Disclaimer: I do not own American McGee's Alice (EA) or Doctor Who (BBC)
Chapter 12: Mirror Match
"I am you, Alice."
Dumbstruck, all of Wonderland did nothing but gaze at the newcomer. Height, weight, hair, eyes, body proportions, and dress all perfectly matched Alice's normal Wonderland form. Since Alice had JubJub Bird wings and talons, a Bandersnatch-fur dress, and a Jabberwock's Eye Staff in her hand, they were easy to tell apart...but other than clothes and weaponry, there was no visible difference.
As she stepped out of the giant snake's mouth, however, she wore an expression of smug satisfaction mixed with poisonous malice, such as Alice had never worn in her life.
"No, you're not." said Alice, as she stepped forward to face her twin. The rest of Wonderland, out of a sense of confusion or respect, stayed back.
"You're just an illusion created by the Mara. If this is your best attempt to make me think we're one and the same, I'm not impressed."
"You're just an illusion created by the Mara. If this is your best attempt to make me think we're one and the same, I'm not impressed."
"Stop it!"
"Stop it!"
Sensing a pattern, Alice paused, and carefully thought out her next sentence: "The Mara is evil and should be cast out of Wonderland."
"The Mara is Wonderland." responded her copy with a cheeky grin.
Alice sighed in frustration. "I don't have time for this."
With that, she launched herself in the air with her wings. She aimed the Eye Staff at her twin, charging it up for a beam attack.
But before she could unleash it, Alice felt nearly a hundred sharp objects slash through her, all at the same time and from multiple different directions. She cried out in pain as she dropped out of the air, and right back onto the rope floor.
Confused, Alice looked back at her twin. At first, the only difference seemed to be that she was now wielding a deck of razor-sharp playing cards. But, upon closer look, Alice spied the outline of another familiar weapon hiding behind her bow:
"The Deadtime Watch..." Alice said through clenched teeth, as she strained to pull herself back onto her feet.
"Now do you see?" taunted the fake Alice; "You're not fighting the Mara anymore. You're fighting yourself. And this is a fight you cannot win."
The fake Alice threw a handful of cards at the real one. She was able to butterfly-dodge out of the way in time, but no sooner did she reform than her enemy attacked her again, forcing her to dodge again.
After a couple of rounds of this, Alice tried something different: she jumped into the air again, dodged the next set of cards in midair, and kicked at her clone with the JubJub talons. This cut a deep gash, and she cried out in pain. Alice landed and turned around, intending to swat her twin with her wings, but her target butterfly-dodged just before the metal wing connected.
While her foe was reforming, Alice charged the Eye Staff, and trained its beam on her. In response, the fake Alice ran around the battlefield, staying just inches ahead of the deadly beam, until she put herself between Alice and the denizens of Wonderland.
Panicking, Alice pulled the beam upwards, away from her target, and turned it off as well; the fake Alice noticed this, and started throwing more cards at the real one. Alice was barely able to dodge in time.
"Alice, don't worry about us!" shouted the Hatter, as he opened his hat. Several MadCaps leaped out of the hat, and with their teapot-lid shields, separated the warring Alices from the rest of Wonderland's inhabitants.
Alice breathed a sigh of relief. It was a moment of hesitation, however, that her enemy used to dodge out of sight. Alice turned sharply around...
...just in time to use the Eye Staff's wooden body to block her twin's attack – an overhead strike with an electrified flamingo-shaped croquet mallet. Even after blocking it, she still felt the tingling course through her whole body, supplied by memories of electrical 'stimulation' from her days at Rutledge.
The sensation slowed her reaction time, and her copy gleefully took advantage of it to slam her mallet into Alice's midsection, sending her flying across the room. She landed several metres away, just barely holding on to the Jabberwock's Eye Staff.
More playing cards flew her way, and Alice was forced to shield herself with her left wing. The cards embedded themselves in between the metal feathers, restricting their movement. Experimentally, she butterfly-dodged away from her copy, but the cards remained stuck in her wing.
"No escaping now!" taunted the fake Alice, who charged at her with what looked like the croquet mallet – the business end was hidden behind her.
