Sorry that I haven't updated in a while. I read over my previous chapters and realized there were a bunch of grammar mistakes in them and edited them. The weird thing is, I read over them before I posted them. Maybe I need to be more careful or get a beta or something. I also had to work on an essay on the facehuggers in Aliens, another on transposable Alu elements, and now I'm doing one on Frankenstein. For now though, I give you chapter six, Wonderland! It may not be that different since they don't interact with that many people in the world and there isn't actually a villain there. They are annoyed by the Cheshire Cat though. Will our heroes make it out with their sanity intact? Let's find out! Once again, I own nothing!
Pretend it's a line.
Sora stared out at the strange sights outside the gummi ship. It looked sort of like outer space, only mixed together in a swirl of colors. Sora had finished Donald's magic lesson and now knew how to use the spell Fire. Donald seemed to be a bit surprised that Sora learned it so quickly. Sora just attributed this to his mako blood. Goofy had shown him a combat move on Donald's insistence, but still thought that Sora was already a good fighter. Since Sora had finished his lessons so quickly, he was now free to stare out the window and at the controls. He'd have to ask them to let him try piloting sometime soon. Right now, he was getting bored. "Are we there yet?"
"No."
"How much longer?"
"I don't know!"
"We're just seein' what we can run into," said Goofy.
"Wait, you mean you have no idea what we're gonna find?" asked Sora.
Goofy nodded. "Yep!"
"So, you guys have no idea where we're going? Won't we get lost?"
"Don't worry, it instantly makes a map of the worlds you visit," said a squeaky, high-pitched voice.
Sora blinked. "Who said that?"
"Oh, that's just Chip and Dale, the gummi ship engineers. They keep in contact with us whenever we're in the gummi ship," explained Donald.
"Hey! Here comes a world!" said Goofy.
Sora looked up. It was a world with a pink checkered pattern, fancy hedges, some castle structures, and a little house on the bottom. "It looks a bit odd."
"Aw, they all look weird out here," said Donald. "It shouldn't be as bad when we disembark."
They beamed down onto the world. Only, they were still floating. They seemed to be in a sideways hallway filled with all kinds of stuff. At least they weren't falling. Sora twitched a bit though. This was most definitely not normal. He glanced at his companions. Donald didn't seem bothered by it. Goofy was lying on his side. Maybe this was common where they came from. Just then they landed. Sora and Donald were simply set down. Goofy crashed down. As he was getting up, a white rabbit came running by. "Oh my fur and whiskers! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! Oh dear, oh dear! I'm here! I should be there! I'm late, I'm late I'm late! The queen, she'll have my head for sure!" He said all this in one breath while continuing to run. The group was silent.
"Is this your world?" asked Sora. How common could worlds with anthromorphic animals be?
"Nope. Ours doesn't have halls like that," said Goofy while pointing up.
"Are we gonna follow him or not?" asked Donald.
Sora shrugged. "Yeah, he's the only one we've seen..." They set off down a hall, only this one wasn't sideways. At the end was a door. Sora opened it and blinked. "Another door?" It was smaller. He opened it and sweatdropped. It was another even smaller door. He opened the third one and twitched. There was another door. "If there's another door, I'm slicing them up." Thankfully, there was an opening behind this one. They quickly crawled through into a mostly pink room just in time to see the white rabbit, now much smaller, run through a door. This made all three of them blink. Sora turned towards the anthromorphs. "Is that sort of thing normal?"
Donald shook his head. "I've never seen something like that happen."
"Gawrsh, I wonder how he got so small."
Sora walked over to the door and gave it a look over. It was small, but he figured they could crawl through it. He grabbed the door knob-
"Ow!" And jumped back as the door let out a shout of pain.
"It's alive? !" The doorknob took a look at them and...shook its...head...or the equivalent at least.
"No, no, you're simply too big." Their eyes widened further.
"It talks? !" yelled Donald.
The doorknob yawned. "Must you be so loud? You woke me up."
Goofy waved. "Good morning!"
The doorknob yawned again. "Good night. I need a bit more sleep."
"Wait!" Sora leaned in closer. "How do we get small?"
The doorknob made a movement that seemed to be a gesture to turn around. "Why don't you try the bottle...over there?"
A table and chair appeared out of nowhere. Two bottles, pink and blue, were on the table. The three adventurers stared at for a moment. Then Sora shrugged, lifted up the pink bottle, and took a sip. "Tastes like caramel." Then he shrunk down to a height of about a foot. Donald and Goofy hurriedly drank some too. They were small enough to go through the door now, but there was just one problem.
