wow! Thanks again to those of you who are sticking with this story! To Dixie Darlin, M, and Windsett, thanks for being my 3 amazing reviewers so far! Hopefully I'll get the opinions of other people later too, but for now, I'm glad to read what you guys have to say! It makes me happy to see that people actually enjoy reading what I post on this site, and I'm glad to hear the things you have to say about my writing and how it's turning out. I'm glad to hear that you think I'm keeping people in character, and I hope I'll be able to keep it that way.

I don't own Wreck It Ralph. But we know that already, don't we? Anyway, please enjoy Chapter 3!

Chapter 3: New Discoveries

"Oof!"

Vanellope's landing had been hard and completely unexpected to say the least. The impact caused a cloud of graham cracker dust to fly up in her face. Coughing and waving her hand in front of her face to clear the air, the little girl got slowly to her feet. Once she was no longer trying to clear her lungs, she tried to look around at her surroundings.

It was dark in the mountain, but not so dark that she couldn't see. Everything was coated with milk chocolate, but there were some patches on the walls and the ground that were bare, revealing a graham cracker base underneath. It looked like she was in the entrance of a tunnel. On both sides of the tunnel were tall, thin columns that looked as if they'd been building up overtime. They reached all the way to the ceiling. Vanellope reasoned that if she continued to walk forward, she would be led to the mountain's base. But that wasn't her biggest issue at the moment. Her biggest issue was how she'd even gotten inside the mountain in the first place.

Getting as close to the wall as she dared, Vanellope gulped. She knew that it wouldn't hurt her. After all, her entire body had just gone through it, and as far as she knew, she'd turned out fine. Perhaps it was nervous excitement, Vanellope didn't know. But for some reason, she could feel the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. A flash and a shiver ran through her body at the same time.

When she was back to normal, she began chastising herself. "Don't be a diaper baby," she scolded, giving her head a vicious shake to clear it. Then, before she could start doubting herself again, she pressed her hand firmly on the mountain wall.

The solid brown wall suddenly became a patchwork of squares. A bright blue light that looked to be a combination of both turquoise and teal flashed, blinding Vanellope momentarily. The light and the squares faded rather quickly, and when Vanellope was finished blinking away the light spots from her eyes, she let out a high-pitched squeak. Her entire right hand was gone!

Jerking her arm back, Vanellope expected to see a stump at the end, right above where her wrist was. But instead, she found herself staring at her hand again.

"Huh?" After careful inspection, Vanellope saw that there was nothing wrong with her hand at all. She noticed no burns, no scrapes and no mutations. It was still her regular, four-fingered hand.

Her curiosity peaked, she placed her hand against the wall again, in exactly the same place as she had before. Again there was came the flash of glowing blue light and the patchwork, and again her hand disappeared. It was simply no longer sitting against the wall. It was as though it had gone right through and was now on the other side.

Wait…

Very slowly, Vanellope tried to wriggle her fingers on the hand she'd pushed against the wall, and sure enough, she could feel the movement. She let out a sigh of relief and pulled her hand back to the inside of the mountain again. She hadn't lost it at all: it had simply been on the other side of the opening.

The idea of someone walking by and seeing a hand without a body sticking out of a mountain wall with its fingers flailing crazily made Vanellope hoot with laughter. "I wonder how many people actually know about that opening?" she wondered to herself once her laughter had died down. "Maybe I'm the first person to discover this! Maybe I'm like a famous explorer!"

Now she was getting curious again, and she wasn't about to deny herself a chance to look around. So she started meandering down the mountain's tunnel, her eyes darting from left to right, then up and down. She wanted to take in everything about her new surroundings.

The air inside the mountain was warm and humid, not at all what Vanellope would have expected. The heat had caused some of the chocolate on the walls to melt, creating visible streaks and hardened blobs of wall close to the floor. As she got closer and closer to the end of the tunnel, it grew lighter, and she began to notice giant chocolate platforms and ridges. More tall columns popped up, and different types of nuts could be seen inside the chocolate that formed the mountain.

"Wow," Vanellope muttered, sitting on a platform and continuing to gaze around with wonder. It wasn't like she'd ever want to live there, but the mountain would make an excellent hideout. A place she could come if she ever needed to be by herself to think, play, or do anything.

Spying a pecan sticking out of the wall, Vanellope got an idea. Using her fingers to pry it from its spot, she held it like a gigantic pencil. "It'd be kinda cool to own a mountain," she muttered to herself, bringing it closer to the wall. "Now, should I call it 'Vanellope von Schweetz's Mountain?' Or just, 'Vanellope's Mountain?'"

Just as she was about to write her name on the wall to claim the entire structure as her own, a sudden BOOM was heard. The force behind it was enough to shake the ground beneath Vanellope's feet, and she dropped the nut.

"Ah!" she gasped, dropping to her knees and covering her head with her arms, just in case things started falling from the ceiling. "I'm sorry Mountain Gods! Don't kill me! You can own the mountain! It's all yours!"

A few moments later, the ground stopped shaking, and Vanellope uncovered her head and looked around. Nothing was happening. The entire mountain hadn't crumbled to the ground. She was still alive.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she stood up, brushed her hands on her sweater, and then dusted off her skirt.

BOOM! That's when the earth started shaking again.

