6/2/19: Hello everyone, Tempura here with the next chapter of Re-sketch, just barely on time for my upload schedule (thank goodness)! Today we continue with our adventure in Wonderland.
Enjoy!
Re-sketch
Chapter 11: The Trickmaster
The Cheshire Cat was a patient creature. Time, he'd realized, was a wholly overrated concept, and for one such as himself, it was hard to muster any real sense of urgency. But simply waiting had never been his strong suit—and he was admittedly becoming rather bored waiting next to the Red-Haired Girl's unresponsive body. After a few more moments of listening to the dewdrops plop into the water, the Cheshire Cat gave her nose a not-so-gentle prod—to which he received no response.
He was beginning to wonder if he'd broken her.
"Oh, well," he said. Such a shame, really. And here, he'd just started having fun.
A soft swishing noise skimmed across the ground behind him, making his ears perk and the fur along his spine stand on end. "What do we have here?" a woman's cold voice came.
The woman in the black robes made her way down the path at a casual pace, almost gliding over the ground with how quietly she moved.
"Ah, our other visitor," the Cheshire Cat said. "So many visitors wandering Wonderland today! It has the Cheshire Cat stretched in all sorts of directions." He pulled at his limbs to demonstrate, until his paws popped clean off of his body. He drifted over to the woman, peering between the horns of her cowl. "Haven't you overstayed your welcome?"
The woman seemed not to be amused. "Hmp. My apologies," she said as she sneered at the Cheshire Cat, shooing him away with her staff. "It would do me no greater pleasure than to be done with this… place. But I'll not be leaving yet. Not until I have what I've come for."
"Oh?" The Cheshire Cat pressed his paws against his cheeks. "I thought with all of those shadows, you would have taken her by now. A girl, was it? You know, I have a girl right here."
"One of the Keyblade bearer's companions?" The woman glanced over at the Red-Haired Girl lying in the mud. "And what good would a girl with such a weak heart do me?"
"Oh, you never know," the Cheshire Cat said. "Surprises come in many shapes and sizes."
The woman gave a single short laugh. "Nothing more than a distraction from the matter at hand," she said as she began to walk once more. "There is only one girl here of use to me. And I give you my gratitude, Cat, for separating her from the Keyblade."
"Of course, of course," the Cheshire Cat said, bobbing his head. "The Cheshire Cat is always one to help. And once you take Dear Alice away, you can, presumably, take your shadows with you?"
"I could," the woman said slowly, pausing just a moment as she glanced over her shoulder with a devilish smirk playing across her lips. "But I think this world would do so much better in darkness. Now, if you excuse me, I have a party to attend."
The Cheshire Cat watched her retreating back until the woman was out of sight. But his unblinking eyes continued to stare down the path long after she was gone, and his wide grin remained plastered on his face. "Better in darkness?" he repeated quietly, unsheathing his claws and digging them deep into the mud.
He only looked away when the Red-Haired Girl began to stir.
"Ng…" Hikaru sluggishly lifted a hand to rub her eyelids. Everything felt cold and damp and heavy, and all the muscles in her body throbbed with a dull soreness.
"Ah, you're awake. How wonderful," a low voice came next to her.
The Cheshire Cat sat at her side, looking particularly cat-like with his tail curled neatly over his paws. His magenta fur was neat and dry, and he still had that irritating smile that stretched out his face.
"Now, wasn't that quite an experience?" he asked.
Hikaru sat up and glared at him. "What… did you do to me?" Murky images pulsed in her skull. She couldn't make sense of any of it: frigid water, a platform of ice rising from a dark and empty void, glimpses of her mother… and that boy.
"I merely took a look into your heart," the Cheshire Cat said. "And I must say, it's quite a cold place." He chuckled to himself as if he'd made a particularly funny joke. Hikaru's glare deepened at first, but despite her stubborn resentment at being made a fool of for the past however many hours she'd spent in this gods-forsaken world, she couldn't help a spark of curiosity at the cat's words.
"My… heart?" she asked, lifting her fingers to her chest.
"Indeed. The heart holds all the greatest answers. And the greatest mysteries," he said. "Do you feel any more enlightened?"
"… No," Hikaru said. Just the opposite, in fact. "Who was that person?" The boy, she meant. His image was hazy in her head—just heavy black boots and a head of blond hair. She couldn't remember much else. But he wasn't the only one on her mind.
Why did I see my mam? And why had she been… like that? Hikaru had never seen her wearing that uniform before. Was it just something she'd made up in her head?
The Cheshire Cat shrugged. "It's your heart. You would know more than I."
She grimaced. Of course. She shouldn't have expected anything else from this utterly unhelpful furball. "Well, I hope you enjoyed the show," she muttered with a roll of her eyes, shoving herself to her feet and shaking out the water from her clothes.
"Enjoyed it?" the Cheshire Cat said. "Hmm, perhaps. It was interesting, at the very least." He spoke as if he were talking about something as casual as a stroll through a museum. "Humans are always so interesting. Especially when they try so hard to bottle up their hearts and run away from their feelings."
Hikaru's glare returned, her cheeks flushing hot in irritation. "Is that all this is, then? Some sort of amusement? A game?" she said. It was like getting teased by Akihiko, but a hundred times worse. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"You're the one who asked," the Cheshire Cat said. "You wanted to see the Jabberwock. I was merely trying to assist you."
