[AlNel in Murderland] [Act II]
Written by Crisis Project [formerly shade_vox]
Note: wonder if I should continue this at all. Oh well. Here it is.
Warning: possible OOC, possible future crossover (which will remain nameless), swearing, mature language, possible 'mature' subjects. All kids are invited to go home. Love ya.
Disclaimer: Star Ocean 3 belongs to Tri-Ace/Ubisoft/Square-Enix, Alice in Wonderland belongs to Lewis Carroll.
Act II: Caucas-race vs. Carcass race
Not for the first time, Nel's lungs were having a rough time against gravity, and thus, Nel was short on air. Again. Distantly, she suspected a habit beginning to form.
In another dream, she'd be relaxed on the grimy beach she was plastered on. She'd be naked, except for the pretty bikini which would prevent said dressing state from occurring, perhaps with the aid of a fluffy towel. Sunlight would be harmonizing with her skin, concocting vitamin D in her skin lightly basted in oil. Some gorgeous rippling hunk might be helping out with a massage (and maybe other favours).
Subconscious mental calculation in Nel's medulla oblongata results in this:
(Gorgeous hunk + massage + vacation) x Nel = 0.0000000000001(?)
If it wasn't aliens from outer space, then reality dished her something just as absurd – like that fish with flailing feet flopping on the sand a yard to her right. Flailing because it had the misfortune to have severed Achilles tendons, which was the result in having the misfortune to have stepped on Nel's diaphragm as it had run along the beach. Such consequences were inescapable, even in dream worlds.
But there was one solid fact: she had been awakened (albeit rudely) from sleep, and she was still in the dream world. It was the only thing she could think of to call it, because she remembered all too perfectly how she'd gotten to be plastered, shivering, to this grimy beach. That blonde's tears had formed a flood in that room where they'd tried to get through the locked door to follow Vanilla, then the doorknob had yawned wide and swallowed all the water to drain it at the painted washable-Welch's command.
She'd been swept away, struggling to keep her head above the salty water line as the tunnel through the doorknob had gradually lightened and became a grey, cloudy sky while the water churned below like a great sea. Her daggers and magician's hat were dragging at her belt, she'd almost had to chuck the shoes until a bird had floated by on another bird, paddling along like it were a canoe.
She'd managed a weak "Hey!" before a wave had tumbled her into the cold wet darkness. A glimpse of the underside of the bird guided her as she'd struck out and emerged on the side of the bird-boat. There had been no time to think; she hoisted herself up while the birds squawked indignantly and laid her dagger none too gently against the paddling bird's bill until they'd started chirping rather nervously with frequent back glances.
A glimpse of the beach and encroaching forest had been all she had managed before a glass bottle containing the blonde had caught up with them. Upon recognition – Nel's in disappointment and the blonde's in enthusiasm – the blonde had lurched up and beaten against the glass, obviously yelling for help. The rim of the bottle had swooped down as it tipped and there'd been a colossal crack, a flash of pain. Then she'd woken up with a goose egg on her forehead, the dagger in her hand, a constricted diaphragm, an absent hunk, and the bleeding no-longer-running fish on the beach.
And she'd thought Albel had needed help.
Blinking stinging eyes, she grimaced and carefully rolled to her side and spat out the salty water sloshing around in her mouth and shivered. The wind caressed icy fingers through her wet clothes and cut at her exposed skin. The beach stretched out, dotted with granite boulders thrusting up from the lurching waves of the steel ocean reflecting the steel sky.
The ocean.
Apris, not only was she in a world of dreams, but she was in a world full of crap.
How in Apris' name (if Apris was even around in this land) was she going to get back to the field now? She was separated from it by an ocean with no land in sight on the other side, a twisting corridor of strange objects and questionable rules of physics, and a fathoms-deep hole with absolutely no handholds.
If the fish with the feet weren't still laying there (giving her an aggrieved, watery glare over it's flapping gills), bleeding from its finny feet clad in a pair of wooden clogs, she might have guessed the beach to be one which surrounded the northern hemisphere of Gaitt. As such, those finny feet destroyed any hope. There were no such creatures as feet attached to fish in Elicoor.
A spark caught her eye past the baleful glare of the lipless tuna. Against the drab brown and grey light filtering through thin spots of clouds above, the bonfire blazing several yards from her was bright enough, and definitely looked warm enough. Blurry shadows were circling it, hopping from rock to boulder, then sand when there were no stony footholds close enough.
Nel sat fully upright and rubbed her eyes to encourage her tears to wash out the grimy saltwater, then shook her head, flinging the wet out of her hair. Something slimy hit her earlobe. Wincing at the feel, she dragged a piece of seaweed out of her ear.
"-now how am I to run the Caucus-race?!" squawked the Tuna, baring needle-sharp teeth.
Nel nearly jumped even as she met the market-deli-thing's round, flat eye. Its voice was jarringly loud in the right side of her head; her left was quite deaf.
"…The carcass-race?" Nel repeated quizzically.
"The Caucas-race, you jabberwocky!" the tuna spat emphatically. "I'm late as it is already and you have the gall to cut my feet off?!"
His finny feet really were too bedraggled now to be described as more than shredded ribbons. But maybe if she used her runes…
"I can heal that," she muttered through chattering teeth, and knelt beside the fish careful to inhale shallowly through her mouth – a fish with feet still attained that fishy smell. "What's this Caucas-race about?" she asked, hoping to divert her attention from the stench.