At a mental command, clumps of Bandersnatch fur leapt off of Alice's dress and grabbed the fake by her ankles, tying her to the rope floor. As she struggled to move, the needle-like fur pierced through her stockings, making her cry out in pain and frustration.
Satisfied that her foe wasn't going anywhere, Alice charged up the Eye Staff and trained its beam on her...
...as she revealed that she wasn't wielding the croquet mallet at all, but the Ice Wand! She conjured a wall of ice from the ground in front of her, which absorbed all the impact from Alice's beam attack! Frustrated, Alice loosed a fireball that obliterated the wall, revealing that the fake Alice had disappeared again.
Alice dodged, and scanned for her opponent, but found nothing. Although that was due, in no small part, to the fact that she couldn't turn her head. Nor could she move any part of her body.
She had been frozen solid.
"You fell right into my trap this time." said the fake Alice in a venomous whisper, as she brandished the Deadtime Watch once again. Alice was shocked that her copy was able to use the watch twice in a row, but was unable to express it.
The fake Alice walked around her frozen counterpart, taunting her all the while:"You have to admit, it was quite clever of the Mara to wait until your confidence had fully returned, before revealing their trump card. You're not the only one who can turn the strengths of your opponents against them. Dress it up in desperation, in fear, in pain, and it can control things you'd think it can't. Things like hope, for example...or even love."
She cupped Alice's frozen face, snickering as her foe struggled to change her expression. "The Mara is not just a part of every living thing, it is life itself. It does not need evil to exist, only pain and suffering. Something the universe will never be without. It is the Mara that turns the wheel of time, the Mara that forces the hand of evolution, the Mara that determines who lives and who dies."
She placed a Jackbomb at Alice's feet, and butterfly-dodged to a safer distance. The musical component tinkled along for the three second countdown before 'Jack' popped out of the box, laughed at her, and then the whole thing exploded.
Alice flew out of the frozen mold, minus her wings, claws, Eye Staff, and Bandersnatch fur; save for the bloodstains and torn clothes, she now looked just like her copy. Everything else lay broken and scattered, some even falling into the acid pit below the rope 'floor.'
She tried to stand up, but found herself tangled in the rope. She thought about trying to free herself, but in that very instant her copy was next to her, aiming a blunderbuss.
"Urgh...don't...you need me...to surrender?" Alice said with a weak voice.
"This is you surrendering. One shot from this, and my words will be in your mouth."
Alice struggled to free herself, but in vain. "You...will...never...be me!" she choked out.
"But I am you. I am what you will be when the Mara's power is combined with yours. I am everything you are but so much more. You could never defeat me alone."
"Alice is not alone!"
Before Alice's evil copy could express any surprise, she was knocked off her feet by the White Knight's horse. The blunderbuss was knocked from her hands, and it went off as it hit the floor, wasting its shot.
The White Knight, knocked off the horse from the impact, got to work freeing Alice while the Pigeon distracted the fake.
"Grah! Back off!" she shouted, swinging at the Pigeon with the croquet mallet.
"Never! I was born to kill serpents like you!"
"Watch out there! Don't let her touch that watch!" shouted the Duchess' son, rushing in with his porcine body dressed in a soldier's uniform and wielding a cavalier's sword, hoping to aid his friend.
As the two danced around the fake Alice, another group consisting of the White Rabbit, the Dodo, and assorted Torch Gnomes got to work thawing out the frozen implements Alice was so recently robbed of. Yet another group – the Hatter, the White Queen, the Butterfly, the Wasp-In-A-Wig, and even the Cheshire Cat joined the White Knight in protecting Alice while she recovered.
"Get away from her!" shouted the fake Alice as she threw some bouncing jacks at her assailants. They focused on the Duchess' son, and he had to pause to bat them away, but the Pigeon kept up its assault, preventing her from approaching Alice.
Suddenly, the fake Alice pulled out a rather unexpected weapon, with which she slashed at the Pigeon. Blood spurted from the Pigeon's chest, and he fell to the ground clutching at his wound. The Duchess' son rushed him to safety, but not before shouting:
"The Vorpal Blade! Alice! Your copy has the Vorpal Blade!"
Alice gasped, and all of her strength returned to her at once. She gazed at her copy, and sure enough, the bloodstained metal of the Vorpal Blade glittered in her right hand.