"You call that assistance?" she asked. "Yeah, some assistance that was. I didn't see any Jabberwock. There was nothing there. Nothing. Just…" Just what, exactly? Just her reflection, and all of the things that the cat said were in her heart? Whatever that meant.
"It's all part of the process," the Cheshire Cat said. "We could take another look, if you like."
"Noooooo," Hikaru said, crossing her arms in front of her body. "Nope, not happening. Look, can you just… give me a straight answer for once? I know it might be hard for anyone in a nonsense place like this, but…"
"It's the reflection of your heart," he said, cutting her off.
He was still grinning—that wide, toothy grin—but the humor had all but vanished from his eyes. His voice was so serious that it made Hikaru falter.
"Reflection?" she asked.
"In a manner of speaking." The Cheshire Cat moved forward, circling around her. In the blink of an eye, his airy and light-hearted demeanor returned. "It is the darkness that follows in your footsteps. Follows in everyone's footsteps. It's the things that haunt your sleeping dreams, and your waking dreams. The things that breathe over your shoulder. The things you'd rather forget. But what is this Jabberwock—or perhaps, even, who is this Jabberwock? That is something I can't answer. That is something you still have to figure out yourself."
Hikaru fell silent. All of her annoyance dwindled away to soot and ash. "Me?" she said.
"In time, maybe—be it a day from now, or a week, or even years—you'll find it," the cat said. "Everyone finds their demons sooner or later. But never fear, for the Cheshire Cat is a generous being, and is always here to help. Maybe I can lend you something helpful for your discoveries?" He lifted a paw and wiggled his claws.
"No, thanks," Hikaru said hastily, shaking her head in just the slightest panic. The last thing she wanted was more help from this cat.
He cocked his head to the side. "Suit yourself. But if you change your mind, my offer still stands," he said, starting down the path and leaving Hikaru standing there with confusion on her face.
That cat… One minute he was being a complete ass terrifying her out of her wits, the next he was… sort of being helpful? Cryptically helpful. She really didn't know what to make of him. At this point, talking to him was just making her head hurt.
She hurried after him, though, jogging to catch up until she was following close behind. "Why is it that you want to help?" she asked. If she could even call it help.
"Hmm… Does the Cheshire Cat need a reason for anything?" he said. "You could say it is because of a fleeting whim. That it's because humans are interesting, and that helping people makes things terribly more interesting." He glanced back at her, eyes closed in a full-faced grin. "And also… You are traveling with the one who holds the Key."
"The Keyblade?" Hikaru blinked. "You know about that?"
But the Cheshire Cat said nothing, just continuing onward.
With a strangled battle cry, Sora brought the Keyblade down on the final Heartless, tearing through its body and reducing it to nothing but smoke and a single crystalline heart. He fell back, landing on his butt and all but gasping for air as the Keyblade vanished from his hands.
Six Heartless. That was how many he'd managed to take out on his own in this wave of baddies—and oh boy, that was more exhausting than he'd anticipated. Those helmeted fiends were fast when they rushed forward with their bone-breaking kicks, and those ant creatures (they really needed to figure out better names for these things) were nothing but a pain when they kept slipping into the ground like untouchable shadows. Sora wiped the sweat from his forehead, leaning back and taking a deep breath as he watched the Heartless's crystal heart disappear into the sky.
"I think that's the last of them," Donald said, propping his staff over his shoulder and shaking away a few stray embers from his last Fire spell as he looked around. Nothing else moved in the tall grass. "Finally…"
"Good job, Sora," Goofy said. He walked over to him and held out a hand.
"Thanks," Sora said, grabbing Goofy's hand and hauling himself back up to his feet. Even if it was hard work, he had to admit that there was something satisfying about slaying the monsters and getting to fight evil like a real hero. Maybe this Keyblade thing isn't so bad after all.
Goofy rummaged around in his pockets. "Ahyuck, here," he said, handing over a potion. "Gotta keep your strength up, right?"
"And your magic," Donald added.
"Oh, right!" Goofy pulled out a little pouch as well, shaking out a tiny blue candy shaped like a cube. He held the ether out for Sora as well. Sora chugged the potion first, letting that pleasant warmth spread through his entire body. The ether in comparison was cool and bitter, filling his veins with an energetic tingling and leaving a strong minty aftertaste on his tongue.
"So," he said. "If that's all the Heartless taken care of, what now?"
"Hm… Well…" Goofy scratched his chin as he thought. "We can't really go askin' the Queen about the King, and I'm startin' to get the feeling that he's not here anyway. What about your friend?"
"Well, maybe," Sora said. That doorknob had mentioned something about a girl wandering by, but he was beginning to wonder if it might have been Alice instead of Kairi. "We could try asking the Cheshire Cat."
"Bah…" Donald made a face. "That cat? I don't know about him…"
"He helped get Alice somewhere safe, though," Sora said. Plus, Hikaru had gone with him, so he was sure everything was fine. But speaking of Hikaru… "Where are they?" he asked, looking around. It had been kind of a while since they'd left. He would have expected them back by now.
"We'd better go check on them," Goofy said. "Maybe they ran into trouble on the way."
"Are you talking about us?"
"AH!" Sora nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around to see the Cheshire Cat floating casually behind him with one paw scratching at his ears. Then Sora heard footsteps, and he looked up to see Hikaru trudging towards them from a gap in the tall grass. "Hey, you're back," he said, smiling at first, though his expression quickly changed when he saw the state she was in. "What… happened to you?"
