Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha own Mahou Sensei Negima!

The Walt Disney Company owns all the Disney stuff.

We make no money from this.

Disclaimer: the authors of this work do not actually think Anglicans are stupid. What Norse goddess might think is another matter, but that's not us. The opinions of Norse goddesses are not endorsed by these writers.

The Keys of the Kingdom HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue Turbo Hyper Champion Edition Gold.

By OverMaster and Shadow Crystal Mage.

Chapter Nine.

Wonderland:

"So," said the Queen, clearly unimpressed, "you are a goddess."

"That I am," Skuld nodded, smiling.

"You should know as well as I do, there is only one God, and you also know blasphemy is almost a serious a crime as insulting the queen," the Queen remarked, moving her mallet in circles. "We're all proper Anglicans here, you know!"

"So what are you going to do then? Cut her other head as well…?" chuckled the voice that Alice recognized as that of the Cat.

The Queen looked in all directions again. "By the end of the trial, you'd better have found that scoundrel, or all heads here will roll!"

"Did I ever say I was a god?" Skuld asked. "I said I am a goddess. Does your Bible say anything about there being only one goddess?"

The Queen opened her huge mouth, frowned, closed it back, rubbed her jaw for a moment, then asked, more reluctant, "And what proof do you have to give of your divinity?"

"You are on the throne, aren't you?" Skuld asked.

"Actually, right now, she's standing at our courtyard, presiding over your—" the King began.

His wife bopped his head down. "She means I'm the current sovereign, you fool!"

Skuld nodded. "And kings and queens remain in power because the deities wish it so. I wish for you to remain in power, because seriously, who wouldn't? So that proves I'm a goddess, since my will is for you to rule, and you rule."

There were numerous murmurs and nods of approval both in the public and jury, while Gadget, Alice and Asuna simply sat in a stupefied silence and Negi had violent flashbacks to Kafka reading assignments. The Queen blushed lightly at the flattery, then coughed and softly rapped the mallet. "While your words hold a lot of wisdom and common sense, this court would like to see a display of your divine powers before issuing an opinion."

"Very well," Skuld said. "When mortals ask me for proof, I always give them two choices. I can display my power by razing their whole country to ashes and charred bone, or I can display it through the miracle of the two hot water glasses. Which would you prefer, chosen of the Heavens?"

The Queen blinked, then ordered the White Rabbit, "Bring us two glasses of hot water on the double!"

The Rabbit swallowed loudly, saluted clumsily, then ran out of sight as fast as he could, to return seconds later holding a glass of steaming water in each paw. "Is this, is this hot enough for you?" he reverently asked, offering both glasses to Skuld.

She hummed, touched them with the tip of a finger, and nodded. "Your offering pleases the goddess. Set them down on the grass, at least five feet apart from each other."

As the Rabbit fearfully did so, the Queen pulled a out pair of spectacles and put them on, staring intently. The audience and the jury also looked on expectantly, while the King clutched on to his consort's dress. Skuld stepped before one of the glasses, placed a foot above one of them, and then disappeared in a flash, making everyone but Negi, Skuld and Asuna gasp. A moment later, she reappeared above the other glass, arms wide open. "Ta-daaaaa!"

The public broke into shocked gasps and interjections, and then into frantic clapping and cheering. Even the Queen seemed visibly impressed. She stood up and proclaimed, "Welcome to our kingdom… O Goddess of Hot Water!"

"… goddess of the future…" Skuld mumbled lowly, before adding in a higher voice. "So, um, as you can see, I hold unspeakable power over the forces of nature, and unless you allow us to go, I shall wreck havoc upon your homeland, blah blaah blah, doom and gloom. Can we go now?"

"As long as you bring me the Mad Hatter's head," the Queen regained her deep, stern scowl. "Preferably attached to his body, so we can separate them personally."

"That can't be, we don't condone murder, not even if it is—" Negi started.

"Done!" Skuld nodded firmly.

"Skuld-san!" Negi cried.

"What? It's not murder, it's an official government execution after a just trial. That's totally cool. Even Batman would be okay with that."