"Wake up!" Amazingly, Donald's shout wouldn't rouse the knob. Sora didn't think knives would work either. It wasn't locked. It just wouldn't open. Then a bunch of Heartless appeared. There were Shadows and some flying red ones. Sora took a quick glance.
"Red Nocturne. Absorbs fire attacks and is weak against ice element attacks." "Don't use Fire Donald! Use Blizzard!" That being said, Sora pulled out the Keyblade and sliced a Shadow in two. Goofy smashed another one with his shield. One of the Red Nocturnes shot a fireball at Sora. A Blizzard hit it and canceled it out. Another Blizzard followed and froze the Red Nocturne before shattering into hundreds of pieces. Sora grinned as he blocked another fireball. These guys were pretty good. Another moment, and they had gotten rid of all the Heartless.
"Well, I guess the Heartless are here. What do we do about it?" asked Sora.
"We can't do any interfering. That would be meddling," explained Donald.
"Yeah, and that's against the rules," added Goofy.
"Wait. Let me see if I've got this straight," said Sora. "We know the Heartless are on this world, but we're not gonna do anything about it because we don't want to meddle?"
"It'll damage the world order," said Donald.
"Screw that. I'm getting rid of these things." That said, Sora decided to start looking for some way to continue forward.
"Hey! Wait a minute!" Donald hurried after Sora. "Do you want to destroy what's left of the world order? !"
Sora gave Donald a look. "It seems like it's in pretty bad shape already if there are worlds disappearing. I kind of doubt we can make it any worse."
Goofy decided to try and defuse the situation at this point. "Hey, guys, I don't think there are any other ways out. Maybe we should try that other bottle and look around some more."
This seemed good, so they jumped up onto the table and drank a little bit of the liquid in the blue bottle. It returned them to their normal size. "Okay, let's see if we can find anything." Unfortunately, they couldn't seem to find anything of note. Goofy sat down on a bed for a second. It promptly slid out from under him and into the wall. Sora blinked at this new oddity. "You okay?"
Goofy sat up and rubbed his head. "Gawrsh, didn't know that would happen! Hey...There's a door over here!"
"Really? !" They quickly drank the pink liquid again and walked through the second door. It led to a garden with several high hedges, and what appeared to be a couple of podiums facing each other. There was a large woman with a crown sitting in the higher one. A blonde girl in a blue dress with an apron was standing at the other one. What was really odd was that there were a bunch of cards with arms and feet standing around.
"Are those cards?" Sora wasn't sure what to think about that.
Donald shrugged. "Different world, different rules."
"So, what do ya think is going on?" asked Goofy.
As if to answer him, the white rabbit ran into the garden-court and blew on his trumpet. "Court is now in session!"
The girl blinked in confusion. "I'm on trial? But why?"
She was ignored. "Her Majesty, the Queen of Hearts, presiding!" The rabbit waved towards the large woman with the crown.
"Queen of Hearts? Does that have anything to do with the hearts?"
"This girl is the culprit. There's no doubt about it. And the reason is...because I say so, that's why!" shouted the queen.
The girl gaped. "That is so unfair!"
The queen just huffed. "Well, have you anything to say in your defense?"
"Of course! I've done absolutely nothing wrong. You may be queen, but I'm afraid that doesn't give you the right to be so..." The girl paused to think of a good term. "So mean!" Seems she was too innocent to use anything worse. The queen was still angry though.
"Silence!" Everyone jumped. "You dare defy me? !"
Sora did not like where this was going. "I think we better help out."
Donald rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but the-"
"Wouldn't that be muddling?"
"Meddling!"
"The court finds the defendant...guilty as charged!" shouted the queen. "For the crimes of assault and attempted theft of my heart..." Sora's eyes widened. He knew what stole hearts. "Off with her head!"
The girl's eyes widened. "No, no! Oh please!" It didn't look like anyone was going to help, and the card soldiers were already surrounding the girl.
"Screw the world order!" Sora jumped and landed in front of the girl, brandishing his daggers. "Don't get any closer!" The card soldiers backed off somewhat. No one had ever done that before, and they weren't really sure what to do in this situation. Donald twitched before walking over with Goofy to join Sora. The Queen of Hearts was looking rather furious as well.
"Who are you? ! How dare you interfere with my court!"
Sora glared at her. "She didn't try to steal your heart! She's innocent!"
Goofy nodded. "Yeah, it was the He-" He paused and quickly covered his mouth. Sora sweatdropped slightly.
"Anyway, she's not the one you're looking for."
The queen snorted. "Nonsense. Have you any proof?"
Sora blinked. "Do you?"
"Of course!"
"Well, give us a little time, and I'm sure we can find some."