Hikaru was a mess. Her clothes were wet and covered with mud, and her short hair was in a state of disarray. She dragged her staff across the ground behind her as she walked with her shoulders slouched. She looked utterly exhausted.
"Just took an unexpected dip," she said flatly. It reminded Sora of that last day they'd spent goofing off on the Destiny Islands and the tumble into the water she'd taken then—but Riku and Kairi weren't here this time to lighten the mood. "Don't worry about me—I'm fine," she added.
"Is Alice okay?" Goofy asked.
Hikaru nodded. "We brought her to a house further in. How'd it go with the Heartless?"
"It was easy," Sora said. "Those guys didn't stand a chance against us."
"Sora's a natural," Goofy said with a pleasant smile, patting him on the shoulder. "He's catchin' on quick with the Keyblade."
"Yeah, but he still needs to work some on the magic," Donald added as he prodded Sora in the chest.
"Hey, I thought I did pretty good," Sora said, swatting his hand away.
"It was okay," Donald said. "You still have a lot to learn. But… I guess it wasn't bad for a beginner."
Sora almost pouted, but he brushed it off after giving it a second thought. Eh, he'd might as well take that compliment. Two days ago, he didn't even know how to use magic—and now, he could cast a pretty decent fireball. "I'm gonna get better at using magic in no time, Donald—just you watch," he said. "Maybe even better than you."
"Bah, keep dreaming."
Sora laughed, scratching his head as he turned to look back to Hikaru. She remained quiet for a few moments as she watched them, and something about her expression made Sora pause. Maybe he was just imagining it, but he swore there was something else in her downtrodden face beyond simple exhaustion.
A moment later, though, it was gone. "So, what's the plan now?" she asked, raking her fingers through her messy hair. "Please tell me we're heading back to the ship soon."
"I'm actually with her on that," Donald said. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we can search somewhere less… annoying."
"But didn't we want to ask the Cheshire Cat something?" Goofy said, pausing a moment to think. "Oh, yeah! Cheshire Cat, we were wonderin' just now… By any chance have you seen our friends? One of them is King Mickey—about yea high, with big ears like this." He made big circles with his fingers over his head to demonstrate. "Or maybe a girl or a boy around Sora's age? We've been tryin' to find where they might've gone."
"Mmm… A king, or kids?" the Cheshire Cat said. "None that come to this cat's mind. The only royalty here are from the Queen's court. And the only girl and boy I've seen of that age are standing right here."
Figures, Sora thought. A little disappointing, but he supposed it was wishful thinking that they'd find Riku and Kairi in the first world they'd visited. There were so many more stars left in the sky, after all.
"Well, I guess that's that, then," Donald said, looking a little less disappointed than Sora. "If the King isn't here, there's no use staying any longer."
"But what about Alice?" Goofy asked.
"Eh, she can find her way home. We took out the Heartless. Not like we can bring her with us."
"I guess that's true…" Goofy paused. "Should we go and tell the Queen it's safe, though?"
Hikaru's head jerked up suddenly. "No way," she said, her cheeks turning ashy. "You guys can go talk to that crazy lady or whatever. I'll just… wait here."
"I… kind of agree with Hikaru," Sora said. Even if he hadn't been shouted at directly, he definitely wasn't keen on meeting that Queen again.
"Eh, we took care of the problem," Donald said. "The Heartless won't be going after the Queen again anytime soon. Hopefully."
"The Queen?" the Cheshire Cat said suddenly. He laughed, a strangely high-pitched laugh as he held one paw over his mouth and the other on his striped belly. "But surely you know, it wasn't the Queen that the Heartless were after."
"Huh?" They all turned to look at the cat. Sora's brows furrowed.
"The one that the Heartless were really after?" the Cheshire Cat said, glancing around like he was about to tell them an important secret. "It was Alice."
Silence lapsed over the forest, broken only by the trickling of water and the distant chirping of crickets in the thicket.
"What?!" Sora cried as Goofy gasped and Donald sputtered beside him.
"You tricked us!" Donald shouted. "I knew it! We shouldn't have trusted you!"
"A trick? Oh, no," the Cheshire Cat said. "I merely took her away from the danger brought by the Keyblade. But I'm afraid that, with the Keyblade so far from her, those shadows may have already whisked her away."
Hikaru looked horrified. "You said you wanted to help us!"
"And I did not lie." The Cheshire Cat flipped over, doing a full-body stretch in the air. "Help, or hinder? It is up to you to decide."
"You… You mangy fleabag!"
"Ah-ah-ah," the Cheshire Cat sang, waggling his finger. "Time is a-wasting. Don't you have better things to do?" With that, he vanished—really vanished this time.
"Oh, gods," Hikaru groaned, dragging her hands through her short hair. "I didn't know… We just left her there… I thought she'd be safe!"
"It's not your fault, Hikaru," Goofy said, moving to place a hand on her shoulder, but she stepped out of reach and began pacing in circles. "Maybe Alice is okay, and that Cheshire Cat is just makin' stuff up to mess with us."
"Goofy's right," Sora said. Right now, it didn't matter if the Cheshire Cat had tricked them or not. "We can't just stand around doing nothing. We have to find Alice."
"R-right…" Hikaru took a deep breath and nodded.
Donald gave a growl, winding up his staff. "Next time I see that cat, I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind!"
There was a scream, followed by the sound of shattering glass.
