Disclaimer: Me no own American McGee's Alice. Oh well. *sighs*

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Chapter Five: Crusade

"Thackery…he…"

"Yes, quite," he replied, answering Alice's unspoken question.

She moves to shut the lids over his vapid, staring eyes.

"I…remember that tea party, I think. The first time we met. He was already…" here she chuckled softly. "For the lack of a better term, madder than a March Hare."

Tarrant Hightopp shrugs, an action born of helplessness, regret…and rage.

"Indeed, but what I did to them…" he glances over to the snoozing Mallymkun, who'd lain that way, lungs rising and falling beneath a steel ribcage ever since his horrified normal (mad?) self had released his partners-in-tea from their bonds.

Then Thackery twitched in his enforced slumber, thumping, clanging against the metal struts of the hospital bed, screeching for release, for the pain and tearing to stop and to give him his tea!

Suddenly the sleep of the Dormouse sounded a more favourable fate by miles.

"What I did…" he tries again, speaking more to himself than to Alice, who was patting the head of Mallymkun tenderly, one of the few organic portions of his body that was left.

"Destroyed them. What was left of "them" in their minds. Pushed…no, kicked them off the brink of sanity because I…was…"

Bored, and now spit it out, won't you? My joints are rusting hearing you dither, cruel excuse for a hatmaker.

Tarrant blinked.

Thackery's eyes were wide open, crazed and fixated on his.

Staring now, are we—those jaws moved! Twisted with hurt and fury directed at him!—don't you know how rude that is? But I can't do anything about that, can I, not while you've gotten me locked up nice and tight in these leather straps—hey, just like the time you ripped out my guts to amuse that big, bursting brain of yours? Like what you see, then? Like how I look? Like what you've done to me and—with a jerk of that mangy head—Mally over there? Rather pretty, don't you think, with these gizzards of copper and limbs of steel. Ought I thank you, do you think, for making us these horrid cyborgs of—

"No, Thackery, please, I wasn't myself when I did that to you…forgive me, please, I'd make you—"

—back what I was. If you could. Well now isn't that such a convenient thing to say, seeing as the Red Queen didn't replace your left leg with an erractic assortment of pumping whirring…things? Once Alice flipped that chip out of your head, you're nicely walking around, your usual mad self. And where does that leave the rest of us?

"Tarrant?"

All those children you used to harvest as your personal guard?

"Tarrant! What are you—"

You enjoyed watching their silent screams, didn't you; everytime a new batch came in to be sliced, diced, slotted by your eager ma—"

"—doing? Hatter!"

"Shut up! It wasn't my fault so everyone just Shut. The. Hell. UP!"

"Tarrant! STOP!"

Alice's authoritative voice shattered the clamor. Halted the madness of accusations, scorning and mocking by his once-tea-party-friend-now-half- beast-half-machine Thackery. He paused, took stock of the situation.

Realised that the Match Hare was still quite unconscious instead of snarling indignant curses and insinuating words that had wormed into his head, festering like the now-rotting Wonderland forests.

Noticed that his trembling hands had raised his staff high above Thackery's head, and the next minute of madness would have resulted in once cracked skull, a very messy staff, and most likely another hour of mental torture by Thackery's lingering spirit for his slip in clear, rational thought. (Clear? Rational? He'd have to look those up.)

Ragged breathing fought for attention amid hissing steam valves and clanking cogs.

His breathing.

He saw Alice's charming emerald eyes—soft around the edges!—gazing at his concernedly, one hand raised and pulling his staff away quickly and firmly. "The madness…it's gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, nerve wrecking beyond comprehension. But you must fight it, like I am trying to," whispered Alice.

He could not suppress the sigh that shuddered its way out of his chest. Eyes shifting morosely between the girl of his attentions and his motionless tea partners, he said, equally softly, "What…is left that is worth fighting for?"

"Why, for all of—"

"My liege!"

"I wish you'd stop calling me that…what is it?"

He turned to the Crystal Cyborg at the door.

"I think, Mr. Madigan, that you need to see this."

Claws clacked against the wooden platform he had taken up position so as to better…view things in this destitute dump. He could count the number of times he'd needed to raise his voice in his entire lifespan on one paw, and…three of those times had been in the last few hours.