"Racing," the tuna responded sardonically. She halted her gleaming hand just before his fins and gave it a look. "There is no beginning or end. Sir Dodo announces when it's finished, so I had a shot at getting in and maybe winning the prize that the girl has."
Girl? The blonde didn't look like she had much on her, Nel mused as the fins threaded together slowly beneath her fingers. She'd have to wash them in that chilly ocean later and maybe even boil them to get the smell off her skin.
"Stop!" called a distant voice.
"Great, now they're finished," Fishy Tuna grumbled as he slowly got up and stepped into his clogs again, straightening his black blazer. "That was the Dodo just now."
Nel scowled and crossed her arms against the chill. "If you go now maybe they won't notice that you didn't run the race and still get a prize."
Fishy Tuna's lipless mouth jerked up at the corners, giving her a toothy grin and took off trotting without a word of thanks. In the distance she could just make out a slip of a girl in a blue dress and blonde hair blazing in the firelight, digging through her apron pocket.
Nel sighed and started trudging along down the beach toward the crowd while wringing out what parts of her clothes she could reach, along with the felt hat stuffed into her belt. That girl had gotten her here, it stood to reason that the girl probably knew where she was - seeing as she was comfortable with the dancing fish and birds. They may even be her friends. Nel would have to interrogate her, find out her location and if they were still on Elicoor or confirm her fears and she was on some other planet, then determine the fastest possible route to return home.
"-not enough!"
"-cheat us out! We won the race!"
"Technically speaking, we all won-"
"Either way there isn't enough to go around!"
The mob was becoming more raucous with every passing second, and Nel could just make out Alice squealing in the middle as they all turned on her, trying to climb up and over each other in their quest to obtain more.
"Please! Wait! I have…" the girl seemed to rummage through her pocket as Nel drew a little closer to the mob. "…This! Catch!" every eye turned to look up as the shiny object flew out of her dainty little fist and sailed over the crowd.
"Gimmie the-"
"Mine!"
"-SPARKLY!"
The mob seemed to surge to the left and out of the middle, from between two squished salmon popped out the blonde who fell promptly onto the sand before looking back, catching the eyes of several crabs at the back of the crowd, and lurched back onto her feet and ran toward Nel waving her arms furiously.
Damn, if she thinks I'm going to-
"Help me!" Blondie shrieked as the crabs started scuttling after her, complete with snapping pincers.
Nel darted a glance from the girl to the forest twenty yards or so away from roughly where they were on the beach. The noisy mob seemed to hear Blondie's plea for help and swelled with the effort to turn around.
And in the next second it clicked: the mob was actually swelling. To be more precise, a few of the ocean and sky citizens were shooting up at an alarming speed, becoming black cut-out silhouettes against the grey clouds overhead.
"What did you give them?" Nel shouted as she turned to run alongside the girl.
"Just – the – biscuits – from – the – painted – la-lady!" Blondie panted.
"The ones that said Supersize me?!"
"…Ye-ow!"
Nel wheeled around and almost bit her tongue. The girl had succumbed to the most common escaping female inhibitor: the twisted ankle. She was clutching her right on the beach as the mob started to catch up – and those fifteen foot goldfish only needed a few more steps to be in range to squish the chit.
And if that weren't enough incentive to get Nel to stay and fight to defend the girl, there was a black cat canoodling out from behind a rock up toward her.
"No! Stay away!" Blondie screeched as she twisted from her seat and finally saw how close her 'friends' were from roasting her on a spit, if what Nel heard from her right ear was correct.
She was already dashing towards the girl but seemingly in terror the blonde snaked out a hand and flung the yowling cat into the mass of scales and feathers over her head as she ducked and screamed, all at the same time.
Sometimes Nel wished it'd be easier to hang up her conscience as easily as it was to hang up her daggers.
The clouds had finally broken and revealed the late sun by the time Nel had won the battle. Ducks, turkeys, parrots, lobsters, crabs, and even the tuna were slain around her with her in the eye of the storm. She'd had to stay put beside the wounded tween and fight radiating outwards from that central point, and the opponents just crawled over the fallen to get to her resulting in the heaving walls of exposed avian meat and seafood surrounding her. Looking up at the circle of blue sky above her, Nel had the sensation of being marooned at the bottom of an empty well.
It was also quite peaceful because the girl had somehow managed to slip away on that hobbled ankle.
"Hey, girl!" she croaked wearily. The saltwater from her swim had left her throat raw, while the massacre which had followed had her bone-weary.
Sweat trickled from Nel's temple as the steam and pungent scent of such a rich buffet wafted into her nostrils, tempting her to coax her pressed muscles into carving out some dark meat from that pheasant in front of her, and maybe collect some grapefruit-sized eggs from the giant, unmoving female crab on her left.
A black cat paw stuck out from the sand by her foot.
The Caucus-race had indeed ended in a carcass-race.
Crisis: so yeah, I finally got around to writing the second chapter. Any thoughts? Please review and let me know what's awesome and what I need work on!
On a different note, if anyone would like to beta for me please send me a pm! I'm looking for a competent beta and as such I will be looking over your stories to get a feel for your skills and style. I'm looking forward to conversing with someone about my ideas and working it out together (I love communication). Thanks!