Disclaimer: I do not own American McGee's Alice or Doctor Who.
Chapter 5: The Frumious Foes
Alice headed into her room, and no sooner did she enter than she started packing her things!
"Alice, what are you doing?" asked George Renfrew in confusion.
"Consider this my resignation, Mr. Renfrew. I cannot be your children's governess any longer."
George entered the room. "Alice, I...I don't understand."
"The only reason the children ran away was because I turned my back. They left while I was daydreaming. It took me two hours to return to reality and discover they were missing. Two hours in which they could very well have gotten hurt, or worse."
"But...I still don't...they didn't get hurt! You found them, and returned them!"
"With the help of a stranger." Alice retorted. "The search could have taken days had Richard not stepped in. But even that's beside the point."
"What point?"
"The point is," said Alice as she struggled to close her trunk, the vehicle for all the belongings she brought, "You cannot trust me around the children. I am unreliable."
"Alice, you cannot determine that from one single incident! It's clear you still love them, and they love you! If this is even the slightest trace of your fault, as you claim, I am still quite willing to forgive!"
"As ever, you're too kind Mr. Renfrew." said Alice with a brief smile. "But what will you say the next time this happens? And the one after that? Because I can guarantee this will happen again."
Before George could say anything, Alice dragged her trunk out the door...only to be blocked from descending the staircase by the children she had just saved.
"No, Alice!"
"Please don't go, Alice!"
"We love you, Alice!"
Alice leaned down and embraced them one last time, and said: "I love you too. But that's why I have to leave. You need someone who can protect you, and that person is not me."
With that, she directed them out of the way, and began hefting her trunk down the stairs. It took her a while, considering the heavy load, but eventually she reached the bottom. As she paused to catch her breath, Mr. Renfrew followed her down.
"You were the only one who responded to my advertisement. I worry I'll have nowhere else to turn but you. Is there truly no way to dissuade you from this?" he asked.
Alice sighed, and nodded. "To be honest, I wish there were, but no."
George sighed in frustration and sadness. "Well, at least allow me to call you a porter, to help you with your luggage."
"...Thank you." Alice said as she offered her hand, giving Mr. Renfrew a brief handshake. "I wish you luck in finding my replacement."
It was some minutes before the porter arrived, and Alice's luggage was carried off, allowing her to finally leave the Renfrew household for good. Mr. Renfrew was distraught, from a mixture of lingering fear from the earlier episode, and from an inescapable feeling that a part of his spirit had been taken away...
…...
…...
And there she goes, along with all your hopes of keeping your children safe. Sad, isn't it? She said that you couldn't trust the children with her, but if only she knew what you had done...
After all, it was you who concealed the notion of death from them, wasn't it? You said their mother was in Highgate, but you should have said Highgate Cemetery. But you didn't. You didn't even try to explain that their mother was dead. It was your fault they ran away, not hers.
And their mother? You had every opportunity to save her. You could have stopped her from whoring herself out to pay your creditors, after you accrued those debts. You could have stopped her from contracting that disease. You could have stopped her from getting addicted to opium, to cope with the pain. But you didn't. Instead, you reacted too late, cutting her off from the opium that was her only source of relief.
You taught her you had no love to give, only pain. Now these children need love you cannot provide. And without it, these incidents will continue. Your previous governesses discovered this while you were too busy mourning your wife to help raise her children.
You won't get far raising them on your own. There's only one thing you can do to keep them safe, but it will hurt you and them. It will take more than you have in you. But I can give it to you.
Accept me, George Renfrew. I am your strength.
…...
…...
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The Hargreaves sitting room felt uncomfortably like those sitting within were playing chess, with neither willing to make the first move. Though Meredith, Thomas, and Richard were all family, there was a level of animosity that would disturb any who prized love between children and parents above all others.
Richard, having been rudely pulled from his supper, chewed on a watercress sandwich while he waited for his parents to start speaking. But it seemed like Thomas and Meredith were waiting for him to do the same. At one point, thinking they wanted to do nothing but glare at him, he had gotten up to leave, but they wordlessly told him to remain seated.
Eventually, he had finished his sandwich, and waited close to two minutes, but his parents seemed determined to do nothing but glare. Richard gave in and began the conversation.