The queen gave him a look and gestured to one of the cards. It grabbed the girl and pushed her into a cage. "Bring me evidence of Alice's innocence! Fail, and it's off with all of your heads! Gather as much or little evidence as you please and bring it back here when you're ready."
That said, all the card soldiers went back to their previous positions. Donald gave Sora a look. "Nice going! Now we've meddled with this world!"
"The Heartless have already meddled with it!" retorted Sora. "Besides, I can't stand governments like this! They make me sick! And could you really live with yourself if Alice was killed for something that a Heartless did?"
"Uh, guys, since we said we'd get evidence, we should go and get it. Can't take back what we did," said Goofy, demonstrating that while he had a rather goofy personality, he could be smart when he wanted to. Donald muttered something under his breath while Sora sent Goofy a thankful smile. That little spat over, they went through an arch and into a forest full of giant grass, mushrooms, flowers, and a tree.
"Wow, everything's still huge," marveled Sora.
"We still gotta find some stuff to save our necks," muttered Donald. Sora nodded.
"Yeah, I don't want to have to kill anyone." Sora calmly took a quick look around while the anthromorphs froze up. That was not something you expect to hear from a kid, especially in their world. Sora noticed the horrified looks on their faces. "Uh, I come from a pretty violent world so I sometimes say weird stuff. Just ignore it!"
Someone chuckled. "Everyone wants their secrets to be ignored." They jumped and looked around. A striped, purple and pink cat with a huge grin appeared out of nowhere.
"Who're you?" asked Donald.
"Who indeed?" The cat stood up on its hind legs. "Poor Alice. Soon to lose her head, and she's not guilty of a thing!"
Sora raised an eyebrow. "You know who did it? Think you can tell us?"
The cat held up a finger and shook his hand. "The Cheshire Cat has all the answers, but doesn't always tell. The answer, the culprit, the cat, all lie in darkness."
Sora blinked. Did this cat have something to do with the Heartless? Then the cat disappeared. "Hey! Wait!"
The cat's voice rang out through the forest. "They've already left the forest. I won't tell which exit. There are four pieces of evidence in all. Three are a cinch to find. The fourth is tricky. Big reward if you find them all." Then it was silent. Donald raised an eyebrow.
"Should we trust him?"
"To trust or not to trust? I trust you'll decide!" Looks like the Cheshire Cat was still listening.
"Let's just look for the evidence he mentioned," muttered Sora. And then more Shadows, Soldiers, and Red Nocturnes appeared. The group was starting to get used to the Heartless, so they were able to take care of them without much of a problem. What happened afterwards though...
"Hey..." They blinked. Who said that? "Over here." The only things they could see were grass and a flower. Then the flower lifted its bud up towards them. They jumped in shock. "If you give me a potion, I'll make you bigger." That sounded very odd.
"Um, okay." Sora tossed it into the bud. The flower bloomed, and Sora suddenly shot up to match the tree's height. "Oh..."
"What are we supposed to do now? !" shouted Donald.
"Hey Sora! Can you see anything up there?" shouted Goofy.
Sora glanced around. "There's a pink box and a chest. Hold on. I'll see if I can reach them." He grabbed the chest and opened it. His eyes widened. "There are puppies in here!" "Poor puppies. Whoever did this better hope Angeal never hears about it."
"Put them down here!" Sora quickly put the puppies on the ground. They jumped out and started looking around. Sora grabbed the pink box and opened it. He quickly closed it again.
"This one has something that looks like a Shadow's antennae in it."
"That must be what he was talking about! Bring it down!"
Sora carefully put it on the ground. Goofy looked up. "Can ya see anything else?"
"Hold on. I'll check...Well, there's a couple of openings in the foliage up here that might lead somewhere."
"That's nice, but you're still way too big to go through them," said Donald.
Sora sighed. "Yeah, I know. The only thing I can think of is to somehow get some of that liquid that shrunk us." He leaned against the tree. The tree promptly spun around 90 degrees, nearly making Sora fall over. "What the? !"
"You know, I'm starting to get used to that stuff," said Donald.
"I think it's kind of fun. Never know what's gonna happen!" said Goofy.
"There's something on the limb." Sora reached over and plucked it off. It was brown, round, and hard. "I think it's some sort of big acorn."
"Do ya think something'll happen if you eat it?" asked Goofy. He had a point there. Drinking that stuff had changed their size.
"Only one way to find out..." Sora took a bite out of the acorn. Oddly enough, it tasted like a tomato. He promptly shrunk down to his previous height. "Wow, that's convenient...Where'd the acorn go?"