"And of course," the Queen added, "while we never would dream of holding a goddess against her will, we are still going to keep one of you detained until you deliver the true guilty party to us."

"Please don't smite us," the King begged.

Skuld grimaced, then, as she felt all stares on her, most of them in terror, swallowed. "W-Well, I am a benevolent goddess, so of course I will humor your, ah, mortal petition and hold my almighty hand from burning your planet just yet. So… who are we supposed to sacrifice, I mean, leave under your custody in the meantime?"

"Dammit, Skuld, Brat, I'm not going to forget this! Ever!" Asuna fumed as she clutched the bars of the giant cage she had been stuck into, which hung next to the royal stand, flanked by two armed cards. "I'm a political prisoner! Call Amnesty International! Call on the Headmaster! Konoka knows very good lawyers! I'm sure money won't be an issue! Damn it, where's Chamo when you need him for something like this?-!-?-!-?-!-?"

"Well, you were the one carrying this, Asuna-san," Negi sheepishly said, holding Asuna's sword with a certain amount of visible effort, "so perhaps they thought you were the most dangerous of us?"

"Actually," the Queen said from the stand while flipping through a flamingo cricket program, "I just can't trust anyone who wears bells in her hair."

"Ah, that sounds reasonable enough," Gadget nodded.

"When I get outta here, I'm going to stock up on mousetraps!" Asuna promised.

"Anyway," the Queen said, stifling a yawn, "you have until nightfall to find this Mad Hatter and bring him to us, with evidence he is the mastermind behind the attack on my royal person. Or else, this bell-wearing head shall roll at the chopping block. That will be all for now, court is in recess, is anyone up for a game of cricket in the meantime?"

"Before you go," the March Hare eagerly asked Skuld, "can you do the water trick again for me? It's my unbirthday, after all!"

Skuld sighed. "Okay, all right, get me two more glasses and let's make it quick…"

"In any criminal investigation," recitated Negi, who had been taught Magical Crime Detection Basics in Merdiana, and had been disheartened when he learned the advanced courses only could be taken after hitting fifteen years of age, "it's important to go back to the crime scene and look for any clues the perpetrator might have left behind. That can tell you not only about the culprit's identity, which we already know in this case, but about their whereabouts, which is what we need to learn now."

He knelt in the middle of Tetch's wrecked tea party, carefully going over the shattered remains of the Hatter's chair, occasionally adjusting his tiny bifocals to look at a particular strand of loose hair or minuscule piece of shoe dirt. "You know," mused Gadget, who stood slightly apart with Alice and Skuld, "I've been wondering about those glasses. They seemed too small to work properly on someone your size, but…"

He smiled somewhat sheepishly, back at her. "Yes, they are specifically designed to help me in the analysis of magical particles. Magic, like everything else, leaves a faint trail behind, even after a certain scene has been cleaned. If anything, contamination is more harmful to research than cleansing, since it brings further elements you can't be sure were part of the original incident or not. Tetch is no magical adept, so the means to control and create Heartless must have been bestowed upon him by someone else. And yet, by their own nature, the Queen's soldiers must be of magical origins as well. So, when they walked all over this scene, they erased a lot of what Tetch left behind…"

He sighed, pressed Asuna's card against his forehead again, and asked, "How are things going over there, Asuna-san?"

Fatso's still playing cricket with the other weirdos, Asuna's voice reported, and they seem to have forgotten about me. She's sentenced three talking birds and two noblemen to death already. What a sore loser. You already caught up to Hatter?

"Not yet, I'm sorry," the boy said. "Please hang in there, Asuna-san. We're doing our best."

Well, try doing your fastest too! Asuna protested. If you don't make it back soon, they're going to make me one head shorter!

"Asuna-san," he evenly said, "there's nothing to worry about."

YOU of all people are saying that?!

"If we fail to meet the deadline," he said, "I'll just use the card to summon you to my side, that's all."

...

"Asuna-san?"

...!

"Asuna-san, are you okay?"

