Disclaimer: I do not own Alice in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat, When the Higurashi Cry, Full Metal Alchemist, or Bizenghast.

Second Chapter! And, yes, this one becomes even more random then the last! How is that possible? You'll find out.


Chapter 2

"Go away, you ugly witch!" Tashie shouted angrily (well, technically she said something different, that started with a 'b' but for the rating of this story I'll keep it the way it is).

Bali-Lali faltered. "What?" she screeched, "You're in no position to be saying that, girl." To prove her point, she moved closer and took Tashie's chin in her hand, a fingernail making a fine slice across my new friends' cheek.

"Get away from her!" I shouted, then shrunk back and bit my lip as Bali-Lali turned her black eyes to me.

"Did you say something, precious?" She left Tashie and headed back towards the large tree at the back of the room. "No matter. I'll finally get back at that selfish 'headmistress' you Warpers look up to so much. Ha! She's a (she said something here that I am editing out for, once again, the rating of this story)!"

"Really? Oh, I thought that's what you were." Tashie muttered. If Bali-Lali had heard her, she didn't act like it, she just kept speaking seemingly to herself as the mad look in her eyes grew.

"It was my job, really, but she stole it from me. It should've been mine! It should be mine!" She spun around to face us and I winced at the dementia contorting her face. "Now I'll have it. With you two as hostages," She began to cackle, "The headmistress will have to fall into my trap." She looked at us and smirked. "Now, you two just stay here, and I'll be right back. And don't try to leave- I have a shield on this place. If you try to get out you'll be fried." She grinned and disappeared up the stairs.

"Well, this is just great." I said sarcastically, eyeing the cage.

"But now I can warp out of this thing- she must have lifted the Binding when she left. She must really trust that shield." Tashie was suddenly in front of me, unlocking the door to the cage. "Here you are." She said as she pulled it open. I stepped out, grateful to be… semi-free again.

"Thanks."

"No problem. Now let's get out of here!"

Suddenly, a shriek sounded around the room and a drop of something landed on my hand. It was glowing and looked like a drop of just… Light. I looked up to see light dripping out of a crack in the ceiling. Before I could inquire as to what this strange new apparition was, the light suddenly began to spread out until the entire ceiling was covered. I winced and shut my eyes against the light. When I opened them again, everything was back to normal… Almost.

"What the heck?!" Tashie screamed. I looked over at her. There was something in her arms. "A freaking baby fell from the ceiling!" The thing in her arms moved and a head with a sparse amount of hair on it emerged from the bundle of blankets. It opened two large, blue eyes… And screamed really, really loudly.

Now there's something you need to know about me, I don't go ga-ga over little kids like most girls. I, for one, think they're loud and annoying, especially this one. After 10 minutes the stupid thing still wouldn't shut up!

"Can't you get it to be quiet?" I snapped to Tashie who was attempting to quiet the evilittlebundleofpureevilness!

"I'm trying! This is harder than it looks!" She snapped back as she rocked it gently. Her harsh voice made it cry harder. "Now look what you did!"

"Me? It's not my fault!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Agh! Why can't we just leave it here and find a way out?" I cried eventually.

"Why? Because Bali-Lali will come back and eat it!" Tashie shouted.

"… So?" I asked innocently, tilting my head to the side.

Tashie glared at me. "We are not

I sighed. "Fine. But can't we do something other than just sit here and wait for Bali-Lali to come back?"

"Just wait a minute, okay? And be quiet!"

I spent the next five minutes sulking in a corner.

"There," Tashie said eventually, setting the (now sleeping) baby down gently. "Now all we have to do is be quiet and not wake it up."

I stood up and stretched. "Finally!" I drawled out. "That took you, like, forever!"

The girl rolled her eyes and pulled me off to the side. "Come on, we need to figure out how to get out of here." Once we were far enough away from the baby to whisper without the fear of wakening it, she began to speak. "So Bali-Lali said she cast a shield on this place, right?" I nodded. "Well, when someone makes a shield around a place, it usually forms a dome above the ground. So I'm thinking…"

"We can go under

Sh!" She hissed, "Don't wake it up!"

