Chapter 3
Wonderland
Out of the many things that had already happened to Sora this had to be the weirdest. He, Donald, and Goofy had stepped of the Gummi Ship when they fell...through a rabbit hole. It seemed like hours they had been falling. Goofy had even fallen asleep. Sora noticed the ground finally close in and he and Donald landed easily. Goofy on the other hand had fallen quite hard on his stomach.
"I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!" Sora heard from behind him. A white rabbit in a red suit looking at a pocket watch ran by. Maybe he would scratch the whole 'falling down the rabbit hole' as the weirdest thing. "The Queen! She'll have my head for sure!"
"We're not going to like this," Donald said as they followed the rabbit. As they got to the only door in the hallway they opened only to find another door. And another. And another. Finally they walked into a different room. An even smaller white rabbit ran through and extremely small door.
"How'd he get so small?" Sora asked as the three inspected the door. There was a large doorknob on it.
"No you're simply to big," Sora jumped as the doorknob spoke.
"It talks!" Goofy yelled.
"I wouldn't be if I was still asleep! You woke me up!" the doorknob yawned.
"Good morning," Goofy said cheerfully.
"Goodnight! I'm going back to bed!" he yawned again.
"Wait!" Sora stopped him. "What do we do? You know, to get smaller."
"Why don't you try the bottle, over there?" the doorknob said. Sora turned to see a table that hadn't been there before.
"Wait, when..." but the doorknob was already fast asleep. Sora shrugged and walked up to the table to see two bottles. One was marked big and one small. Sora took the small bottle and drank the liquid inside. Donald and Goofy also took a drink.
"I don't feel a thi..." Donald was cut off, as they suddenly grew smaller. They looked around to see that everything in the room now seemed huge. Goofy walked over to the door and turned the doorknob's nose. The door opened and they walked into what appeared to be a courtyard.
"Court is now in session!" they heard the white rabbit. The saw that at the front of the courtyard was a plump lady on a thrown who they guessed was the queen. In front of her were her guards who looked like large playing cards. The black ones had axes and the red ones had spears. In front of them was a platform with a podium on it. Standing on the platform was a girl with blond hair in a blue dress.
"Alice!" the queen screamed what must have been the girl's name. "You are officially on trial!"
"Trial? But why?" Alice asked in a British accent.
"For treason against the court and attempted theft of my heart!" the queen explained. Sora, Donald, and Goofy stared at each other.
"We should help her you guys," Sora told them.
"But we're not aloud," Goofy said. "That would be muddling."
"Meddling!" Donald corrected. "And it's still against the rules." Sora sighed and turned back to the trial.
"I sentence you to a quick beheading!" the queen yelled. One of the black cards came up with his axe.
"No! Please!" Alice yelled. The guard brought down the axe.
"Wait!" Sora yelled just before the axe met its mark. "Alice is innocent! We know who the real culprit is!"
"Oh really," the queen said. "Do you have any proof?"
"Well...um..." Sora looked to Donald and Goofy for help but they just shrugged.
"I will give you twenty minutes!" the queen yelled. "If you don't have evidence of Alice's innocence by then the beheading shall go on!" Two guards came up and grabbed Alice, putting her in a cage next to the queen.
"Let's go guys," Sora said as they headed into the nearby forest.
"It's to dark in here," Sora said as they headed through the Lotus Forest. They had been searching for at least ten minutes and nothing had come up.
"Poor Alice," a voice said. The three looked over at a tree stump to see a cat. No, the head of a cat!
"I hate this place," Donald shook his head.
"Excused of everything but guilty of nothing," the cat said. The body of the cat suddenly appeared. The cat was purple with lighter stripes of purple all over him.
"Who are you?" Sora asked.
"The Cheshire Cat, at your service," he bowed. "It's a shame that Alice is blamed for what the shadows did."
"You know where the Heartless are?" Goofy asked.
"They are somewhere in this very forest. Good luck," the body of the Cheshire Cat disappeared first and then the head.