NO, OF COURSE I'M NOT OKAY! BECAUSE YOU LEFT ME IN THIS STINKY BIRDCAGE WHEN YOU COULD HAVE TAKEN ME OUT ANY TIME YOU WANTED TO! Why haven't you transported me yet?!

"Because," Negi said, "we can't let the Queen of Hearts know we can, not yet. If we do that, she'll just send more guards after us, and they'll keep getting in our way before we can find and stop the Mad Hatter. Besides, you'll be safer there for the moment. If we need your help, I'll make sure to summon you."

SAFER HERE?! I'm surrounded by mad people who want to chop my head off!

"They won't do it yet, and until the deadline's up, you're safer there than you'd be out in the open," Negi reasoned. "You have nice, thick metal bars to protect you."

Oh! So, you'd have left everyone else caged as well, if you could have?

"..." it was Negi's turn to say.

NEGI, YOU IDIOT!

Negi lowered the card and sighed. "The labor of an educator is often harsh and unthanked."

Asuna lowered her card and seethed to herself. "Honestly, that damn brat! Chisame's too soft on him! I'd have whipped him into shape already!"

Then she saw one of the two card soldiers standing guard next to her cage making amorous eyes on her direction. "Why, hello there, gorgeous..." he crooned.

Asuna grimaced. "No offense, Mister, but you're not my type!"

The card made a disgusted face. "Who was talking to you, ruffian? I was talking to her!" And he lovingly pointed at Asuna's Pactio card. "Such a lovely beauty! What are you doing in such bad companies?"

"... she has my face, you know," Asuna said.

"Yes, but she makes it work!"

"Oh, for the love of—!"

"I am certainly impressed," Alice said, hands intertwined before her. "Magic has more practical applications than I'd ever have thought possible. And the way Miss Skuld used her magic to make the Queen think she was a goddess was very intelligent, as well."

"Actually, I am a goddess," Skuld said.

Alice blinked, then laughed gently. "W-Well, that's a rather funny joke, but we all know there's only one God in Heaven, and please don't tell me the same answer you gave the Queen...!"

"But I am a..." Skuld tossed her hands up. "You know what, forget it!"

Alice nodded. "Because a real goddess could have actually just razed this whole country to the ground, not that I'm saying you should have done it."

"Sure, think whatever you want," Skuld pouted. "Stupid Anglicans, this is really going too far and too long just to justify one little divorce...!"

"Ah-hah!" Negi cried, bringing their attention back to him. "I found it! A trail Tetch must have left while he fled the scene!" Eagerly, he rushed through a narrow pass between the bushes, followed by the girls... only to stop abruptly with an anguished gasp.

The small dog with a broom for a head who had been diligently wiping the Hatter's trail up to that point, coming from a direction opposite to Negi's, looked up as the boy screeched to a halt before it, then jumped on all fours and quickly ran back into the woods.

Negi drooped to his knees on the dirt. "Darn it! Where's Milky Holmes or someone from the detective school annex when you need them..."

Alice sighed. "Yes, he's done the same thing to me before you found me, I'm afraid..."

Negi took his hands to his head. "Ahhh! What are we supposed to do now?! I can't even fly up and search from above! The forest is too dense for that to work!"

"What if we just summon Miss Asuna, cut our losses, and leave to try for the next world?" Gadget suggested. "By this point it's clear we won't find King Mickey, your father, or anything of any scientific value here."

"All these strange creatures aren't of any scientific interest to you?" Alice asked. "I'm sure Professor Darwin, one of my father's colleagues, would find them extremely interesting..."

"They are too illogical to be scientific," Gadget waved a hand.

"Your concept of science is obviously just tinkering around with household items," Skuld muttered.

Negi exhaled. "We can't just leave and let Tetch do what he wants here!"

"That's right," Gadget said, "but if we find King Mickey first, he'd be far more qualified to deal with this situation. For starters, he could convince the Queen to help him, since they're equals..."

"I know a solution!" a voice triumphantly proclaimed from within Alice's dress. "One of you should try a Pactio with my bro here!"