"If its money you're concerned about, I did make a profit from the performance. More than enough to cover the carriage and the restaurant."
"Its not the money that's concerning, but the spectacle you made. Street-performers are supposed to be beggars, not gentlemen." said Thomas with his cold, raspy tone.
"That was not a simple street performance, father. It was a demonstration of my inventions. I hope to sell these things someday."
"Hope. Hope, hope, hope. That's all you've had, Richard." moaned Thomas. "So far, none of these hopes have translated into concrete success. You would accumulate astronomical debts without the allowance you receive from us. And all we ask in return is that you don't embarrass the family name. Is that too harsh a demand?"
"...Sometimes it does seem that way. To me, the family name means nothing but stagnation. You're content with skimming off your investments and land income, never needing to perform any honest labor. I feel like I've earned none of what I have been given."
"Richard, simply being born a gentleman means you've earned everything you've been given. Why can't you see that?"
"Because, father, I desire activity. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but its father is an engaged, intelligent mind. My mind is teeming with a thousand creations begging to be introduced to the world, and I fear I would be doing the world a disservice if I just rested on my laurels and let my creativity go to waste. Give me a problem with gas heating, for example, and I give you the electric teapot. For an inventor, leisure is too close to laziness. I hope one day you'll understand."
Thomas narrowed his eyes. "I do not appreciate being called lazy. Does managing the estate, ensuring my daughters' dowries and maintaining our upstanding reputation sound like laziness? I raised you, didn't I?"
"Did you indeed?" said Richard as he looked away and sipped his tea.
"I know I raised you better than to conduct yourself like animals in that pub I found you in. The way you conducted yourself with those children, and that strange woman, it nearly disgusted me."
Richard nearly choked on his tea. "Those children? Father, I am appalled. Didn't you recognize Abigail's children? Mother, you remember Abigail, right?"
Having finally been given leave to enter the conversation, Meredith spoke up: "Oh, yes of course! Peter, Pearl and Pauline Renfrew. They were such joys to behold."
"Well, they had run away from home earlier today, and I offered my help in getting them back."
"Ah, my apologies." said Thomas. "I was angry, and didn't really notice anyone other than you. But...who was the woman with you?"
"She's their governess, Alice." Richard replied. He considered stopping there, but decided against it; "Funny thing, we'd met a few weeks earlier by chance, and I thought I'd never see her again, but now I consider her a friend."
"Did she make an impression on you?" asked Meredith, with a tone betraying her as unsure what to feel.
"Meredith, are you saying that-" Thomas began, but Richard interrupted.
"Yes, the encounter was quite memorable. You know those Lewis Carroll books I read a little while ago? Turns out she inspired them, when she was younger. We had so much to discuss about-"
"Wait a minute, Richard. You don't mean Alice Liddell?" asked Meredith, who had settled on concern.
Richard replied: "She never told me her last name..."
"Well, I heard it on good authority that the woman who inspired Lewis Carroll was none other than the Liddell girl from a notorious case, some years back."
"You know her? From what?" Richard asked with more engagement than he'd shown all conversation.
"You were rather young when it happened... Thomas, do you remember hearing about the Houndsditch scandal?"
"Oh...yes, of course, Meredith. Terrible thing, that. Not exactly something for polite discussion, don't you think?"
Meredith replied, in a stage whisper: "I think he needs to hear this."
Thomas thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded his approval. So, Meredith began: "The Liddell family died in a fire, all save Alice, who grew into womanhood in an insane asylum. For ten years she couldn't distinguish fantasy from reality."
This caught Richard's attention; "She did mention she had waking dreams...mistook me for a knight..."
"That's not the worst part. The worst part is that after she was released, she went into the care of a certain Dr. Bumby, a hypnotist who ran the old Houndsditch orphanage in Whitechapel. Turned out he was the arsonist who killed her family, and wanted to make her forget about it all to cover up his crime. She murdered him after she found out, and was tried, but the jury went easy on her. And why? Because she removed a great social parasite from London."
"On the side, you see, Bumby made a business selling his children, after he'd erased their memories, to work in...well, the business of sin." She winced, but continued. "Before he died, he said he wanted to do the same to Alice. Said he fancied her sister, even defiled her just before he died...do you see where I'm going with this, Richard?"
