Disclaimer: I do not own American McGee's Alice (EA) or Doctor Who (BBC).

Chapter 8: The Serpent.

"My name is Madame Vastra, and this is Jenny, and Thomas and Meredith Hargreaves. Now, where's Alice?"

It took a flabbergasted Dodgson nearly a minute to come up with any suitable response. "Er, I...I...I-I'm so-s-sorry, what?"

"We're looking for Alice Liddell," repeated Vastra, "and believe her to be in here. Could you bring us to her?"

Again Dodgson went practically silent. Between his stutter, his shock, and his uncertainty of Vastra's intentions, all he could say was "I...I...I..."

Thomas lost patience, and boldly pushed his way inside, yelling "Richard? I know you're in here! Show yourself!"

Winifred shot up from her chair in indignant shock. "Thomas?" she asked in bewilderment.

Thomas shot her an icy look. "Mother. I should have known." he muttered. Then he yelled again: "Richard? The police are here! Come here this instant!"

Winifred angrily yanked her son aside. "Shame on you! Calling the police for a private affair! I know I raised you better than this! Besides, Richard is within his rights to-"

"Shut up, you hag!" Thomas snapped; "This is none of your concern! Richard!"

Meredith joined in: "Richard! It's us or the police!"

Winifred reeled for a second, receiving such vitriol from her own family. She swiftly realized she would get nowhere arguing with him, and so turned her attention to the two women in the door. "Are you really with the police?" she asked.

Vastra remained silent, but Jenny answered: "She's technically a private detective, but we do work with Scotland Yard when they ask for our help."

Winifred's disbelief at the notion of female detectives was quickly overwhelmed by her outrage. "...Then how can you stand for this...this..."

"If it puts your mind at ease," said Vastra in a condescending manner, "Richard is not our target. He was simply our lead to our true quarry, Alice."

Winifred continued to glare daggers at Vastra. "And what, pray tell, is your business with her?"

"You'll find out soon enough." said Vastra as she extended her tongue out from under her veil (and for a split second, Winifred could swear it was forked), paused, and exclaimed: "They're upstairs!"

Thomas and Meredith wasted no time, and rushed up the stairs followed by Dodgson, Winifred, Vastra, and Jenny.

The last in the party found Thomas struggling with a door, yelling Richard's name.

"Thomas, stop! This is madness!" pleaded Winifred.

Thomas acted like he didn't even hear her. "I gave you a chance to make things right, and you spat it in my face! When I get my hands on you, I'll...I'll..."

Dodgson jumped in, and pulled Thomas away from the door. "STOP!" he yelled.

"Stay out of this! This is family business!"

"Th-th-th-that is my...my darkroom!" Dodgson countered, anger showing through his stutter. "I won'...won't let...you...you...t-trample all over my...f-f-photographs!"

"Besides," interjected Madame Vastra as she leaned against the wall.

"Besides what?"

"They're actually in here."

With that, Vastra pulled on the door to her left, revealing Dodgson's office. Inside, Richard stood in the far corner, shielding Alice with his body.

"Stay back!" yelled Richard.

Undaunted, Thomas stepped into the office. "Richard, we expressly told you to end your friendship with this woman before it became an embarrassment to the family. You've defied us one too many times."

"I don't care!" Richard snapped in reply. "I won't let you hurt her! Disinherit me, shun me, hurt me all you like, but leave Alice alone!"

Thomas growled. Then, he lunged forward and raised his fists. Richard flinched, closed his eyes, and raised his own arms for defense...

….but the blow never came! Richard opened his eyes and saw his father all ready to strike, but all the fury had left his face to be replaced with shock and horror!

Still in a defensive stance, Richard asked: "Pa?"

"...Gah!" Thomas screamed. Then he turned away from Richard and punched the wall, before sinking to his knees.

"I...I can't do it." he said. "Even after everything you've done, I still can't bring myself to hurt you." As he spoke, the energy and rage left him and he began to sob.

"Pa..." Richard started to say.