She moved away her hand and I laughed nervously. "Right, my bad." I whispered.

"Anyways, yeah. I'm sure there's some underground passage around here- I've found a ton above ground, but I haven't specifically looked for one under ground, either. So let's go! Tell each other when we find something."

"Right." I nodded in understanding and we split up. It was then that I realized that I had no idea how to look for secret passages. I resorted to using my movie knowledge and tapping on various laces on the floor with my ear to it, removing pictures from the walls, tapping on the walls, and eventually turned and asked Tashie if there were any libraries.

Other than the odd look she gave me, she didn't really ask why and showed me to a door that had some steps leading to one of the balconies. Once at the balcony, there was a door at the back that led to a very, very big library. Books went all the way up to the ceiling with rolling ladders to allow access to them, comfy-looking sofas, chairs and the occasional table were scattered around, and the whole room was lit by the same chandeliers as in the rest of the school, although this one was more of the Victorian style, rather than gothic.

"Thanks, Tashie." I muttered and headed over to a shelf. I moved my hand along the many volumes, stopping on a thick, red, leather-bound book. I pulled it out and… Nothing happened. I put it back and did the same to the next one. Still, nothing happened.

"Um… Jo?" Tashie asked. I turned to see her staring at me with a raised eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

"What do you mean? It's a library! Where else to look for a secret passage? In all the stories they're always in libraries!"

"Don't you mean storage rooms? Secret passages are always in storage rooms?"

"In your world, maybe, but not in mine!"

"And… Which world are we in now?"

I paused my frantic 'pull out a book and put it back as fast as possible, then pull it out again halfway to see if anything happens' and looked at her again. She was smirking.

"Well is there a storage area in here?" Her smirk faltered. "I didn't think so." With that I resumed searching for a passage. I heard Tashie sigh behind me, and then the sound of books being pulled out and put back. I smiled- with the two of us at it- we were sure to find it.

About 30 minutes later Tashie and I were laying in the middle of overturned furniture and books that looked like they had been pulled out and dropped on the floor so fast that they had almost been thrown.

"You and you're 'Oh, I love libraries! There'll definitely be a secret passage in here!'" Tashie mocked, panting from all the work of completely destroying the library.

"Shut up." I scowled, equally tired out.

"I'll go check downstairs." I heard Tashie get up and leave as I stared at the scene of a mermaid in a lake painted on the ceiling. It was a really cool painting. In fact it reminded me of this one book where these people met these mermaid who took them to this giant tree that's roots' extended underneath the water and if you swam along them you reached this hidden entrance to the inside of the tree… "Not like anything'll be there. Just that dumb tree and all it's roots sticking out over the floor and tripping me…" Tashie muttered to herself as she left.

My eyes widened. "Tashie!" I yelled, jumping up.

"WAH!"

Tashie turned to face me slowly. I gulped as I saw the murderous expression on her face. "You woke it up sleep this time!

But, Tashie! The tree roots! There could be a secret passage!" I shouted, arms in front of me trying to defend myself before an angry Warper murdered me.

Tashie blinked and all signs of previous anger vanished. Her eyes lit up. "Hey! That's a great idea! Here, come one! Now, the entrance obviously isn't in the roots of the trunk, or else we would've found it, so it must be in the branches!" She grabbed my wrist and literally dragged me down the steps and to the main room. She let go of me and crossed to a door on the other side of the room while shouting over her shoulder, "Get the baby and come on!"

I blinked- and then it sunk in. "… WHAT?" I screamed and looked at the crying baby next to me. It looked at me too and I could almost see the lasers firing from each of our eyes.

"Come on!" I heard Tashie yell.

I sighed and knelt down, awkwardly carrying the bundle in both my arms, sort of the way I carried my cats back home. Then, a miracle happened. It stopped screaming and fell asleep. I eyed it warily as I crossed over to where Tashie was waiting for me.

