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LIZARD´S TALE

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Years have passed since "The lizard" took his place as the assistance of the ruler of the country of clover. Nightmare "The caterpillar" and his boss was a complete disaster, even if he was a real demon and feared because of it he was an irresponsible, lazy slacker who left the poor lizard to do all the work and to often ponder how had he passed from being the assassin hired to kill the demon to becoming the aid of said incubus and the one in charge of maintaining the order and neutrality in the country of Clover.

It had been all thanks to that foreign girl Alice Lidell. Of course at the time he couldn´t even fathom such career change and years later his memory was still foggy but on the process of remembering all.

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Grey was outside of the tower taking a small coffee break to smoke some cigarettes and calm himself from the chaotic mess of bureaucratic tasks that he faced daily at the tower.

With the first smokes coming out of his mouth he recalled how he had ended up there.

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Wonderland could be a strange place where countries had territories that sometimes changed their location. Back in the country of Diamond he was part of an assassin´s guild and he was a top assassin, ruthless, efficient and unstoppable. If he was contacted to kill a prey it was assured that his victim would not survive. In fact he had a perfect score except for the incubus, who was a sick a weak child and thus he didn´t kill him immediately.

At that time he was angry that he had been assigned such a pathetic prey. Even the most inexperienced member of his guild could have done it! Why then would they send a master assassin like himself? It was insulting!

He had never questioned his orders but this time he did so, if only because of the mockery this job was. They had assured him that they had sent specifically him because the target even if weak was still a demon and more importantly a role holder, one of those with eyes and responsibilities in this world; that clarified it, he "the lizard" was also supposed to be a better match for such a foe as he also possessed the strange characteristic of having eyes and accordingly more power in a world where people didn´t normally and those who did had few options: They would become role holders if the need for it arise most likely due to a rolehodler´s death. If they didn´t they would have to get very good at killing and surviving on their own, or they would get killed very easily. That was how it worked.

He was free to take on other jobs while he observed his target for as long as he wanted and he did so. The child was so sickly that often ended up in the hospital to the kids dread and horror. However Grey did see in a couple occasions the power of the little demon and considered that it could perhaps become a more worthy prey if only he was healthier and a bit older and that got him to think that he could perhaps wait a little before having to kill the train station master. At least that´s what he told himself instead of just accepting that he couldn´t bring himself to murder a sick and (more or less) defenseless kid. Another excuse to justify himself, like defending Nightmare from the other that targeted him because he couldn´t allow other to get his target before him.

Then she came into the picture. She was a foreigner, Alice Lidell was her name and she was the first one he had ever met and quite frankly he wasn´t impressed at all. She had been in Hearts and Clover before it seemed and here in Diamond she made the stupid decision of staying with the hatters at first until Nightmare invited her to come and stay at the station during one of her visits to play chess with the kid.

That of course didn´t turn out well as the hatters and he had to save her twice from being killed, first by a mere henchmen and then by the sycko bunny second of the mafia himself who shot her. After that he took escorted her to the station until one day she simply disappeared and returned to some of the other countries.

Something happened a little after to the flow of time in Diamond. His memory got foggy about all before that and he hazily remembered taking care of a sick child and something regarding a girl with blue dress and turquoise eyes.

He again got the mission to kill the station master, not only that, but a second assassin was send to do the same mission so that the dead of the incubus would be assured. He didn´t knew who else his guild had sent but he had a hunch of whom it might be, there where only so many assassins of his own caliber out there.

He was having mixed feelings about his job when she appeared once again and some of his hazy memories of her a girl in blue dress and innocent eyes became slightly less unclear. Yet he couldn't quite remember.

She had come back without remembering that she had already been in Diamond before and he meet "Alice Lidell" for the second time in his life even if he wouldn´t know it until years later.

It was thanks to her intervention that he finally decided that he wouldn´t kill Nightmare after all and started to plan how to get out of the loop. After much thinking he decided his best choice was to go after the other assassin which would complicate things a lot for everyone around him and in his attempts to avoid collateral damage to the people he more or less valued he decided to disappear from the train station for a while and then dumped out his lover.

That little affair exchange was seen by none other than the foreigner girl that cutely got angry at his way of treating the woman. But more cutely and surprising had been that she had gone out to look for him after his disappearance and that had amused him greatly.

His plan had gone well and he ended up luring and fighting the other assassin in the middle of the train station. He of course won even if he had been injured in the fight. But it was not a moment to slack off and rest. He needed to tie "loose ends" and take care his guild and to ensure things he told Nightmare to hire him as aid too, so he didn´t have time waste when the foreigner once again disappeared from Diamond.

Something happened to the country of Diamond, or rather something had being happening to the country and they were just barely noticing it and soon after, Nightmare was called to Clover to rule that country. That had been weird to say the least. The fact that another country's version of a role holder had been called to take upon their job in another country rather than simply been replaced was extremely rare. Maybe it had been so because the ruler of Clover was dead and ruling one of the countries was very important. Maybe Wonderland haven´t found a suitable replacement yet, which would mean than the spot replaced would be that of the train station master at Diamond.

It wasn´t that much of a deal in any case. Stranger stuff tend to happen in Wonderland all the time.

Grey had been concerned about what he would do. Without Nightmare he didn´t have a job in Diamond and quite frankly he had grown fond of the teenage demon and had gotten used to be his aide. It was also true that although he had considered himself retired from being an assassin he hadn´t exactly quit that job completely. A plan formed in his head and while Nightmare was preparing to leave Diamond, Grey was already reaching Clover thanks to the trains. His plan was simple and the rules of the world allowed for it.

