Somewhere in an abandoned warehouse in clover, a lone and paranoid mercenary woman had finished setting up a detection perimeter and a few possible escapes routes around the hidden apartment room she had in the place from before she disappeared from everyone's memories.

"At least this time I'm not hobbo-ing around," she said as she carefully took off her armor in order to take a bath in the shower cabin installed there and get some needed rest.

Getting Jackie to drink that potion had been bothersome but necessary and now she had some answers that had only served to formulate more questions. In truth she didn't need more information from Jackie at the moment, she knew enough about her and from her to calculate possibilities and scenarios. However it would only be fair that she responded her questions in response. Even if those led Jackie to her death. When Aria said 'just be mindful that I will answer honesty to exactly what you ask' she had given enough warning. As the saying went, 'Be careful what you wish for'.

However, she still needed to decide what to do now. She couldn't exactly just appear before the Role Holders or her faceless faction if they didn't remember her. That wouldn't be fair to them and it was potentially very dangerous for her, especially after all she had done and caused.

She grabbed the meager dinner that she had managed to get by buying incognito in one of those rundown stores that served for drug dealing, and took a bite. As she ate, her hand was shaking and general indecision filled her. Her mind was in turmoil and she was very much aware of it.

Back in Diamond, when she had fought the Jabberwocky, she had learned the truth. The terrible truth that she was as good as dead in her world. The truth that her madness running towards her own death had been in vain.

She closed her eyes, remembering that awful time.

She was at the taloned feet of the Jabberwocky in utter and complete defeat. Everything was over and it was pointless to go back to her world. There was nothing to go back to but to the death she had already accepted and started. She now knew the truth and it hurt.

She remembered. Back in her world time after her partner and lover's death.

It had been a little after her encounter with some revolutionaries when she had been close to her destination. She had been caught into a big combat where she had to fight with all she had to survive and get out of there. She had gotten out alive but she had been wounded and exposed to the attention of a hidden nearby compound from of an "independent development firm" that manufactured Bio Organical Weapons and cybernetic arms and equipment; they had seen her and she had been submitted and captured easily.

Of course she was an oddity and a great finding to study and improve for them. They had tested and experimented on their new found doll and had made some enhancements, and she had let them because she was curious too and wanted to see what improvements could be done to her body. Bio-mechanical integration, molecular genetic and chemical restructure…

All the time she had been conscious of everything and in constant sync with the instruments nearby with the side effect of eroding parts of her psyche persona, seeing it from the devices around. She had the power to get free any moment she desired without them even noticing. However, she sickly decided to allow such bio-mechanical research to continue upon her until she considered it was time to get going when they were talking about ovule extraction and alternative reproduction methods she had gotten out, with all due violence.

She had fought her way out of the facility destroying it in the process by taking control of all the systems and even a combat Mecha 'titan', an armored combat unit in testing phases like the tripulated robots from the anime´s she had liked when younger. A combat prototype that would have been sold in the war to all sides. And she had made sure that no one got away to tell the tale or continue researching when she released the neurotoxins in all the facility.

At that point she wasn't a person anymore, human only in the general form. She was but the remembrance of her self imposed mission, and it, her main prerogative was still standing and the nuclear launch site was only a few days away.

After that, and because if things could go wrong they would, or so said an unspoken universal law. She had been trapped in the middle of a battlefield near her destination for the control of the not secret anymore missile´s silo. She had barely gotten out that alive thanks to the Mecha but her wounds were extensive already when she managed to infiltrate in the site. There were no supplies nor anything left, probably not even much of herself either. No personality or sense of self, just a mission she had to complete no matter how hurt she was, no matter if her arms was ripped apart, if her spine was damaged or if she had internal bleeding. She didn't have any sensibility of any kind so that was irrelevant.

Like a programed machine she had made her way towards the controls and there she synchronized with all the "skynet" nuclear network. She destroyed all digital safes, eroded all passwords and activated all controls. The bombs were activated in their silos or launched towards their international targets.