Before he could say anything else, however, Meredith walked in and knelt beside her husband. "It's alright, Thomas. It just goes to show that you still love him. He is our son after all."

Thomas held back his sobs long enough to say "Thank you, my dear."

Richard regarded them with a mixture of pity and resentment, still refusing to unclench his fists. Then, he looked at the two other strangers in the doorway as they, along with Dodgson and Winifred, entered the office. Again, he opened his mouth to speak...

….but again, his mother interrupted him: "Besides, you can't really blame him. That witch has him under a vile spell for sure." she said as she shot a venomous look at Alice.

Instantly, Richard's confrontational mood returned. "You take that back. Alice is the most gentle and generous woman I met. I won't stand for you calling her an evil seductress or-"

"Richard, I didn't mean witch in that sense. I meant it in the supernatural sense."

Confused and still offended, Richard asked: "What on earth do you mean? Alice is a-"

Richard was suddenly interrupted by Jenny, who grabbed his right arm and shoved the sleeve upwards, baring his arm. "He's clean." she said.

"As are these two." said Vastra, displaying Dodgson's and Winifred's exposed right arms.

"...But you said it takes only a touch!" exclaimed Meredith. "And there's no way they haven't touched her!"

"It's a little more complex than that." said Vastra. "The Mara can't force itself on someone without sufficient strength. It has to offer them something they want, and they have to accept it."

Richard stepped forward, and asked: "Would someone please explain what's going on? And who are you anyway?"

"It's Jenny...Richard, right?" Jenny asked, to which Richard nodded, before she continued: "Madame Vastra and I are friends of Scotland Yard. We asked your parents to help us find you, and thus find Alice."

"...What?"

"The detective woman told us everything." said Thomas with a shaky voice. Then he turned to Alice: "You, Miss Liddell, are the cause of London's madness."

Alice, who had been silently hiding behind Richard up to this point, looked Thomas in the eye and asked: "Me? How?"

Madame Vastra stepped closer to Alice and Richard. "Andrew Rucastle. Trenton Haymitch. Lord Oldsworth. Toby Russel. Cardin Varnham. George Renfrew. Plus only God knows how many more. Recongize any of those names?"

Alice felt her heart beat a little bit faster. "Why?" was all she could say.

In a calm, but still condescending tone, Vastra began: "A calm and peaceful activist turns violent against the police. A struggling theater manager turns against his own company. An upstanding-if-lecherous Peer turns homicidal. A reserved bookstore owner turns arsonist and burglar. A friendly – if somewhat entitled – sailor becomes an enemy of women. And a shy accountant publicly abuses his children. All sensational crimes, all respectable people who lost their inhibitions, and all with only one connection: You, Alice."

Vastra suddenly produced a series of articles clipped from various newspapers and magazines, and scattered them on the floor before Alice. She knelt down and picked them up, seeing articles such as: Theater manager attacks his own workers, Toby Russel arrested for burglary, Lord Oldsworth hanged for murder and adultery, and so many others.

As Alice looked on in horror, Vastra continued: "Nowhere in these stories are you mentioned, despite you having been connected with all of these men. No doubt due to the low-intensity perception filter I can clearly see surrounding you right now. No one who isn't specifically looking for you, or isn't human, would think you're even worth mentioning. I myself struggled to remember your connection to these people from time to time."

"...Perception filter?" said Alice weakly, memories of her brief adventure with the Doctor surfacing. How his magic box was allowed to look like something that wouldn't be invented for years, and still escape notice in a gossipy era such as this one.

"Yes indeed." said Vastra. "Quite beyond the capability of ordinary humans to produce, even ones with minds like yours. But it's quite within the capacity of the Mara."

"What's a Mara?" asked Winifred from the sidelines.

"The Mara is a psychevorous parasite from the Dark Places of the Inside, that feeds on negative emotions such as fear, sorrow, and hatred, and thrives by spreading discord and chaos through its material hosts. And Alice has been spreading it around London like a contagious mental disease." said Vastra, never once taking her eyes off Alice.

"I don't believe you." said Richard. "Alice would never hurt anyone."