"That narrows things down," Donald said sarcastically. "We wouldn't even be in this mess if you hadn't interfered!" He pointed at Sora.
"This is my fault?" Sora asked.
"Yeah! I told you interfering was against the rules!"
"So I was just suppose to sit back and watch Alice get her head taken off?!"
"It would be easier then walking around this forest looking for Heartless!"
"Um...guys," Goofy tried to interrupt.
"Stay out of this!" they both shouted.
"I will, it's just..."
"The Heartless will find me!" Sora shouted.
"Then why are we searching for them?!" Donald shouted back. Once again Goofy tried to slip into their argument.
"I just wanted to let you two know..."
"What?!"
"They're here," Goofy pointed around them to see Soldiers and Shadows surrounded them. Sora jumped over the circle of them and sliced one on the way over. Some new Heartless then appeared. They were small red creatures that floated over the ground. He focused and used Scan.
"Red Nocturnes!" Sora shouted. He jumped at one but the Heartless fired off a Fire spell at him.
"That's new," Goofy said as they went back to battle. Donald fought fire with fire, wiping out a bunch of Shadows with one shot of Fire. Goofy went against the Red Nocturnes since he could deflect their fire easiest. Sora went claw to Keyblade as best he could with the Soldiers. One Soldier jumped onto Donald's back but Sora knocked him away.
"Fire!" Sora shot off and destroyed the Soldier.
"I didn't know you knew magic," Donald said.
"Picked it up yesterday!" Sora told him as he dodged a strike from a Shadow. Goofy jumped out of nowhere and struck the Shadow down. Goofy had already taken out as many Red Nocturnes as he could and the burn marks all over him was evidence. Donald jumped up and knocked a few Nocturnes out of the sky and Sora sliced through them.
"Goofy! Grab that Soldier!" Donald pointed at the only remaining Heartless. Goofy put the Soldier in a headlock to make sure it didn't escape. "I think we have found our evidence for Alice." Donald said.
"Good evidence," Sora agreed.
"What is that?!" the queen yelled as Goofy brought the struggling Soldier before her. The cards stood at the ready.
"See, Alice is innocent!" Sora told her. The Soldier broke free and not being as stupid as some would believe, ran at the sight of so many guards.
"I don't care!" the queen shouted. "Rule 12 says: Anyone who defies the queen is guilty! Off with all of their heads!" One of the cards ran over to a tower with some wheels on it and turned them so the cage that held Alice was lifted into the sky and a red cloth went around it so she could not be seen.
"Get the tower!" Sora told Donald and Goofy. They nodded and ran for it. What must have been the entire pack of cards blocked their way. A black card swung his axe at Donald but Donald ducked and shot a Fire spell at the cards back. Goofy blocked a spear attack with his shield and knocked the card out with a hit to the back of it's head.
Sora was free to attack the cards without fear of killing them seeing as the Keyblade would not sharpen because they didn't work for the Heartless. He ran and tripped one card by knocking its feet with the Keyblade. Another came at him with its axe and Sora parried the attack. He planted the tip of the Keyblade into the ground and pushed himself up to do a drop kick and then land back on his feet.
Goofy was starting to have trouble as the cards started to gang up on him. He blocked their attacks as best he could with his shield but they came form all over. Goofy spotted on of the cards heading toward the cage with Alice and climbing up to it.
"Donald! The cage!" Goofy screamed as he was knocked down and covered by the cards from head to toe.
"Oh no you don't!" Donald yelled and shot off his newest spell. "Blizzard!" A shot of cold came from the tip of his Morning Star wand and froze the card solid.
"Nice one, Donald!" Sora shouted. A red card flew jumped at him. Sora sighed and ducked as the card flew right over him. "Why does everything I fight jump over me?" Sora quickly blocked an attack from a black card and slid the Keyblade up to the axes blade and made it fall from the cards hands. Sora caught the axe in his other hand and changed direction. He ran up to the queen's thrown and put the axe to her throat.