"Wow, you got it to fall asleep. You must have a way with kids."

"Yeah, it's called hating them." I muttered. Tashie laughed and pushed open the door to a broom closet, then stepped inside and motioned for me to do the same.

I stared at as if she'd gone mental, for all I knew, she was never very mentally stable to begin with, but now I thought she might have lost what little sanity she had. "It's a broom closet."

"No, I thought it was a lake," She snapped sarcastically. I pouted. "Just get in! We don't know when Bali-Lali will be back!" I hesitated a moment, then, deciding it wouldn't do any harm, slipped into the tiny room next to her. She closed the door and hit a small lump in the wall that looked like there had been a hole and somebody did a really bad job covering it up. She then leaned back and did absolutely nothing. I waited a few moments for something to happen, and, when nothing did, turned to Tashie.

"Well?"

She opened an eye to look at me. "Well what?"

"Aren't we going somewhere? Or are we going to sit in a closet all day?"

"Patience, Josephine."

I growled and clenched my fists a little too tightly around the baby, just tight enough, in fact, to wake it up and have it start screaming in my ear. Great. Now I was going to sit in a broom closet all day with a crazy person and a screaming baby.

I must have looked pretty miserable, because Tashie laughed suddenly and said, "Look, we're moving now." Indeed we were moving, if the slight vibrating of the room meant anything. After a minute or so of vibrating and the doors still not opening, I began trying to get the baby to shut up. I tried Tashie's method of rocking it back and forth and all that, but it wasn't working. Eventually I gave up and handed it to Tashie, who worked at it for a bit and soon got it to fall asleep. She smirked at me. I glared at her.

The doors opened suddenly to reveal another balcony that was on one of the branches of the tree. We began to look around, pressing every knob and tapping every crack we came across.

"Alright, how about this; one of will hold the baby, while the other one climbs up a bit more and looks for something!" Tashie said after neither of us found anything.

"Got it! You hold the baby and I'll climb!"

"Works for me." Tashie said and sat down.

I grinned and grabbed onto a knob in one of the branches, using it to pull myself up and place my foot in a crack in the bark. Pretty soon I was about 10 feet above Tashie and hadn't found anything. I kept going. After a couple minutes of no knew discoveries, I looked down to shout to ask Tashie If I should keep going or go around the other side. For a brief moment, I looked right past the balcony Tashie was on and saw how high up the closet-elevator ad taken us. I swallowed even though my throat was dry and quickly turned back around to face the tree and cling to the bark.

'Damnit.' I thought, 'I forgot my fear of heights.' I took a deep breath. 'Alright, Jo, you can do this- you're really not that far away from the balcony, just look straight at Tashie. It's really not that high- and if you do fall, Tashie can warp up, grab you, and warp back and you'll be fine.' After a minute or so of more 'boost-up Jo's spirit' talk, I swallowed my fear and turned around again. This time I looked directly at Tashie.

"Tashie!" I shouted. I winced at the scratchiness of my voice. "Hey, Tashie!" I shouted again, voice returning somewhat to its' original tone.

Tashie looked up. "What?" She called up.

"I haven't found anything! Should I go around the other side and check?"

She seemed to think for a moment before replying, "No, keep going! Usually all the secret passages around here can be found from a bunch of different places. I think it'd be weird for it to only be able to be reached from one side." She called up. I nodded and continued climbing, pressing every knob and crack I could. Eventually I came to a hollow hole, about a foot or so wide. I bit my lip and thought for a moment. I could a) stick my hand in and be bitten by something unpleasant b) stick my hand in and be bitten by something pleasant or c) stick my hand in it and find a secret passage. Or I could simply not stick my hand in at all and keep going… Nah, too boring. I shoved my hand into the darkness before I could change my mind and began to feel around. I felt a knob deep in the back and pressed in with my palm. I heard Tashie shout in surprise and the baby start screaming.

