So the poll is over and the results are in! The vote was 5:1, one-shots to the continuation of Obnoxious. So who's interested in Elliot's story?
-Static
/*\
The Hatter had ordered the fifteen-year-old girl to kill her parents the moment she'd aligned herself with him. She hadn't wanted to do it. She'd have done anything to prevent the impending massacre, but if she didn't do this, he'd kill them and her brother. Once the Mafia claimed you, they didn't let you go. She couldn't get out of it. Better both her parents, than her parents plus the baby right?
The girl lifted the gun, her hand shaking as she pointed it at the couple, begging her to put the weapon down, and she shot twice.
"Well done, Evelyn." The Mafioso had said, patting her shoulder, "Now there is nothing anchoring you to your old life."
"I want to watch them disappear." She stated, her voice choking on her words. Tears dripped from her new crystal amber eyes, and the Hatter only raised a sculpted, blond eyebrow, but he neither protested nor ordered her away. He merely left her to her own devices. Once the Role-Holder and his ever-loyal lackeys walked out the front door, she fell to her knees in front of the two bodies.
"I'm sorry." She sobbed, "I'm so, so sorry." And she let the tears flow for about three minutes, until her parents vanished. She picked up the clocks, and handed them off to the afterimages, all the while trying to keep herself composed. Then she cleaned up the blood. She took the mop from the laundryroom downstairs, crossed back through the orange den, and wiped away every speck of red she could find off of the kitchen floor. Her disgusting chore finished, she put the cleaning supplies away, and viewed her work. If one ignored the absence of her parents, it would be effortless to trick oneself into thinking nothing had happened. Satisfied, or as satisfied as she could be, she trekked upstairs.
As Evelyn pushed open the door, she lit the lamp. There was a baby clinging to the edge of his crib, wondering where the loud noises had come from. As the girl looked into the eyes of her baby brother - barely two years old - she could feel nothing but regret. He gazed up at her innocently, questioningly, and lovingly, the way a toddler would look at his older sibling. He had no idea of the atrocity she had just committed, and he never would know. Not if she had anything to do about it. The Hatter wasn't aware of this child's existence. Now she had to figure out how to keep it that way. She gently scratched the little boy behind his hare ears - there was a difference between hares and rabbits - until he sat back down in the crib and fell asleep. She blew out the oil lamp in the windowless nursery, and bundled the child up into the warmest, fluffiest blanket she could find.
/*\
Evelyn had killed every single Mafia worker that had been trailing her. All who knew of the baby thus far had died, but she was high strung all the same. She had criss-crossed through her neighborhood multiple times, and she had taken care of every spy she'd come across. Luckily, a thunderstorm had broken out that night period, so while everyone was inside, the gunshots were not a tad out of place.
Evelyn jogged back to her street, her brother clutched in her arms, and she left the boy wrapped up on a familiar doorstep. Shortly before leaving the place that used to be her home, she'd taken a piece of her mother's nice stationary and wrote a letter. She explained what had happened and why she'd done it, and placed it in the blanket with the child. She rang the doorbell, and jumped up onto the roof. Granted, she was hesitant to allow a family of dogs to care for him, but she knew these people. They wouldn't abandon him, and they would treat him kindly.
She was sure of it.
/*\
The little boy had grown up happily. He had five siblings, and two parents who adored him as if he were their own. For many years, things had gone this way, until the crime syndicate had visited town.
Elliot had heard about the Hatters and all the horrible things they did to the people who crossed them. Rather than horrified by these notions however, he'd been rather intrigued. The piece of territory he'd lived in was rather peaceful. There was no talk of torture or murder or fear, because it was a small-time town that existed far away from the Boss's mansion. In fact, many of the adults didn't even know what the Mad Hatter looked like, because their little province was not near any borders, nor was it near the mansion.
That day however, everything changed. The moment the Role-Holder had shown up, people had started talking. The twelve-year-old heard almost every word in the market, and wanted to see her himself.
/*\
The March Hare was an interesting woman by herself. Initially Elliot had been rather shocked by her attire, but soon got over it. She was dressed like a man, adorned in trousers and a trench coat, rather than a dress in the manner of the Role-Holder twin girls accompanying her.
"Tweedles," her accented voice ordered, "Find them." The little girls nodded, and ran off, pulling two terrifying-looking battle-axes out of seemingly nowhere. As they ran off into the woods, the woman turned and looked straight at him, and motioned for him to come down. He almost fell out of the tree, after jumping in surprise.
"How did you know I was here?" the boy asked, and to him it seemed a valid question. He was stealthier than any of his brothers and sisters. His sense of smell was better too, and he was far more aware of danger and people as well. He'd never once lost a game of hide-and-seek, and he'd always managed to evade his parents long enough to pin punishments on his siblings, since he "clearly is not here". In his experience, it was certainly odd that she had realized his presence, especially since he'd been so well-hidden in the highest boughs of the trees. The woman laughed, her glinting honey eyes half closing as she smiled.
