This story is really meant to be somewhat cheery, since so much of my writing...isn't. So oops? In my defense, Wonderland has some really disturbing imagery. Hopefully Coliseum will be nicer.
Sora came out amid green, blocky hedges. They framed the area, leaving only another similar opening to travel through. As Sora walked up, he heard a trumpet sound.
The scene before him was confusing, as if he'd come in midway through a play. The rabbit from before had climbed up a set of wooden stairs leading to nothing but a flat platform, and standing there, it was blowing a golden trumpet.
There were giant humanoid playing cards everywhere. They had heads, feet, hands...axes. And there was a girl standing in the center of it all, on another, lower wooden platform, this one with rails on three sides, which would probably have better served the high platform with the fat rabbit. She was wearing a plain blue and white dress and had long straight blonde hair tied with a black ribbon on top of her head. He could only see her back because she was facing away.
She was facing a woman with a fat, heavyset face that narrowed as it approached the top of her head, to the point that her pinched forehead could barely support the tiny crown perched there. The woman's hair was jet black and her dress, which looked rather ornate, was a mix of red and black squares. In one hand she was holding a red stick that ended in a heart. She was sitting on what looked like a throne in high platform with low wooden sides.
The rabbit finished trumpeting and took a quick breath. "Court is now in session!" he announced.
"I'm on trial?" the girl in the center asked, baffled. She had an incredibly proper sounding voice. "But why?"
The rabbit ignored this. "Her Majesty, the Queen of Hearts, presiding!"
"This girl is the culprit," the woman – the queen? - said instantly. "There's no doubt about it," she continued, banging her fist against the wooden rail of the box, clearly getting more worked up with every word. "And the reason is...Because I say so, that's why!" she screamed, leaning half-out of the box as if she wanted to leap at the girl.
"That is so unfair!" the girl objected, her voice still prim.
"Well, have you anything to say in your defense?" the queen demanded, barely calming down. She waved the heart-scepter from side to side.
"Of course! I've done absolutely nothing wrong. You may be queen, but I'm afraid that doesn't give you the right to be so...so mean!"
Judging by the rabbit's shocked expression, this was not a good tactic to take. And indeed, seconds later the queen bellowed, "Silence! You dare defy me?"
"Hey, guys, we should help out," Sora said, feeling uneasy.
"Yeah, but the-" Donald started.
"We're outsiders," Goofy pointed out, "so wouldn't it be muddling?"
"Meddling!" Donald and Kimi snapped at the same time.
"Oh, yeah," Goofy said with a laugh, unfazed by the correction. "And that's against the rules."
"The court finds the dependent...Guilty as charged!" screamed the mad queen. Sora cringed, but it didn't stop there. "For the crimes of assault and attempted theft of my heart...off with her head!"
The cards, with their wicked axes, moved in.
"No! No!" screamed the girl. "Oh, please!"
Outsiders or not – "Hold it right there!" Sora yelled, pushing his way through the cards to the girl's side.
"Who are you!" bellowed the queen. "How dare you interfere with my court?"
Sora walked forward. "Excuse me. But we know who the real culprit is!"
"Uh-huh. It's the heartle-" Goofy stopped mid word and covered his mouth.
"Why the hell is that a secret?" Kimi demanded.
"You can't just go around talking about this kind of thing!" Donald hissed furiously, gesturing for her to shut up.
"Anyway, she's not the one you're looking for," Sora continued.
"That's nonsense," retorted the queen. "Have you any proof?" she asked loftily, her chin resting on one hand.
"Uh..."
"Hmph!" One of the cards grabbed the girl by an arm and shoved her into a what looked like a large birdcage by the side of the queen's stand.
"Bring me evidence of Alice's innocence!" ordered the queen. "Fail, and it's off with all of your heads!" Haughtily, she added, clearly expecting their efforts not to matter, "Gather as much or as little evidence as you please. Report back when you're ready."
Sora headed for Alice. She seemed to be okay.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I'm Sora."