"Who cares? How do we get to those openings?" asked Donald.
"I think we can get to them with the tree. Follow me." Sora grabbed a puppy and jumped onto a tree limb. A tree limb roughly 20 feet off the ground.
"I don't think either of us can jump that high," pointed out Goofy. Donald was gaping. Sora mentally hit himself over the head.
"Sorry, I keep forgetting about that. Uh...Oh! You should be able to get up here if you jump up on those mushrooms." He pointed at some mushrooms growing next to each other at varying heights. One was actually pretty close to the limb he was on. Goofy also grabbed a puppy, climbed onto the shortest mushroom, jumped on it a couple of time, and gave Donald and Sora a thumbs up. Seeing that it was safe, Donald grabbed the last puppy and also jumped onto the mushrooms. A few jumps later, they were on the same limb as Sora.
"Golly! You sure can jump high Sora!" said Goofy.
"Yeah, lots of training." That was all Sora was saying. They made their way over to the closest doorway, and were rather surprised at where it led.
"Gawrsh, this looks familiar," said Goofy.
"It's the room we were in earlier," muttered Donald.
"Only now we're standing on a wall..." muttered Sora. It seemed the laws of physics didn't apply in this world. One of the puppies yipped, ran over to a shelf, and started growling. "Smell something?" Several Soldiers and Red Nocturnes appeared. Another fight ensued, only this time, the puppies helped attack the Heartless. This made the process a bit longer since no one wanted to hurt the puppies, but the Heartless were taken care of.
"We can't keep them with us," said Donald. Now all the puppies were gathered around the shelf and growling. "It's too dangerous for them."
Sora sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right."
"What're you guys growling at?" Goofy walked over and looked at the shelf. "Hey!" He picked up a pink box. "This looks like that box you found Sora!"
"Open it and see what's inside," demanded Donald. Goofy lifted the lid up, and everyone instantly regretted it. Inside the box was a stench. It wasn't a normal stench either. It was a super stench, the worst thing anyone there had ever smelled. Goofy slammed the lid back down. Sora, Donald, and Goofy were all coughing. The puppies were whimpering and pawing at their noses.
"What was that?" asked Sora.
"I don't really know," said Donald. None of them wanted to take another look to see what was making the smell, so they looked around to see if there were any more boxes. They saw one, but it was on another wall.
"Any ideas how to get that?" asked Sora.
"Maybe if we go through another door, we'll end up on another wall," said Goofy. They all went back to the door they'd come in and went through it. They expected to end up back in the forest. Instead, they fell back into the courtyard on one of the tall hedges.
"Hey, how'd we get here?" asked Sora. His companions shrugged. "Hey, there's a couple of chests here..." The first one he opened had a potion. The second one had three more puppies in it. "Huh? Why do I keep finding puppies?" The puppies just licked him.
"Let's just put them in the ship," said Donald.
"How?"
"You see those green circles of light?"
"Yeah."
"We can use them to teleport back into the ship." They jumped down to the circle and put the puppies in the circle. It flared slightly and they were gone.
"They're back in the ship now, right?" asked Sora.
Goofy nodded. "Yep! We should see if anyone wants any puppies when we go back to Traverse Town."
"Can we get back to finding those other boxes?" asked Donald. He was getting impatient.
"Right! Back to the Forest!" shouted Sora. They had to deal with the Heartless again. Then they got onto the tree branches and went through another one of the doors. Now they were on the other wall with the box they had seen before. They took care of the Heartless that showed up and grabbed the box. Sora blinked a couple of times when he saw what was in it. "How do you get footprints in a box?"
"Maybe a Heartless was walking in it." This got Goofy a couple of odd looks from Sora and Donald. After another few looks around the wall, they went back through the door and wound up in the courtyard again. They went to the forest, took care of the Heartless again, and started looking for another door.
"See anything?" asked Donald. Sora was looking from up in the tree branches.
"I don't see anything, just some puddles with grass fences."
Donald sighed. "Where are we supposed to find that last thing then?"
"Maybe we missed it when we were looking around?" suggested Goofy.
"This could take a while," muttered Sora. He leaned against the tree trunk, and suddenly fell through it. Sora winced and stood up, noting that he was standing on a very thin shelf on another wall. Unlike the other two times, his gravity seemed to be normal. He moved forward a bit to make room for if Donald and Goofy dropped in. He started looking around a bit before his eyes landed on a pink box. It was sitting innocently on another small shelf several feet up and to the left of the shelf Sora was standing on. "That could be a little difficult." That was when Donald and Goofy fell on the shelf from the ceiling.
"Gawrsh!"
"This place is crazy."