"...No."
Meredith sighed. "Think about it. She loses track of reality easily, and lived with a depraved leech for years, then lived on the streets for a few years more, with all the layabouts and lurkers? There's no chance a girl like that could hold on to her virtue!"
Thomas nodded, finally getting the message. "So what you're saying, my dear, is that he should stay away from this Alice person?" he said.
Meredith nodded. "It just wouldn't do for someone of our station to be associated with a woman of such ill repute, wouldn't it, Richard?"
"Not even as a friend?" asked Richard indignantly.
"Sadly, yes." said Thomas. "If you worry about her feelings, then it's best to end contact now, before you've made too much of an impression on her."
'What about the impression she made on me?' thought Richard, though he dared not say so out loud. Instead, he said: "Very well..." with reluctance.
"Much better. Don't worry, we'll help you find some other, more respectable friends." said Meredith with as genuine a smile as she could manage.
As the conversation ended and parents and son went their separate ways, Richard thought of the retort he wanted to make, but for fear of losing his allowance, the safety net that allowed him to pursue his dreams, he couldn't say:
'They probably won't be as interesting, or as kind, as Alice...'
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As the sun slipped below the line of buildings, Alice finally returned to the squalor that was her old apartment, ready to resume the life of an unemployed single woman.
But instead of reaching into her trunk and unpacking, or anything else, Alice plopped down face-first onto the wiry bed and started crying. "No, no, no, no, what have I done? What shall I do? Why did I think I could live a normal life?"
She stopped herself there, recognizing that self-defeating language wouldn't help her in any way; however, she could not stop herself from crying. Even though it had only been slightly more than two weeks, cutting herself off from the Renfrew children still felt like tearing off her own arm. At least this way she couldn't endanger them again, she thought in an attempt to calm herself, but that only worsened the crying.
For almost three minutes, the sound of her sobs and sniffles were the only things she could hear, and the rest of the world seemed to disappear. It suddenly re-appeared, however, when a repetitive metal CLANG assaulted her ears, along with a deep WOOP from a horn.
Clasping her hands over her ears, Alice looked around in an attempt to identify the source of the sound. Finding no potential source in her bedroom, she decided to look outside. She carefully stepped to her apartment's front door, and opened it...
...finding it led to, instead of the familiar hallway, a different one made of gigantic gears etched with odd alchemical symbols.
Alice looked around in shock and bewilderment for all of a few seconds, before her face contorted and she shouted: "Go away! You're the reason I'm here!" With that, she closed the door and turned away...
….only to discover her apartment had been replaced with even more gears, and that the one she was standing on was getting ready to turn, and push her into a wall.
With some effort (her new clothes were not designed for jumping all over Wonderland anymore) she leaped to another gear that traveled along a corkscrew. The gear dislodged from its standstill position and started spiraling downwards, leaving her with nowhere within jumping distance. She prayed that would change before anything bad happened.
To her shock and dismay, the corkscrew came to an end, and she as well as the gear fell into an abyss of black and brown metal, with no bottom in sight.
Alice screamed for a few seconds, simply in reaction to the fall, but then her misery and self-hatred silenced her voice, and welcomed the sudden stop that inevitably waited for her at the end of the fall...
...when it was suddenly arrested by net made from a series of different cables, some made of piano wire and some made of wool!
"Spot on! Now, everyone pull!" shouted a familiar nasally voice. And with regular jerks, the net began to rise up, until it reached a platform, where a crew of Madcaps and Pawns pulled it to safety before opening it.
No sooner did Alice catch her breath than two figures stepped out of a dark corridor: the Mad Hatter and the White Queen.
"Oh dear," said Alice sheepishly, "I'm sorry if I broke anything."
"The component was not your fault, Alice." assured the White Queen.
"I wish we could have met under more agreeable circumstances," said the Hatter, "But my domain is in a most gracious state of repair. Everything is all higgledy-piggledy and mimsy!"
"I don't understand. I never intended to be here in the first place! Did someone call me?"
"I don't know, but we would be grateful to whomever is responsible." said the Queen. "We need your help."
