Disclaimer: The absolutely fabulous animated film "Wreck-it-Ralph", and all the characters from it belong to Disney, and not me in any way. This is simply a story written as a homage to the original work.

A Bittersweet Journey

Chapter 1: Jubileena's Observation

After the fall of King Candy, the game of Sugar Rush was truly peaceful again. Princess… well President Vanellope von Schweetz had returned as its rightful ruler, and things were now how they were supposed to be.

Instead of having a random roster race every evening, President Vanellope decreed that names would be chosen by a lottery so that things would be fairer, and everyone rejoiced.

Jubileena, however, noticed something was quite off. There were now only eleven racers instead of fifteen. Nougetsia, Torvald, Sticky, and Citrusella, had all disappeared. All the racers who were palette swaps of other racers—were gone.

She decided to keep silent about this, waiting to see if any of the other Sugar Rush characters would notice. A few days passed, but it appeared that no one ever did. The only thing anyone seemed to notice was that she wasn't doing as well in the races as she normally did.

One morning, before the race, Taffyta walked up to Jubileena, as smug as ever.

"Heh," she sneered, "Has Vanellope's glitching got to you?"

"Well, Taffyta," Jubileena replied, "Are you trying to get her to execute you by making that comment?"

Taffyta simply rolled her eyes and walked off.

"Don't worry, Jubileena!" Candlehead exclaimed, "Taffyta's probably just trying to show her concern… you know… she's like… worried that you've been last place in every race for the past three days!"

That comment just made Jubileena more dejected,

"Oh… it's been three days already?" She sat down in a stand and sighed.

Candlehead nodded briskly, and then sat down beside Jubileena.

"So… what's wrong, Jubes?" she asked, concerned.

Jubileena normally hated it when the other racers called her "Jubes", but today she was too downcast to even nag Candlehead.

"Candlehead, do you remember the palette-swap characters?" she asked.

"Palette-swap characters?"

"You know… Nougetsia, Torvald, Sticky… my best friend Citrusella…"

There was a long pause as Candlehead searched through her memory.

"Oh… those people… " Candlehead said, after a few seconds of thinking, "I never thought of them as being palette-swaps, I just thought they had a really unoriginal sense of fashion!"

"Um…okay then…" Jubileena mumbled.

"So, what about them?"

Jubileena took a deep breath, and looked at Candlehead sadly.

"They disappeared."

There was another pause, as Candlehead was trying to digest the information.

"OMG you're right…. THEY DID!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah…" Jubileena looked down. A tear formed in the corner of her eye.

"It's really scary, you know… I mean, one day Citrusella was here. We did so much together… we were like sisters, no… twins! We could just look at each other and be able to read each other's thoughts. She was the only person who ever understood why I loved strawberry jam but loathed raspberry, and why I hated to be called 'Jubes', and…"

Suddenly, Sour Bill's apathetic voice blasted through the speakers.

"Racers take your places. The first race of the day is about to start."

"Oh great, I have to race again today…" Jubileena grumbled.

"No!" shouted Candlehead, "You can sit out, and I'll take your place, okay? It's sooooooo obvious that you're stressed out! You need to rest."

She smiled kindly.

"Are you sure, I mean… it might take a while for you to prepare…"

"Nonononono… It won't take me too long to get out my car, and you're not the player character this round, anyways. They can switch the roster pretty quickly."

"Promise?"

"Yup!" Candlehead grinned.

"T-thanks!" Jubileena said, wiping the tear from her eye.

Candlehead gave her a big hug, and then ran off to join the race. Jubileena was left sitting in the stands, with a myriad of living candies. Out of curiosity, she looked around for the other non-participating racer. After wandering a few feet, she found Minty Zaki, not looking particularly happy.

"Um… hey Minty!"

Jubileena made a slightly awkward wave.

"Hi," Minty said, still looking irritated.

"So—" Jubileena said, only to have Minty interrupt her.

"I heard what you told Candlehead,"

"Oh that…"

"Look," Minty said, gripping Jubileena's shoulders tightly and looking her in the eyes "The palette swaps disappeared because, like King Candy, they just don't belong in the game, okay? I don't know why, and probably no one does, but they no longer exist because they're not supposed to! Things are how they're supposed to be now, and you have to learn to live with that!"

Jubileena sighed. "I guess so… but … don't you feel a bit bad at all? I mean, they were your fellow racers. And Sticky and Torvald were palette swaps of you! Surely you must've known them somehow…"

"I didn't really know them. Sticky mostly kept to herself and Torvald… I barely talked to him…her…it… wait, was Torvald a boy or a girl? Man, Japanese games are so confusing when it comes to-"

"Umm… I don't know… but that's not the point! The point is that, that they were our… or at least my friends. We can't just let them disappear and not wonder why they're suddenly gone!" shouted Jubileena.

"What is there to wonder? Princess… I mean, President Vanellope somehow set things back the way they're supposed to be, so King Candy and your palette swap friends disappeared!" Minty gruffly crossed her arms and turned away from Jubileena.

"'What is there to wonder?' If you don't even know how President Vanellope reset the game, then there's definitely a lot to wonder!"

"If you're so curious about how she did that," Minty grumbled, "Then why don't you just ask her yourself?"

"FINE!" Jubileena declared, "I WILL!"

Jubileena irately got up, and briskly walked to another seat, far away from Minty. For the rest of the day, she sat, and thought about the nicest way she could ask Vanellope her question.

(A/N: I have not written fanfiction for almost two years! But after watching "Wreck-it-Ralph", I have the urge to write again. This is actually the first chapter of an unfinished fanfic that I wrote over the March Break. I'll most definitely upload the other already-written chapters pretty quickly, but there will probably be a bit of a lag later, when I need to write new chapters (exam time is soon, sadly). I hope you don't mind that I took a few liberties with characterization and the mechanics of the "Wreck-it-Ralph" world, though I suppose the things I am playing around with are still plausible by what's been provided in canon. Anyways, please add this to your favourites, follow, and review! Encouragement is always great, and I thank you in advance if you do!)