"I should have expected that. The minute you said the Mara turned my power against me. Now I think I have an idea on how to defeat you."
The fake Alice, whose expressions had up til then alternated between calm and sadistic glee, now looked a little scared.
"No! You won't defeat me! The Mara will triumph!"
"We...will not succumb...to the serpent!" yelled the Pigeon in response, before coughing up blood. It then slumped, and the Duchess' son redoubled his efforts to drag it to safety.
Alice, meanwhile, stepped towards the frozen pile of discarded weapons, in brazen defiance. Already, the Torch Gnomes had defrosted the Jabberwock's Eye Staff, so that's what she picked up first. Much of the rest had fallen down below, but somehow the Elder Gnome knew how to fish them back up.
As she shook the last remnants of frost off of the staff, her double shouted in protest:
"No! You don't understand! You don't want to win!"
"Why not?"
"Because if anything happens to me, your friends will pay the price!"
Before Alice could ask what she meant, a low rumble echoed throughout the stomach chamber, and the snake head opened its mouth.
…...
…...
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Vastra, Jenny, and more than a dozen policemen cramped themselves inside the drawing room, pressed against every point of entry. Every few seconds, a new wave of force slammed against the doors, causing the wood to splinter ever so slightly.
On the other side, more of the Mara's slaves pressed themselves against the windows, pounding against the glass with whatever implements they could find. The glass was broken in some parts, but the bars before the windows kept them out.
That didn't stop them, however, from trying to throw things inside; both at the crowd blocking the door, and at the circle of mirrors encircling Alice's physical body. The only thing standing in between these projectiles and their master's victory was Richard Hargreaves, who was showing a few cuts and bruises from his efforts. As was the chair he was using as a shield and bludgeoning implement.
"Ugh! I can understand ignoring pain, but how can they ignore broken bones?" he groaned in frustration. "I swear I broke somebody's arm at one point!"
"They have no self-preservation instincts!" replied Vastra through the effort of holding the door. "The Mara doesn't care how many hundreds die – it'll get billions of victims if it wins!"
"We'll have to kill her then! It's the only way!" yelled one of the policemen, drawing his revolver...
...only for Jenny to break away from holding the door, in order to yank the revolver from his hands and throw it on the ground.
"What are you doing?" she asked indignantly.
"We're in danger as long as Alice lives!" said the frantic-eyed policemen. "What's one life compared to all of ours?"
"That's not how it works and you know it! The Mara won't ever give up! As long as humanity is capable of being tempted to take the easy way out, it will keep on trying!"
The policeman hesitated...and then said: "I'll take my chances."
He turned to face the circle of mirrors...but found Richard was right in front of him. He screamed before he was knocked out with the chair, which fell apart from the impact.
"The Mara's getting to us," Richard observed as he knelt down, using the policeman's own handcuffs to restrain him. "I do wish Alice would hurry up in there."
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
…...
…...
Unknown to Richard, Alice heard everything.
"Richard," she said with a worried voice.
"You want to help him? Go to the real world, and break the circle of mirrors. They will live on as part of the Mara, or they will die."
For the briefest of moments, Alice started to wonder: Even if she did triumph, would it be in time to save them? Would it be...
...but it was only for a brief moment. "How many times do I have to tell you, I am not, and will never be, a part of the Mara!"
"Your loss."
Her copy's face twisted into dimensions of anger Alice never before believed possible, before she sheathed the Vorpal Blade and raised her hands up above her. From them, innumerable black dots emerged from her fingernails and floated in a circle around her. Then, they began to grow...and grow...and grow...
...until they were all black cubes the size of a fist, with colored pits carved onto each side.
Alice recognized the floating cubes instantly: "Demon Dice!" she shouted.
The fake Alice smiled, and pointed her hands at Alice. The floating dice soared through the air, until they landed in a semi-circle in front of Alice. Nearly two score squares of burning otherness opened before Alice.
She charged the Jabberwock's Eye Staff as hundreds of shapes emerged from the demon portals: winged, electricity-spitting lesser demons; slithering, fireball-throwing serpent demons; hulking frost-breathing demon lords; and so many others. They pulled themselves through the portals, readjusted themselves to their unfamiliar surroundings, and charged...
