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SS2: Head-to-Headhunter

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September 20, 2011.  When Machelix first said that I would be securing Wonderland, I thought that he was just as mistaken as the Alice was in her times visiting.  But, then again, it has been over a year since my return, despite the promise of continued surveillance…  Perhaps by not being there we were keeping it safe?

In any regard, I was assured that, even so, I am not returning home but would be perfectly familiar with this place also referred to as Wonderland.  He even told me that he had been there himself.  It must have been recently for him to be speaking in such riddles; that’s my thing.

The mission, despite the confusion regarding the “where”, was to secure passage through this “Old Wonderland”, specifically with the Red Queen (or the Queen of Hearts, as she was also known in that Wonderland).  Not only was such a monarch still on the throne of Wonderland, but there was no report of a White Queen to challenge her!  I would make sure to remove her if she proved as threatening as the last one, not that I looked forward to the prospect:  dethroning is the duty of heroes and worthy monarchs, not dishonored knights such as myself.  Just to keep the peace was enough.

But how to start…

Machelix had mentioned some place called the Bizarre Room in his descriptions of Old Wonderland, relating it to the room through the door on the edge of the Lotus Forest.  There was even a bottle of the same shrinking potion (flavored a bit differently but still the same otherwise) reported within it.  It was here that he sent me out of necessity, or so he said.

I was reminded of the Red Queen’s castle by the dark-red bricks making up the walls.  The furniture flattened against the floor was an interesting touch, as if they had been exposed to my element.  Most likely this world was even more susceptible to my power over Dimension.

Advancing through the adjoining hallway, I found myself at a curious set of three sequential doors.  None were locked, and I soon found myself in the next room— err, house.  At first I thought I was intruding, what with the extra security I passed though.

Once I saw the vials on the table, though, these fears disappeared.  Then again, my apprehension remained.  The shrinking potion I was familiar with was yellow.  Neither of these matched it, one being blue and the other pink.  Which had Machelix said was the right one…?  I knew that I needed it; the Alice had always needed it to enter Underland proper.  There was even the door that was necessary to shrink to enter.  Now I know how the Alice must have felt upon her first arrivals in Underland…

At least there was a seat at the table for me while I contemplated this problem.  When I did take the chair, I noticed something about the blue bottle label:  the clearly readable words “Drink Me”.  The pink bottle didn’t have these words.  The puzzle had been nearly solved for me.  I picked up the blue bottle and took a drink.  The taste was indeed different, more sweet than bitter with a bubbly texture.

It proved as much a success as a potion as it was a decent drink, as I soon found myself shrinking in the chair!  I was familiar enough with the process to know when it would end and allow me to slide to the floor.  Now all that remained was to open the door and continue on…

“OW!  For crying out loud!  How many times is my sleep going to be disturbed?” raved the doorknob.  “First that Alice girl, then those two spiky-haired boys, and now you—”  It was then that a pair of brass eyes opened right above the round turning ball.  When they did, the mouth that had been shouting silenced itself.  Something about me must have scared him.

He soon reclaimed his tongue, though, and practically begged for clemency.  “I didn’t know that you were one of the Queen’s card soldiers,” he nervously said.  “What can I do to be of service?”

“You can tell me where the Queen’s castle is,” I replied.

Immediately the doorknob perked and cheered up; something about what I had said must have clicked with him.  “Ah, you must be one of the new recruits, getting yourselves lost in here as usual.”  He yawned before adding, “It seems every day now that I have to deal with one or another of you… it’s getting so that I can hardly sleep.”

This was getting me nowhere.  I was starting to feel right at home, despite having never met this doorknob in my own world.

Finally he said, “The way is back behind the bed, the trick bed in the corner.  Of course, you’re too small to—”

I had heard enough, even without the supposed solution.  The “bed in the corner” was right beside us.  I could only guess that the “trick” was the kind I was familiar with.  As I lay my hands upon it, I could tell I was right.  The feeling I got…  It was only because of my size that I needed to apply any effort in reducing the bed to a wall painting.

A crooked archway did indeed lead from the room, supposedly straight to the castle.  Whether or not the doorknob was watching me as I advanced upon it, I garnered a reaction from him all the same:  “Either that wasn’t a card soldier, or I’m dreaming.”  A yawn silenced him and his false assumptions.

Familiar was the scent of hedge in the next room, for a room is what it appeared to be:  four walls, a floor, and a ceiling.  Each wall had an archway leading somewhere, a hedge painted right to the top.  The ground below my boots either was carpet resembling grass or grass resembling carpet.  Both were equal possibilities.  Of the room that remained, it was all painted to portray a pale purple sky.  As the Alice would say, “Curious.”