"EEEEEEEEEEE!" Alice shrieked, leaping back and shaking her skirt energetically, then quickly stomping, several times on what fell off it even before realizing it kept on screaming with a highly human voice.

"ANIMAL ABUSEEEEEEE!"

"Oh, there you are, Chamo-san," Skuld deadpanned. "I was starting to wonder where you were."

"Seriously?" Gadget asked. "To be perfectly honest, I'd forgotten about him altogether."

"Me too, but I was trying to be kind," Skuld easily confessed.

A sniffling Negi picked the beaten, twisted ermine and held him close to his chest. "Really, why are you girls always picking on Chamo one way or another?"

"I think I see many nightmare pink elephants on parade!" Chamo gurgled.

"Oh dear!" Alice gasped. "I'm sorry, I thought it was something in my dress, not... someone in my dress," she finished, her tone changing as realization set in towards the end. "On second thought, perhaps I am not so sorry after all."

"I'm sure it was just an accident. Chamo-kun is very accident prone like that. He can't help it!" Negi argued.

"No, Haruna's boyfriend is very accident prone like that and can't help it. Chamo's just a freak," Skuld said.

"I'm not!" Chamo protested.

"We've just met Alice-san, and you already want to set her up in a Pactio with Negi! For shame!" Skuld began wagging a finger at him. Then she realized what she had just shouted, and bit her tongue. "Ah, crap. Three, two, one..."

"What's a Pactio?" Alice innocently asked.

"Oooohhh boy, here we go..." Skuld ran a hand down her own face. "Has Aphrodite been messing with this kid? Is that it? Really, why...!"

"Chamo-kun, I don't think this is the right time..." Negi said.

"Basically, a Pactio or provisional alliance is a sub-system of magic through which a person who decides to help a mage gains ex-tra-or-din-na-ry powers from that mage!" Chamo told Alice, ignoring Negi altogether. "That person then becomes the 'Minister' to the mage's 'Magister'. Negi here already has alliances with several fortunate girls who have gained incredible powers, including Asuna."

"Oh dear. That sounds pretty advantageous, even if also adventurous," Alice said. "Could I gain the power to leave this world if I did that too?"

Chamo shrugged. "You never know for sure before doing the alliance, but nothing to lose by trying. It's a very simple procedure!"

"Then I'd like to do it as well, assuming the Professor doesn't mind!" Alice brought her hands together.

"No," Negi bluntly said.

"But why?" Alice and Gadget asked at once.

Negi looked aside and blushed. "There are several ways to establish a Pactio, but the only one we know how to do is… it's something I couldn't possibly ask from a proper English young lady I've just met."

Alice clasped both hands against her mouth as her face went beet red.

"Don't make her think weird things!" Chamo said. "It's only a kiss!"

"A kiss!" Alice gasped, horrified. Then she thought it better and asked, "Wait. Do you mean kiss on the forehead, or the cheek? Like an average greeting? Because that doesn't sound too bad…"

"It has to be a kiss on the lips," Skuld mumbled.

Alice grew even more agitated. "On the lips! So, Miss Asuna is your fiancée?!"

"Wha—NO! We're only good friends!" Negi claimed.

"Good friends don't kiss each other in the mouth!" Alice said. "That's something only married couples, and engaged couples at worst, should ever do! And to think I believed you were a gentleman!"

"Where we come, it isn't such a big deal, actually…" Chamo pointed out.

"It is when the kisser is of Negi's age," Skuld muttered.

"Well," Alice told Chamo, "then the customs of your place of origin are more scandalous than those they have here! That is it, I'm leaving!" she swiftly turned around on her heels. "I don't feel safe around people with such… decadent habits!"

"You don't have to kiss anyone! We don't go around just offering kisses to everyone we meet!" Negi said.

"All the same, I can't trust you anymore!" Alice began walking away. "I'd prefer to try my luck with these insane people! At least they don't… do unmentionable things to women!"