"You did it!" Tashie shouted. "Something opened! Come on!"

I smiled and looked down. Bad idea. I closed my eyes and sighed, then slowly began to lower myself down to the knob a few inches below my foot. After a very nerve-racking climb down, I was back with Tashie… And the child- it was still crying.

"Good job, Jo! You did it!" She slapped me a high five and I laughed, my heart beat returning to normal.

"Alright! I did it! Let's go!" I shouted, pumping my fist in the air.

The secret passage was more of a tunnel carved through the trunk of the tree, and we spent the first bit of it climbing down stairs to get back down to ground level. After that we went down a few more stairs until we came to a long and narrow, gradually sloping, just plain tunnel. The only light came from a few random glowing veins in the walls, and so it was sort of creepy. We walked in silence for quite a while (the baby had fallen asleep- yes!) until I finally asked something that had been bugging me for a while.

"Hey, Tashie."

"Hm?" She kept walking but glanced back at me to let me know I had her attention.

"What if.... What if this doesn't work and the shield is still up even under ground? What will happen to us?"

Tashie didn't say anything for a while.

"Tashie?" I asked tentatively, "What will happen?"

"… Let's not think about that. Hopefully this will work." She turned her head over her shoulder and (appeared to be) smiling encouragingly at me. Obviously she wasn't used to doing that kind of thing because it came out as more of a grimace. It was the thought that counted though, so I smiled weakly back at her. This whole thing was making me pretty nervous. We continued on in silence for I don't know how long. I kept thinking that Bali-Lali would be coming after us and glancing at the shadows behind us. I guess Tashie was thinking the same thing because she kept stealing glances over her shoulder, too. Eventually, we came to a dead end.

"Wha-?" I gasped, horrified at the thought that all this had been pointless and Bali-Lali would eat us anyway. "A dead end? It can't be!"

"Hn." I looked over at Tashie. She was smirking. "You're right. It can't be. I know this place- and there's probably another latch somewhere that'll get us out. Here," She shoved the bundle of covers in my arms. "Hold the baby while I search."

I fumbled with the baby for a bit, then froze once I had it in my grasp, waiting for it's eyes to open and the screams to come. To my great surprise, they didn't. Aside from shifting a bit in its sleep, the baby remained completely unaffected. I looked up at Tashie who was pressing random parts of the wall.

"Ha!" She shouted as she pressed on a certain rock, "Got it-" Just then the floor opened up beneath us.

I screamed something that I've edited out of this story so that my parents don't kill me. Yet, through some miracle, I didn't drop the baby (though I do think that I may have bruised it because I was holding onto it so tight.). Next to me, Tashie was... Well, I have no idea what she was doing- I was screaming too loud to notice anything else. Next thing I knew, I had crash-landed into a desk- onto some poor person who looked like they were taking notes. Then Tashie crashed into me (no babies were harmed in the making of this story- I don't know how they managed, but they were fine).

"Nice of you to drop in." A stern voice spoke and I looked up.

"Uh…" Tashie gulped. "H-hi Mr. Donnelly…. What's up?"

Mr. Donnelly glared. "Natasha, I thought you were taking this new student to Ms. Parvarti's class? Last time I checked that was in the East wing- this is the West."

"Well, you see, we were-"

"None of your excuses, Nastasha." Mr. Donnelly cut in, "You're going to pay a visit to the headmistress."

I swallowed hard and looked from Tashie to the teacher. Once in third grade on the bus I remembered a time that my friend who sat next to me had opened the fire escape, and then when then hid when the bus driver came up to see what was going on. He ended up yelling at me while my friend just stood to the side and didn't say anything. Yeah, I was pretty annoyed, and I promised myself that I'd never do something and blame it on anyone else again. "Wait!" I called out suddenly. Mr. Donnelly turned to look at me. "It's not her fault! You see, she found me, and I was lost and I had no idea where I was. You see, as I remember it, I was walking to History class at school, and then suddenly I was in the middle of some weird hallway. Tashie found me and was taking me around, and then this thing came and attacked us!" My little speech was met with a suspicious glare from Mr. Donnelly.