It was about to end. She was closing her eyes and drifting into a last dream like state, probably the moment Wonderland had been waiting to get her since she had not indulged into a dream trance since she passed by the entrance to this world years ago. That time she had indeed jumped in the hole in the ground, but there were no files about that in her records, she had been conscious, so maybe there hadn't been a way for the entrance to let her in, but it undoubtedly had taken notice of her and had waited till it could drag her there.

Wonderland had taken her back to the moment in her past when she was happier, or rather, before the moment where any happiness was utterly impossible when things got critically bad.

The Jabberwocky had released her own files for her and she knew that If she drank the potion of hearts and went back it would be for naught, she was a couple minutes at best from the epicenter of a nuclear blast. Her body, including all the enhanced cybernetics was too damaged and her conscious had been about to shut down permanently. She was dying.

There she had been, in the floor of the patio in the castle of Diamond, below the terrible dragon, all her will had been snuffed and all hope had been eroded. She didn't notice the Jabberwocky smirking in satisfaction; she didn't notice the hurried dozens of steps running towards her location because she was deaf to the looming screams around as much as to every other sound. She was cut off from anything and everything, just her knowledge of the truth was there with her. She was as good as dead, she should have been dead for months and all her time in Wonderland, all the preparations for 'anything that would help her back in her world to achieve her goal' was pointless.

The fight was over. Her fight was over. The nukes had been delivered and millions were dead or about to die in seconds, and those were the fortunate ones. The unfortunate ones would have to live in the after effects. The destruction had been great and she knew the implications. The entire economic system of the world would collapse, entire economic blocks and their countries would be shattered. But all that would save the rest in the long run, it had been a trade from total destruction to heavy focused annihilation.

And her… she shouldn't be alive, that was not meant to be. It wasn't fair! It should have been over already! It had ended and there was no reason for going on, she had no reason to fight anymore…

A steady but silent flow of tears ran at the corners of her eyes and along her cheeks without her noticing, her arms were limp by her side. There was nothing else to do. It was over. Her duty was done and she had finished too. She was going to die here anyways, so why bother …

Her eyes finally opened, dispelling the darkness replaying the scene in her head. She finished her dinner and prepared to sleep. Her thoughts, however, remained lively in her mind.

At the end of that fight she had found a reason to fight. She had come to like this world and it's inhabitants, and she didn't want the dragon to destroy them. She had gotten up and with the help of the faceless faction, the Role Holders and even Alice, she had faced the Jabberwocky and they had defeated it but she had been thrown into the lost country of Spades.

The place was dead, but there…. there… she couldn't remember. She only knew that she had made a deal with Wonderland in order to restore spades and that the real Jabberwocky, the first role, had done a deal with her to be able to have a holder. She knew that she had sacrificed her vial and that it had shattered, but somehow it was undamaged and empty again, and she knew that her mind had almost been lost, but she didn't knew how that was avoided.

And for the time being she wanted to avoid it because she didn't want to be reminded of the nightmares realm. She shuddered. When she had woke up she had been assaulted by the visions of the worst moments of her life. The hunger and poverty of her world mixed with its blood lust, greed and decadence. The most inhuman missions she had performed and her own unavoidable dead. Her lover is dead. The nuclear dawn she had caused to prevent a total nuclear annihilation … she gulped. She had been shown also all she had done here…

She was actually glad that she couldn't hold emotionally to anything. She wouldn't have survived if she cared. She didn't want to care.

And somehow she had survived. Somehow she was still alive, even if she hadn't done so unscratched or undamaged. And she was feeling uncertain. And that was the problem, that she was 'feeling', and she shouldn't be able to. It was scary, but it should go away soon. It ought to!

She didn't know what she was going to do now. Her files were a mess, a broken puzzle that would take time to stabilize enough to be analyzed. But it all went back as to why was she alive? She was not useful to this world like any other foreigner. She couldn't keep the long term emotions called feelings. So if she couldn't 'love' then her game couldn't end. And by all she had discovered that was an inconvenience to Wonderland that should have kicked her back to her world to face her death.