"Hares have better senses than just about any other creature. It strikes me you would know that." One of his ears flattened in confusion,
"Why would I know that?" He asked, jumping down to the ground, his bare feet landing in the dirt perfectly. The woman almost appeared surprised, her right ear lowering in much the same manner as his. She looked as though she was questioning his intelligence.
"...Because you are a hare?" His ear straightened,
"Oh! No, common assumption that I'm a rabbit. Not sure why. I'm a dog." He stated this as certainly as if he were speaking of the blueness of the sky or height of the trees around them.
The March Hare was trying to decide if the boy was joking.
She soon came to the conclusion that he was not.
She was quite displeased.
"Hares and rabbits are completely different!" She blew up, and soon Elliots' fascinated observation of the first Role-Holder he'd ever seen turned into one of the most irritating and superficial arguments he'd ever had in his life.
/*\
As Elliot walked back towards his house he decided that people were scared for no reason. The March Hare was the Mad Hatter's second-in-command. She was rumored to have slain a whole village single-handedly, and even killed the new Hatter's parents. They said that no man, woman, or assassin had ever landed a blow on her, evidenced by her blatant lack of battle scars. It was thought that she could even dauntlessly face the Dame of Hearts with little issue.
Through all of this, she had been relatively kind to him. Even when he'd upset her with his assumption that rabbits and hares were the same thing - and she had defintely been rather enraged by the thought - she hadn't killed him. She hadn't even hurt him. She yelled, yelled some more, and sent him home.
No, there definitely wasn't something right with this story. Something was off, way off, and as his puzzled self made his way out of the woods, down the street, and up to the porch of his two-story house, he caught a scent, one he was familiar with, when his siblings would get the odd injury outdoors or in the kitchen. He had never smelled it so strongly before, and as he tentatively moved his dirty feet over the wooden planks of the porch, he realized that the door had been left slightly ajar.
When Elliot walked into the room, he was presented with seven bodies. His mother, father, and five siblings. Unknowing how to react, he fell to his knees.
The bodies had not disappeared yet, meaning this atrocity had been committed but a few moments ago. Had he gotten there a little sooner, he might have joined them.
Elliot simply stared into space as the bodies of his family, the youngest but five years old, vanished into thin air, and then he watched as the black shadows of the afterimages appeared. This broke him out of his stupor.
"NO!" He cried, "You can't take them away!" He rushed one of the shadows, surprising it, and managed to yank away the clock that had belonged to his sister. Terra's "heart" rested in his hands, the glass cracked, no longer ticking. He clutched it to his chest, and stared at the ethereal being defiantly as it waved about its' arms in a pleading gesture.
If Elliot gave the afterimage the clock, Terra would be replaced. Elliot had never viewed the replacement of people as a good thing. If he handed over the clock, Terra would be erased. The clock, once belonging to the seven-year-old girl he'd thrown bullies in the river for, who he endured countless tea-parties and bonnets for, who's annoying pokes of and jabs of "Ellie" he tolerated, who meekly asked to sleep with him when she had nightmares, who thought herself stronger and mightier than her physique allowed... Her clock would be given to someone else. This someone else would completely erase her, and it would be as if she never existed, and he couldn't live with that. His little sister deserved better than that, his whole family deserved better than that.
He kicked and clawed and even bit a few of the afterimages, but it was all for naught. The clocks were towed away, and he was left alone. He looked around the decimated house and - unknowing of what else to do - he went to his room, completely and totally shell-shocked.
Once Elliot pushed open the door of a room that he'd shared with the three other boys, he saw writing on the wall.
They didn't pay their dues.
-Tweedles and the March Hare
His family hadn't been able to afford their taxes that year, and even though they'd never missed a payment to the Mafia before, they'd been brutally slain in their home, and at that woman's orders.
/*\
Three years later and Elliot was homeless, starving, and mercilessly tracking the woman who ordered his entire family dead. It hadn't been hard to find her, she lived in the mansion with the Hatter and the twin Role-Holders. Locating her was not the problem, no:
It was catching her at a vulnerable moment, and after three years...
That moment had finally come.
She had gotten blind drunk with the Dame of Hearts at the Queen's ball this year. Near the end of the event, the Dame had slipped the rabbit-woman glass after glass of wine, but not before dropping something into it, a pill it looked like, with the ever-present twins - when had they turned into boys? - whispering to each other and laughing. It was common knowledge that the Dame and the rabbit were friends under good circumstances, but it wasn't unheard of for them to attempt foul play every so often. It would appear that the Dame was making one such attempt now. Not to kill the Hare, no, that would be against the Rules until the time of day changed.
She was trying to gain an advantage. One that Elliot intended to reap.
/*\
The "new" Hatter was astonished at the condition his second-in-command was.
