-Sora53: Nice long chapter! I figured we should get through Wonderland as painlessly as possible.
Fans: So...much...pain...
Naminé: How long until it starts to get really good?
Sora53: Hmmm...around the battle with Larxene, things start to really get interesting.
Corita: Oh dear.
Joe: Corita, I'm sorry Sora53 enjoys this.
Corita: It's okay...there's always KH2 to redeem myself in.
Naminé:Joe's so sensitive...-

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or CoM. I only own Corita.

"Sora! Wait!" Corita cried as Sora shuffled through his small pile of World Cards. Sora looked up at her in surprise.

"What is it?"

"Do you think I can pick this one?" Corita asked.

"What? Why?" Sora asked.

"I dunno...it just looks like fun, holding up the cards, choosing them..."

"Uh...whatever you say."

"YAY!" Corita squealed, grabbing the cards that Sora had handed her.

"Don't pick a world with sand!" Goofy advised. Corita nodded, and chose a single card out of the deck. "Okay, now all I have to do is hold it up in front of that door?" Sora nodded. Corita ran up the steps in glee, and stopped in front of the door.

"Ready?"

"Ready!" The three behind her said in unison. She held the card above her head, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, the door flew open, and she felt herself being pulled forward at a great speed...the light had surrounded her.
In a matter of seconds, Corita had landed on the hard ground rather ungracefully.

"Oww..." she muttered as she stood up. Brushing herself off, she turned to see Sora, Donald, and Goofy trying to get up as well.

"OW! Donald, you stepped on my foot!"

"Sorry! Sheesh, not even Corita complains about that now!"

"Well, well. How does it feel to be stuck in a pile with Donald and Goofy, Mr. Keyblade Master?" Corita asked sweetly.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." Sora muttered as he stood up.

"Hey, somebody's comin'." Goofy said after he'd stood next to Sora.
A small white rabbit came running from a small patch of trees, panting and gasping. This rabbit, however, wore clothes, and held a large pocket watch, which he was staring at with horror in his eyes.

"I'm late! I'm late! I'm dreadfully, awfully late!" He cried. "The queen will roast me for dinner! If I'm late for the trial, it'll be off with MY head next!"

"What do you mean, 'off with your head'?" Sora yelled above the rabbit's ramblings.

"Oh my fur and whiskers! I'll never make it!" The rabbit bellowed, ignoring Sora. With that, he took a left away from the group and dashed off as fast as his little legs could carry him.

"Off with his HEAD?" Corita asked as Sora turned back to the group.

"For such a peaceful-looking place, it sounds pretty dangerous!" Goofy said.

"Yeah...we should probably follow him." Sora suggested, and the group nodded.


"What a weird place." Donald commented as they treaded through the forest.

"It is a bit...unique." Sora said, looking at a mushroom the size of a small boulder.

"Well, we're almost through the forest, so don't worry about it." Goofy said as he steered himself around a flower that was taller than himself.

"Shhh..." Sora said, stopping suddenly. He held a hand to his ear, listening hard. "What's up all of the sudden?" Corita asked.

"There are voices up ahead. Can't you hear them?" Sora whispered.

"No...I don't hear anything."

"You can't hear that? You really do have bad hearing..." Donald muttered as he began to run towards the voices.

"I DO NOT HAVE...well, okay, maybe I do. BUT THAT'S NOT MY FAULT!" Corita roared. Sighing, she started running to catch up with the group.


"Gawrsh, looks like some kind of get-together. What's the occasion?" Goofy wondered.

The group had stumbled upon a large clearing, where several platforms stood. On one of them stood a young girl with blond hair, wearing a light blue dress. Facing this platform was the largest one, where a disgruntled looking woman sat. With her large red face, she looked as if she would start screaming any second. Next to this platform was the smallest one, where the White Rabbit stood, panting. Scattered among the platforms were various card soldiers. Corita looked up at the young girl, and a strange mix of emotions crossed her face.

"Hey, this must be that trial the White Rabbit was talking about!" Donald realized.

"Alice! Do you understand the charges brought against you by the Queen of Hearts?" The White Rabbit asked in a squeaky voice.

"Of course not! I've done nothing wrong!" The young girl, Alice, said with a touch of anger in her voice.