The wooden gate slammed open as Hikaru and the others came barging into the garden. The Heartless—there must have been a dozen of them, small ones mostly, scrambling around and tearing the tea party to pieces. But there were two others that stood out among the common creatures: a rotund Heartless so big it looked almost like a balloon with a purple vest just barely laced up over its bulging stomach, and the diminutive red and black jester from the Queen's courtyard that stood on an upturned chair and waved its batons around like it was conducting the chaos.
Hikaru's stomach dropped as she scanned the garden. She didn't see Alice. And if the Heartless were here, and Alice wasn't, then that meant the stupid, traitorous cat hadn't been lying.
I can't believe it, she thought, all her muscles going tense as her grasp on her staff tightened. I can't believe I was so stupid! Had she honestly thought for a second there that he actually wanted to help them? Help her? After all that garbage he had tricked her into? Stupid, stupid! The next time she saw that furball, she was going to smash his stupid grinning teeth in!
A loud crash snapped her back to the mess in front of them. The jester spun its batons around, waving at the tea table. The large Heartless reached out silently, grabbing the long table in its massive hands and flipping it over in a swift motion to reveal the Hatter and the Hare hugging each other for dear life underneath.
"Hey!" Sora shouted, hurling the Keyblade at the huge creature. The weapon smacked the Heartless in the head and fell to the ground with a clatter. The large Heartless turned around with slow, lumbering footsteps, a glint entering its yellow eyes as it pounded its belly with its fist.
They dodged out of the way as the Heartless threw itself forward. It crashed stomach-first into the fence behind them, shattering the wooden planks and shaking the ground. Sora and Goofy scrambled to their feet first, turning to the large Heartless. Hikaru winced, wiping the dirt from her cheek and shoving herself into standing with help from her staff.
Movement flashed in the corner of her eyes. She ducked just in time to avoid a ceramic plate hurtling through the air at her face. The dish exploded into pieces behind her, and the culprit that had thrown it—a helmeted Heartless stomping around the upturned table—reached to throw another.
Hikaru ducked again. The other Heartless took that moment to move in, and three bug-eyed shadow ants rushing towards her with their claws ready to strike. Hikaru did the first thing that came to mind; she swung her staff as hard as she could, launching one of the Heartless clear across the garden and into the bushes. The other two sprang into the air, but before they could bring their claws down, a blast of ice struck them in the heads and reduced them to wisps.
"Thanks," Hikaru managed, looking to Donald.
"Don't thank me just yet!" Donald replied, turning his staff to the other Heartless closing in on them.
She clenched her jaw and nodded. It didn't look like these things were running away this time.
There was no backing down now.
In a flurry of weapons and magic, they tore through the onslaught of Heartless. Hikaru swung her staff again and again, the adrenaline powering her body as she knocked back the crawling fiends, while Donald unleashed a barrage of Fire spells to finish them off. Behind them, Sora and Goofy ran at the large-bodied Heartless, but their weapons just smacked harmlessly against its padded front side.
"Ack!" Sora staggered back, his Keyblade flying from his hand as his swing bounced off of the Heartless's stomach. The Heartless swung in return, launching one of its huge fists at Sora's face. But Goofy moved in front of him with his shield raised, deflecting the attack and sending the Heartless tumbling back instead.
"You okay, Goofy?" Donald said, glancing over his shoulder for just a moment. A helmeted Heartless took the opportunity to throw itself at him, one leg extended for a kick.
"Fire!" Hikaru shouted, aiming out with her hand. The fireball ripped free from her palm, slamming into the Heartless and knocking it to the ground. She hissed, scrunching her eyes shut and closing her hand as burning pain scorched her skin. But she shook it off a second later, turning back to the fight.
"We can't get it from the front!" Goofy said, rubbing his shield arm.
"Use magic!" Donald replied.
"I got it!" Sora said, calling the Keyblade back to his hand. "Fire!" His blast of fire seared the air, burning through the Heartless's skin. The smell of burning ether and acrid shadows filled the garden as the Heartless fell helplessly onto its back and struggled to pat out the flames.
Goofy brought his shield down on the creature's head, and then all that was left was smoke.
"Just one left!" Sora said. The lone Heartless that remained was the jester, still standing on the upturned chair with its batons spinning in its hands. But the Heartless didn't stick around. It quickly leapt off of the chair, using its long legs to hurry across the garden and going straight for the cottage at the edge of the yard.
"Hey, stop right there!" Donald shouted, but the Heartless slipped into the cottage and slammed the front door shut behind it before anyone could say anything else. "Will that thing just stop running away already?!"
"Are you okay?" Hikaru asked, rushing over to the Hatter and the Hare, who were both still huddled in the same spot they had been when the Heartless flipped the table.
"Okay? Okay?" the Hatter said, all but sputtering in disbelief. "Little girl, we were just attacked by monsters, and you're asking us if we're okay? Well… the answer is yes, we are quite alright," he added rather cheerfully.
"But the tea party," the Hare said. "It's been ruined! What a disastrous unbirthday party! So disastrous, it might as well be a plain old birthday party!"
"Sounds like they must've been some bad birthdays," Goofy whispered to Hikaru. If it had been any other situation than this, she might have laughed at that.
"What happened to Alice?" Hikaru asked, though the sinking feeling in her stomach was already getting worse.
"Well, we were just about to start on dessert when a woman and those foul monsters appeared," the Hatter started to say.