"Ah!" Vanellope cried out, dropping to the ground again. "Oh come on! I didn't do anything! Geez!"

But that was when she noticed the flash coming from around a gigantic, chocolate structure in front of her. "Airhead," she scolded herself. "There are no such things as Mountain Gods!"

As soon as the earth stopped shaking for a second time, she got up and walked around the structure, finding herself at the mountain's very core. She had been unsure of what she would find, but when she laid her eyes on what was in front of her, that was when she realized that she was inside no mountain.

She was inside a volcano.

Right in front of her, approximately ten feet away, surrounded by hundreds of stalagmites popping up from the ground, there was an enormous circular lake. Inside that lake was broiling orange-red lava. The sign at the shore indicated that the liquid was actually diet cola.

"Diet Cola Hot Springs," she read once she was in front of the pink wafer cookie sign. "Watch out for falling Mentos…Mentos?" Her eyes lifted to the ceiling, and the sight in front of her made her gasp. Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped until her mouth became the opening of a gaping cave.

Directly above the hot springs was an enormous mass of Mentos. They stuck together like a pile of crystal. The white color of them reminded her of diamonds, but Vanellope had the feeling that the entire structure was quite delicate and breakable, unlike a diamond.

Was this what was causing the explosions? Grabbing another nut, she climbed up onto a square ledge and chucked it directly at the stalactites hanging precariously above her. The reckless action caused the nut to directly hit one of the last Mentos attached to the rods. It dislodged easily and Vanellope watched as it tumbled down, landing in the hot springs with a sudden splash. The liquid gurgled and bubbled, and then, almost immediately, a geyser of diet cola shot up, spraying everywhere. Droplets splattered and sizzled as they made contact on the ground. Some even flew over Vanellope's head and landed far from where the explosion had occurred. The ground spasmed quickly, and as Vanellope tried to keep her balance, one of the droplets hit her leg with great force.

Pain coursed through her body, and as she screamed she allowed herself to flash. Luckily, no other drops hit her, but now Vanellope was feeling woozy. Thinking it would be best to sit down, she slowly bent down on the ledge. Her legs dangled off the side and she hung her head, praying she wouldn't throw up.

Once the wooziness had passed, she snuck a peek at the damage the splatter had done to her leg. There was now a hole burnt in her leggings. Cautiously, she poked it, and the pain of contact on her moist skin made her recoil, jerking her finger back. But her finger had been on her leg long enough for her to feel the slight indentation of a hole and the beginning formation of blisters. Luckily the hole wasn't very big, and she didn't think it was a third degree burn. Most likely it was second degree. However, that didn't stop it from hurting.

Using all of her strength, she stood, looking around desperately for anything that could be used as a bandage that wouldn't force her to rip her clothes. If necessary, she would, but at that particular moment, she was hoping not to have to resort to such measures.

Luckily, she spied a green and white striped candy wrapper a couple of feet away. There was also a round angel food cake without a hole in the middle. Very slowly, she made her way over to the cake, taking deep breaths so as not to pass out or puke. Every step she took was agonizing.

"Who knew such a little burn could cause so much pain?" she said to herself, making a note that the next time one of the Mentos fell, she'd be sure to dodge the splatter. She had to admit though; it had been fun and kind of thrilling throwing the nut and watching the explosions.

Once she was sitting on the cake, she rolled off her leggings so she could treat her wound. She was no first aid expert, so the only thing she could think to do with it was treat it with cool water. Unfortunately, there was none around, so she did the only thing she could think to do: she spat on the candy wrapper a couple of times, and then wrapped it around her leg, not tight enough to cut off circulation. She had no idea how long it would take for her leg to heal, but now that she attempted to treat it, she felt a little bit better and much calmer than she'd been before entering the mountain.

Remembering King Candy and his hurtful words made Vanellope's anger flare up, but as she flashed, the pain in her leg also flared up. "I've got to keep calm," she ordered herself, speaking aloud with no fear of being heard. She was feeling pretty confident that nobody else knew how to enter Diet Cola Mountain, which made it the perfect place for her to plan her next move. "That way I'll be able to show him how wrong he is about me."

She knew she had to find a way of sneaking into the bakery. There was no way that Beard Papa or any of King Candy's cops and guards would let her in after her little outburst earlier. But before she could do that, she needed to get more familiar with the factory. Or…she could get the help of somebody who was already familiar with it! Somebody who had already baked her cart…

As soon as her new idea dawned on her, Vanellope pushed herself off of the cake and grabbed her leggings. Momentarily not thinking about her pain, she stumbled a little when it returned with a not-so-friendly reminder in the form of stinging and burning. However, she soon regained her footing and as soon as she had, she began limping as fast as she could to the hidden opening. Despite the discomfort her leg was giving her, a bright grin was now on Vanellope's face and a gleam of hope was growing ever brighter in her eyes. After crossing through the wall, she turned and faced the volcano, giving it a two-fingered salute. She now had the perfect name to dub the place, and it didn't have her name in it. "Adios Diet Cola Mountain. I'll be back." Then she faced toward the rest of the land of Sugar Rush and began limping quickly again, past the gigantic gum drops and jawbreakers, hoping not to run into any of King Candy's men.

She had somebody else that she needed to find and talk to.