But Negi already was in front of her, standing on her way and startling her. "I can't let you go until we have solved this situation! There's a man out there who has an obsession with ladies modeled after you, and he's far more dangerous than we ever could be! You might just wander into his clutches!"

Alice folded her arms and closed her eyes. "So, is this a kidnapping?"

"Call it however you please, but it's not like you can escape us anyway," Skuld said. "Besides, you're on parole. If you just leave, Asuna will be killed in your place. Is that something a proper English lady would do?"

Gadget chuckled nervously. "I don't think it's such a huge deal either way, but if it makes Miss Alice uncomfortable, we should consider other alternatives instead. If we put our minds together, I'm sure we can—"

"Well, if you ask for my opinion, as well as if you don't," a disembodied voice said, playful and chuckling, "many empty minds brought together only add up to an even bigger void!"

"The Cheshire Cat!" Alice recognized the voice immediately.

"In the teeth!" a huge, leering grin suspended in the air floated down to ground level, where a big, striped, purple cat waving a long fluffy tail materialized around the grin, whiskers sticking out in all directions. "And now in the flesh as well!"

There was a beat.

"Is it just me, or does he kinda remind you of Haruna?" Skuld said.

Traverse Town:

Traverse Town, by day, was actually far more disturbing and eerie than at night. After dark, it was just yet another ghost town like all those Evangeline had visited—or caused—long ago while traveling the world. By day, stripped of darkness, the ruin and decay of what once had clearly been a thriving urban center between realms, a port of commerce and exotic exchange, was all the more evident, reduced to dusty ruin between which scarce survivors and errant children from other worlds spent most of their time distrusting and avoiding each other.

Just like Evangeline was right now distrusting and avoiding Ala Alba, although the irony was completely lost on her.

"Are you sure this is the place?" she asked the toy she was holding negligently by its legs, the still-shiny spaceman. She wore a dark robe and hood that concealed all of her but her face, and her calm, yet deeply foreboding emerald eyes.

"Positive," Buzz Lightyear affirmed. "After… the dark storms passed, we were all got separated, and a bunch of us ended up here. Back then, there was a lot more people, though. I almost didn't recognize it, but yeah, this is the place. I'm pretty sure of that."

"Good," Eva said, and kicked the small building's door open. The door gave no opposition, falling off its hinges with a long, whining creak. Evangeline walked in, looking at the remains of what once had been a prosperous business that sold and bought assorted oddities and curiosities. The shelves were mostly empty now, but a few moldy and broken souvenirs still remained, covered in dry spiderwebs. "Knock knock," the vampire droned, further advancing inside.

"We don't know what happened to the rest," Buzz reminisced painfully, "but a bunch of us were found by the same man and brought here. He was… special. He knew we were right from the start. It was a shock, actually, learning toys weren't supposed to be alive in other worlds…"

"Your cowboy boyfriend told me all of that already. Be quiet and speak only when I ask you something," Evangeline commanded.

"Well," Buzz said, "someone woke up the wrong side of the coffin this morning."

"I told you to be quiet," she ordered, rapping him firmly against the side of her leg. Intently, she looked through the shambles of the old store, walking from one side to another and back; her eyes were well adjusted to darkness. "Someone ransacked this store long ago, looking for something," she exposited, an old villain habit. If there was someone to talk to, you spouted the obvious, with a few threats thrown in for garnish. "Look at all the broken furniture and shattered merchandise. Whoever did it was someone brutal, bestial, angered over not finding something, but too stupid to search where they should have." And then she asked, "Where did the owner keep you?"

"Over there," Buzz pointed near the backdoor, the tiny light projector in his right arm sending a spot of red towards that point. Evangeline hummed while walking there. A shelf stand painted in fading red, green and white stood there, as much as something that had been smashed in half can still stand. There were several baubles and cheap souvenirs tossed all across the floor around it, including something that stuck out from under a broken piece of wood. Evangeline crouched down, lifted the plank, and picked up the book that had caught her attention up.

It was a fairly simple looking storybook, not exactly shabby but far from looking like a show piece. It had withstood the ravages of time remarkably well, but it was also spent and half-rancid, a nasty smell wafting from it. On its cover, there was a title written on elegant golden cursives.

