Chapter Text
As abruptly as his life ended, so too did it restart.
King Candy woke in a daze, finding himself within Diet Cola Mountain.
Strangely, he felt in control for once. Could Turbo be...dead? The man had come into Sugar Rush and hijacked the king's body about 15 years ago, and King Candy hadn't had any control over himself ever since.
To test his hypothesis, the king repeatedly ran into the walls. Nothing happened, but he looked pretty beat up now. If Turbo was still there, he surely would've stopped him, right?
King Candy figured it was better to be safe than sorry. As such, he yelled the greatest offences to Turbo he could think of.
"TURBOTIME WAS TERRIBLE!!"
"ROADBLASTERS WAS SUPERIOR!!"
"A BRAINDEAD, LOBOTOMIZED GOLDFISH COULD BEAT TURBO IN A RACE!! HE'S THE WORST RACER EVER!!"
He wasn't stopped from saying these things. Turbo was gone.
King Candy whooped and cheered, galloping around the room in a deliriously joyful frenzy. He only stopped when some mentos fell from the ceiling due to how loud he was screaming. He definitely did not flinch away from the resulting soda geyser. Totally. Definitely looked straight at it like a brave soldier. Absolutely.
As soon as the geyser stopped King Candy started wondering how to get out. Diet Cola Mountain was an unfinished level after all, so no character in the game was programmed with knowledge of the interior. Heck, Turbo had been in the code vault several times and he didn't even know there was an interior! Mostly because he never found an entrance. Wherever that is.
...there is an entrance, right?
King Candy abruptly pushed that thought aside as he heard a strange, distorted noise. Turning around, he saw a gaudy, eye watering mess of a kart for a split second before he was out cold.
Vanellope von Schweets abruptly stopped her kart to make sure she wasn't seeing things. Turning around...oh. Yeah, no, that was King Candy alright. Somehow not a giant bug thing or a creepy striped skeleton man. Somehow alive. Maybe. She wasn't really sure, she hit him pretty hard there. Which, to be fair, how was she supposed to know anyone would be here? The only people who knew the entrance were her and Ralph, and he was busy trying to convince Donkey Kong to start going to Bad-Anon.
She briefly considered tossing him into the cola, but soon decided that was something only a barbaric princess would do, and it's probably frowned upon to do that as president. That, and he'd probably just regenerate anyway, considering he'd already somehow done it once.
Making her decision, she lugged the old man into her kart and drove to go toss him in the Fungeon to await trial, or something democratic like that. She wasn't sure. She wasn't really listening when the soldier lady gave her that talk about responsibility and democracy.
She did make sure to hit him particularly hard every time he started making a noise. She felt a bit bad every time, but immediately remembered that the last time she saw him he was trying to cave her skull in with a cane, so she just considered it a bit of payback.
Eventually she made it to the castle, unceremoniously tossing him to the Oreo guards and telling them to put in the Fungeon. She may or may not have said "It suuuuure would be a shame if you were rough with him! Man, I would just oh so haaaaate that!"
Fortunately for King Candy, the Oreo guards were dumb as...well, cookies, and didn't understand the sarcasm in the slightest. In fact, the lead guard carried him bridal style all the way to the Fungeon, before gently setting him down and shedding an incredibly romantic tear.
Vanellope, having left the creepy old guy to the guards, wondered what to do now. Maybe she should get Ralph to question him? Or maybe the army lady, guns were scarier than fists after all. Though her temper was pretty hot, and a gun was capable of killing King Candy without risking him escaping beforehand...that would make him regenerate, and...ok yeah. Stick with Ralph.