"On the contrary." said Meredith. "She hurt Dr. Bumby, didn't she? No, she killed him! He hurt her, and she paid him back. Just like she's going to do to the whole world that's hurt her so. She's a menace."

"A monster." added Thomas.

"...Well, she's certainly a risk." said Jenny hesitantly.

"She...c-cannot be a threat!" said Dodgson.

"She's an angel!" insisted Winifred.

"She's a devil!" insisted Thomas in return.

"Murderer!"

"Liar!"

"Criminal!"

"Witch!"

The whole crowd started arguing, with Thomas and Meredith on one side, and Richard, Dodgson and Winifred on the other, with Jenny in the middle...but all Alice could hear was the side that called her so many horrible things, because she started to believe them.

She remembered how the Doctor showed her things from the real world that were as strange and frightening as the ones in Wonderland. If this 'Mara' was real, spreading her madness to the people she knew...

"Alice," said Vastra insistently, interrupting Alice's train of thought; "Come with me."

Alice looked up at Vastra...and noticed her veil being much more transparent than it was before. Below the hood, she finally saw the green scales, the piercing yellow eyes, the crests on the head, and the forceful, determined look on her face..."

"...SERPENT!" she suddenly cried.

Taken aback by the sudden outburst, the argument in the room ceased, to regard the frightened and shaking Alice.

Vastra was the only one unaffected. "Alice, I-"

"GET AWAY!" Alice shouted again, this time adding some action: She sprang to her feet, and shoved her way past Richard to reach the exit. Vastra and Jenny were able to dodge her charge by throwing themselves to the sides of the room.

"Stop her!" yelled Meredith, and she and her husband reached out to stop her, grabbing her by her arm. Seeing Alice's distress, Dodgson and Winifred rushed in to help her...

...and all four collapsed onto the ground as Alice ran out the door!

"Alice, come back!" shouted Richard, who rushed after her.

As they heard them clomping their way down the stairs, Vastra and Jenny prepared to rush after them as well...

….but then Vastra held Jenny back, and looked at the prone figures between them and the exit.

All of them had a strange rash beginning to form on their exposed right arms.

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Alice rushed down the streets of Oxford in a blind haze, neither seeing nor hearing anything that wasn't directly related to her primary objective of escape. She couldn't really figure out what she was trying to escape from, any more than she had any measure of what successful escape would mean. All she knew was that she had to escape.

Without her bidding, her body dodged around people, trees, and other obstacles that presented themselves. The sounds of the people around her faded into the background, as if she didn't consciously perceive them at all. All that was going through her mind was one single word:

RUN.

So, she ran.

She ran until the trees and streets and buildings and people began to blur together, until they were indistinguishable. She ran until she lost her sense of direction, unable to tell if she was going forward, backward, sideways, inwards or outwards. She ran until she couldn't even hear the rushing of wind around her, save for a cool stillness.

She ran until she found herself in an upside down corridor, with no idea how she got there.

Shocked, she leaned backwards to cling to the chandelier. "Where am I?" she asked.

"You're in a new section of the castle. Surprised you didn't recognize it right away."

Alice looked around for the source of the voice, and found it coming from the floor above her, from a very familiar face.

"White Queen! Thank goodness it's you!"

"Yes. It's obvious you're having problems. Come."

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…...

…...

Your problems are only beginning, and just when you had it all figured out.

You know reputation is all that matters for the ranks of the gentry. And yet, here you go losing your temper in front of complete strangers once again. No wonder your son hates you enough to defy your express wishes. You're a self-righteous hypocrite...and soon the whole world will know.

Your high society friends won't afford you the time you need to change your behavior for the better. They'd rather shun you instead. Ending all the advantages of your station then and there to preserve their own reputations. Leaving nothing for the son you still love, despite all evidence to the contrary.

There is still a chance, however; you can prevent these people from spreading rumours about your behavior. Discard your weakness before it's too late!

Accept me, Thomas Hargreaves. I am your strength.

…...

…...

Exciting, isn't it? You know it won't last.