Before I could pick one of the other three ways to go, my choice was made for me.  A card soldier with an open face heart helm walked from one of the two to the side and stepped beside me.  “You, what are you doing here?” he said.  “Why are you not on patrol?”  There was no threat in his voice or lance, only authority.

“How do you know I am not patrolling?” I answered.

“Because I do not see your arms.”

“My arms are right here,” I insisted, holding both of my arms up.

“Very well.  Come with me.”  He turned (it was amazing how flat he was in his uniform!) to the entryway in front of me and marched towards it as before, with all the poise befitting a knight.  I followed behind and walked through the entryway as well.

At first I thought that I had walked into a courtyard, two actual hedges passing me with an opening in the shape of a heart.  Once I passed the decorative feature, however, I realized what the nature of this room really was.  The stand on the left, the large podium directly ahead… this wasn’t a courtyard; I had been taken to a courtroom!  The fact that there was no one here left me worriless, and the fact that there was a courtroom in this world gave me hope for its queen.  Her castle I could see in the distance, but like before these details were painted on a wall.  Was there even a real castle, a real queen?

Beside me ran a streak of colors clearly standing out against the green.  The stand on the side was ascended before the figure stood still.  By the long ears, white fur, and generally fancy attire, I was able to recognize him as the White Rabbit of this Wonderland.  Obviously the Red Queen had already brought him under her control, and for some time judging by the glasses before his eyes.

Speaking of judging, the presider was soon announced with trumpet fanfare (both courtesy of the White Rabbit).  “Presenting Her Honorable Majesty, the Queen of Hearts, presiding.”

Numerous other card soldiers filled the room from behind me, lining the walls and blocking the ways out.  When the table had been properly set, the other player in the game appeared.  My “captor” had me turn and face her as she walked through the hedge entrance:  the Queen of Hearts, accompanied by two spade knights.  She was a large-bodied woman (unlike the big-headed Red Queen I knew in Underland) with tidy black hair beneath her crown.  All self-affection she retained in a brash swagger as she walked to the center podium.  Hardly a glance had she given me as she passed me, but on the stand she only had eyes for me.  “Where is the culprit?” she asked.

My captor answered, “The culprit stands before you, Your Majesty.”  He even indicated me with his lance.

“It is not I, Your Majesty,” I insisted.  Now to watch how this played out.

Unflustered by the conflicting messages, the Queen pointed her fan at me and said, “If it isn’t you but he is here, then it must be you!”  Her attention shifted to her captor with her final word.  “Guilty!  I say you’re guilty!”

Something small grazed my leg.  I looked down to see a crown just as large as the Queen’ bigger than the head it resided on pass me.  A red cape and carrot-colored hair flowed behind as he approached the Queen’s podium.  The little man could have only been one person to have so brazenly wandered up to the Queen, only one other person who would be wearing a crown like that:  the King of Hearts!  He was still alive!

Currently the King was cozying up to his Queen.  “My dear, we haven’t even heard what their crime was.  Shall we at least listen to what they have to say?  Hm?”

The courtroom and the fact that her conscious of a king was still alive gave me a modest amount of hope for this Red Queen.  She may have had as short a fuse as the one I had known, but there seemed to be less around to light this fuse.  Hopefully I wasn’t playing with fire with this trial.

Speaking of my hearing, the King’s kind tone had doused the Queen’s temper and allowed it to continue.  “Fine.  You, what are you accused of?  What did you do?”  She asked this of my captor.

“I apprehended and brought in this criminal, Your Majesty.”

“A-ha!  Harboring a fugitive!  I knew it!  Guilty!”

“Perhaps we should bring in a witness,” suggested the King.  “Just one or two witnesses?  Hm?”

The Queen seemed to think for a little bit before reluctantly agreeing.  The longer this went on…  “Bring out the first witness!” commanded the Queen.

Those two card soldiers that were guarding the hole in the hedge to my left entered through it.  Either they worked fast or they had “prepared” this “witness” beforehand, because it was only a few seconds before they reappeared.  Their witless witness was carried in by his ears (as literally as it was painlessly done) while he sipped a cup of tea.  Unkempt refinedness defined him.  A wrinkled red suit jacket over dirty pants and even worse off shoes, and not to mention the unbrushed hair… or would hare be the better word?  His face may have been more human-like, but there was no mistaking the March Hare.

“What do you have to say about this matter?” the Queen demanded of him.

After another swig of tea the March Hare answered, “I have absolutely no idea except… nothing!”

Curiously the Red Queen asked, “Nothing?  Nothing at all?”