"Feigning ignorance, dear?" Asked the large woman, obviously the Queen of Hearts. "You are charged with aiding the Heartless who threaten this kingdom!"

"Fiddlesticks! Where's the evidence?" Alice cried.

"The evidence is... I forgot! That's the evidence! Because you, Alice, are the one who stole my memory!" The Queen roared, causing Sora, Corita, Goofy and Donald to cover their ears.

"We can't rid the kingdom of Heartless until we get Her Majesty's memory back. This is a serious crime!" The White Rabbit mentioned meekly as he eyed the Queen.

"This is so unfair! So what if you're a queen! Don't blame me just because you can't remember things!"

"Such insolence! You're talking to the Queen of Hearts! And I'd have let you go, had you apologized straightaway! What a brazen thief!"

Meanwhile, Sora's hands were clenched in fists of anger. Reacting much as Corita had when she'd had enough of the black robed man's riddles, he angrily said, "Who's the brazen one?"
In is fury of justice, Sora ran forward, causing everyone in the courtyard to stare at him.

"The court has reached a verdict! The sentence is death!" The Queen roared as Sora ran towards her, followed by a nervous-looking Corita, Goofy, and Donald.

"Hold it! This trial is a farce! You should investigate before you arrest innocent people!" Sora shouted angrily.

"What is the meaning of this? Are you saying Alice didn't steal my memory? I suppose you know who the real culprit is, then!" The Queen said bitterly, staring down at him with her beady eyes.

"Huh? I, er..." Sora stuttered, taking a step back.

"Speak! Or Alice's sentence will be carried out! Now, out with it! Who's the thief?" The Queen asked in a sickly sweet voice.

"Um...uh..." Sora continued for a moment. Then, he looked down and thought for a few seconds. "I'm the thief!" He called out boldly.

"Say that again?" The Queen rumbled as Goofy and Donald stepped back, astonished.

"Gawrsh, really?" Goofy asked.

"Of course he isn't." Corita sighed.

"What else am I supposed to say?" Sora asked. Behind him, the Queen's blood pressure had reached its max.

"Cards! Seize them all!" She roared at the top of her voice. The card soldiers quickly attempted to assemble themselves, but did a pretty pathetic job. Sora whisked out the Keyblade, and his friends began to transform into cards once again.


"Whew..." Panted Sora after the card soldiers were all lying in a humpled mess on the ground.

"Hey! Where's Alice?" Corita asked after she'd re-appeared, turning away from the cards and looking towards the forest.

"Looks like she escaped." Goofy said as the rest of the group followed suit.

"Perhaps she did. But YOU won't!" Roared the Queen of Hearts from behind them. Sora turned and saw that the cards had quickly reassembled themselves, and were staring at the group with menacing eyes.

"I think we've been trumped!" Donald cried as the cards started to march towards them.

"Run!" Sora cried, and the others took his advice. They sped away from the courtyard as fast as they could. All the while, the cards sped behind them in hot pursuit.


"I think we lost 'em." Sora said as he sat on a mushroom.

"That's good to hear." Corita sighed. "But now we're in the middle of a forest surrounded by giant mushrooms, flowers and trees with a whole deck of cards chasing us. In the meantime, we're searching for Alice. We have no idea where we are. How do you plan on solving this problem?" Corita cried.

"Well, you always think logically." Sora commented. "But we don't have to do anymore searching for Alice. She's right over there." Sora pointed to a small grove of plants, where the familiar blond-haired girl was emerging from. She managed to untangle herself from the plants and enter the small clearing where Sora, Corita, Donald and Goofy were, and she looked at them with mixed emotions on her face.

"Hey!" Sora called as he lept up from the mushroom and ran over to Alice. "Things got a little crazy back there, but at least you're okay."

Alice looked up at Sora with eyes full of concern. "I don't mean to be ungrateful, but...was that true, what you said? Are you the thief?" She asked nervously.

"What? Of course not! Why would I steal the queen's memory?" Sora cried.

"Yep, Sora only said that 'cause he wanted to save-" Goofy started to say, but he was cut off.
"-to show off!" Corita said, and Donald nodded.

"Is that right?" Alice asked as Sora turned and glared at Corita, Donald, and Goofy, who were cracking up. "Well, you saved me all the same. Thank you, Sora." She said softly.