For the sake of your children, you have sacrificed any potential of an exciting life. You have even sacrificed your individuality, your ability to speak your mind, and your status as anything other than your husband's ornament.

And for what? For your son to fall in love with an hysterical pauper? To be connected with the most sensational and bizarre crimes your gossip-mongering ever heard about?

Your son will see sense soon enough, but not soon enough that he won't stand between Alice and the police, and get arrested in turn. If you don't want that to stain his life forever, you must act now.

Accept me, Meredith Hargreaves. I am your strength.

…...

…...

They're off. Away from the frightening reality of the world, Alice and Richard should have all the privacy they need to admit their feelings for each other. Just like in the romance novels, where all the pressures of reality fall away before the power of true love.

You're really obsessed with getting those two together, aren't you? I don't blame you. You see so much of your once-great husband in little Richard; a great and inventive mind who longed to make his mark on the world, the perfect magnet for a young heart. But the pressures of society got in the way, and he died all but nameless, with his only successful venture being securing your hand.

It won't be that way with Alice, for sure. You were a boring heiress living off your family name, but Alice is imagination itself. She would be perfect for Richard...

...if she weren't the target of the police. The law is now the biggest obstacle between your grandson and his happiness, and if she's taken away Richard will be heartbroken, and doomed to even worse failure than your husband. Your efforts to give him the life his grandfather was denied will be in vain unless you do something.

Accept me, Winifred Hargreaves. I am your strength.

…...

…...

This is it. The end.

Alice's new friends brought with them powerful enemies. They are here to undo all the effort you put into making her life livable. Into making up for your mistakes.

After all, you're more to blame for her predicament than she realizes. It was you, after all, who got her father as obsessed with photography as you were, leaving their library full of flammable chemicals perfect for starting a fire.

True, Bumby started the fire, but even then you cannot escape the blame. After all, it was you who declared to him that the Liddell girls to be the most attractive beauties you ever laid eyes on. And well before marriageable age, no less!

I know, you repressed those desires. They weren't much use, since they got you thrown out of the Liddells' circle of friends, and the fire destroyed any hope of reconciliation...until Alice turned up again. She represents your last hope for redemption; and are you going to just let these 'detectives' take her away?

Accept me, Charles Dodgson. I am your strength.

…...

…...

"Jenny, I think it best we leave as well."

Looking at the scene before them, Jenny couldn't agree more. "Only question is how." she said, intending for it to sound sarcastic but it wound up quite genuine.

Between them and the room's only exit were four humans who all bore the physical scars of the Mara's corruption: Yellow, serpentine eyes; blood dripping from their mouths; scattered skin lesions that looked like scales; and most prominently, a larger lesion on their right arm that looked like a tattoo of a dark green snake with yellow patterns.

And they were all pulling themselves upwards off the floor, in unnatural movements, before turning to face the two ladies.

"Stop, Vastra..." they moaned in unison, as if they'd awoken from a deep sleep.

"We can't let you leave..." said Meredith.

"You know of the things we've tried to hide from the world." said Thomas through clenched teeth.

"What's worse, you have a duty to reveal them." said Dodgson, without a trace of his characteristic stutter.

"And you're going to hurt those that we love the most." said Winifred, drawing in a breath that almost sounded like a hiss.

Then, they once again spoke in unison: "You must die." And as one, they lunged at the two ladies.

Their assault was mad frenzy and desperation combined with a total lack of fighting knowledge and discipline, while Vastra and Jenny both had training in multiple martial arts. None of their attacks met their mark, and they were quickly dispatched.

"Jenny," said Vastra, "Find Alice. I'll restrain these four."

"Right away, Ma'am." Jenny said in the process of obeying her mistress' order.

Vastra busied herself with finding some rope or other suitable restraint for the Mara's servants...occasionally stopping to glance at her arm, to make sure none of her own scales had changed color.

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…...

…...

"Your mind is in tatters, Alice. That much should be clear as crystal. Fear and self-loathing have destroyed everything you've worked so hard to build."