The Reports of Ansem the Wise.

"I've never wondered this before, but… can you smell?" she asked Buzz.

"Unfortunately!" the spaceman grunted, waving a hand over his nose and then closing the transparent plastic helmet around his head.

Eva grinned, pressed the button to open Buzz's headpiece again, and rubbed the book's cover all over his face. "Seriously, what's wrong with you now?!" the space hero shouted, waving his arms to try and push the tome back.

"That's what I want to learn," Evangeline, scowling again, opened the book on its first page. On a first sight, it seemed to be lacking a few pages, but surely that was not all that important. "Whoever ravaged this store, and I'm suspecting those 'Heartless' creatures, was desperately looking for something important. But they missed the most obvious thing. Someone who would collect living toys would be somebody who would value the dreams of children above everything else," she sneered, pulling a chair up and sitting down to read aloud.

"Once upon a time, long, long ago, there were three mages and seven kings, who came together to fight a great evil that came from the shadows of the edge of the universe…" she read aloud. After all, she had an audience.

"What do you guys intend to do," Misa asked all of a sudden over the dinner table, "if we never find a way back?"

The silence that ensued all through the dining room of Cid's hideout lasted for several moments as everybody tried to make sense of what they'd just heard.

"Misa-chan!" Sakurako was the first one who could speak. "That's not like you! For you to even consider the possibility of getting stuck here…!"

"It'd royally suck, wouldn't it?" the lavender-haired cheerleader sighed. "Trapped on a rock in the middle of nowhere, with no TV, no rock bands, no huge happenings, not even Yotsuba's meals…"

"Who will cook for Fujimura-sensei?" Shirou grimly pondered. "Unless Tohsaka takes pity on her and lets Sakura go to her house every morning, the poor woman will be dead before one week!"

"I will probably simply vanish from prana deprivation before long, unless I can find an alternate source," Saber evenly pondered. Briefly, her gaze traveled over the men's crotches, in a way that was subtle enough for not even Haruna or Misa to notice, and then she shrugged to herself. "But I most likely can do that."

"My sister will grow up with no influence but Nao's," Rito grumbled. "I really don't want for that to happen!"

"No car races…" Keiichi pondered somberly, "No car shows, either… No motorcycles anywhere… No magazines with interesting articles about cars and mechanics…"

"And breasts and butts?" Yuuna suggested with a knowing leer.

Keiichi decided not to tell her that, worst case scenario, they'd still have plenty of those around. He was a gentleman, but he wasn't blind to how nicely 3-A were growing up, and would likely continue doing so… and how they seemed to be nudity-prone. "The idea didn't cross my mind, really," he piously said.

"Well, since it's that terrible to even consider," said Chisame, whose face already was starting to twitch at random periods from prolonged Internet Withdrawal, "then don't even think about it!"

"We'll pull through, it's what we always do," Konoka said. "I mean, I'm not giving up until I get to see Daddy and Grandpa again!" A beat. "And mom too, I suppose," she added reluctantly.

"Let's trust in Negi-kun, okay?" Makie asked. "I'm sure by now he's found a clue on how to get back!"

Another long silence, this one perhaps even longer, ensued. It gave birth to lots of smaller silences.

"Anyway, maybe the others will be sucked in to this dump too," Yuuna mused. "I'm sure Chao must be looking for us with some of her weird science gizmos that can do anything. She'll find the wormhole or whatever it is that brought us here."

"Fair enough," Misa said, "I was just talking crap to liven up the mood."

"You should have chosen your tropics better!" Haruka scolded her.

"Topics, Sempai, topics," Satomi corrected her.

A third silence ensued, since Rule of Three and all that. This silences children had enough time to grow up and their mother silence cried as she watched them go off to silence college.

"Maybe we could rebuild this city," Aerith mused after sipping the last of her warm drink. "I'm sure Cloud is looking for me as well. It'd be like a retreat in the mountains for the two of us…"

"And that'd be fine for the TWO of you, I'm sure," Cid snarked. "Don't count the rest of us in just yet!"