"You guys, stay still. The last box is over there on that shelf." The two anthros looked over at the box.
"Any idea how to get over there?" asked Donald.
"I know! We can throw one of us over there!" said Goofy.
"Actually, that could work," muttered Sora.
"How are we supposed to do that?" asked Donald. Goofy and Sora looked at him. "Wait a minute!" Sora grabbed him. "Wack!"
"Don't worry! I'm stronger than I look! Just grab the box!" And then he threw Donald at the other shelf. Donald hit the box right on target. He didn't grab it, but he did knock it to the ground when he hit it. Donald hit the ground a second later. "You okay?"
"What's the big idea? !"
"He's okay," said Goofy with a thumbs up. The two jumped down to join their friend, just as the Cheshire Cat appeared.
"Well, look what you've found. Nice going."
Sora nodded. "Yeah, now we can prove Alice's innocence."
The cat waggled his finger again. "Don't be too sure! Alice may be innocent, but what about you?"
Sora's eyes narrowed slightly. "What do you mean?" This cat was making some odd comments. Did he know something?
The cat chuckled. "I won't tell. But I'll give you something." He pointed a finger at Sora. The finger twinkled and several sparkles went over Sora's body as he shuddered. "It's fitting for the Keyblade master to have magic." And then he disappeared. Sora looked at his hands.
"That felt kind of like when I junction Blizzard to my daggers." Sora held out his hand toward the small bookshelf. "Freeze." Several icicles shot out of his hand and hit the bookshelf, freezing it.
"Huh, looks like he imprinted how to do that spell into your mind," said Donald. "We'll have to work on it a bit when we travel to the next world."
Sora nodded. "Yeah, but for now, let's go save Alice."
"Hey guys, I think a Heartless got stuck in this box. There's a bunch of claw marks in it," said Goofy. Sora and Donald sweatdropped. Had he even paying attention to what they were talking about?
"Let's just get this over with," muttered Donald. The three went back to the court.
"Hey, we got some evidence. Where do you want me to put it?" asked Sora.
"Step up to the podium and put it in front of it," said a card. "You two, stand in the audience box." He pointed at a box off to the side of Alice's cage.
"Why?" asked Donald.
"Because that's what the queen wants, and you'll lose your head if you don't do it." Donald and Goofy went to the audience box. Sora sent Alice a grin.
"Don't worry. We'll get you out of there." She just nodded.
"Well? What did you find?" asked the queen. Sora put the four boxes on the ground before getting behind the podium. "That's quite a bit of evidence, but I'm still not impressed. Cards! Bring forth my evidence!" Three cards came forward and put three more boxes on the ground. Sora twitched. The seven boxes looked exactly the same. "It would be a waste of time to check all of them. You pick one, and I'll decide who's guilty based on the evidence."
Sora twitched again. "You're saying that we went all over the place looking for that, and we may not even use any of it? ! What was the point of finding them then? !"
The queen did not seem to like that Sora was arguing with her. She was getting rather red. "You dare object! Then you will lose your head! Now choose! One box!"
Sora muttered some words that could not be repeated as the cards mixed the boxes up. He took a look at them. His scan ability was showing that they all had a slight aura, but he couldn't tell which was which. He just pointed at a random box. "That one."
"You're sure? No second chances!" Sora nodded. "Then we'll see who the real culprit is!" A card came up and opened the box. A Shadow popped out. It looked around for a second, decided it was outnumbered, and warped to some other location. The queen's eyes had bugged out. "What was that? !" Sora smirked.
"That was your evidence. Alice obviously doesn't have anything to do with it, so she must be innocent."
The queen growled. "Silence! I'm the law here! Article 29: Anyone who defies the queen is guilty!"
"That's crazy!" shouted Donald.
"You * censor *!" Sora should really know better than to call such an irritable queen such a rude word. She turned even redder and pointed at Sora.
"Off with all of their heads!" The effect was instantaneous. The podium disappeared and a tower with several cranks in it popped up in the middle of the courtyard. One of the cards turned one of the cranks, and Alice's cage was pulled up high off the ground and turned around so that you couldn't see her. "Cards! If they touch the tower, it's off with your heads!" That being said, Sora pulled out his daggers, and ran over to the tower, slicing any cards that came too close. Lucky for the cards, they were thick enough that he didn't cut all the way through them, but the cuts were bad enough that they collapsed. Sora used a Fire on one of the cogs just as Donald and Goofy made it over.
"Did you have to do that? !" shouted Donald.
"Probably not, but she was acting like it! I think the cogs are fireproof!" Sora used a Blizzard spell on the cog and slashed a card soldier getting too close to him.