Alice nodded as she followed the White Queen down the stairs, spiraling down further and further into the depths of the castle. "You seem to be alright, but..."

"But you know appearances can be deceiving." interrupted the White Queen. Again, Alice nodded.

Eventually, the staircase ended before a door, and the White Queen pushed it open. The White Queen entered the new passageway, and Alice followed...

...into a dark void filled with absolute nothingness, not even ground to stand upon. Instead of falling, however, Alice effortlessly walked on empty air.

"Amazing." she breathed out.

"Yes, but you're not here to admire. You're here to see the truth."

No sooner did the White Queen utter those words than several faces appeared out of the darkness, illuminated by scattered stones that glowed a soft yellow. She saw the Cheshire Cat, the Dodo, the Lion, the Unicorn, the Butterfly, the Wasp-in-a-wig, the Mad Hatter, the Duchess, the Mock Turtle, the Gryphons, and so many others. The only ones she couldn't see were the ones she knew meant her harm, like the Red Queen, the Jabberwock, and the Pigeon.

There had been very few times when Alice had seen so many of her friends from Wonderland all in one place, as she remembered, and all of them were in very trying times. Furthermore, in those times and this one, she was the center of attention.

So, she was the first speaker: "Are you...looking to me for aid?"

"You're the one in need of aid, as always." said the Dodo.

"Wonderland is you. Everything in Wonderland is you. By your will was it formed, by your hand was it shaped, and by your every thought was it brought to life." said the Butterfly.

"The link between you and this place is impossible to sever. What happens to one affects the other and vice versa, as it has before, and will until the end." said the Mad Hatter.

"Then what am I supposed to do?" said Alice, tears forming in her eyes. "I made the problems that plague Wonderland, and all my attempts to solve it have only made things worse. And what's more, now this woman's saying I'm affecting others as well. My madness is spreading, making the people I know do horrible things, and I don't know how or why! If only I could just learn to live in peace with my mind..."

"Oh, grow up, Alice. Oh, wait, that's right – you can't." growled the Cheshire Cat.

"Wh...what do you mean?"

Everyone moved closer in response. "You've been faced with tragedy after tragedy. And all you could do was retreat to your childhood fantasies. Your body has changed, but you're still the same seven year old girl that just barely jumped out of that burning house." said the Wasp.

"Then...then what of all the times I stood up to adversity? The times I pushed away my trauma and moved on?" quivered Alice, dreading the answer.

"You fought to reclaim your childhood paradise. You fought to reclaim your memories. You fought to save your life. None of that required growing up. All that required was to cling to your happier past, when nothing bad could ever happen." said the Lion.

"You never once fought for your future." said the Unicorn in turn.

"And look where we are now: You have no job, you have no money, you have no place to turn for aid and comfort. You have no future." said the Duchess.

"And your friends? To hear that lady talk, you put them in danger simply by existing. You, who stood up to injustice and ill fortune wherever you could, are now its cause." said the Mock Turtle.

"Not even the Doctor can help you now." said the Elder Gryphon.

"In fact, you would be his enemy if he appeared again. An enemy to all humanity. Like those he swore to destroy, so that the good and innocent might live." said the Younger Gryphon.

"No!" wailed Alice. "I am not an enemy! I don't want that!"

"And yet, here we are." said the March Hare.

"On the brink of annihilation by your hands." said the Dormouse.

All the accusing faces leaned in ever closer, and spoke in unison: "You will lead Wonderland to ruin, and all the worlds beyond, as chaos tears all hope away from the people you love."

Alice curled in on herself, sobbing.

It was some minutes before she thought of anything to say: "Is there no way to prevent this tragedy?"

"It would certainly be hard. You are neither cognizant of the source of the problem, nor your role in it. And you have proven powerless against enemies you once could defeat with ease." said the Cheshire Cat.

"But it can be done. All you need is the power to take care of yourself, and thus never be a threat to anyone ever again." said the White Queen.

Alice looked up from her curled position to see the Queen's outstretched right hand.

"Accept me, Alice Liddell. I am your strength."

…...

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