Before Alice could ask any followup questions, the Hatter ushered her onto a decorated circle on the floor, where she was soon joined by him and the Queen. The circular plate then rose up on some unseen piston, carrying the three to a different part of the maze of gears.
There, she saw a large expanse of torn gears, cogs with no connections, pistons that wouldn't pound, and wheels that wouldn't turn. Madcaps scrambled all over, using various tools in vain attempts to fix machine parts that were five times their size, while Pawns did their very best to hold the broken parts in place so they could be fixed at all.
In the middle of the vast expanse, two characters flew by on elaborate flying-machines powered by levers, pedals, and paper wings: the March Hare and Dormouse.
"Any luck, Dormy?" Alice heard the March Hare bark as he passed by his companion.
"Plenty, but none of it good! Assemblage is still stuck in a rut!"
The March Hare banged his wrench-arm on his flying-machine in frustration, and the two flew off in separate directions. The panel continued to rise, and entered yet another section. This one, however, was in even worse condition, as the Madcaps and Pawns hadn't even reached it yet.
"Shameful, truly shameful." growled the Hatter. "There's no place it hasn't touched, no part it hasn't ruined, no industry it hasn't disrupted, no tea party it hasn't interrupted! The pounding, the poaching, the crashing, the courting, the completely unnecessary destruction!..." The Hatter paused as his rant forced him to start coughing again.
Failing to grasp any meaning, Alice turned to the White Queen and asked: "What happened?"
"You already know what happened. More importantly, you know why it happened. You just don't realize it yet." the Queen countered. "This is the center of industry in Wonderland. Everything within these factory walls exists for one purpose and one purpose alone: Productivity, efficiency, and determination to contribute to society through labor."
"That's three things..." Alice started to say, but the Queen continued.
"But now order and efficiency have been torn away, leaving only madness in its wake. Think, Alice. This is your world. What could have destroyed the perfect image of industriousness?"
After the Queen asked her question, Alice knew the answer right away: "I no longer see myself as capable of working, do I?"
"Precisely. And where your thoughts go, Wonderland follows." said the Queen with a solemn expression. And as if to punctuate that phrase, a massive gear fell off its perch to the ground, crashing through it with a loud CLANG, followed by softer crashes and screams as it crushed the people in the expanse below.
"So now what?" Alice asked.
"Now, you must decide if this is a problem, and if you truly wish it to be solved."
Once again, Alice was caught off-guard; "What? This clearly looks like a problem. Why is that even in question?"
The Hatter responded: "When has the truth been in question? When have your wishes been in question?"
Alice could not think of an answer to those statements, so the White Queen spoke up instead: "Ever since you raised us up from a humble Pawn to our current status, and gave us our crown, we have sought everything that was best for Wonderland, and for you, in thanks. But we cannot solve your problems, only you can. And that is why you're here. If this...' she said as she pointed towards the ruined factory floor 'is acceptable, you can leave right now. But if not, then we shall continue onward."
Alice turned to look over the devastation of the Hatter's factory, and with it her self-image as a contributing member of society. It was obvious that the earlier episode with Mr. Renfrew's children, which she still blamed herself for, was partially (if not entirely) to blame.
"I took my frustration out on Wonderland...because it was me going to Wonderland that caused it in the first place..." she mumbled to herself, not intending to be heard...
...but somehow she was, as the Queen replied: "We can only forgive you if you can forgive yourself."
The sudden interruption made Alice lose her train of thought for a moment (and upon realizing this, the White Queen partially turned into an embarrassed sheep), but she was back on track shortly. Then, she spoke out: "I'm worried, your majesty. I believe this is a problem, and I want to fix it..."
"Perfect!" exclaimed the Hatter, and he tapped the lift so it went faster, up into the upper floors.
"...but I don't know how to fix it!" Alice protested over the piston's hum. "And I'm worried I might make things worse!"
"You'll know what needs to be done when you see it." said the White Queen in a reassuring tone, once again looking mostly human.
Unsure of what to make of the Queen's remark, the three remained in silence until the moving floor came to rest on what Alice presumed to be either the top floor or the roof – which, she couldn't tell, because there was no light.
Without a word, the Hatter reached up and pulled a chain that hung from somewhere above him. Nearby, a pair of mechanical hands rose up from the ground, and started rubbing sticks together like some primitive people, until they eventually sprouted into flame.