"I'm Goofy, and that there's Donald," Goofy said, pointing to Donald. "And she's-"
"I'm Kimimela," Kimi interrupted.
"Pleased to meet you," the girl said politely, "though I do wish it was under better circumstances. I'm sorry you got mixed up in all this nonsense."
"Why are you on trial in the first place?" Sora asked.
"I should like to know the very same thing!" Alice said indignantly. "Apparently I was guilty from the moment I took the stand!"
"That's crazy!"
"It's been like that since I got here." She smiled weakly at Sora. "I'm glad to finally meet someone else who agrees. They all seem to think this is normal."
"So, where do you come from?"
"Hm. Curious, I can't quite remember. You see, I found this mysterious rabbit hole. When I tried to peek inside, I tumbled in head over heels - And I found myself here."
"So you're from another world!" Sora said in surprise.
"That's funny. Maybe you don't need a ship, then," Goofy commented.
Donald shook his head. "I don't get it."
"What do you mean, another world?" Alice asked.
Sora was about to explain when the card standing by the cage shouted, "No talking with the prisoner!"
"He's been talking for like five minutes," Kimi said. "What, are you deaf or something?" She started to try to circle around the card. "How do you even speak without lungs?" She poked it in the chest.
"Stop that!"
"No, seriously, how? And you're just paper, how are you even upright..."
Sora decided to take advantage of the distraction. "Alice, is there anything else you can tell us?"
She shook her head. "I don't understand any of this. I asked this Cheshire Cat how to get home. And he told me to ask the queen. So I cam here to see her, and I was arrested." Alice sighed, looking pensive. "What shall I do? I should like to keep my head. Why, if my head and body became separated, nothing I eat will reach my stomach!"
That was a disturbing sentence. Sora wondered if that was what happened if you spent too much time here. All the more reason to find evidence as fast as he could.
"Kimi, stop poking the armed guard, we need to get going," Sora said.
"So, are you going to do it?" Kimi asked as they walked away.
Sora gaped at her. "I have to! That girl, Alice-"
"Oh, so you can remember her name."
"-is in big trouble!" Sora continued over the interruption. "And she's not even going to have a chance to find her own evidence locked up like that. She needs our help."
"And you heard the queen! If we don't find the evidence, we'll lose our heads too!" Donald added, shuddering at the thought.
"Right!" Goofy agreed.
Kimi rolled her eyes. "Why do arpeegee characters get sidetracked so fast? Do you guys not remember your goals for longer than five seconds? I mean what's wrong with you, seriously."
"You don't want to help her?" Sora demanded.
"Huh? Oh, whatever, we should explore. I'm just saying the evidence bit is totally lame. Also, Wonderland is kind of overdone, and they always just do the queen and the cat and hatter and maybe the stoner caterpillar if you're lucky and skip the rest. No dodo love. You know, I bet Disney censored the walrus and the carpenter because it's all about how Christianity is evil. Square wouldn't do that because they're cool..."
Sora tuned her out as she continued rambling.
Although he'd promised immediately, Sora had to admit he wasn't clear on how he was going to gather evidence, or where to start looking. Back in that bizarre room? Here?
"...when they ate the oysters, see, that's sex and gluttony, so he's really saying..." Kimi was saying.
Looking it over again, Sora realized he was inside a box, with the sky meeting the tops of the walls, all painted faint blue to look like it was open, and the hedges that had seemed so carefully trimmed where, he realized, simply made of flat material and painted with a green pattern. The only bit that looked real was a large black hole on the left that resembled the passage in. Maybe there was something beyond there.
A card, a black two of spades, was standing by the passageway like guard. He might know something. Sora ventured up, trying not to look at the glinting razor edge of the black ax it held, or the way its large, wide flared dark gloves looked like a butcher's.
"Um..." Sora tried. "Have you seen anybody suspicious?"
The card stared malevolently back. "I did see someone suspicious. You."
The answer was less than promising, but Sora felt glad to have gotten through the exchange without it hefting its ax. He didn't argue but just headed past into the next place. He wondered if it'd be another box.