“Nothing whatsoever!” the Hare shouted, leaping to the podium to deliver this directly to the Queen’s face.

I thought that he was going to incite her wrath, but instead she turned to the White Rabbit and bellowed, “That’s very important!  Write it down.”  I suppose the White Queen was correct about the power of madness…

The March Hare was escorted from the podium to the empty area on my right.  Replacing him as witness was the only one who could have, an equally familiar character (despite the completely different color palette and much shorter stature):  the Mad Hatter!  He seemed to have a better idea of where he was and hardly needed to be escorted to the Red Queen’s front and center presence.

“And what of you?” the Queen asked him.

“What of me?”  The Mad Hatter looked over his shoulders at the card soldiers.  Seeming to understand the question, he took a cup of tea out of his large green hat and said, “Tea of me.”  A drink from the cup punctuated his statement.

This time the Red Queen looked angry.  “Yours?  You mean my tea!”

“My special tea?”  Sullenly the Hatter looked into the cup before raising his gaze to the Queen again and saying, “If you insist.”  Without any reservation he threw the teacup at the Queen!  All of the card soldiers scrambled to the podium to prevent the porcelain projectile from hitting.

It was the King that caught the cup without spilling a drop (surprisingly), holding it for his Queen to drink.  While the female monarch was occupied, her husband faced the Mad Hatter and said, “Her Majesty wishes to know what you know of these two.”  He indicated my captor and me when he said this.

The Hatter turned to us with his smile still on his face.  When he saw us, though, fear overcame it.  His eyes were looking right at me.  Even by Wonderland standards my ruse was up.  “One of your card soldiers is dressed in black!”

“What!?”  Now the Queen was livid, especially after the spit-take from surprise.  “Who’s been dressing my soldiers black!?”

The cards had failed to play out as I had hoped.  As much as I had wanted to shift attention away from me, now at least I could prevent any other innocents from getting involved (or worse).  It was time to come clean.  “I dressed myself, Your Majesty.”

Without complications to confuse her this time, the Queen’s temper remained contained.  Still, she was almost eager to deliver some punishment.  “Seize him!”

Every card soldier surrounding the courtroom closed in on me, weapons drawn and pointed menacingly at me.  They even circled around me, chanting.


He’s dressing himself in black; he’s dressing himself in black.
His hair on head is vibrant red.
So why is he dressed in black?
If he moves, then we’ll attack!
He’s dressing himself in black.



There was no avenue of escape for me here.  If I drew my weapon, all of theirs would pierce me.  Their close-knit rank-and-file would prevent a dimensionless escape, and none of their weapons would be any less deadly if I reduced or altered any one of their dimensions.  No, I was trapped.  “I knew there was something suspicious about you,” my initial captor said.

“Send him back to the barracks!” the Queen ordered.  “I will not have any of my soldiers mock me by dressing like that hooligan!”  “Dress up like that hooligan”?  Could she have meant Machelix?

It was of little matter now.  I had at least avoided the death penalty, but I still needed to talk to the Queen.  “Why is it a crime for a heart soldier to dress in black?” I asked.  “You yourself are dressed in red and black, so why shouldn’t your soldiers be allowed to?”

“There is no suit to suit both the red and black unless they both are bled,” came the reply.

The Queen nodded in agreement.  However, she soon frowned and angrily looked around.  “Who said that?” she demanded.

All of the card soldiers surrounding me broke their formation to seek out the one who had spoken out of turn.

I found the most likely suspect, a familiar grin shining from a cage attached to the side of the podium.  The colors that appeared around it weren’t what I was expecting.  More festive and vibrant were the purple and pink stripes, but the yellow eyes of this Cheshire Cat were hard to see through the golden bars.  Apparently they hadn’t expected a prisoner in the cage, because no one paid attention when I pointed him out.

Only when he spoke again was he noticed.  “Losing your head over another trial I see, Your Majesty?”

Immediately the Queen looked over the side of her podium to the caged cat, the cage itself rising up to her eye level.  “Interfering with my courtroom!” she accused.  “Off with his head!”  The soldiers moved to carry out her order.

“By your command.”  In classic Cheshire fashion, the cat’s head separated cleanly from his body!  Cloud-like it floated up and into the Queen’s face, causing her to retreat backwards.  The cat’s body wasn’t far behind.

With her primary sentence thwarted and her other soldiers in no position to assist her, I saw an opportunity to get into her good graces.  My halberd I summoned into my hands before throwing it at the podium.  My weapon hit dead-center, halting the cat’s advance on the Queen.  I leapt up onto the podium after my weapon, gripped it, and ripped it from the wall.  My yellow eyes leered at those of the Cheshire Cat, his body reattaching while he was stopped.

