perhaps….what other way could she have won?"

"I dunno? Because she can RACE?!" Vanellope shouted, her nerves finally tweaked now. "Seriously, you guys act like you've never seen her race before or somethin'! If ya saw any of the roster racers where I didn't participate, you would have seen that Taffya can carry her own!"

By now, Taffyta was a little surprised herself that Vanellope was saying such positive things about her but she then realized that this wasn't Vanellope's battle to fight; it was hers.

"Seriously, Nelly. I don't need ya to stick up for me because of this nonsense! The race is over and we both made it on the roster! Isn't that what's important?" Taffyta finished, her hands on her hips.

The two NPCs looked at each other before giving the strawberry racer a condescending glare.

"Typical of her."

"Yeah, I know right?"

Taffyta scowled, "What do you mean TYPICAL?"

"Of course you'd puff out your chest with something like this but deep inside, we all know you're hot air. The second Vanellope is gone, you're gonna talk down to her like ya always did!"

Taffyta growled as she balled her tiny fist, turning a bit red in the face "Now you listen to me! Those days are over and without King Candy-!"

"Without King Candy, you're NOTHIN'! You kissed his butt the moment he came in and now that he's gone, you've just moved onto the rightful ruler here!"

Now Vanellope had had enough, "HEY! You guys act like Taffy here hated me before King Candy took over!"

"Didn't she though?"

"NO!" Vanellope blurted out, shocking herself at how harshly she had replied to the NPCs "GAH! How many times do I have to tell this freakin' story! Tur-BUTT came along like two months or somethin' AFTER we were plugged in an' before that, everyone got along fine!"

The NPCs giggled at both racers as they looked down at the blushing Vanellope.

"I bet Taffyta was the one who let Turbo in."

"Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if she did. Little brat hasn't changed a bit!"

That was enough.

Some many things had happened in the past few months that everyone in Sugar Rush had to get used to; they had to get used to their memories coming back, they had to get used to missing out on so many things, and they also had to get used to the fact that they would never forget how they treated Vanellope over the past fifteen years.

That's what hurt the most.

Knowing that you hurt your friend for so long without your control.

Knowing that you hurt your friend and someone watched behind you, pulling the string and laughing the whole time.

But the thing that hurt the most was knowing that no matter how much you wanted to return to your friend, no matter how much you told each other that you cared, that you hurt, that you both wanted to start anew….

No one would let you.

That was the thing that was happening with some of the other characters in GCS. They heard about what happened in Sugar Rush and if it wasn't bad enough some of the characters saw the game as 'kiddie fare', after learning what the racers had done to Vanellope under King Candy's rule, something negative was always thrown at the group.

It was always their fault that Sugar Rush was taken over.

It was always their fault that Vanellope was a glitch.

It was always their fault that Vanellope was almost killed.

One would think more vitriol would be thrown towards Turbo but as he was no longer in existence, some of the characters had to move on to actual targets, even if the crimes of said targets were not the same as Turbo's.

"So I'm a brat am I?" Taffyta said coldly "It's funny that you guys act so tough callin' me out on what I did when King Candy was here. Where were you when he was in charge? I don't remember seeing you vouchin' for Vanellope or tellin' any of us ta get lost!"

The NPCs fell silent for a moment as they glared back at Taffyta. If looks could kill, nearly everyone in Sugar Rush would be Frosty-dead by now.

"Ya know what? I really don't care anymore. I know enough people around the arcade hate me but…." Taffyta stopped herself once she realized what she had said.

Hate? Do they really hate me?

"But for every complaint I hear from people like you askin' me ta change my ways, whenever I show that I HAVE, ya don't believe me! So what's the point? No matter what I do, it will NEVER be good enough for ya!"

Taffyta turned around and looked at Vanellope. She smiled at the ruler, but Vanellope could tell there was a lot of pain behind the smile.

"But at least I know there will be ONE person who I can trust….." Taffyta said, her voice breaking at the end of her words. "An' really, that's all that matters!"

The two NPCs continued to scowl but it wasn't hard to see that they were a little miffed about being talked down to by a nine year old. They huffed as they turned and left.

"Y-yeah, whatever. I still think you cheated." The first one said.

"Puh, why does Vanellope even hang out with her? I bet she has HER suckered into her act as well!" the other replied as they finally left the gates. Once the two were out of sight, Vanellope gave a heavy sigh.

"Aw MAN! Thank GOB-STOPPERS!" she cried in relief as she stretched a bit. "I seriously cannot believe that they would accuse you of CHEATIN' like that! The nerve of some people, huh?"

Vanellope turned around just in time to see Taffyta drop her trophy on the ground, her head hanging low as she bit her lip.

"Taffy? Taffy? What's wrong?"

Taffyta looked up at Vanellope, forcing a smile as she closed her eyes, trying to ffight back tears.

"I-I-its nothin'!" she said, her voice shaking a bit "Its just…hehe, I guess I'm just a little sore from the race, that's all."

"O-oh…." Vanellope said as she looked at her friend.

It was obvious that Taffyta was lying but Vanellope didn't know what else to say in order not to upset her friend any further. Darn it, why did things like this always have to happen? The only thing Vanellope wanted was fun, not a bunch of people coming to her 'defense' for no reason other than they still had a grudge on her friends. Vanellope was a big girl! She could take care of herself if something happened!

"H-Hey Taffyta, ya need a soda or something? Melon sorbet? Melon sorbet with soda?" Vanellope asked gently, putting an arm around Taffyta. The girl shook her head before rubbing her eye a bit.

"N-no, thanks. I just need some time alone….." the strawberry racer said as she moved from under Vanellope's arm and made her way back towards Pink Lightening. Vanellope knew that her friend was hurt but after such an exhausting argument, even she didn't know what else to say to help her.

"O-Okay. But if ya need anythin'….Just tell me, alright?"

Taffyta turned the ignition on as she smiled towards Vanellope, nodding once. She then took off, leaving Vanellope alone in the winner's circle. Once the dust cleared Vanellope looked down, noticing something on the ground.

Taffyta had forgotten her trophy.