"Monsters, monsters, everywhere," a tiny voice squeaked from the ground. Hikaru looked down to see a dazed dormouse in a suit stumble through the wreckage with tea dripping from his fur. He held a broken teapot handle in one hand and a cracked lid in the other. "Monsters, monsters, in the air. Monsters, monsters, in the chair…"
"A woman?" Donald said, stepping forward with a frown. "What woman?"
"Tall, dark, rather frightening," the Hare replied. "Never seen her before. She sat down, and we tried to send her off—it's very rude to sit down at a party uninvited, you know."
"She didn't appreciate it," the Hatter said. "She ordered those monsters to attack us. Can you believe it? And she had that… that monstrosity whisk that poor girl away!" He gestured towards the cottage.
"That one with the batons?" Sora asked. "Guys, we gotta—"
"We gotta go after it!" Hikaru said. If it was that same jester Heartless, then maybe they could still save Alice.
"Just wait here, okay, Alice?" Hikaru had told her. "I'll go check to see how the others are doing. We'll be back once it's safe."
And then a nod, and a such a sweet and polite smile from a little girl that Hikaru had been so stupid to leave alone.
"I'll save you some cake," Alice had said.
Oh, gods, please don't let it be too late.
They bolted to the cottage without a moment to lose, leaving the Hatter and the Hare alone with the dormouse to pick up the remains of their tea party. Sora was the first to reach the door, turning the knob and giving it a hurried jiggle. "It's locked," he said.
"Try using the Keyblade," Goofy said.
"Huh?" Sora looked down at his weapon. "The Key…? Ohhh!" He held the Keyblade out, giving the doorknob a tentative tap. There was a click, and when he tried the door again, it turned without resistance. "It worked!"
"Of course it did—it's called a Keyblade for a reason! Now move it!" Donald ushered them through the open door.
And right into pitch-black darkness. The door swung shut behind them, sealing out the last ray of sunlight. Hikaru blinked several times. She couldn't see anything—not even Goofy or Sora standing less than a foot away from her. An uneasy prickling spread over her skin.
"I have a bad feeling about this," she said, her heart thumping faster.
"Why is it so dark in here?" Sora asked.
"Shadows do prefer the darkness," a voice rang out next to them, making Hikaru jump.
"Cat!" she said, spinning around. Despite the utter darkness, a familiar smile shined like a crescent moon beside her. "What the hell are you playing at, you rotten fleabag?" she said, readying her staff to swing. What were the chances she would accidentally hit someone else in the dark? Actually, it didn't matter—that was a risk she was willing to take.
"Temper," he sang. "I think you'll find you have greater enemies lurking in the shadows than a simple Cheshire Cat. But you know, shadows don't exist without the light. Why don't I illuminate things for you?"
There was a snap, and suddenly they were blinded by a flood of light. Hikaru automatically scrunched her eyes shut, shielding her face with a hand. Spots blinked in her vision, and slowly she opened her eyes, straining to get a look at the room around them.
She heard Sora gasp. "Whoa…"
For a moment it seemed simple enough: two giant tables with flickering gas lamps stood in the center of the room, while the paneled floors sloped strangely to the walls. Looking up, however, made Hikaru's eyes widen. Above them was a tile floor, and a round table, and a mess of broken cookies and spilled liquid that seemed to defy gravity. Or maybe… they were the ones who were defying gravity.
They were standing on the ceiling.
"Look!" Goofy said, pointing up—er, down?—at the tiny door in the wall high above their heads. "It's that talking doorknob!"
"How… did we get here?" Hikaru took a step back. Her head was spinning. "Why is everything upside down?"
"Left, right, up down—all mixed up thanks to the shadows," the Cheshire Cat replied. He floated next to her with his arms crossed. "In fact… There it goes now!" He flicked a claw upwards.
Donald gave a startled quack. "The Heartless!" he said, pointing at the jester Heartless that was running upside down on the tile floor ceiling. The creature was so small it looked like a speck above their heads.
"Wait… What's it doing?" Goofy asked, scratching his head and squinting as the Heartless reached for one of the fallen cookies littering the tile.
Hikaru felt the blood drain from her face. "No, no, no!" she sputtered as the Heartless took a bite out of the cookie.
"Oh… Oh, no," Sora said.
The Heartless began to grow. Its body seemed to stretch out, its thin arms lengthening while its feet tripled in size. Its long head grew even longer, with all the yellow eyes in its tower of faces gleaming down at them from above. The Heartless flipped over, dropping from the tile floor landing in a crouch in front of them with an earth-shaking crash. Then slowly it rose up, towering before them like a giant.
"That thing is huge!" Sora cried, scrambling back as the massive jester tossed the remainder of the cookie to the ground and whipped out its batons.
"No, we're just too small!" Donald countered.
"Doesn't matter!" Hikaru said. "Either way, we'll get crushed if we don't—"
"Look out!" Goofy shouted.
They dove out of the way as the jester Heartless swung its batons and nearly smashed them against the wall. "You guys alright?" Hikaru asked, shoving herself off of the ground.
"Fine!" Sora called. He was sprawled out on his back, but quickly he scrambled back to his feet. Donald rubbed his head, a bit dazed, but Goofy seemed fine thanks to his shield.
Donald shook his head. "You rotten cat!" he shouted, shaking a fist at the Cheshire Cat. "You set us up! This was a trap!"
"A trap? Oh, no, I was merely leading you to where you needed to be," the Cheshire Cat replied. "Does the Keyblade wielder not wish to battle the shadows and rescue Alice?"
"You're the one who let her get kidnapped in the first place!" Hikaru shouted.