"Hey, where'd you get those?" asked Goofy as he bashed a card's head with his shield.
"Fire! I've always had them. Freeze! I just keep them hidden most of the time. Fire!" Sora was focusing all his magic on the one cog. Donald was blasting any cards that got near with his magic.
"Why're you using those instead of the Keyblade?" asked the magician.
"Freeze! I'm just more used to these. Fire! And there aren't any Heartless here. Freeze!" Sora suddenly hit the cog with his daggers, shattering the cog. "Got one! How 'bout you Goofy?"
Goofy was bashing another cog with his shield when he wasn't hitting cards. "It's coming along!" Sora nodded and moved to the last cog and cast another Fire. Then a Blizzard.
"Why are you switching?" questioned Donald.
"It makes stuff more brittle and easier to break. Give me a hand?" Sora cast another Fire and Donald cast Blizzard.
"I got it!" shouted Goofy. He ran over to keep any cards from getting too close to the other two. Sora and Donald kept casting the spells until Sora smashed it with his daggers. The cage was still up though. Sora side-kicked the tower hard enough to cause a crack.
"Blizzard!" Both Sora and Donald cast the ice spell on the crack. The ice that froze in the crack caused the crack to widen exponentially. Several pieces fell off the tower. Sora hit it hard with the base of a dagger, and it crumbled. Alice's cage fell down and turned around.
"What the-" Alice was gone. "She's gone? !" Sora was confused. How had he missed that?
"She must've been kidnapped while we were fighting," said Donald.
The queen seemed even angrier now. "You fools! Find the one responsible for this! I don't care how!" The cards instantly ran off as they didn't want to lose their heads. The world travelers also retreated to the forest since she was distracted.
"Well, that was a waste of time," said Donald.
"But why was she kidnapped? You don't get kidnapped for no reason," wondered Sora.
"Have you seen Alice?" asked Goofy.
"Wha?" The Cheshire Cat had appeared again, but Goofy had been the only one to notice. The cat shook his head.
"Alice, no. Shadows, yes!"
"Where did they go?" asked Goofy.
The cat pointed. "This way?" He pointed another way. "That way?" He shrugged. "Does it matter? Left, right, up, down! All mixed up thanks to the shadows! Step deeper into the forest to the deserted garden. You might find shadows in the upside-down room!" And then he disappeared.
"What do you think he meant by upside down room?" asked Sora. He was really dreading the answer.
"Maybe we're supposed to get on the ceiling of that room?" suggested Goofy. The other two groaned.
"Let's just look for that garden the cat mentioned," muttered Donald. The group walked down the forest trail while taking care of any Heartless that appeared. Sora blinked when he saw an opening in the foliage.
"Hey, wasn't there a boulder there?" asked Sora.
"Yep!" said Goofy.
Donald crossed his arms. "Think that means anything?"
"One way to find out." They walked through and found themselves in front of a house and a long table full of teacups and teapots with several chairs around it. There was also a painting of a brown rabbit in a red suit and a man with a large green hat crying at the head of the table. Sora's eyes widened when he saw it. "That painting has an aura! But that means that those are real living people! How could something like that happen, even in a world as backwards as this one? !"
"Sora, are you alright?" asked Goofy. Sora snapped out of it and looked at the two. The both were looking worriedly at him. He quickly put on a smile.
"Sorry, I thought I saw something." He pointed at something that caught his eye. "See? Another chest!" It was on top of another hedge. "I'll go get it!" Sora realized that Donald and Goofy didn't believe him, but he didn't think they'd want to know about the painting. He jumped onto the top of the hedge and opened the chest. A puppy jumped out and licked Sora in the face. "What the?" Two more puppies poked their heads out of the chest. "More puppies? Who the * beep! * keeps putting these things in chests? !"
"Just bring them down here so we can take them back to the ship," said Donald. Sora grabbed the puppies and jumped down to the ground. Goofy was looking over at the house.
"Do you guys think we should check an' see if anything's in that house?" he asked. The other two shrugged. It didn't look like there was anything else here. The three travelers and three puppies walked into the house. It was a very familiar place.
"This is that room again," moaned Donald.
"Only this time we're on the ceiling," pointed out Goofy. The Cheshire Cat then appeared on one of the tables.
"They're hiding somewhere. And the momeraths outgrabe."
"What's a momerath?" thought everyone else. The cat kept talking.
"Want to find the shadows? Try turning on the lights." Then he was gone again. Sora twitched a few times.
"Is that cat ever going to stick around so that I can ask it questions?"
