The next chapter of Temporal Fates is unfortunately taking a while, because: 1. Work is getting busy. 2. Chapter 13 is giving me quite a lot of trouble, and I need 11 to 13 to flow smoothly together before I post. 3. I've unfortunately fallen sick.

However, this fic should hopefully tide you over until that's done. Let's just say that listening to music when you're sick tends to give you *weird* ideas. Fever + sick leave from work + listening to Alice of Human Sacrifice = perfect recipe for this twisted fic :P

Mind you, while this is *inspired* by Alice of Human Sacrifice, it doesn't follow the lyrics of the song exactly. I chose to alter the scenarios somewhat to ensure they fit the VSSE agents, rather than trying to force the VSSE agents to conform to the existing scenarios.

That said, I strongly advise you to listen to the song that inspired this, perhaps while you're reading. It's dark and twisted and beautiful :P

youtube dot com/watch?v=j6MltGHO-lE (Replace the "dot" and remove the spaces obviously; this stupid site doesn't let you type links properly)


Once, there was a dream, but not a normal dream like any other. No one knew where it came from or who made it, but it had its own personality and will, almost like it was a real person. Loneliness was its closest companion, and for a time the dream was content with that. It watched other people as though through a veil, cloaked in its solitude. As time passed, it began to hunger for the companionship of others. But the veil was impenetrable, and it could do nothing but watch helplessly.

Then one day, it was abruptly cut off from everything. In its isolation, the dream could no longer see anything or anyone. The dream was terrified of disappearing, completely unnoticed by anyone. It thought to itself, "How can I get people to notice me?"

The dream thought and thought, until it finally came up with an idea. "I'll shape this place into my own world, and trap people in here. Then they'll stay forever, and I won't be alone anymore."

And so, the dream began to weave its world into a twisted wonderland…


The first man to enter the wonderland was a dark–haired knight in a blue jacket, strong and fierce and impatient. Though it was traditional for knights to wield swords, the man had his trusty pistol with him instead, for it had carried him through many battles unscathed.

The knight made his way through the wonderland, searching for its centre so that he might find the dream. Not wanting the knight to put a stop to its plans, the dream raised monsters from the ground to impede the knight and twisted the landscape around him, hoping to block his progress. But the knight fought his way through everything the dream threw at him, leaving a bloody path in his wake. He had no patience to deal with the obstacles, and so he chose the fastest and most forceful way of dealing with them.

But the dream was angered by the taint the knight had inflicted upon its pristine wonderland. And so it raised a cage of roses to entrap the knight as it approached the heart of the wonderland, punishing him for his callousness. The thorny vines grew thickly around him, leaving barely enough room for the knight to see the place he'd been looking for, just ahead of him but eternally out of reach.

And so the knight who would have reached the dream by force fell to the madness of the wonderland.


The second person to enter the wonderland was a blonde man with a red jacket, wearing a sharp but kind gaze. He entered the wonderland as a mage, and though he didn't wield spells as most mages did, the man's words were their own magic in itself. While he could craft words that were bold and strong, destroying barriers and smiting foes, the mage could also shape his voice to be soft and gentle as needed, persuading locked doors to open and enemies to transform into friends.

The mage wandered through the tainted wonderland, trying to heal it with his words and coax the dream out of hiding. But the violence inflicted upon it by the knight was too vast for the mage to overcome, although he tried his best. From bloodstained battlefields bloomed roses, and the corpses of fallen monsters were laid to rest amongst the petals.

The dream listened to the mage speaking his words of power through the wonderland, and it slowly began to find a voice of its own. But the taint of the knight's influence still gripped it, and its anger at the outsiders' attempts to stop its plans began to turn on the gentle mage as well.

The madness of the wonderland began to infect the mage as he made his way across the landscape. Time flowed differently in the wonderland, and the mage could not tell if he had been there for mere minutes or hundreds of years. His gentle voice began to grow cold and harsh as he bore witness to the endless devastation the knight had wreaked upon the land, hope slowly giving way to despair.

By the time the mage stumbled upon the heart of the woods where the knight remained imprisoned, he had succumbed to the taint of the wonderland as well. The mage saw the cage of roses where the knight was imprisoned, though he could see nothing of its prisoner but a pair of furious dark eyes. If he had been in his right mind, the mage might have been more cautious and spoken to the prisoner first. Instead, he bade the cage to destroy itself and release its captive without thinking.

The knight emerged as the cage of thorns was ripped apart, and the mage's eyes widened upon seeing him. But the knight had been driven mad by his long imprisonment, and he saw the mage as nothing but another enemy to fight. As the mage opened his mouth to call the knight's name, the knight raised his bloodstained pistol and shot the mage. The mage collapsed under the remnants of the thorny cage as the knight left without a backwards glance. He had long forgotten his goal of finding the dream, thinking only of spreading chaos through the wonderland and wreaking destruction upon it.

As the mage's eyes closed, his blood pooled into the ground, and a bed of roses bloomed around his body, laying him to rest.


The third man who entered the wonderland was a bright youth wearing a white jacket. His hair was the colour of the sun, and though his pale blue eyes should have looked cold, they sparkled with warmth and light. The youth carried no weapon with him, but his bright smile was all he needed, for it could melt the hardest of hearts and soothe the wildest of beasts.