The hands then transferred the flame to a fireplace, where it brought a teapot to a boil, creating steam that propelled a large fan...
...turning a series of gears that loosened a large iron ball from somewhere on the wall. It rolled into a large boot...
….that kicked over a balanced pile of copper rods. The falling rods disturbed some string, causing a suspended weight to be dropped from above...
...into a catapult that launched a teabag into the boiling teapot. The scent of steeping tea reached a giant nose, which audibly sniffed...
...and in response, another mechanical hand stretched out from the wall (with an audible yawn) and opened up a gas lamp...which was only five steps away from where everyone was standing right now. Before Alice could express her incredulity at the needless complication of a simple task, her mind was instantly shifted to another emotion: Shock.
"Your Fault! You did this!"
Within the gas lamp's glow, she beheld a giant creature shaped like a wolverine, but made out of none of the requisite materials. Instead of eyes, it had mechanical searchlights. Instead of teeth, it had jets of flame. Instead of claws, it had fish-hooks. And instead of fur, its body was covered in some black substance that seemed to constantly rearrange itself, like a drawing being drawn and erased and re-drawn faster than Alice's eyes could follow.
"What is that...thing?" asked Alice.
"The Bandersnatch." answered the White Queen with a shudder. "It's worse than we thought."
"A frumious Jabberwock-spawn born from the union of hatred and anger," elaborated the Hatter.
Alice regarded the Bandersnatch with curiosity and caution, and it responded by bellowing in her direction: "You're a menace! The bane of children! The world is better off without you!" it snarled as it raked its hook-like claws into a nearby gear, cutting the thick metal in half.
"Self-hatred, obviously." Alice noted. That observation out of the way, she could no longer distract herself from the reality of the situation. She regarded her hands with a confused stare, and then turned back to her companions.
"...You want me to fight that thing?"
"Only you can. Only the one who let it out can put it down." said the Hatter as he leaned in uncomfortably close to her face.
"But I haven't fought anything in so long...I haven't even touched the Vorpal Blade since-"
"But you still remember its touch," said the White Queen in interruption, "from when the only way to control your uncontrollable thoughts and manias was to cut them down."
"Yes...but I thought those days were behind me. I obviously still do, to some extent; otherwise, don't you think my dress would be a little more appropriate for combat right now?"
"We are never prepared for that which we cannot anticipate. But we must be ready for it. You're the same, Alice. If you intend to fix the problem now, when we have no one to call upon for assistance, then your only option is to fight the Bandersnatch before it can escape and get any stronger."
And with that, the White Queen pulled a loop of wool off of her dress, rolled it and knitted it into a small bag, and opened it slightly. A meaningful glance told Alice she needed to put her hand inside it, and she did...and when she pulled it out again, she held the Vorpal Blade once again.
Her hand tightened around the knife's grip, and she regarded the semi-amorphous shape of the Bandersnatch, pacing back and forth in hungry anticipation. She regarded the surroundings, full of gears and pulleys and other mechanical implements in various states of disrepair. She regarded her dress, and thought how even if she hooked up the hem of her dress she would be at a disadvantage, one the Bandersnatch would be quick to take advantage of...
...and in the depths of her overwhelmed common sense, and survival instincts, a plan began to form.
She pulled the Queen and Hatter close to her, and whispered. "Hatter, can you create a Bandersnatch-sized hole in the wall? And close it with speed?"
"What for? You mean to create a Bandersnatch trap?"
"With me as the bait." Alice said with a nod.
The Hatter touched his hat the way a normal thoughtful person would touch his chin, and also his foot...and he said: "Of course, but not with it looking."
"Then set it up on the wall behind it right now. I need to use any advantage I can."
Both the Hatter and Queen nodded, approving of Alice's plan. Alice gave one last nod in return, before she stepped off the lift. The Queen and Hatter descended below the floor, and the floor closed up behind them, leaving Alice all alone with the Bandersnatch.
"Any more childish insults before we get this over with?" she asked in a taunting manner, as she kept the Vorpal Blade between her and the monster.
"Daydreamer! You think you can handle me? You couldn't handle the children! You can't trust yourself!"