"Between Lala-san, Gadget-san, Skuld-san and me, even with the scarce resources available, I'm sure we could rebuild this into an utopia, although I'll admit it won't be the same without Chao," Satomi said.

"I refuse to even consider the overwhelming statistic probability we might have lost her already," Chachamaru stated.

"I'll keep looking for my mamas and Kage-kun forever if needed!" Makie declared.

"Mamas?" Aerith asked, confused.

"Same here!" Haruna added. "I'm never giving up on my parents, Nodoka, Yue, and now Mikan-chan!" She held up a fist. "Team Resolve Reinforcement Time!"

All across the table, the girls of 3-A, including Chisame, lifted their fists for them to converge with Haruna's at the middle of the table. So did Matoi, Rito, Lala, Haruka, Sora, Cocone, Keiichi and Ai, and after a few moments of grim hesitation, even Saber and Itoshiki. Aerith and Cid smiled and held their fists up to join them. Even Pluto, barking and wagging his tail, raised a paw and placed it on the wooden surface.

"ALA ALBA, HO!" they shouted.

"Awoooooo!" howled the dog.

It was then they realized someone else had just also added their fist. They looked up the arm the fist was connected to and saw Ayaka, smiling sadly and sniffling while rubbing her reddened eyes with her free hand.

For once, they all were too moved to end this scene with a punchline.

Wonderland:

"So, did you enjoy your time with the Queen of Hearts?" asked the Cat merrily, standing up on his tail and grinning at the group. Gadget, instinctively, took a few steps back to stand behind Negi. "I heard from the best source she's a mind blowing person… or would it be, if she left anyone with a mind and a head by the time she's done with them!" He laughed heartily at his own joke, grabbing his hind paws with the front ones.

"Oboy," Skuld said. "A trickster. Just what we needed."

"No no no no, what you need are answers on how to get out of here, and the Cheshire Cat (that's me) has all the answers!" The cat proudly slammed a paw on his chest. "Of course, I don't want to tell half of the answers, and the other half makes no sense!"

"Par for the course with this place, naturally," Negi sighed. "Then let's keep on moving, girls, Chamo-kun, we'd better—"

The cat instantly appeared floating right before his eyes. "Now that's rude, just leaving like that, without even trying to ask. And after I was of such help to Alice. Isn't that right, Alice dear?"

"Well," Alice said, "when we crossed paths this morning, you told me any way I would take would be the same, since I didn't know where I wanted to go. And I know even less right now, so I thought I wouldn't bother you again."

The cat rubbed his broad chin and twinkled the whiskers. "That makes sense, of a sort… so of course, it's false! You lied when you told me, earlier, you didn't know where to go, since you know you want to go home, don't you?"

"That's right," Alice nodded, "but I have no idea what way would take me home, so I wouldn't want what direction to ask for. Wasn't that what you tried to tell me the first time we met?"

The cat chuckled, crossing his 'arms' behind his neck and lazily floating back. "Now you're talking like a Wonderlander, that is, making full sense while making no sense. I see the place is starting to rub off on you! Or maybe you always belonged here. Your new friends, on the other hand, belong much less, despite being even madder. That, too, makes full sense while making no sense!"

"Listen, pal," Chamo said, "all we want to know is where to find the Mad Hatter. If you can't give us a straight answer, fine, just keep enjoying your drugs and—"

"The Mad Hatter!" the cat assumed a sitting position on the air. "But there are better people to find that the Mad Hatter! Actually, everyone is better to find than the Mad Hatter. Wouldn't you like to find the Princess of Heart instead?"

"Princess of Heart?" Alice asked. "Is that the daughter of the Queen and the king?"

The cat broke into laughter. "Far from it!" He waved a chubby finger mischievously. "The Princess is not from this world… although you could say she belongs here, too. Then again, we all belong here because we're all mad."

"What are you talking about?" asked Skuld, frankly annoyed. "There was no Princess of Heart in the original Alice story!"

