It's Only Programmed - Prologue

You don't feel pain very often when you're a video game character. Codes programmed things resembling organs and tissue into your body, but the fact remains: you're still made of pixels. During the day, the lives of video game characters were controlled, and the outcome was always unpredictable. Certainly, they're were probably thousands of deaths a day, but never a loss, as the characters could simply regenerate.

During his time as a racer, Turbo suffered his nicks and scrapes (it was a mere, small sacrifice to pay for the price of being the best of the racers), but it was nothing compared to the agony he was facing now.

As amazing and Turbo-tastic as he had been as a racer, every Number One had their slip ups, and Turbo was no different. His cars had crashed outside of arcade hours, and certainly during them, but it would be a simple, routine crash, and a brief, fleeting moment of pain before he'd flicker and recover.

The pain that consumed him now held no respite, and no chance of relenting. At the very least, he wasn't on fire anymore. Turbo could feel his code disintegrating. The pressure in his head was so great he was ready to scream. He reached up to grip his face, only to find his hands had been reduced to minuscule little pixels.

On his knees, Turbo watched the alarming pattern his body seemed to take. It seemed vaguely familiar, digging at the back of his mind. He remembered seeing the roster malfunction like this at times. Bluish lines would assault the screens as it often stalled or fizzed. Now that he recalled, a certain, little brat did this too.

The former racer and king flickered and his moans of anguish became distorted, like an out-of-tune radio. Pain continued to wrack his coding, but Turbo tried to take advantage of the glitch encasing his body. He tried to imagine how the twerp would work hers. She'd shut her eyes and be able to teleport wherever she wanted.

Turbo attempted it, but found concentrating only caused his head to throb all the worse. Hid body flickered to fragments of blue once more, but it didn't go anywhere. In fact, Turbo quickly realized that whatever glitchy-damage his broken coding had left him had the opposite effect Vanellope's glitch had. He stalled and froze on the spot when the malfunction assaulted him rather than appear anywhere else.

Pain stabbed his entire body, piercing it like thousands of knives all at once. Turbo's muted cries of pain became more distorted as his body continued to rapidly flicker. There was a blinding, hot flash of white, and then nothing more.




When Turbo's cat-yellow eyes finally opened to the world, he was hoping he was dead. Of course, if he had died, then his eyes wouldn't even have opened. There was no heaven or hell for game characters. If there was, he obviously wouldn't be at the former.

No, Turbo recognized this place from fond memories during his reign. The best part of being viewed as a king and benevolent ruler of Sugar Rush was what he managed to get away with outside of the time he needed to be with his subjects.

"Fungeon"; a callous name indeed, but that's what was so fun about it. Ah, puns. That was the best part of King Candy's character, creating a goofy and playful King. He really did get into it at times. Countless citizens had been isolated from the world in these barren cells, but none being the one he actually wanted to permanently imprison.

"Vanellope Von Schweetz..."

"Oh good, and here I was worried about giving a greeting."

Turbo's hateful glare darted up to the miniature form before him. The pure, saccharine sight of the little pixie in her pink dress made him want to vomit. Not wanting to have his own gastric acids stinking up his cell, he settled with merely jerking angrily against the chains around him.

"And what brings you here, your highness?" He spat the words with as much venom as he could muster. It didn't even faze the child.

Vanellope's face had gone stony and serious. Much too serious for that of a nine year old; her sugar dipped eyes hard and stony. "I'm the one that found you, you know. I'm who's deciding your fate and why you aren't dead."

This probably wasn't what he was supposed to be concerned with, but he couldn't help mutter, "Whose idea was it to let a nine year old run a kingdom anyway."

"Having a nine year old president is better than having a nutter-butt intent on taking over an entire video game, and probably an entire arcade," the little pixie pointed out flatly. She gave a slight smirk. Turbo sneered back.

"President? You're a princess," Turbo snapped, as much as that thought made him retch. "If you're just a president than why the frilly get-up?"

"I like the fashion." The quip that came out of Vanellope was honestly unexpected and made the former racer rasp out a dry cackle. As he did, he felt his body ripple with pain, and his body flickered once more. Vanellope was too busy staring at her dress to notice.

A silence stretched on for a few moments. Turbo yanked at his chains, knowing it wouldn't do anything. The damn rugrat was smart, he'd give her that much. These chains were even tougher than the ones he had binding her before.

"So why save me then, president? Is it because you have something worse in store? Inhumane torture of revenge for all that I've done to you?" Turbo sneered. Those cat like, demonic eyes pierced the little girl's soul, but she remained standing, chanting a mantra inside her head to calm herself down. She couldn't show fear.

"Isn't that more what you would have for me?"

"Indeed it would be." The words were simple and cold, brutal and to the point. No more fabricated lies. Just the honesty of hatred and vengeance.

"Too bad you lost your creepy, demon, virus powers. They sure would come in handy for getting out of those chains. It's the only way you'll ever get out of them, unless I say so." Seething rage built up in the former racer. The urge to wrap his hands around the little pixie's throat was stronger than ever. How dare she mock him!

"Surely you wouldn't be stupid enough to 'say so'. You know exactly who I am, Glitch." He scowled at the failed attempt to demoralize the girl. The irritating little pixie only smirked at him.

"Nice try, King Lunatic, or Turban-whatever-your-name-is."

"Turbo," the enraged racer snarled.

"My glitch isn't a flaw anymore. In fact, everyone sees it as the greatest super power ever, as do I~" The raven-haired girl disappeared in a flash, and her form reappeared in his cell, inches away from his immobilized form.

"Don't stray too close, sweetie. You wouldn't want me to throttle all of the air out of your sugar-coated lungs."

With a flash of electric blue she was outside the bars again. The daunting smirk on her face was once again replaced with a look far more serious. She gazed into the cell with a mixture of anger and pity, able to tell that he was in pain.

"I don't think you'll be in the condition to do anything like that in a while. Your near death, cola-lava-spa-trip there destroyed your code; part of it anyway. You had two codes, King Candy's and Turbo's. King Candy's code was killed, but you've been a part of this game for so long now that it recognizes you as one of the characters."

At least it explained how he somehow survived being liquefied The fact that he survived brought him little comfort. Turbo was weak. Even though the chains limited his movement, he could tell that he wasn't able to move very much anyway.

"You're still recovering," the pixie went on. There was an almost teasing smile on her face now. "So I advise you to wait until you've finished healing to start rattling your chain like a mad monkey."

"Aren't you going to kill me?"

At that, Vanellope stared at the dangerous racer as if he had five heads. "Whoa, are you nuts? Why does everyone think just because I have an important title that I'm just gonna execute anyone I feel like? Geez. Besides, I'm a kid, not a hard criminal like you. I'm keeping you here to talk to."

"Doesn't the little glitch have a family of her own yet?" came Turbo's edged and dark response. Those glowing, yellow eyes just radiated hatred.

The child's brown eyes glinted in an unreadable way as she stared back at Turbo. Yellow eyes glared back, hating that he couldn't tell what the brat was thinking. Something akin to pity crossed Vanellope's face, and within the span of three seconds, there was two quick, blue flashes and one of Turbo's hands was free. Beside his fingers was a roll of cinnamon bread.

"Until tomorrow we meet, Turbo."

Before the girl opened the jail doors back to society, she caught the flickers of light radiating from the imprisoned form and heard his distorted groans as the glitch took back over.

Well I'll be a son of a gun.