Chessur glared at the whole unruly lot distastefully (not too much of the latter, he reminded himself. After all, all of them were supposedly their "potential allies"). That, at least was within his rights as head overseerof this evacuation operation.

"Hoi! Gharish, the dirigibles are that way! Are you that eager to relive slavery in the mines?"

Fools who follow fools like sheep, all of them. Daily mind-numbing routine must have addled their senses too much. Curse Razerious and his (he'd like to say misguided, but it was always better to keep such thoughts to himself and not have to eat his words later) faith in these grumbling, groaning gnomes.

There hadn't been much indecision on the Gryphon's part when he was deciding who had the necessary Arcane skills of evaporating, and the ability to move across the realm at will for this task.

(He didn't know whether to be flattered or frustrated)

Still, it was a dirty job, and someone hadto do it.

(Whichever smart-alec invented that phrase could stuff it and do the job himself instead of spouting wise nonsense that didn't make sense to anyone.)

(Hmm. Familiar, that.)

Change was the constant.

(Which was particularly why he didn't like it. Stupid, self-contradicting entity.)

Unfortunately It also had the irritating habit of farcing itself on others, and the result was that one of Wonder;and's best professional spies/assassins was helping to direct the escape of a couple of thousand gnomes up and down the Village of the Damned.

Funnily enough he'd never been around these parts in the days before the Red Queen came to power. Customers who could afford his exorbitant prices then didn't relish wasting the expertise they'd paid for on easy kills.

It was always espionage along the swanky streets of the Diamond Domes, footed by green-eyed Club Royals wondering how they accumulated so much wealth, or a desperate company owner calling a clandestine strike on his competitor who'd been doing too well for his own taste.

Even the Heart Royals were not above hiring his talents, as the darker arm of the ruling suit which could go places and do things above recriminations that would fly thick and fast had the Hearts openly engaged in the acts they paid Chessur to do.

Of course, it came without question that he infuriated the Peacekeeper Decks with his audacity and his…propensity to vanish straight out of their ion prisons the moment their backs were turned.

Then came the arrival of Alice. A child. A naïve, bright-eyed and stumbling child, which was quite…interesting. Sparked his curiosity, if nothing else.

"I'll take you to the Hatter and the Hare. Coming?"

On retrospect, what had started out as a small sadistic experiment (what, surely a feline assassin had the freedom to enjoy the warping of a young mind by Wonderland's maddest man) was probably the best accidental deed in his relatively short life. The spark that the child put in the Hatter's eye was bliss, not lunacy.

Each time he was with her, Tarrant's eyes dilated with pleasure like they never had before.

Whenever he had one of those perpetual tea parties with the March Hare and the Dormouse.

Whenever he took a relaxing stroll through groves of Tumtum trees after brillig.

Whenever he just basked in the warm Wonderlandian sun in the Tulgey woods.

Except the Hatter was no longer alone.

The Red Queen's uprising…wasn't exactly a concern for him. His profession couldn't care less whether the Queen was a democratic ruler or autocratic despot. The change in governance couldn't shackle his paws, and there was always demand for a killer of his caliber and discreetness.

Life as usual, if not for freak weather making Wonderland quite the living hell.

Or it would have been, if there hadn't been three…worrying occurrences.

Alice never came back, which meant Tarrant spent his days lounging miserably and hosting below-par tea parties. Even Hatter's preferred Darjeeling left a sour note on his tongue.

Then the number of times he'd had to wriggle his way out of the tenacious grasp of the Red Queen's underlings began to get on his nerves.

But a sadder Hatter could be ignored, and it was the regime's own loss to not appreciate his talents.

The news that the Heart Guards had been massacred by assassin, though…it was one of those things would have been another minor blip except for the other distressing rummours that the killer was…feline.

"Chessur?"

He snapped out of his thoughts to see the Gnome Elder tapping his platform.

"The Spade and Diamond Regiments are retreating. Do we…?"

"Eh?" Chessur's tail twitched irritably. Change and her…annoying presence again.

(Also, thoughtful frowns did not suit him.)

"So the Hatter's prediction has come to pass, hasn't it…" he muttered, speaking more to himself than the Elder.

Then he grinned decisively, having come to a decision.

"Continue with the exodus. I will need to meet the Carpenter, if that's possible?"