The feline huffed, lifting his nose. "Well, there were no Skuld, Negi, Asuna, mechanic mouse or talking ermine in the original Alice story either! Everyone knows ermines can't talk, that'd be just crazy!"

"You're a talking—" Chamo began.

"And I have so much to talk about!" the cat laughed, hopping all around them, turning into five bouncing cats for a few moments, before melding back into one. "But the question is, do I want to? No, I always want to, except when I don't. The question is, who is the Princess of Heart?"

"Who is the Princess of Heart?" Negi asked.

"There's no Princess of Heart!" the cat opened his arms.

"But, you said—!" the boy protested.

"There's no single Princess of Heart, there are many Princesses of Heart!" the cat answered. "And the Wonderland one isn't even a Princess, but we looo-ooove her all the same!" The cat opened a small door on his chest and revealed his beating cartoony heart for a moment before closing it back. Alice cringed visibly. Negi and Skuld, who had cut dead animals open very often during their respective studies, and Gadget, who was unflappable to the physical damage of cats, never flinched. "To open the keyhole that stands between all the worlds, and seal the darkness back from where it came, you need at least seven Princesses at your side!"

Negi tensed up, feeling a straight answer at last. Of sorts. "Aren't you joking?"

The cat's smile grew perverse, and his face became demonically white for a moment. "Do I look like a joker?" he crooned in a sinister voice before going back to what passed for normal in him. "Although the darkness wanted to shuffle me into their deck anyway. Because I know all sorts of things, as you can see!"

"Do you mean the Queen?" Alice asked.

"The Queen is only a cheap card from a lesser deck!" the cat laughed, slapping himself on the knees. "The darkness, those playing the Mad Hatter for a fool, come from beyond, from far beyond, and they know things, too. They know about your father."

"My father? What does he have to do with any of this?" Alice asked.

"No! Not your father!"

"My father, then? He's been gone for years," Gadget said.

"No! Not your father!"

"Listen, friend," Skuld groaned. "If anyone can look after Himself, it's my Father…"

"No! Not your Father either!"

"My father!" Negi gasped, then rushed ahead to grab the cat by his chest's fur. "What do you know about him?!"

"Why, all I know," the cat said, disappearing and leaving nothing but his grin and a few hairs on Negi's fist, "is he was a great hero, the same thing everybody knows. I don't know a lot about heroes because they are boring, and there are no heroes in Wonderland. If you want to know about heroes, you should ask Philoctetes, the hero trainer who lives in the next orbit! They say he's trained every great action hero since Schwarzenegger! Or was that an actor?"

"Philoctetes? You mean, like the mythical Greek character?" Negi asked.

Alice looked curiously at his impressed, paling face. Was that boy actually the son of some great… war hero of sorts (Alice wasn't really sure there was any other kind of hero)? If so, why had a great man allowed his son to become a dissolute? Unless he had been killed in the battlefield, which seemed reasonable enough.

The disembodied grin floated erratically all over the place. "If you say so! It sounds Greek to me, I'll give you that! But that's all I'll give you. And in turn, I just want you to give me nothing but a tiny itsy bitsy... snack!"

The grin, which at that point had suddenly hovered over Gadget, swooped down and caught her between its teeth, and the cat fully reappeared swallowing the yelping Gadget, then licking all over his mouth and whiskers.

While Alice gave a short shriek, Negi immediately grabbed the Cheshire Cat, turned him around, and began to violently slap his butt. "Spit her out! Spit her out! SPIT HER OUT!"

"Gack!" a second later, the cat coughed up a thick ball of purple fur. The ball rolled across the grass unfolding itself, and at the end of its roll, a dazed and saliva-covered Gadget sat on the ground, head slightly throbbing from one side to another.

"Daddy, I don't think I like that ride anymore..." she babbled.

The cat indignantly vanished from Negi's arms and reappeared a few steps away, dusting himself off. "The nerve of you, boy! I mean, that joke was pure Looney Tunes, not Disney! You're getting it all mixed up!"

To be Continued.