"Mm… You're not wrong," the Cheshire Cat said with a shrug. "But I think you'll find that we aren't on very different sides, you and I. The Cheshire Cat is always here to help—he just works in mysterious ways!"
"Well, it would've helped to have a little warning!" Sora replied, jumping back as the jester swung down its batons once more.
"What are you playing at, Cat?" Hikaru said. "Are you here to help us or get us killed?"
"I am what you make of me," the Cheshire Cat said smugly. "Help or hindrance, it's up to you to decide. My offer still stands."
"Why would we want your help?" Donald snapped, launching a Fire spell at the Heartless. But the blast of fire only served to light up the ends of the jester's batons and give it a much deadlier weapon as it swung at Sora, who dove for cover behind the gas lamp table.
"Speak for yourself!" Sora said, hiding behind the table leg as the Heartless crouched down and tried to jab him with clumsy prods of its flaming batons. "I think some help would be really nice right now!"
"No!" Hikaru glared at the Cheshire Cat. "Like hell we want your help! You'll probably get us all killed!"
"Oh, how cold! You hurt me," the cat said, holding a hand over his heart. "Do you not trust the Cheshire Cat? Well, to be honest that's probably quite a good idea—but believe me, Red-Haired Girl, there is nothing more I would like than to get this abomination away from this world. And you and your friends are the perfect ones to do it."
There it was again—that sudden drop in his voice, and the serious intensity in his humorless eyes. Hikaru hesitated. For a moment, she almost believed him.
No, no! It's his fault we're in this mess in the first place! We don't need anything from this furball! We don't need—
"Uh, fellas," Goofy said, peering over his shield as the Heartless turned. It gave up on trying to reach Sora at such a bad angle, switching targets and looking at Hikaru instead with an angry shudder of its body. It crouched down, tightening its spindly legs.
Hikaru's eyes widened. "Okay, help, then!" she cried, making a run for it as the Heartless launched itself into the air with the full intention to crush her under its feet. "We want you to help!" She tripped on the uneven panel floor, landing hard on her side as the jester came hurtling back down to the ground.
The Cheshire Cat's grin widened, and he faded away until only his eyes and smile were left. "Excellent choice!"
Hikaru squeezed her eyes shut and curled up into a ball, bracing herself for oncoming death. But she felt a sudden rush of magic and heat, saw a flash of bright pink light through her eyelids, and when the ground shook as the jester landed, she felt nothing. "Huh?!" She opened her eyes.
The Heartless's foot was right there, stomped down on the lower half of her body. But there was no pain. There was no anything. Her entire body had turned smoky and translucent. She patted down her front, solid to her own hands, but as she reached for the jester's boot, her hand phased right through. Like a… a…
A ghost?
"Oh, don't worry—you aren't dead," the Cheshire Cat said, materializing next to her as she sat up. "Surely someone like you would be able to tell the difference. No, it's merely difficult to hit something that only half exists, wouldn't you say? I thought you might have found some use in borrowing a skill or two." He vanished again, reappearing a moment later on the table above Sora. "Perhaps you will find this helpful as well," he said, snapping his claws.
Sora aimed his Keyblade at the jester, the weapon jerking around as if on its own volition. Suddenly a blast of snow and ice-cold air washed over the Heartless, extinguishing its batons. "Whoa?! Ice magic?"
"Blizzard magic!" Donald corrected.
Hikaru scrambled back to her feet and stumbled away, her body turning solid once more as she removed herself from the Heartless's boot. "How…?" She looked to the Cheshire Cat, who just smiled knowingly at her as the jester swung at Donald and Goofy.
"Thunder!" Donald cried, aiming his staff forward and letting a bolt of lightning shoot out from the end. It struck the Heartless in one of its many faces, but the tiny spark just seemed to jump harmlessly across its body. Donald gulped. "It's too big!" he cried.
"Too big?" the Cheshire Cat said. "Or perhaps…"
"… we're too small," Hikaru muttered. Then it hit her. "The cookie!" she said, spinning around and pointing to the broken pieces of the jester's half-eaten cookie on the ground.
Sora realized it the same moment she did. "I'm on it!" he said, breaking away from the gas lamp table. The Heartless immediately turned to look at him, its eyes trained on the Keyblade propped over his shoulder. It started forward with a slow and clumsy step, raising its batons into the air.
"Blizzard!" Donald shouted, launching a blast of ice that froze the ground under its feet. The Heartless slipped, shaking the whole room as it crashed into the ground.
"Sora, hurry!" Goofy called out, kicking the Heartless's batons out of reach.
"Got it!" Sora skidded to a stop in front of the cookie, grabbing the remainder of the crumbs and icing and shoving it into his mouth. "W-whoa!"
He shot up in the blink of an eye, growing exponentially fast until he was towering over them, the tips of his spiky hair brushing against the ceiling. He looked down at them—at Hikaru and Donald and Goofy, and at the Heartless too.
Hikaru and the others quickly scrambled out of the way, leaving a wide space around the Heartless as it pushed itself up off the ground. But it looked around, and then it looked up—just in time to receive a giant Keyblade to the face.
The Heartless exploded into smoke and shadows. The remaining pieces of its body collapsed in a pile on the ground, dissolving into the air and fading away until nothing remained—nothing but a red heart that vanished with the rest of it.
"We did it!" Sora said, lifting his Keyblade into the air and accidentally bumping the ceiling. "We beat that giant Heartless!"