"Are you...drunk?" He asked, distaste clearly projected. The woman only giggled, and the Hatter - a boy would couldn't have been older than thirteen - rolled his eyes, and ordered her to go home. She mumbled something about missing the party, but he stood firm. If looks could kill, she'd be little more than a broken clock at that point.
"Don't worry Hatter," The Dame had come up next to her, and wrapped the Hare's right arm over her shoulders, supporting her weight. "I'll get her home safe and sound." The boy merely nodded, and returned to conversing with the Cheshire Cat.
/*\
As the Dame led the hateful woman through the maze of people, Elliot followed as discreetly as possible. The Dame in her stark-white dress, and the Hare in her sparkly black sheath. He couldn't lose them, not now, not when he had his opportunity...
He'd managed to keep sight of them up til they exited the castle, but it was fine. Elliot had an excellent sense of smell. Since there weren't hundreds upon hundreds of other people to muck up the scent, he was home free. He could find the hare, and then he could kill her.
/*\
He made his move when the night changed to day. It was no longer illegal to kill, and the hare was still getting sick off all the alcohol. What he didn't expect was that the Dame would get in his way.
He'd rushed the rabbit, but ran into the Dame. Apparently, she'd had the same idea. He distracted the woman for but a moment, her blond curls bouncing, her sword flailing, and her white skirt dancing away as he almost hit her in the shoulder. She deflected the bullet, but glared up at him in irritation.
"Hey!" The still drunk rabbit-lady called, taking a pistol out of her purse. "No one can kill her but me." She'd whined, as she shot round after round at Elliot, once the gun ran out of bullets, she snarled in annoyance, he was going to shoot when he saw her gazing at him, puzzled. She seemed to...recognize him.
"Wait a second," She said, stopping him for a second, "You're that boy, that boy from the woods..." Elliot was shocked. He didn't expect her to know him. The Role-Holders couldn't tell faceless apart, not a single one, and especially not after three years. It was something they simply didn't care about, and Elliot had no idea how to respond.
"...They missed one year..." He whispered, "They always paid on time, and they missed one year. They'd even gotten permission to pay it the next month...why?" She sighed,
"He made me do it." Tears started streaming down her face, "It was his last order, to separate me from anything connecting to my life as a faceless-!" And just as she got hysterical, a gunshot sounded, and blood spurted out of the rabbit-womans chest, just a little above her clock. Her pupils grew small, and her ears flattened,
"I-I-" she choked out, and then fell over, dead, revealing the figure of the Dame pointing her hunting rifle with dangerous precision.
"So." She said, lowering the weapon, "She killed your family, huh? Oldest revenge story in the book." The rifle morphed back into a sword, and she slipped it back onto her belt, lightly hidden by the ruffles in her skirt.
"My youngest sibling was only five." He answered, his voice more than a little dead. He clutched the gun in his hand. Now that his mission was seemingly over, what was he supposed to do with the rest of his life. Upon asking the Dame, she shrugged,
"You get over it," She stated, without even looking at him. Her Heart Country accent made her voice sound warmer than intended, "You find a place to live, get a job, and pray you never become one of us." Elliot laughed humorlessly,
"Trust me, I'd never want to become one of you." The word left a poisonous taste in his mouth, as he watched an afterimage scoop the clock out of a puddle of blood. The Dame laughed as well,
"You're a lucky kid, you know-" She stopped, once her gaze finally looped back to him, "Oh." She said, her blue eyes widening. Then she laughed,
"Now that's ironic." and she walked away, giggling up until she was out of sight.
"...What the hell was that?" He asked of no one particular, but he disregarded the incident soon enough. Everyone thought the Dame was crazy, and rightfully so. She always said things that made no sense, behaved friendly to kill you two seconds later. There was no rhyme or reason to her actions, and so he leisurely took his time walking the path home, not really bothered about her words.
Upon returning to Hatter territory, however, arriving at the border, he was confronted with the sight of the two boys hanging upside down from a tree, and...the Hatter himself. He was leaning on a shortened cane, and had to periodically push his hat up so it didn't fall over his face. He might have looked a little ridiculous if it wasn't for the fact that his piercing jade eyes made you want to run and hide and pray he did not find you.
"I didn't think she'd be replaced by someone so...commonplace." The boy remarked. Elliot was going to say something scathing in return. He could never back down from one such challenge, confusing though it might be, however, something caught his eye.
One of the boys was holding a mirror, and in the reflective surface, Elliot saw...himself.
He had eyes.
This makes no sense, he thought, as his title announced itself in his mind, I'M A DOG!
/*\
First of the one-shots! How do you guys like it? I kind of wanted an explanation as to why Elliot thinks he's a dog. Also: The role of March Hare seems to be somewhat specific. His last name is March, so I had the idea that the Role is passed down through the family, rather than assigned to random people. But yes, dark irony everywhere. I do love dark irony. Please review!
-Static