The youth's bright demeanour was a breath of fresh air in the bloodstained wonderland, and the dream became enamoured with him. It tried to crown him the ruler of the wonderland, but the youth refused, for he had come to seek out the dream, not rule it. But the dream was frightened by the youth's plea, for it could not understand his simple offer of friendship, without asking for anything in return. Suspicious and hurt by the youth's refusal to become its king, the dream retreated, locking itself deep within its forest.

The youth roamed across the land, making friends with the creatures he met along the way. Though he mourned the devastation that had befallen the wonderland, its macabre beauty entranced him as well, and his bright nature guarded him against the worst of the taint the knight had visited upon the land. The insane knight could not approach him either, keeping the youth safe even as the knight continued to lay waste to the further reaches of the wonderland.

But the dream still held influence over the wonderland, and its hurt at the youth's rejection of its gift had slowly turned into anger. By this time, the dream had learned to use the words it had stolen from the mage, and it began to whisper to the youth. But the words were twisted and tainted, sowing doubt in the youth's heart and distorting his mind.

The youth began to doubt his ability to find the dream, plagued by reminders of his inexperience and comparative lack of skill. As he slowly lost faith in himself, his smile began to falter and the darkness of the wonderland began to seep into him, clouding his mind further. Gradually, he began to forget why he had come to the wonderland and what he was supposed to be doing.

But the spark of life that drove the youth could not be eradicated so easily. Though his light had dimmed, the youth continued to wander endlessly through the wonderland, determined to search for what he was trying to find even though he could no longer remember anything, not even his name. The last spark that remained within him protected him from the knight as he roamed in circles, looking for anything familiar that could guide him once more.

Though the roaming youth grew ever more tired, the spark keeping him alive would not let him stop moving. He continued to stagger across the landscape long after his body should have given out, barely alive and yet unable to die.


The fourth attempt at breaching the wonderland was not by a single man, but rather two of them. The men were close friends and almost the same age. Though they weren't related, you might have mistaken them for brothers, for they worked so well together that they might as well have been able to read each other's mind.

The older of the two was clothed in blue, and he was calm and logical, dissecting the obstacles in their way with his analytical mind. The younger man was clothed in red, and he was a fearless fighter, never afraid to stand firm in the face of insurmountable odds. Though apart they might have been inadequate, their partnership was strong, for they balanced each other's flaws out like two parts to a whole.

The friends made their way through the twisted landscape, and though they lacked the youth's bright nature, they remained safe from the warped effects of the knight's influence upon the wonderland. For if one of them began to falter, the other would pull him back from the edge, keeping him grounded. And so they remained strong, even in the face of the chaos sweeping across the land.

As the partners made their way deeper into the wonderland, they spotted something moving in the distance, looking more dead than alive. Cautiously, they approached it, and when they were close enough they realised it was the youth, still wandering unthinkingly across the land. It took them a long moment to recognise him, for they had never seen the youth looking so empty and lifeless.

The man in red called out to the youth, but he showed no sign of hearing or recognising them, for there was almost nothing left of him within his body. The youth began to stumble away from the friends, and they made to follow. But as the youth vanished around the corner, a wall of thorns abruptly sprung forth from the ground, separating the friends from each other. Though unhappy at this turn of events, the friends had no choice but to split up, hoping they would be able to reunite later.

With the friends separated from each other, the dream began to whisper to each of them, trying to turn them against each other.

To the man in blue, the dream asked if he could truly be content with the man in red constantly holding him back. He was the better fighter of the two, the dream whispered, and he didn't need his friend. Why shouldn't he just leave the younger man behind and forge his own path?

But to the man in red, the dream whispered of his love for the man in blue, not as a brother but as an equal, which the man in blue had rejected long ago. The man in red had long since put aside his feelings for his friend and embraced him as a brother in arms, but the dream's words began to bring back his long–buried emotions.

"He won't be with you forever," the dream hissed. "Someday, he'll find someone else he truly loves, and leave you behind."

Though the man in red tried to shut out the dream's words, they wormed their way into his mind, and he began to wonder if he cared more for his friend than his friend did for him. As the seed of doubt grew, the dream's influence on the man in red strengthened, and it began to whisper sweet promises to the man, of a way to make sure he was loved and cherished and never separated from his friend.

By the time the man in red made his way to the heart of the forest, the dream had all but taken control of his body.

The man in blue approached from another direction, eyes widening with joy as he saw his friend. Calling the man in red's name, he rushed towards him, relief blinding him to the dark shadows in his partner's eyes.

When the man in red came to his senses, he found himself kneeling on the floor of the forest. The acrid stench of blood filled the air, and the echo of a scream lingered in his ears. With a sick feeling in his stomach, he looked down to find his friend's lifeless body in his arms, face frozen in terror. Releasing his grip on his dead friend, the man stumbled backwards in horror, noticing that his hands were covered in blood.

The man's devastated scream shattered the silence, echoing through the empty forest. The dream had kept its promise. Just as he'd wanted, the man in blue would stay with him forever.


There will be a few more chapters to this: First to show what's *really* going on, then to free the agents. If you can guess who each character is (There are 6 in total: The Dream, First Alice, Second Alice, Third Alice, and the Fourth Alices), you might be able to tell, by process of elimination, who ends up rescuing them.