"Technically, it was an ordinary-sized Heartless," Goofy said. "We were just a whole lot smaller."
"Same difference," Donald said.
Hikaru breathed out a sigh of relief. All the feeling drained out of her limbs, but she managed to keep standing. "I can't believe we're still alive," she said, running a hand through her hair. She'd honestly thought that this world was going to be the death of her.
The sound of clapping came from behind her. "Splendid work!" the Cheshire Cat said from the spot he stood, his hind paws planted firmly on the ground. "You're quite the hero, Keyblade bearer. But that's to be expected!"
"Oh, uh…" Sora scratched his head. "Thanks… I guess?"
The Cheshire Cat's grin widened. "And now that the shadows are gone, we can turn this room right-side up!"
"Right-side…?" Hikaru repeated, her previous excursion with the Cheshire Cat springing to the front of her mind. "Wait, hold on!"
The Cheshire Cat snapped its claws, and there was a flash of light. One moment they were standing on the ceiling; the next, everything had flipped around. The checkered tile floor littered with fallen cookies stretched out beneath them, while the gas lamps hung above them as ceiling lights. Hikaru looked around, staggering back a little as she reoriented herself in her surroundings again.
It was the study—right-side up, just as the Cheshire Cat had said.
"How'd you do that, Cheshire Cat?" Goofy asked.
"Oh, it was nothing," the cat replied. "Just a bit of rearranging and redecorating. Nothing a Cheshire Cat can't do!" He laughed. "Couldn't let the shadows sink their claws into such a valuable place, after all!"
"Oh, blast it," a grumbling voice came, making turn around. The golden doorknob set into the tiny door blinked its bleary eyes. "Please, stop with all the racket and flashing lights!"
"Um… Sorry 'bout that," Goofy said, scratching his head.
"Take care to be a little more careful! How's a doorknob to get any sleep?" It yawned, opening its mouth wide until something glinted in its exposed keyhole.
"Whoa!" Sora's Keyblade suddenly jerked forward, making him stumble and nearly knock the table over with his massive boots. Light collected at the end of the Keyblade as it aimed at the doorknob. A beam of light shot out, straight into the keyhole, and something clicked behind the door.
"Now," the doorknob said, smacking its lips and closing its eyes once more. "Good night."
"What was that?" Hikaru asked. She crouched down to get a better look, but she couldn't see anything past the doorknob's blustery snores.
"The Heartless won't be causing trouble here any longer," the Cheshire Cat said. "Or, well, at least not that much trouble. And how wonderful! You have my thanks."
"Hey…" Donald's eyes narrowed. "Don't think you're off the hook, furball! You still tricked us!"
"Oh, I merely did what I had to do to get that dreadfully slippery Heartless away from here," the Cheshire Cat said. "It doesn't do, having all these shadows sullying the world."
"You could have just asked us," Hikaru said, crossing her arms. "Or, why not just take care of it yourself?" If the Cheshire Cat could flip rooms and give them magic and screw with her head, then surely it could have done something about the Heartless without them.
But the Cheshire cocked his head to the side. "Oh, but fighting isn't a role of mine," he said. "The Cheshire Cat's domain is that of the world and hearts. The actual fighting lies beyond reach." He stretched out his empty paw to the sky as if to demonstrate. "That is why I needed people like you. But… I'm afraid dear Alice is gone."
"Oh, no," Sora said, kneeling down to better join the conversation. "We're too late?"
"Indeed," the Cheshire Cat said. "Whisked away from this world—taken by the shadows into the darkness. Where exactly, I do not know. Is she lost forever? Your actions may yet decide her fate."
Hikaru grimaced, exchanging a look with Sora and the others. Part of her still wanted to punch the Cheshire Cat's trollish smile off of his face. It was his fault—his fault he'd tricked them into leaving Alice alone, his fault that they now needed to worry about Alice in addition to everything else they had on their plate.
Except… Hikaru knew it was her fault too for believing him. And he had helped them handle the Heartless. As much as she didn't want to admit it, he had saved her. Saved her with that ghostly magic.
She didn't know what to think of this cat anymore.
"… Thank you… Cheshire Cat," she said reluctantly. "For helping us with that fight."
"Oh, yes, you're very welcome," the Cheshire Cat replied. "Take care of my gifts; don't misuse them. Hopefully they will do you well, for your journey has only begun."
"Come on," Donald said, blatantly ignoring the cat as he started forward. "We don't have any time to waste—let's get to back to the ship."
"Here, Sora," Goofy said, rolling over the glass bottle of shrinking liquid until it bumped against the side of Sora's shoe.
"Thanks," he said, picking it up. "There are some more cookies on the floor over there."
"Eating off of the floor?" Donald said, making a face. "Disgusting!"
"Hey, I had to do it," Sora said with a pout. "Come on, Donald, it's only fair!" He reached out, carefully picking up a fallen cookie between his fingers and shoving it at the duck.
"Knock it off, you big buffoon!"
Hikaru watched them, quirking an eyebrow and almost laughing as the boys argued. But as Sora's annoyance broke away into a cheerful grin at Donald's flustered demeanor, and even Goofy released a chuckle as he collected the crumbs off the ground, she felt a different feeling settle inside her stomach. The same thing she'd felt when she'd come trudging from the depths of the Lotus Forest after the Cheshire Cat's excursion, only to find they'd already dealt with the Heartless.