"Sora, what are you doing?" Donald asked.
"Hey you cards, get off of Goofy!" he shouted. All the cards covering Goofy jumped off at the sight of their queen in trouble. Goofy continued to thrash around until he realized he was free of the hold. "Donald, destroy the tower!"
"Got it!" Donald walked right over to the tower with no card interference. He knew Sora wouldn't kill the queen but they didn't know that. "Fire!" Donald shot off and watched as the tower slowly burned to the ground. The cage fell to the ground and the curtain was lifted only to reveal nothing.
"Darn it!" Sora yelled and the axe slipped a bit.
"Hey! Watch it!" the queen shouted.
"Oh, sorry," Sora turned back to the cage but then to the cards. They all started to raise their weapons.
"Anyone that says sorry to their hostage won't kill!" the queen said happily. Sora cursed himself and threw the axe in front of the cards. Donald set the ground in front of the cards on fire and the three ran back into the forest.
"Nothing in this world goes right!" Donald yelled. This time Sora did take the blame for losing their 'hostage'.
"Poor Alice," came the voice of the Cheshire Cat, "Taken by the shadows while you were to busy fighting." The cat appeared before them.
"We get that," Sora said.
"Where can we find Alice?" Goofy asked.
"The doorknob's room of course!" the Cheshire Cat said.
"That means we would have to go through the cards again!" Sora yelled. Not one thing could possibly go good for them here.
"Well, why don't you try that place, over there," the Cheshire Cat pointed to and opening in the forest wall. Then he once again disappeared. They shrugged and walked through. Sure enough they were in the room with the doorknob. Only one problem though.
"It's upside down!" Donald yelled. They were currently standing on the ceiling. Sora rolled his eyes as he was getting used to the temper of his partner.
"That stupid cat told us to come here!" Sora told him. Before Donald could say anything else a bunch of Heartless appeared. Shadows, Soldiers, and Nocturnes surrounded them from every side.
"This should be easy," Goofy said. The ground started to shake as another Heartless stepped up. This one was large and very fat. As Sora was tall this thing was wide in every direction, a perfect ball with two short arms and legs and of course a head. Sora Scanned the new Heartless.
"Large Body, of course," Sora said as he dodged a strike from a Soldier. Donald jumped away from a Fire spell from a Nocturne and fired a Blizzard spell. The spell was super effective against them and the Nocturnes were soon gone. Goofy had his hands full with three Soldiers at the time. He knocked one into another and then squashed them. The last ran at him but Goofy jumped up and came down shield first.
Sora had disposed of the Shadows and was now moving toward the Large Body. Sora focused to try Donald's new spell.
"Blizzard!" Sora shot the spell at the Large Body's head but barely even phased it. He struck at its large gut but the Keyblade bounced off. Goofy came from out of nowhere once more and hit the Large Body in the head so hard it fell over. Some how the creature got up and prepared to attack. It jumped up and came down with so much force a shock wave was made and Sora and Goofy were knocked back.
Donald was busy with the remaining Soldiers and he blasted a few with his Fire spell. The Soldiers started to avoid the spell and moved into attack. One sliced at Donald with its claws but Donald blocked. One of the Soldiers got him from behind and left a bad scratch on his arm. Donald hit it with a Blizzard spell and when it was frozen, hit it with his staff and it cracked into pieces.
The Large Body advanced on Sora and Goofy and they were running out of ideas. Goofy suddenly ran at it full speed but was knocked back. This gave Sora some time to run behind the Large Body and slam the Keyblade into its back and the Heartless died.
"Fire!" Donald finished off the final Soldier and they fell into a heap in the middle of the floo... well, ceiling.
"Congratulations!" the Cheshire Cat appeared again. "Now for your prize!" The room was then flipped around and they were once again on the floor. "Are you ready for the shadows?" He asked.
"Not really," Sora said.