More so, there was already a new foreigner. But why? Or rather why was she still here when Jackeline Penski had come around?

The answer probably was there with Jackie.

But for now her process capabilities were not in a good state and trying to process data could produce unreliable results. She had to observe, test and, if needed, experiment on Jackie. But above all, she had to be very careful that the Role Holders don't find her, not yet. That would be easy when she arrived into this world she had been under their radar for weeks and had only met them when she decided so. And now that she had added all the tricks and items from this world to her arsenal it would be even easier. Besides, why bother to let them know she was around?

They don't remember her anyways.

Jackie found herself floating in the middle of nowhere and recognized the place as the dream realm. Nightmare?

"Good night to you too Jackie," Nightmare appeared right in front of her and he looked both eager and distressed, "but of course I am. How could I not be when there is another foreigner around. Two foreigners are almost unheard of, but three?"

"Yeah it's weird. Hey, Nightmare," she said, thinking back on Aria's words, "have you been messing with my memories?"

"Such a foreigner is… strange. Yet she is indeed familiar," Nightmare admitted and then added to himself, "yet why can't I notice her dreams? Is she really a foreigner?"

The ruler of clover would have to confirm if any of the Role Holders had died. There was always the possibility that someone was trying to pass as a foreigner. He'd have to ask the clock master.

"You can't? Why not?" Jackie asked, shocked that there was a person other than Gray who was able to bypass Nightmare's mindreading or drop in's in dreams.

"Did you notice anything strange about her?" Nightmare instead asked, now looking to get some answers.

"Uh, not really," she lied and Nightmare immediately saw through that, "Well, she had multiple shades of blond and a really long braid at the base of her nape if that helps. She sounded … mechanical, digitized. Hardly human." Jackie then remembered the strange attire the other woman wore, it had look out of some sci-fi movie.

Nightmare decided to check for himself and intruded in Jackie's thoughts. There he did saw the other girl, but there was more than one thing off. This person looked very surrealistic yet Jackie had seen her clearly. However, the circumstances when Jackie had seen here had not being ideal. The first time she had been highly tired and overworked. The second time when the explosion hit in that street in Clover the person that had attacked her had made her eat some weird candy or at least had tried to. Maybe Jackie did see a bit of it whatever it was. And then she had been given potion... So Jackie hadn't seen this person under normal circumstances, and had seen her face only after ingesting something weird...

"Nightmare stop that!" - Jackie exclaimed while taking her hands to her head at the headache he was giving her. Jackie wobbled on her feet, feeling the world around her slowly disappearing.

"When you wake up you should go to the infirmary and check for drugs or poisoning, Jackie." Nightmare warned before letting her go, allowing her to fade back into her own mind for the night.

There was also the issue that if there was another foreigner they would that game. And it was not possible that Alice's game was over. They would have sensed the moment Blood gave her his connector and she accepted it, effectively ending her game. Even if it had happened during those months before the storm they couldn't remember. Blood probably would, and that man would surely made a big show of it and Alice would know it. So that was ruled out.

The most logical conclusion was that someone had targeted Jackie and she had been drugged and had hallucinated things, giving this mysterious person the advantage over her to manipulate her as she pleased. If this continued … Jackie could potentially be infected with the madness.

Nightmare was back in his office pondering on the recent turn of events when Grey came in with freshly brewed coffee. After taking a sip of the wonderful beverage he decided to have Gray check it out just in case. It wasn't really important, any group targeting a foreigner would be killed very soon by either any Role Holder or by the factions fighting against one another. The person that Jackie had seen was probably dead already, "did you found the culprit for the explosion, Gray?"

"No. And I didn't found whomever attacked Jackie either," Gray looked bothering at someone escaping him, "but it's probably people from the same group"

"You don't think that it could have been the same person?" Nightmare asked, sounding troubled.