They're… having fun, she thought. It reminded her of… well… herself. Herself and Aki, and Tatsuya too, in those more recent years when he'd begun to come out of his shell. How everything before the Heartless invaded Hart's Haven had been… maybe not okay, but survivable, at least, because she'd had her family.
A sting came at Hikaru's palms as she balled her hands into fists. So where did she fit in now?
"Best not to dawdle," the Cheshire Cat said, snapping her out of her thoughts as he floating over to her side. "There's still quite a lot you all must do. A big universe awaits."
"Why me?" Hikaru whispered.
"Hm?"
"Why me?" She turned to look at the cat. "Why help me?"
The Cheshire Cat paused. "Because surprises come in many shapes and sizes," he said, his smile never leaving his face. "And I do so very much like surprises. After all, how delightfully surprised was I to find someone who's met another one of my kind before?"
"Your kind?" Hikaru said with a blink. "But… I've never met a Cheshire Cat before."
The Cheshire Cat's grin widened. "Who said anything about a cat?" he said, stretching out his back. "I've seen it—hidden away in the icy cockles of your heart. I only wonder why she never chose you first."
"'She'?" Hikaru said. "But who…?"
She didn't get a chance to finish asking, though. "Hikaru," Goofy said, walking over to her with an armful of cookie crumbs. "Come on, Donald wants to get goin'." Behind him, both Donald and Sora had returned to normal size and were waiting at the round table.
"Oh. Right." Hikaru took a large crumb before turning back to the Cheshire Cat—but when she looked, she found that he was no longer there. "… Cat?" she said.
This time, she received no response.
"That little runt actually took down that Heartless! Who'd have thunk, eh?"
The image that flickered over the stone table was silent, but it was the only source of light in the dark room. There were just four people on display: the King's fools, the red-haired girl, and the boy who claimed ownership of the Keyblade. Even as they spoke, their faces and mouths animated in their conversations to one another, no words came through the watchful spell.
"Maybe this'll be interesting," Hades went on, scratching his chin as a red-capped mushroom Heartless came up to his side with a tray of drinks and hors d'oeuvres. He swiped one of the goblets, swirling the wine inside as he contemplated the scene.
"You give him far too much credit," Jafar said. "Such is the power of the Keyblade. The child's strength is not his own."
"Yeah, but that cat is the real problem," Oogie Boogie said, slamming one fabric hand against the table and sending a few insects flying from his seams. "The nerve of that disgusting feline, double-crossing us! Why, if I'd been there, I'd… I'd…"
"You'd what?" Ursula laughed. "Let it turn you into a yarn ball? Or a scratching post?"
"Listen here you walking seafood buffet," Oogie Boogie said. "I will not have you talking to me that way! Me! The Boogieman!"
"Oh, please," Ursula said, reaching for a shrimp off of the serving platter as the mushroom Heartless came up to her. "I've seen week old sardines scarier than you."
"Grr…! I'll show you scary…!"
"Why don't we send in another Heartless?" Hook asked, twirling his hook around his mustache as he looked to Jafar and Hades, completely ignoring the argument over at the other side of the table. "Get rid of that wretched mog, and plunge that world into darkness while we're at it."
"I'm afraid that won't work." A cool voice rang out from the darkness. At first only a horned silhouette was visible in the shadows, until the dark figure stepped forward into the dim light, all but gliding over to the table. At once, all the chatter fell silent. "The Keyblade has sealed that world's Keyhole," Maleficent said. "Wonderland is now out of our reach—just as that cat wanted."
"I could always make a quick stop over on the way back home, if you like," Ursula said. "I'm sure there's a shark that wouldn't mind a little cat food."
"I think you'll find that to be quite a challenge," Maleficent said. She dismissed the mushroom Heartless with a wave of her hand as it offered her the tray of food and drinks. "That cat is no ordinary cat—it represents the world it dwells in, and its world has been rendered untouchable at its deepest core. But the Keyhole and the cat—it matters not. The important thing…" She glanced over her shoulder as a portal of darkness opened up behind them, revealing the beady eyes of the twitching Heartless and a young girl with blonde hair and a blue dress.
Alice looked around, hands held close to her chest as she looked at the menacing figures gathered around the table. "W-who are you?"
"You need not worry about such pointless questions," Maleficent said. "Take her away."
The Heartless shoved Alice into the shadows of the room and out of sight.
"The princesses are falling into our hands," Maleficent said. "To that end, the Keyblade bearer hardly poses an threat. We'll observe them for now to see whether or not he and his allies pose any threat to our cause." She allowed herself a careful sneer as she looked at the four illusions standing on the table. The Keyblade bearer, the king's soldiers, and the girl with a broken heart. "Either way, he could be quite useful…"
"And that boy you found in the rising falls?" Jafar asked, glancing over to her.
"He's settling into the castle," Maleficent said, a wide smirk crossing her face. "Perhaps he could be of use to us as well."
A/N: And so we have officially wrapped up Wonderland!
This chapter was not as difficult to write as the previous, but it did pose something of a challenge. I did a lot of debating on how to write it, and what to focus on, which also led to working on some revisions to the previous chapter for consistency's sake. Hopefully it came out pretty good though!
So, what did you think? Did you like it? How was our first Disney world? Drop a review to let me know! Feedback is very much appreciated.
And speaking of feedback... I would like to give a giant thank you to all you lovely reviewers and your comments and critique! It's given me so much to think about in how to handle the rest of the story, I can't say thank you enough!
Until next time!