"To bad. The Trickmaster waits for nothing," the Cheshire Cat pointed up to a large creature that was now on the ceiling. The Cheshire Cat disappeared as the creature hit the ground. If Sora had been regular size then he would have been face to face with this thing but now came to its foot.
It had four long legs that were black on the bottom half and red on the top. Its small torso was red with large black shoulders. Its arms were black and looked like long pieces of folded paper. It had five small heads that rested on top of each other and alternated in color from red to black. It juggled two long purple sticks and the Heartless symbol showed proud on its chest.
"Here we go again," Sora said, as he got up got ready to attack. "We just have to get to the..." The table with the potion to make them bigger disappeared once again. One idea shot down. The Trickmaster walked over to them slowly and smashed at the ground with one of its juggling sticks. They jumped out of the way and Donald fired a Blizzard spell at the creature's feet and they stuck there.
Sora and Donald fired a bunch of Fire spells at every part of the Trickmaster but it wasn't enough before he broke free. Goofy tried to trip it up by knocking its feet with his shield but it was no good. One of the juggling sticks smacked into Goofy and he was thrown back into the fireplace on the far side of the room and it crumbled around him.
"Goofy!" Sora and Donald yelled but had no time to check on him. The Trickmaster walked over to the stove on the other side of the room and set his juggling sticks on fire. He tossed one at Sora and Donald but they jumped away. Sora climbed to the top of the stove and jumped off. He placed a few good cuts on the Trickmaster's middle but did very little in the long run.
"Blizzard!" Donald shot off his spell and the fire on the sticks was doused. The Trickmaster saw this and stomped over toward Donald. Sora took all he had left after all the fighting he had been doing today and rammed the Keyblade into one of the Trickmaster's ankles. The foot was cut clean off from the force of the cut and the Trickmaster looked none to happy about it.
Donald used a Fire spell and hit the Trickmaster in his open sore and the Trickmaster yelled out in pain. It once again changed directions and slammed his stick right next to Donald. Sora and Donald regrouped near the crumbled fireplace that Goofy was still buried under. Sora had to prop himself up on his Keyblade.
"What do we do now?" Sora asked.
"I don't see any way to win," Donald admitted as the Trickmaster walked toward them and started to bring down his stick again. The stones behind Sora and Donald burst away and an injured Goofy stood there with an angry look on his face. He summoned what little magic power he had and got ready for his attack.
"Rocket!" Goofy shouted and he used his magic to propel himself into the air at high speed. He raised his shield and went straight through the Trickmaster before landing hard on the other side near the doorknob. Once again a shadowy, elongated heart came from the defeated Heartless and it disappeared.
"Goofy!" Sora shouted as he and Donald ran over to Goofy's side. Goofy had that odd grin on his face to show he wasn't to hurt.
"Just a little rest and I'll be fine," Goofy assured them.
"What's with all this racket?" they heard the doorknob yawn. When the doorknob's mouth was open a keyhole was seen inside of it. The Keyblade reacted to the keyhole and became level with it. A thin beam of energy came from the tip of the Keyblade and hit the keyhole and a locking sound was heard. A Gummi block, which was used to create the Gummi Ship came from the doorknob's mouth before it closed.
"That's no ordinary Gummi," Goofy said as gathered enough strength to stand. Donald picked it up and put it in his pocket.
"I'll hold on to it. Now let's get out of this crazy place!" Donald walked back to the reappeared table and drank from the potion that made him bigger and Sora and Goofy followed. They returned to the Gummi Ship, empty-handed.
One of the shrouded figures remained in the dark room with Maleficent as they watched Sora.
"That little brat found one of the Keyholes." the man said.
"So what?" Maleficent said. "It will take him ages to find the rest. Besides, he remains blissfully unaware of our other plan."
"Oh yes, the princesses. How is that going?"
"Very well," Maleficent laughed as one of the other figures pushed Alice into the light. Alice backed away as they laughed together.