...right past Alice, into the gathering of Wonderland's denizens!
As Alice was briefly overcome by shock, her copy taunted her: "I told you, your friends would pay the price for your defiance."
"...no they won't. I have faith in them."
Replacing her fear with determination, Alice focused her energy on using the Jabberwock's Eye Staff beam attack on the demons coming through the portals. Heads, limbs, and blasphemous gizzards were separated from their hosts as the beam sliced the demons apart.
More and more rushed through the portals to join them, however, and Alice could not stop them all. They leapt on the creatures of Wonderland with a ferocious hunger...but deep down, Alice knew they would not find her friends easy meals.
And as she believed it, it became so.
The Cheshire Cat largely stayed away from the fighting...but appeared and disappeared rapidly all over the battle, confusing the fiends and leaving them easy targets for others...such as the White Rabbit, who busily scattered clockwork bombs all over the battlefield.
Demons on the outer edge of the battle found themselves trampled by hundreds of woodland critters, organized into an impromptu caucus-race by the Dodo.
The Lion and the Unicorn fought back to back, ripping and tearing through the monsters with ease, while simultaneously competing to see who could kill more than the other.
The White Queen directed her soldiers to protect those of Wonderland's residents who could not fight. When this left her without anyone protecting her, the demons thought she was vulnerable, only to be trapped and tangled in an explosion of wool.
The Butterfly soared overhead, generating gale-force winds that sent the flying demons every which-way, pausing now and again to sip from a container of nectar so he didn't lose any energy.
The Wasp-In-A-Wig wielded a Japanese-style sword, but seemed to never draw it from its sheath – he moved faster than the eye could follow, leaving a trail of bisected fiends in his wake.
The Mad Hatter pulled multiple Teapot-Cannons out of his hat, and bombarded the enemy hordes with boiling projectiles. The March Hare stood beside him, fending off attackers with his sword arm, while the Dormouse led a charge of Madcaps against the largest groups.
The Duchess stood next to her son, blasting away anyone who would approach him or the recovering Pigeon with her pepper grinder.
The Mock-Turtle blew his whistle, disorienting the fiends, and allowing the Younger and Elder Gryphons to tear them apart with ease.
The tide turned against the demons, and some even tried to go back through the portals, which started to shrink. All the while, Alice's twin gazed on in anger and disbelief, while the real Alice smiled in satisfaction.
Then the Jabberwock's Eye Staff started to feel heavier in her arms, and its beam began to sputter and fade. Alice looked at it in shock, then back up at the demon portals.
Before her eyes, the last of the portals shrank to nothingness. The last remaining demons, unable to flee the army of Wonderland's inhabitants, all turned their attentions to Alice.
With no time to think, she unleashed the very last reserves of the Eye Staff's power into a mighty fireball. The explosion reached every last demon, flaying the flesh from their bones...but it also caught Alice right in the epicenter.
Alice screamed as she was catapulted into the air, trails of fiery energy following as they seared her flesh. Her vision was distorted, and she lost all sense of place while she was flying. She crashed down onto the rope floor, with such force that it opened fresh wounds. She skidded as well, all the way to the edge of the cavern...where the gaps in the floor were big enough to fall through.
Alice just barely managed to grab hold of of a section of rope before she fell into the acid pool below, as the few remaining fragments of the Jabberwock's Eye Staff did just that. She watched them splash far below, and fade into nothingness, and then she turned up...
...to see her copy standing over her, having closed the distance with the Deadtime Watch. With a sadistic grin, she began winding up a Jackbomb. She let go...
...and at that very instant, the Jackbomb was pinned to the cavern wall by a thrown lance! It exploded harmlessly against the wall of snake flesh!
The White Knight tackled the fake Alice to the floor, using his heavy armor to weigh both of them down. It only lasted for a few seconds before she butterfly-dodged out of the way, but it was enough time for Alice to pull herself back onto the floor.
The fake Alice drew the Vorpal Blade, and the White Knight drew a short sword. They rushed at each other, yelling in defiance of the other's power.
The White Knight was much slower than his opponent, more often than not relying on his armor to block the Vorpal Blade's strikes. Soon the gleaming white metal began to bend and buckle under the unending assault, while the fake Alice effortlessly blocked or dodged strikes from the Knight's sword.