The smile remained on his face.  “Oh, another Nobody particular,” he said.  “Do the shadows overlap, or are you as the Queen decrees?”

“Curiosity kills the cat,” I growled.  The ax blade of my weapon I brought down to follow through with my threat.  He dodged backwards, to which I responded with a thrust of the halberd pike.  This he nimbly back-flipped away from, but he had been successfully repelled.

With a laugh the Cheshire Cat said, “Violence that vile lance holds, so what can it defend?  Not your country, not your Queen, and none of these instead.”  A spreading of his arms showed that he was talking about this Wonderland and the Queen behind me with this second part instead of the White Queen and my Underland like he referenced with the first.  How was he familiar with them…?

His words were a slap in the face, but it was a slap I needed.  What was I doing, savagely attacking an unarmed apparition?  I may be a serious knight when arms are called for, but I am no berserker.  Reserved, I brought the halberd blade down towards my foot and diluted the sternness on my face as I looked at him.  “Your words meant to steal have failed to pierce; I honor my dishonor with your defeat.”

Apparently I had the cat’s tongue, as he simply faded from view with a chuckle.

Realizing where I was, I picked up my weapon and leapt to the floor.  The monarchs were free to move back into their prior positions.

The mindset of the Queen of Hearts was far from the forgiveness she had shown me before, despite my actions to save her.  “Assaulting the Queen!  Off with his—!”

Desperately the King cut in to stop the sentence.  “My dear, he assailed that feline fiend.”

“Just doing my duty, Your Majesty,” I added, knelt on one knee.  It was true enough, given that I had to save her in order to receive her permission.

Even with my words, the cards no longer in chaos once more began to circle me.  Were they not paying attention at all…?

“Silence!!”  The Queen’s order stopped the cards in their tracks; all eyes were on her.  She stood up and descended her podium before standing before me.  “Dressing in both colors… attacking with a weapon of both colors…  Are you a new suit?”

“It is as you say, Your Majesty,” I answered.  One of my closed fists I held to the symbol emblazoned on the left half of my chest.

Now that I had her attention and perhaps her trust, it was time to reveal my business.  “Your Majesty, I have a favor I wish to ask of you.”

“Fine.  Ask your Queen what you will.”

“The others of my suit seek permission to traverse your domain, Your Majesty.”  It was indeed a gamble to be so outright with it, but there seemed to be no way of sugarcoating it with nonsense.

At first she regarded me with her usual sternness, but then her face softened with unforeseen kindness.  “Of course, you may all come to my kingdom,” she said.  “How else are you all supposed to serve me?”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”  It wouldn’t serve my purpose any to reveal who the ace of our deck was, but he would be happy to know that my mission was complete, despite his previous standing with the Queen.

All that was left to do now was pack up and depart.  “May I take my leave for now, Your Majesty?”

Slight displeasure crossed her face before she said, “You mean my leave, and of course you may have it.  I have no need for it.”

With a bow of recognition I backed up, turning as I passed the card soldiers and left the courtroom for the hedge maze.

There appeared two more figures from the adjoining rooms when I reentered the maze “lobby”.  Crawling they came from the adjoining doorways.  I could tell by their slow approach and general human shape that they were heavily weakened.  Their clothes getting dirtied further in their crawl resembled armor of more traditional knights than the card soldiers from this Wonderland, almost like those of my own…  ‘Dirty pest… that dirty pest…’ they groaned.

“Dirty you may be,” I said to them, “but I see no pests here.”

Immediately their eyes looked up at me.  Seeing me (and perhaps our kinship) they picked themselves up and stood at attention with their hammer weapons at their sides.  ‘Squires one and two at your service, my liege,’ they said with a salute.

Often had I seen Machelix’s minions as well as the Lessers of the others, but it was never revealed to me how they came to be in their service.  The appearance of this pair saved me the need to ask.

I couldn’t let them be seen by the Queen of Hearts, though.  She may have granted me clemency, but there was no telling what would happen with new characters to deal with.  Hurriedly I herded them into the Bizarre Room to prepare all of us for our next guest.  I could get acquainted with my Lessers and their story after this happened.
Yet another link in the world-hopping chain, this one belonging to Sphenxet.

The Doorknob, Card Soldiers, White Rabbit, Queen of Hearts, King of Hearts, Mad Hatter, March Hare, Cheshire Cat, Wonderland:  Lewis Carrol/Disney

Sphenxet, Squire Nobodies:  :iconpumpkinapprentice431:
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