Act 1: Babysitting The White Rabbit

Marinette sighed for the umpteenth time that day as she heard the door to her mother's friend's house close behind her. That day hadn't been particularly easy. The night before, her and Alya had pulled an all-nighter to study for the test that was coming up in a few weeks, and today, she had managed to summon enough courage to talk to her crush, Adrien, only for Chloe to get in the way, again.

And now, here she was, ready to babysit her mother's friend's daughter, Manon. She didn't hate the child, but she had to admit that the little girl could be a real handful at times. Which made things a bit strange today. Typically, whenever she showed up to babysit, the child would run up to her, excited, and with boundless energy. However, she hadn't seen her at all since she had came in. That was odd. Her mother didn't mention her being sick or anything. "Manon, where are you?"

She wondered if the child might be hiding somewhere, ready to jump out at her. That would not be unlikely, considering her playful nature. "Marinette!"

Her attention shifted over to the stairs, where she could see the energetic little girl running to great her. This time, however, she noticed something different. Manon had a set of rabbit ears on her head. "Aww, those ears look cute on you."

The child's smile never faltered. "Come on Marinette, I have a game we can play."

She immediately ran back up the stairs, expecting the elder to follow. "Alright, I'm coming." Making her way up the stairs, Marinette couldn't find the young child anywhere, so she naturally assumed that she was hiding within one of the various doors that were lined up on both sides of the long hall.

"In here!" A voice called to her from the nearest door.

Naturally, she opened it, finding a storage closet behind it, but strangely enough, she couldn't find Manon inside. "Marinette, what are you doing? I'm over here!"

The heroine turned around to find the girl waving at her. "But, I thought you were-" She cut herself off, realizing that she must have just heard wrong.

Manon closed the door to the room, obviously expecting the elder to follow. Smiling, Marinette reopened the closed door and looked around for the young girl. "Manon, are you in here?"

The voice that she had wanted to hear had actually come from behind, much to her surprise. "Over here!"

She turned her head to see the child waving, standing in the doorway of another room. "But, I just saw you..."

Something was going on here, she thought. How would it be possible for someone to teleport from one room to another like magic? Well, it might be possible for someone under an Akuma's control, but clearly, the child was not possessed. "You have to hurry, or else we'll be late for the tea party!"

Of course, Manon was still young enough to love games like that. Shaking out of her trance, Marinette responded. "I'm coming."

However, the strange occurrence was becoming more common as the super heroine kept searching room after room, only to find that the rabbit child had some how evaded her. Finally, there was only one room left, which belonged to Manon. Opening the door, Marinette was relieved to see the child sitting at a small table in the center of the room. "Come on, you're just in time." The elder entered the room and took her respective seat at the table. The party went on for about another minute or two, as Marinette noticed that they were the only ones there, because usually, there would be some stuffed animals to accompany them.

"Hey, Marinette." The rabbit child began, "Have you ever been to Wonderland?"

Marinette's ears perked at hearing the odd question. "Wonderland?"

Manon continued. "Yeah! It's a really cool place filled with walking card soldiers, hatters, a Queen of Hearts, and even cats that grin!"

Marinette found herself chuckling a little at the amusing sounding world that the child had just described. "Cats that grin, huh? I've never seen a cat grin before."

"What do you mean? All cats grin."

Thinking back to all those times on patrol where Chat Noir had tried endlessly flirting with her, she realized that the rabbit child might actually have a point. "So, have you ever been to this 'Wonderland'?"

Manon nodded. "Yeah, plenty of times! Want me to take you there?"

Chuckling once more, the elder nodded. "Sure."

The two of them had left the room and entered the long hallway. Manon took Marinette to the end, and slid open the glass door that lead to the balcony. "See that hole down there?"

The young girl asked as she pointed through the rails. Marinette approached the edge and spotted it, not like it was exactly easy to miss it. "What about it?"

"Do you know what dug it?"

There really was only one answer she could think of. "It was Construction Workers, wasn't it?"

Manon shook her head. "Nope. It was a rabbit. You can tell it's a rabbit hole."

Admittedly, Marinette had never seen an actual rabbit hole, but she highly doubted that one would come across one this big. It was just the right size for a human to fall through. "That's how you get to Wonderland."

It was then that a horrible realization hit the super heroine. "Wait, you mean you've actually been down there before?"

The girl nodded, her smile never faltering, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. "Yep! It's a rabbit hole and I'm a rabbit after all."

The elder honestly had no idea how to respond to that. She took another look at the giant hole. "But it has to be at least three feet deep."

"Oh it's more than that. It goes all the way down to Wonderland."

Seemingly to prove her point, Manon climbed on top of a chair while Marinette was busy observing the deep hole. She climbed onto the top of the rails and jumped off. It wasn't until then that Marinette noticed. "Manon!"

With her hero instincts springing into action, Marinette bounced over the rails, after the falling child, who seemed to be laughing for no real reason. Did she just not realize how dangerous this was or what? In all the time that she had known Manon, she never once thought she would do something this reckless. For some strange reason, Marinette was finding it harder and harder to catch up with the child. They should not have been so far apart from each other. It was making it impossible to catch the rabbit child.

Soon enough, Marinette had lost sight of Manon completely, and was now falling by herself in a dark hole. And although she was falling at a high speed at first, she started slowing down, gently floating to the bottom. She took in her surroundings. It was dark, but the super heroine could tell that it was just barely coming to light. Torches lit up the hole as she floated down, which wasn't even the strangest thing that she had seen today. No, the strangeness was only beginning.

She could hear Manon's laughter echo around her, which caused her to remember why she was there in the first place. She had to find Manon and bring her back. She found herself approaching the bottom, and slowly put her feet on it, trying to get used to standing again. The first thing she noticed was a long, full size Looking Glass on the wall. She approached it and saw as her reflection stared back at her.

However, she was not wearing the clothes that she had picked out this morning. Instead, she was wearing a red, knee length dress covered in black spots, accompanied by a white apron and black flat shoes. "What the...how did I get in this?"

Her puzzling was short lived as familiar laughter echoed through the tunnels. "Manon!"

Marinette ran down a long hallway with walls that were practically covered in doors. She didn't care about any of them though, she only cared about the one Manon was running through, and that was a tiny little door in the middle. Marinette honestly couldn't understand why she was trying so hard to get away from her. Although it didn't look like she was trying to hard. The door was clearly way too small for her to fit in, and on top of that, it was locked. As if this little endeavor wasn't weird and frustrating enough.

On a nearby table, she found a key and a bottle of some sort marked 'Drink Me'. Gripping the key tightly in her hand, Marinette drank the liquid down without even thinking about the effects. All she knew was that she had to retrieve the rabbit child. She rushed through the door as soon as the key was turned, and found that she could hardly see a thing.

It must have been night time by then, she realized, but the things she did see, such as nearby plants and trees, looked very different from those she had seen before, on television or otherwise. She had to admit that they looked enchantingly beautiful in their own way, just like plants from a strange other world should. And as she was looking for the child that had so easily escaped her grasp, she failed to notice a pair of bright green eyes looking at her though the darkness.

A wide grin immediately followed after.