All countries in spite of their differences had a few things in common. A central ruling territory, a ruler, someone to administrate the country and someone to defend the country. In the case of Diamond and hearts the central territories where the castles, the rulers where the queens, the administrators the prime ministers and in charge of the military affairs where the knights. Of course in Diamond the prime minister was more than anything the queen´s toy as everyone knew and that Ace brat would most likely grow to be the knight of diamonds. For spades no one had a certain idea of what it had been like because it had disappeared a long time ago and he didn´t care either because he was going to clover an would merely kill the role holder that was to be the aid of the incubus at the Clover tower and steal that other role.

Of course he wouldnt kill his new target right away. He needed to study his victim first and was pretty surprised to find out that his prey was the other version of himself residing in this other country.

Grey stalked and studied his other self and almost laughed at the idea of impersonating himself. Sure, there were some differences, but mostly it was that this other him was less edgy and more polite, yet still very skillful.

It had been hard but after making the initial move and taking by surprise his victim he was able to come out alive of the fight and steal his role. When Nightmare finally arrived to Clover he wasn´t a teen anymore and knew immediately which Grey he was dealing with and offered Grey the change to forget some parts of his memory to facilitate things. The lizard accepted and soon forget that he had originally come from Diamond, and what happened there was either concealed too or was twisted to have happened in Clover instead.

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Everything was going fine and as calm as any place in this mad world could until a land move brought to Clover a foreigner girl that had been prior in Hearts.

For the third time in his life Grey Ringmarc meet Alice Lidell. A confused and indecisive girl with turquoise eyes and blue dress. Something in his memory stirred. He vaguely recalled having met a girl like that in the past.

The foreigner choose to stay with the hatters and eventually it was obvious that her relationship with the mad hatter himself developed into something more than mere acquaintances.

After a little while things happened and the Clock tower in Hearts was connected through a door to the Clover tower and April season began bringing the literally double faced Joker and winter upon the connector towers.

The course of events became less dull and monotone or chaotic since she was around, Nightmare decided to hold a snow sculpture contest, the hatters were having a costume party and the multician seemed a bit less antisocial, and he was sure it was because of her.

The kind nature of the foreigner was bound to draw them and the game would ensure that they all loved her. For him the moment he definitely fell for her was when they found an injured baby swan and she helped him nurture the bird back to health and set it free. It was amazing the effects the foreigner had over them and how she was changing them. During a visit with her to the zoo section of the art gallery his lizard tattoo gained life of its own and came out from his skin to Alice surprise and he had to tell her to stop teasing him because he could felt what his tattoo felt. It was a surprise for him to realize how much he trusted her for having revealed such secret about himself to someone else. One of the secrets he had been too paranoid to share with anyone, the other secret being that he was an ex-assassin and saw the most brutal and darkest part of him getting rid of other would be assassins amidst the cherry blossom tress on a fateful night.

When she learned that she was surprised and scared. So far she had deemed him the most "normal" person she has meet in wonderland but she had been wrong and their friendship became a bit more distant and cold as she got closer to the hatter.

Circus events came and all of them were wary of what Joker would attempt. No doubt he would use his trickery to trap the foreigner and make her see the reality of what her memory had forgotten and Nightmare have kept hidden from her.

He didn´t knew what exactly was that happened in her world but he knew that it would be terrible if she went back. Yet, her nature made her wander lost without deciding if she wanted to remain here or go back and Joker was sure to use her memories against her.

And he or rather "them" did.

It was the hatter the one to rescue her from their grip at the prison after the last circus event, and it was the hatter who captured her heart in the end. After it all, Alice finally choose the hatter as lover and the game of hearts was finally completed leaving everyone else with the dreadful sensation of loss in their clocks.

As for himself, since he met Alice in Clover his memory had been stirred slowly but steady and now he remembered more of what truly happened in his own story about Diamond and how he came into clover; but it leaved him in a bittersweet note. Three times he had met the foreigner (fourth in true but he didn´t recall Alice´s first time in Diamond), and three chances he had at the game only to have lost all three of them.

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Grey finished his cigarette and went back to work. Paperwork was piling up because Nightmare was slacking again. There was nothing else to do but to go on ahead. Maybe if by some luck and for however unlikely it was another foreigner ever appeared in his lifetime, he would not waste the change again.

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What cha think? I was writing the first chapters of the next arc for "wonderful wonderful science" and I was in small scene with Grey and this came to my mind because I remembered how Adult Nightmare teased his younger self in Alice´s dreams in Diamond and I thought that maybe Adult Nightmare was not another version of himself but rather his true older self and then I wondered how the Grey from Clover ended up working for Nightmare and maybe he was the Grey from Diamond too, just like Ace is actually just the older Ace from Diamond. Weird, right?

And thus I decided to write this small one shot just because.

Thinking on really random stuff… if Grey is "the lizard" why is Nightmare more uncomfortable with cold than a reptile? I would consider Grey would be more sleepy at least.

On a stupid side note I just remembered that in castlevania games, the relic that allows you to dash is called "Lizard´s tail".

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And I hope to be posting the first chapter of "Wonderful Wonderful Science: Diamond Dust" soon.

I also noticed (that my grammar sometimes sounds strange and I have a bnunch of orthograhic errors...) that for some odd reason words are missing in different parts in the chapters the " Wonderful Wonderful Science" fic and I will revise it one last time to time.

I guess the orthographic errors and missing words will be quite obvious, but if you by any change check out the fic and find a part that (impossible) hard to understand please tell me so I can make it clearer.

Thanks