Donald raised an eyebrow. "Don't you mean 'we'?" Sora was spared from having to answer by several Shadows, Soldiers, Red Nocturnes, and a new type of Heartless appearing. The new type was huge, fat, and had manacles around its wrists. Sora took a quick look at them.
"Large Body. Immune to physical attacks in the front. Looks like I get to use Blizzard some more." "Freeze!" Several icicles hit one of the Large Bodies, making it stumble back a bit. Sora jumped behind it and hit it forward with the Keylade, making it land on its face just as Goofy hit it with his shield and destroyed it. "Physical frontal attacks won't work on the big ones!" Goofy took that as a cue to go for the other types of Heartless attacking them. Sora spun around, slashing two Shadows and a Soldier sneaking up on him, destroying them. Donald was busy casting Blizzard to counter the Fire spells the Red Nocturnes were casting. The puppies had apparently decided to sit this out and were hiding under a table. Sora cast Blizzard on the Red Nocturnes directly, destroying them. Then he and Donald teamed up against the final Large Body, both casting Blizzard, freezing it solid. Sora shattered it, and the pieces dissolved into black smoke. By then, Goofy had taken care of most of the other Heartless, except for a couple of Shadows and a Soldier. Those two were easily taken care of. The puppies came out from under the table when they saw the Heartless were all gone.
"Well, now what?" asked Donald.
"That cat said something about turning on a light," said Sora. He looked around. "But I don't see any lights."
"What about those?" asked Goofy, pointing at the tables. Sora gave him a confused look.
"Goofy, those are tables." Now it was Goofy's turn to be confused.
"But we're on the ceiling. Why would there be tables on the ceiling?" He had a very good point there. Sora mentally hit himself over the head for not realizing that and looked at the 'tables' again. Those vases on them could be light fixtures. Sora tapped one. It suddenly lit up. The Cheshire Cat appeared in front of it.
"It's too dim. Make it brighter. One more lamp you need to light." Then he was gone again. At least he was straight this time. Sora quickly tapped the other one. It lit up, and the cat showed up standing on the bulb. "All the lights are on. You'll see the shadows soon." He made a sweeping motion with his arms. "They'll arise in this room, but somewhere else." He pointed up at the floor. "They might go after the doorknob too." Then he left again.
"That guy is getting on my nerves," muttered Donald.
Sora nodded in agreement. He looked up and raised an eyebrow. "Why would the Heartless go after the doorknob. I get that he's an easy target, but how would that work?"
"Maybe we better go check and see if he's okay," suggested Goofy.
Sora nodded. "Good idea." They went through the door and ended up back in the garden, but this time they had to be sneaky and avoid being seen by the Queen and the cards. After quickly transporting the puppies, they went back into the crazy room, only this time they were actually on the floor and following the laws of gravity and physics. The doorknob was still sleeping. Donald crossed his arms.
"Now what?"
The Cheshire Cat appeared on top of the table. "You'll have a better view from higher up." There was nothing else to do, so they jumped up to the table. The cat grinned at them and put his hands behind his head. "The shadows should be here soon. Are you prepared for the worst? If not, too bad!" And then he disappeared as a giant Heartless fell from the ceiling and landed crouched on the floor. It stood up as its paper-like arms unfurled. Sora took a look at it.
"Trickmaster. Powered up by fire. It's got a strong aura. Is it a boss Heartless?" "Don't use Fire!" That was all he got out before it slammed a couple of juggling pins onto the table, shattering it. The world travelers quickly pulled out their weapons as they landed on the ground. Donald cast a Thunder. Sora seemingly teleported behind it and slashed it down the center with the Keyblade. He was rather shocked when it didn't split in two and had to jump back to avoid being hit as it twisted around, but Goofy tossed his shield and hit it in the back of the head. "Why didn't that kill it? !"
"Blizzard!" Some icicles hit Trickmaster as it tried to turn to face Goofy. "Heartless aren't like other creatures! Thunder! You fight with your heart, so stronger Heartless with more darkness take more to kill! Thunder!"
"Well, that explains a couple of things." Sora slashed at its legs, making it collapse for a moment. "Guess that means that I don't have to worry about the others. They should be able to take care of themselves if that's all that's needed." The three quickly started bashing its head in a melee attack. It suddenly shot up, knocking them back a few feet as the juggling pins caught on fire. Then it started tossing the pins at the three. Donald dodged, Goofy used his shield, and Sora knocked them away with the Keyblade. Sora dashed in and swiped at the legs again, but this time was met by a flaming pin and knocked back. He pushed himself back up. "It's faster!" "Freeze!" A couple of icicles hit it in the head. The others missed.
"What are you doing? !" shouted Donald while Goofy hit it in the head from behind.