"It's not impossible but it's highly unlikely," Gray wasn't exactly happy that he had ended up empty handed.

"I see. Check it out just in case," Nightmare nodded and dismissed the issue. Nightmare would have to warn a few Role Holders particularly close to Jackie to keep an eye on her.

Jackie woke up with a headache and decided to go to the parks medic. What Nightmare said bothered her. Getting drugged? No, she wasn't 'hallucinating' anything. She needed to check on her 'drugged' mind or at least get some Aspirin before going to check the Ferris Wheel.

However, she noticed that meeting Nightmare in her dream had felt slightly different. She couldn't say exactly how it was different but he was obviously more intrusive and didn't take into account the forced mind reading. Why had he done that instead of asking her first?

"You are working much too hard and it's probably exhaustion taking it's toll. Do be careful," the doctor instructs as Jackie rubbed her head.

"Yeah, yeah," she agreed, planning to get back to work as soon as the doctor left; and maybe after a quick nap. A knock at the door caught their attention.

"Sir? There was an incident with the tea cup ride. Nothing serious but they want a doctor's approval," the woman said.

"Ah, alright," the doctor said, giving Jackie a slip to prove her tiredness to Gowland. Well, she already had a number of vacation days since she allowed them to build up over time.

"Let me guess. Nightmare intruded in your dreams last night. What happened?" Aria's voice asked. Jackie jolted, startled and whipped her head around to see Aria.

"Aria? What's going on?" Jackie asked, relaxing a little bit but still seeming somewhat tense.

"I assume that Nightmare tried to make you forget," Aria said, wavering off the wall, "now… you had some questions, right?" The girl sighed through the digital distortion, "I will answer, but before that I want you to tell me why you want to go back to our world and what awaits you there to be so important that you can't find it here."

"Why? Because … it's my home." Jackie said, puzzled as to why Aria was asking her that.

"Is it?"- Aria tilted her head.

Jackie stayed quiet for a moment, "it is," she said, wondering why Aria was asking her that. Aria remained silence for a few seconds, absorbing Jackie's answer.

"Sorry, I guess I forgot what a home is. So you had a house and family and everything, right? what I meant was… what are you going back to?" She asked, trying a different angle in asking.

Jackie stayed quiet. Her family was a broken mess. Her job was on the verge of collapsing. And she still wanted to go back?

"Yes, yes Aria it's my home! That's why I want to go back!" Jackie cried, hopping to her feet and getting a little angry why she was asking her all of this. But deep down, she knew she was arguing because she herself didn't know. Even if she returned home chances were she was missing for months. She would have no job. Her mother was probably in the luny house as it was.

But she refused to accept it.

"I don't get why you keep questioning me, Aria," Jackie say, turning her back to her and pacing a little bit, grabbing at straws as to what she could use that was the truth, "and after I answer a question once you don't need to keep pushing it. I need to go home because it's my home. It's where I grew up. And-,"

"Jackie? Sweetie, who are you talking to?" Gowland asked, standing at the door after watching the young woman rant for a minute or two to think air. Jackie's head popped up, eyes wide as she spied Gowland before whipping her head around and seeing Aria gone. Oh well that's just great she's been talking to nothing but air.

" … go get some rest, sweetpea. The heat is probably getting to your head," Gowland suggested.

"Chu… Jackie! Are you alright?" Pierce had to come in at the moment after Gowland.

"She just needs rest," Gowland said with worry, "you've been working too hard, Jackie. Remember that vacation you didn't want to take last month? I think it's a good moment for you to take it, in fact I'll give you some extra days," then, he made a pose with crossed arms that obviously meant that he wasn't taking no for an answer, "I insist darling."

"I don't need it. I'm just tired," Jackie said, rubbing her forehead before glancing at him, " … fine," she heavily sighed. "Maybe a break is what I need."

Oh ho ho~ what could happen next? 5 REVIEWS for the next chapter :3