"Dr. Wilson said asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but intelligence." she responded as she raised her dress's hem onto its hooks; "But since only I can fight you...well, lets see if I can earn my own trust once more."
"Never! You abandon those who need you! You cause more problems than you solve! You have no chance!"
The Bandersnatch reared up on its hind legs, and leaped towards her with blinding speed; it was all Alice could manage to throw herself to the ground a fraction of a second before its jaws would have closed around her.
Alice tried to take advantage of this position, and slash the Bandersnatch's underbelly, but it jumped to the side with equally blinding speed, such that the Vorpal Blade didn't even touch a speck of the constantly-shifting fur.
"Pathetic!" the Bandersnatch growled before it extended its claws, which shot out on fishing lines. Once again, Alice barely managed to roll to the side. Frustrated, the beast retracted its claws with as much ease as it threw them.
"I need to slow it down somehow..." Alice said to herself as she pulled herself off of the floor. She looked around for something she could add to her arsenal. She had only a couple of seconds to think before the Bandersnatch lunged at her again. She jumped back, avoiding the bite. It tried to swipe at her with its paw, but Alice countered by slicing the other way with her knife, finally scoring a hit.
The Bandersnatch pulled its paw back in pain, and jumped back away to widen the distance. Alice didn't bother celebrating her first victory, and instead resumed her search for more of the environment she could put to her use. And she found it...
...just as the Bandersnatch launched its other set of claws at her, and this time she didn't dodge. The hooks dug into her flesh, barbed ends ensuring they stayed in tight. The lines retracted and forced Alice off her feet, and grabbing a discarded metal pole had no effect in preventing the Bandersnatch from reeling her in like an eel from the Isis.
"Why delay what's necessary, Alice? You know the world will rejoice at your passing!" the Bandersnatch cackled, as it readied its jaws to swallow her whole...
...only for Alice to shove the metal pole between its jaws! Shocked, the Bandersnatch tried to reach in and pull the pole out, but that was what Alice was waiting for: she slashed the fishing-lines that were attached to her, then turned her blade on the Bandersnatch's other paw!
Fire poured out of the monster's mouth as it howled in pain, while Alice rolled away, and carefully pulled the barbed claws out of her body. Her dress was tattered and stained with blood, and still restricted her movement, but she thought the Bandersnatch looked in even more pain.
"Had enough?" she said through her pain.
The Bandersnatch, who just barely managed to remove the pole from its mouth, responded: "This pain is nothing! Nothing compared to you! To the pain you inflict! To the pain you deserve!"
Then the Bandersnatch roared, and a large amount of its 'fur' gathered on the tip of its steam-valve nose, and launched itself at Alice. Alice countered by swinging wildly with her blade.
Before she could gloat about yet another advantage she gained, the discarded and chopped fur suddenly leaped off the ground and wrapped around Alice! It felt like being wrapped in gravel and old sackcloth, filled with needles, and brought Alice considerable pain. She clenched her teeth, however; she didn't want to scream, just in case she heard something.
Luckily, that was the next thing he heard: the Hatter's voice yelling "Alice! Come over here!" and a creaking sound that accompanied a section of the wall being pulled aside.
Alice focused her thoughts, and then let them go. As she did so, her body dissolved into a swarm of butterflies, which left the stinging 'fur' behind. Alice reformed her body a short distance away, and ran as fast as she could to the opening. As quick as it could, the Bandersnatch reclaimed its errant fur and leaped after her...
...just barely missing her before the Hatter slammed the opening shut, leaving it trapped inside the wall, with only its left paw and head sticking through what remained of the opening! It struggled and swiped, trying to break through, but to no avail.
The White Queen restrained the paw with a strand of wool, giving Alice the opening she needed to cut off its sharp hook-claws. Black blood spurted from the wound, and the Bandersnatch howled in pain.
"It worked!" the White Queen exclaimed. "We knew you could do it, Alice!"
"It's not done yet, though. I still have to finish it off. But that shouldn't take very long..."