It was a giant forest.
In a giant box.
Sora gazed about, awed by the scale of it.
Then a floating, grinning head appeared out of nowhere.
It bobbed in the air before them with the same sort of invisible elasticity as the armor, fading in and out. Finally it disappeared completely, then reappeared over the giant tree stump to Sora's right.
A headless body materialized above, hopping on top of the head and pushing it down onto the tree stump, and then bouncing like it was a ball. It danced from one foot to another, then jumped to land on the stump itself. It leaned down, the empty gap between its shoulders facing Sora for a second, and picked up its head with its paws.
Sora thought it would set it on its shoulders, but instead the monster tossed the head into the air and angled its body underneath to catch it. He watched, sickened, as the head bounced on the shoulders, even more reminiscent of the armor but far more nauseating to see taking place with a real body.
The head finally attached. Sora readied for the battle. Instead, the thing, grinning so wide it nearly split apart its face, clasped its paws together gleefully and stared at them.
Donald recovered first. "Who are you?" he demanded with a sputter, jumping up and down with rage. Clearly, Sora realized, he hadn't been the only one bothered by the display.
The thing – a purplish red, giant, striped cat, standing on its hind legs – replied, "Who, indeed? Poor Alice. Soon to lose her head, and she's not guilty of a thing!"
Was this the Cheshire Cat Alice had mentioned, the one that got her into the whole mess? "Hey, if you know who the culprit is, tell us!"
"The Cheshire Cat has all the answers – but doesn't always tell. The answer, the culprit, the cat all lie in darkness."
More darkness. I'm not afraid, he reminded himself.
But the cat was fading away. "Wait!" he shouted.
It was gone, but then he heard it speak. "They've already left the forest. I won't tell what exit. There are four pieces of evidence. Three are a cinch to find. The fourth is tricky. Big reward if you find them all."
What did that mean? The heartless were gone?
"Should we trust him?" Donald asked.
The cat was visible abruptly, still grinning gleefully at them. "To trust or not to trust? I trust you'll decide!" It disappeared again. Sora waited, but it seemed to be gone for good this time.
Sora took a few steps in, still half expecting it to reappear somewhere.
Instead he heard the muffled popping sound that meant heartless were appearing.
There were more of the soldiers, and shadows, although at least those red things weren't around. "C'mon!" shouted Goofy, charging them with his shield.
Sora attacked too, focusing on one of the soldiers, hitting fast before it had a chance to retaliate and sending it flying further into the painted forest, stunned. Acting automatically, he chased it, lunging for the kill and stabbing it through the chest. It burst apart, only for more heartless to appear from the ground around it. Sora had a second of panic – were they multiplying when he killed them? He froze up.
"Hurry up!" Kimi yelled at him, smashing one of the soldiers about to jump him. It tumbled deeper in and she followed, new heartless appearing as she moved.
Sora returned to the battle.
By the time the heartless were gone, Sora and the others had moved well through the forest. They seemed to be at a dead end, with giant orange mushrooms in the corner and weird lilypad things higher up.
He saw something glitter on the ground, a tinted shard. He reached down and picked it up.
"Hey, what's that?" Kimi said.
The keyblade reappeared and his fingers locked around it. He tried to open his hand. He wanted to hit her. His arm tensed. Kairi with her hand on Riku's arm. He wanted to attack her, hit her until she was nothing but blood. Don't.
"You find something?" Kimi walked over.
Sora stood paralyzed watching her approach. Hit her kick her beat her kill her Don't and Kimi, looking puzzled, pulled his hand open and grabbed the shard.
The keyblade turned to light and vanished. Sora's entire body felt shaky and weak, and he nearly fell backwards. He'd almost –
"Wonder that this is?" Kimi said, staring at it. "There were only shadows and soldiers here, and it's not a lucid shard, so I guess it's a spirit shard. Huh. Cool."
He'd almost – He'd almost – He'd almost –
Sora was shaking so hard he could barely stand.
"I wonder if there are more of these," Kimi mused, heading off.
He'd been about to kill her.