Sora pointed at the pins. "I was trying to put those out!" It might not do much, but at least they wouldn't burn him if he got hit again. "Freeze!" One of the pins did get hit, and it sputtered out. Sora attacked this side. Goofy appeared beside him and rammed it with his shield. He and Sora exchanged looks and nodded. Sora hopped onto Goofy's shield and Goofy propelled Sora towards the Trickmaster. As Sora flew by, he slashed the Keyblade across the its body. This time, it collapsed and started dissolving into black smoke. It disappeared completely as a heart flew off. A sound caught their attention and they whirled around, weapons at the ready. The doorknob yawned.
"What a racket. How's a doorknob to get any sleep?"
Sora twitched. "You just now woke up?"
The Doorknob just yawned. Then something odd happened. The Keyblade jerked Sora's arm up so that the weapon was pointing at the doorknob. A beam of light shot out of the tip and into the keyhole of the doorknob. There was a clicking sound as the beam disappeared and the yawn ended. Sora stared at the Keyblade.
"What was that?" asked Donald, just as shocked as the other two.
"And what was that clicking noise?" asked Sora. An odd shaped piece of something fell from the ceiling. Sora stared at it. "What is that?"
"It's a gummi piece," said Donald.
Goofy picked it up. "It's different from the regular ones."
"Bravo! You're quite the heroes!" They spun around again. The Cheshire Cat was standing there clapping. "If you're looking for Alice, she's not here. She's gone! Off with the shadows, into darkness."
Sora glared at the cat. "Just how much do you know?"
The cat chuckled. "Oh, I know lots. But don't worry little Tsviet, I won't tell." Then he disappeared while Sora was too shocked to react.
"More made up words," muttered Donald.
"Uh, you okay Sora?" asked Goofy.
"It means color," said Sora, almost too quietly to hear.
Donald raised an eyebrow. "Why do you know that?"
"Can we just go?" Sora slipped the Keyblade into its sheath. "I really want to see if I can find Riku or Kairi in the next world. I'm worried about them." He walked off towards the entrance to the courtyard without waiting for an answer.
Donald crossed his arms. "What's with him?"
"I think that something about that really bothered Sora there. Maybe we better not ask about it," said Goofy. Donald shrugged. Then they followed towards the courtyard so they could leave Wonderland.
Line break
I think Sora had a Cloud moment there...Well, they are from the same world and got screwed over by Shinra. Sora can probably do this every now and then. Yes, Sora called the Queen of Hearts a word so bad, not even I know what it means. Let's face it, lots of people would probably like to call her something nasty, although most people wouldn't do it to her face. On a side note, I don't know how the Cheshire Cat knows about Sora being a Tsviet. He just does. He seems half way omniscient in the game, so I figured it wouldn't be too weird for him to know. Did you notice that Sora mentioned Angeal? For clarification, Angeal was dead when Sora joined DEEPGROUND. It's just that a lot of the members believe that he can probably come back to life, or at least cause some sort of influence from the life stream. This will make a slight appearance later. Here is your omake.
Omake: What about the Rest? Part III
Captain Jack Sparrow was many things. He had been captain of the Black Pearl. He was an escapee from a deserted island. He was a wanderer looking for his ship and vengeance. He was also a drunk. He drank a lot, and you'd have to drink a lot to impress him, so the fact that the man sitting next to him had drunk a good amount of the bar's alcohol supply was pretty impressive to Jack.
"You seem to be enjoying yourself. Where ya from?"
"Midgar." The green-haired man belched and wiped his mouth. "Although I've been living on Destiny Islands for the past few years." He growled. "The one time in two months I get drunk had to be the night I ended up here. I have no idea how I got here or how to get back! I'm starting to get a little concerned. Usually, Nero would show up by now."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Nero?"
The other snorted. "Freaky looking man wearing a muzzle mask and a straight jacket. And he has a couple of metal wings coming out of his back."
If anyone else, Jack would dismiss the man as drunk or crazy. However, he had seen enough odd things in his life to consider the possibility that what he said was fact. That and he doubted the three swords the other man had were for decoration. The bartender thought differently though.
"I think you've had enough." His head was suddenly sent flying as blood spurted out of his beheaded body before it fell to the ground. Jack looked at his current drinking buddy, who was sheathing one of the aforementioned swords.
"Nice trick." Jack got a grunt. "What did you say your name was?"
"I didn't. It's Zoro the Verde."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "You Spanish?"
"No."
Jack shrugged before grabbing a bottle of rum. "Either way, it looks like the rest of the drinks are on the house."
Zoro grinned. "Now you're talking my language."