Alice cautiously approached the snarling beast, brandishing her blade, and looking for an opening. The Bandersnatch snarled incoherently and flailed around, but it was in no position to use its sharp implements to cut its way out of its confinement between the gears. Eventually, it stopped flailing its paw and pulled its head back, to breathe fire on Alice. Alice used her butterfly-form to dodge to the side, and just a little bit forward, where she was able to ram the blade into one of the Bandersnatch's eyes. She pulled it back out as blood and smoke covered her, and readied another strike...
"ALICE, LOOK OUT FOR THE JUBJUB BIRD!"
The White Queen's terrified shriek distracted Alice from her attack, but didn't give her adequate warning to stop a massive gold-and-red object from slamming into her at top speed, knocking her some distance away from the Bandersnatch. She skidded along the ground for some distance, and when she stopped, she was extensively bruised and dizzy.
It took her a second to regain her bearings, and when she did she clearly saw what hit her: A massive bird-like creature with steam-pipes for tail-feathers, metallic feathers in a gold-and-red color scheme, and a roughly scissor-shaped head, flying in the vast space above the factory floor and trailing fire.
"No job! No money! Nowhere to turn! No future! Hopeless!" the JubJub Bird squawked, as it dove once again...at the Mad Hatter!
The bird's sharp beak snipped the Hatter's arms clean off, leaving no one holding the wall in place. The Bandersnatch freed itself in short order.
"I guess I have to fight this thing as well." Alice sighed, and brought her arm to bear...only to realize she was no longer holding the Vorpal Blade!
She cast her eyes around, looking for a glint of metal against the glow from the monsters' respective flames, but came up empty handed, until she looked at the JubJub Bird itself.
The Vorpal Blade was clutched in its claws.
"No, I can't fight without my weapons!" Alice exclaimed.
As if in response, the JubJub Bird jammed the blade into the side of a wall, and circled the sky, shrieking "Nothing to do! Nothing to do but die!"
"Alice, you must not give in to fear!" the White Queen called out from her hiding-place. "You must overcome your fear and anger, or you will-"
Before the Queen could finish, the Bandersnatch slammed into Alice at full force, sending her sprawling away once again.
She came to a halt on the edge of a balcony, under which swirled a void of floating gears and clock faces, all of which seemed to be mocking her. She looked back, and the JubJub Bird and Bandersnatch both readied themselves to attack.
"Come on, Alice! You must fight!" came the Queen's voice, fainter than usual.
"...What's the point?" Alice asked, no longer trying to fight her tears. "I've clearly lost! My mind is at war with me, and I can no longer fight back! My madness has returned, my life is in shambles, and it's all because I dared to believe I could live a normal life! And this time, there is nothing anyone can do to-"
"DIE, SERPENT!" came a new, all-too-familiar voice from outside.
"...And then there's this nuisance!" Alice moaned, as she turned around to see the pigeon barreling towards her. "Well then, what are you waiting for? Kill me, you bloody bird! Kill me!"
Alice couldn't tell whether or not the pigeon heard her, but it did as she ordered nonetheless, and knocked her off the balcony, into the swirling void.
She screamed as she flew down, down, down...
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...where she landed on the floor of her flat.
Shocked, Alice looked herself over: her dress was not torn at all, nor was there any soot or bloodstains, but her face was sticky with tears, and she was very much alive.
But even more than that, she was shocked at herself. With imminent death no longer staring her in the face, she remembered how enthusiastically she welcomed it, and shuddered.
"...And just when I was learning to love myself, too."
Alice pulled herself off the floor, and sat down on her bed. She took several deep breaths, but the racing in her heart would not slow down even as she regained the ability to reflect on her situation.
"Perhaps I overreacted to my letting the Renfrews run away. Of course, what's done is done, and if the kids had gotten hurt I would never forgive myself. I may really be as unemployable as I fear, but a lot of it is my fault for being too hard on myself."
"I wish the Doctor was here," she said with a sigh. "Maybe he could say what I need to hear to love myself again."
She waited for several minutes after saying that, in total silence, as if expecting the Doctor's magic box to appear in her bedroom, but to no avail. However, the memories of her time with the Doctor brought forward another idea.
She pulled some paper and ink out of a box in the corner, put them on a desk, and began to write:
Dear Dr. Wilson...
I hope you can find some help soon, Alice. For everyone's sake.
See you guys next chapter! Hopefully next week or so!