Suddenly, Sora began squinting behind where his sister and friends were laughing. Something was on the mushroom where he'd been sitting.

"Oh, look! It's the Cheshire Cat!" Alice said merrily, and those who'd been laughing stopped almost instantly and turned to face the mushroom.

"Feeling better after that mad dash? You're not out of the woods yet!" Said the purple and pink-striped cat. He vanished, and reappeared on a tree branch above the group.

"The queen's a stickler for justice! She won't forget you till she remembers! She won't stop hounding you till you get her memory back! Did she forget because she remembers? Does she remember that she forgot? Doesn't matter, I suppose." The cat said. Donald (who absolutely hated riddles) began to open his beak to yell something at the cat, but Corita snapped it shut.

"I don't know...I think we oughta just stay away from her." Sora said calmly.

"That's all well and good for us, Sora, but what about Alice? If the queen catches her again, it's off with...well, you know." Jiminy said as he lept onto Goofy's head.

"Then I guess we'd better do something about the queen." Sora muttered.

"You should do something. But you don't have to do anything." The cat said, grinning from ear-to-ear.

"Huh?" Sora asked.

The cat vanished once again, and appeared again on the mushroom. He then proceeded to dance on his head.
"If you can't remember something, it's like it never happened." The Cheshire Cat said as he danced. "Likewise, if something never happened, you can't remember it. Try too hard to remember, and your memory might lie to you."

"Lie?"

With a final grin, the cat vanished, but his voice remained. "That's all I'll say. The rest is for you to figure out."
After the cat had vanished, Corita let go of Donald's beak, which instantly began spewing out shouts of anger.

"...and your riddles are bad, anyway! What person in their right mind would..."
Corita shut his beak again, and the shouting stopped. Curious, she let it open once again.
"...actually listen to your 'advice'! Why, if I could still cast magic I'd..."

"DONALD!" Sora shouted. "I'm trying to think here!"

"Oh...sorry."


After making their way through the forest (led by Alice,) the group wound up in a large room with a table and chair in the center, a stove off to the left, and a large door across from them.

"Gawrsh, what's with the sudden change of scenery?" Goofy asked. It was true; they'd been walking in a lush forest seconds ago.

"Well, this is Wonderland, after all..." Alice muttered.

"We should look around." Corita suggested.
"C'mon, Alice!" She said, running forward.
"Okay." Alice said merrily, and the two girls ran off to explore the room.

"Corita's acting funny, you know?" Goofy said.

"I suppose it's only natural." Sora thought.

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, think about it. Even if that Alice is only an illusion..." Sora said slowly, choosing his words carefully, "She's still a Princess of Heart, just like Corita."

"Yeah, that's right." Donald realized, watching them look up at a huge flower in a pot.

"What power do they possess, I wonder..." Sora mumbled.

"Whatever power they have, Corita sure doesn't seem too happy when those robed guys call her 'Princess'." Donald said.

"That's true. I wonder what's going on in Corita's mind." Goofy said.

"Heh, I've lived with her for 14 years. Never have I been able to figure out what's going on in her mind." Sora laughed.

Meanwhile, Corita and Alice were looking around the room. What they were looking for, they weren't sure. The Cheshire Cat's riddles seemed to have gotten harder.

"Alice, doesn't it bother you?" Corita asked. Alice looked up at her in surprise.

"What do you mean?" She asked, stunned.

"How do you ask an illusion if they remember something that happened to the real person?"
Corita wondered.

"Corita?"

"Oh, yeah...sorry. Being a Princess of Heart...doesn't it sometimes seem like a pain?" Corita asked. Alice merely looked up at her like she was crazy.

"Princess of Heart? I'm sorry, I've no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh..." Corita said sadly, hurt. "That's okay, then. We should get back to the group.

"Yes. Sorry I couldn't be of help." Alice said, and she started off towards Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Corita stayed behind, however.

"I guess I really am alone now..."

Back with Sora, Donald and Goofy, Sora was talking about their early days on the island.

"...and we used to play together all the time." Sora said happily. "Me, Corita, Riku, and Kairi...we'd swim in the ocean, build sand castles...Riku and I used to throw coconuts at each other a lot, too. Corita would get so angry when one hit her. She used to leave a lot when that happened...she'd go to her favorite place at the top of the island. Riku and I weren't allowed there, but Kairi was when she came to the island. They would play there, and Riku and I would play near the Paupu tree. Until we got older, that is. Then we would talk for hours on the Paupu tree, dreaming of worlds far away...Kairi used to try to tell us about her homeland, but she didn't remember much."

