Among all the species that inhabit the jagged cliffs and misty valleys of Diet Cola Mountain, none are so much craved as the chocolate moose, whose fleece is said to be of the fluffiest cotton candy and hooves composed of the sweetest tasting milk chocolate with almonds.
Vanellope Von Schweetz had never encountered one before then – on the tail end of a long day out hunting, with only a nestle of chocolate bunnies and a package of yellow peeps to show for it. Through the zoomed scope of her gumball rifle she followed its movements beneath the dense foliage of a Mentos tree forest, from a secure perch atop a cookie crumble cliff, her every exhalation visible in the enshrouding, refreshingly cool Mountain Dew mist.
Reacting quickly to the unexpected presence, Vanellope honed her candy swirl crosshairs on her prey, where it bowed its candy corn horned head to feed on a light patch of peppermint grass. She held still until a drifting group of clouds conveniently curtained the bright orange disc that hovered in the strawberry pink sky above.
Vanellope took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.
The jawbreaker bullet whizzed through the air with a subtle shriek, and hit the creature just below its left eye, exploding into countless shards of bubble-licious shrapnel upon impact, as the solid jawbreaker base of the projectile embedded itself into the moose's skull with the ease of a hot iron skewer plunged into a jumbo marshmallow. Alarmed, the chocolate moose skittered off into the deeper brush, howling in primal agony, bleeding profusely.
Vanellope retrieved a pair of black licorice climbing hooks stashed in her backpack and peered over the edge of the cliff in search of a decent starting foothold. A straight twenty foot drop is definitely not something you want to sugar rush into, but if she did not claim her kill fast enough a roving pack of diet wolves might beat her to it.
Luckily the moose left plenty of clues in its wake: brown tinged hoof-shaped indentations in the snow, fresh streaks of highly carbonated blood and broken Mentos branches marked a clear path, which she followed down a natural trail to a large molten diet cola singed yellow spice drop. In a wide clearing up ahead, she spotted her moose and the shaded silhouette of something sizable shift slightly near to its sprawling, motionless mass.
Vanellope had a clear shot lined up - but at what? As day faded into night, she couldn't tell for sure. It was substantially taller than the average Sugar Rush denizen, but hunched over the felled chocolate moose on a pair of legs as thin as licorice stalks, noisily devouring clumps of raw, sticky sweet flesh in huge, dripping fistfuls.
"Hey, you!" Vanellope snapped at the thief without any table manners. "Get your paws off my moose, or I'll blow your cone licking head off!"
The creature looked up from its macabre meal and glared at the approaching Vanellope, as its face underwent a frightening transformation. Fresh root beer blood dripped from the sides of its mouth and along the prominent bone lines of its pale face, as it held up the disembodied head of the moose and, turning its wild gaze toward the full moon cake, poured the cranial contents into its gaping, overstretched mouth.
"It's turbo time!"