Alice looked around, but the other creatures of Wonderland were far away, and furthermore exhausted from the fight with the demons. They were unable to give Alice any weapons, and unable to lend any of their own assistance. Alice turned back to the fight in concern, her thoughts racing for a solution that would keep the White Knight alive.
Her copy then ducked low, and slashed at the Knight's leg. Blood spurted from the wound, and he cried out in pain as he collapsed.
Gritting his teeth, he made ready to slash with his sword, but his opponent pinned it to the ground with her foot. She cackled as she used the Ice Wand to restrain the Knight's other arm.
"There's no inventing your way out of this predicament, you would-be bringer of hope!"
She raised the Vorpal Blade, aiming for the Knight's exposed face...
...and brought it down into Alice's back.
The fake Alice could only stare in disbelief, as she realized Alice had jumped in to take the blow meant for the Knight. Her shock then apparently turned to satisfaction.
"What is this? You sacrifice yourself for this figment of your imagination? Foolish, foolish girl! Now your life belongs to the Mara!"
Alice barely heard her. She felt the life draining from her body, focusing into the spot where the Vorpal Blade was embedded in her body.
"You have no hope, only pain! No love, only sorrow! No future, only fear! Wonderland, the Dark Places of the Inside, the so-called real world, all belong to the Mara!"
Blood oozed out of her back and all over her dress. Her legs and arms wavered, as she leaned over the White Knight. As her vision began to blur, she saw him smile.
"It is time. Give in."
"NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
A wave of force exploded from Alice, pushing the fake away and wrenching the Vorpal Blade from her hand. Caught off guard, she fell over backwards and rolled away.
When she regained her balance, she beheld a changed world. All the color had washed away, save for some stark whites, grey outlines, and splotches of bloody red.
Alice stood tall over the injured White Knight. Her eyes were deep black pools, from which rained tears of blood. Her skin and clothes alike had turned an even brighter shade of white than their surroundings. The Vorpal Blade glittered in her hand, even on the spots still covered in her own blood.
On her last legs, she had called upon the power of Hysteria.
"Urgh...what is this? Desperation? Power born of fear and rage! The Mara's power! It only makes me stronger! You'll never defeat me before that runs out!"
Alice calmly walked towards her foe, completely undeterred.
"You don't sound so convinced yourself." she noted.
Now visibly panicking, the fake Alice retrieved her blunderbuss and fired, but Alice simply sliced the incoming projectile in half with the Vorpal Blade. Every other weapon she tried was similarly ineffective: the playing cards, the croquet mallet, the jacks and jackbombs, even the Ice Wand.
She reached for the Deadtime Watch, but by then Alice had closed the distance, and was able to knock it out of her hand. She tried to butterfly-dodge, but Alice was too fast. She sliced at her copy multiple times before plunging the Vorpal Blade directly into her heart.
As blood began to flow from the copy's wounds, so did trails of red energy. She tried to pull away, but Alice kept a vice-like grip on her body. Even as the power of Hysteria faded, and color returned both to her and the world, her copy could not escape her grasp.
"...But...but how? You used the power of despair...the power of the Mara...how could you use it against me?"
"It was simple, actually. I refused to let it control me."
The copy struggled for a little while longer, but soon even those pitiful struggles ceased. Her clothing unraveled, he skin withered, her limbs wrinkled, and her bones melted. And all the while she cried out in pain.
"No! Please no! I don't want to die! Not when I could have been youuuuu..."
At last, all that remained was ashes and scattered energy. The energy coalesced into roses, filled with nectar made of raw meta-essence, which floated down onto the rope floor.
One by one, Alice drank the nectar from these scattered flowers, feeling her wounds close and her strength return with every drop. But even with all that she absorbed, she could not stop herself from collapsing in dizziness.
Her friends crawled over to her, in various states of injury and exhaustion, to join her in lying down on the rope floor to recover from what had been the hardest fight of their lives.
But Alice knew she could not allow herself to rest, no matter how much her body cried out for it.
"It's not over yet."
Happy Halloween, everybody!
Moving to a new town has a way of messing up your schedule, doesn't it?
But hopefully, someday soon, we'll discover what Alice needs to do next, and whether or not she can find the strength to do so!