"Sounds like you have a lot of great memories of your home." Goofy said kindly.

"Yeah...I can't wait to get back there with Corita and Riku."

"Sora!" Alice cried as she ran towards them. "The Queen of Hearts is here"!

"Great..." Sora sighed. "How'd she find us?"

"I dunno, but we need to hurry!" Alice said, and she ran back towards the door on the opposite side of the room, where the Queen and the card soldiers stood.

"Thought you'd seen the last of me, did you?" The Queen of Hearts roared, shaking the table and chair in the center of the room.

"Uh oh." Sora said when he and the group had reached them.

"Game's up scoundrels! For stealing my memory, I sentence you to...I sentence you to...I...sentence...Oh? What's going on? Where am I?" The Queen cried suddenly, looking around wildly.

"Huh?"

"What in the world am I doing? Confound it, I can't remember!"

"What's wrong with her?" Sora wondered.

"Maybe somebody swiped her memory again?" Goofy suggested.

"Sora!" Called out Corita's voice. She was running towards the group as fast as she could.
"Sora, watch out! Something's coming!" She said, skidding to a halt before the group and turning away from them, facing the direction in which she'd come from. From that direction, a giant shadow was forming, and something was falling from the ceiling.

A Heartless, taller than any of the flowers they'd seen in the forest had appeared. It's long, gangly arms held sticks which it was juggling around. It was looking down at the group, and it didn't look happy. The Queen fell backwards, a terrified look on her face, and the cards cowered behind her massive form.

"So this is what stole the queen's memory!" Sora said as he stared up at it.


You there! All of you! What is the meaning of this? Where did that Heartless come from?" The Queen roared after she'd recovered from the shock. Sora had defeated the Trickmaster in no time at all, and the Queen was back to her normal shouting self.

"How would WE know?" Sora cried.

"So, you refuse to answer? You're hiding something! They're plotting against me! Seize them immediately!" The Queen yelled, and the cards behind her instantly started to move towards them.

"Please, Your Majesty, wait! It was you who commanded us to destroy the Heartless." Corita called out, causing Sora, Donald and Goofy to look at her in surprise.

"Huh?" Sora asked.

"That's right! Your Majesty, in her prudence, didn't completely trust us at first. And so, at Your Majesty's command, we fought the Heartless to prove ourselves. Isn't that right, Sora?" Alice asked, continuing what Corita had said.

"We did? I mean, we did! Your, uh, Majesty." Sora added.

"I...told you...to do that?" The Queen asked softly. The cards, which had stopped going after Sora's group, looked back at her with worried faces.

"But Your Majesty, don't you remember?" Corita asked.

"Don't be ridiculous! I never forget anything!" The Queen cried. "Of course I gave the command. You all did splendidly." She complimented, and then she and her card soldiers turned back through the door.

"Well, that was close." Alice sighed.

"Way to improvise! I never would've thought of that." Sora muttered.

"But the Cheshire Cat said as much. 'Try too hard to remember and your memory might lie to you.' The queen would never admit she forgot. So instead, she remembered something...that didn't happen! She ended up fooling herself." Alice explained happily.

"Sora wouldn't have thought of that in a million years, Alice. He's awful at riddles." Corita laughed.

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Sora cried.

"You know if it weren't for me, you'd still be back at the End of the World, trying to figure out that riddle about the fire." Corita taunted.

"What is it, Sora?" Alice asked. Sora looked like he was concentrating hard.

"Hmm...it's nothing. Well, I guess you'll be safe now."

"And that queen won't give us any more trouble! After all, we got rid of the Heartless, just like she commanded!" Goofy said joyfully.

"Don't tell me you've been fooled, too!" Donald cried, causing the whole group to erupt with laughter.

-Sora53: Yay for bits of originalness!
Fans-sigh-
Corita: Great. I'm all alone.
Sora53: Don't worry. You won't be soon...MUAHAHA!
Naminé: O.o I'm scared for you.
Joe: So am I.
Naminé: Joe's so caring...-