"It's true!" Tashie cut in, "It's Bali-Lali- she's here!"

This got the teacher's attention. "Bali-Lali? Here?" Tashie and I nodded furiously. "Everyone stay here, Joe's in charge." With that said, he left, and a boy (who I presumed to be Joe) leapt into the air and shouted some cheers, then went to join his friends off to one corner.

I was left with Tashie to introduce me to everyone in the class (after storing the baby in the corner, of course). I found out that I had interrupted the grammar class- and no one was too disappointed about it, either. The person Tashie and I had crash-landed on was Tashie's friend, Hailey (Tashie had poked fun at Hailey saying that it had to have been her we landed on- anyone else would've had the brains to move out of the way- Hailey kicked her). There were 20 people in total (21 including Tashie) and each them were a bit, er, different. Such as the one named Rhys who had a strange habit of bursting into song… But in a really high pitch that I didn't know was possible to reach.

It was all rather calm considering there was a spider-lady running around the school somewhere… Well, I got the feeling things were never 'calm,' but as calm as things usually were. Tashie introduced me to Annie, Fiona, Sarah, Serena, Allie and Hailey, they were all pretty nice, and more sane than Tashie, so that was good. Hailey was talking to Annie, Fiona, and Allie about a necklace she saw at a store the other day, Serena was shouting at Sarah (who, for some reason, had a rat peeking out from her pocket) for pointing at someone, and Tashie was off kicking some boy in the shins. I drifted over to her.

"Um… Tashie? What are you doing?"

Tashie stopped and looked at me. "Oh, Davis just called me stupid so I'm taking care of him." She kicked Davis one more time and he fell down, holding his ankles.

"Ow! Geez, Natasha!" She kicked him again, "Ow!"

"Well then!" She said, turning to me cheerfully. "What's up? Met everyone yet?"

"Um… Most of them, I guess."

"Okay… Hey! Where's the baby?" I blinked and looked over to the corner where we had set it down. It wasn't there.

I looked at Tashie "… Who cares?" She looked ready to murder me. "Just kidding! Just kidding! I mean, it can't be that far away- see it's right there being dragged across the room by that house-cat sized panda…" I stopped. "Why is there a house-cat sized panda in your classroom?"

Tashie laughed, her anger forgotten. "That's Larry- the class pet. Here, Larry! Here, boy!"

I watched as the panda slowly meandered across the room to Tashie's outstretched hand. 'A tiny panda? Is that even possible?' I thought as I eyed it warily. Then again, it was better than the baby. Speaking of which- it was crying. Again. It was really starting to bug me.

"Tashie," I whined, "Get the baby to be quiet!"

"Aw it's so cute!" A girl exclaimed and went over to kneel down by it. The two girls who were next to her did the same thing. If I remembered correctly, they were Lauren, Lachlan, and Briana.

"What's her name?" Lachlan asked, looking at Tashie.

"Uh… I dunno. She sort of fell from the ceiling." Tashie got a lot of weird looks for this. "Well, I mean, I'm guessing it was a portal- because there was a flash of light and then it fell from the ceiling!"

"It does sound like a portal..." Annie said as she, Hailey, Fiona, Allie, Serena and Sarah drifted over.

"I wonder why a portal would open up here." Serena muttered to herself, seeming to be deep in thought. I, as usual, had no idea what anyone was talking about, but decided to keep my mouth shut anyway.

"She needs a name." Lachlan stated.

"Yeah, let's call her Rachel!" Lauren suggested.

"No, Zoey." Briana cut in.

"How about Claire?" Serena asked. Sarah slapped her for mentioning her sister's name.

"How do you even know it's a girl?" I questioned, raising an eyebrow.

This seemed to stump them for a bit. Finally Lauren replied, "Because... It just is.

Just then the door flew open and teachers rushed in. The students already in the classroom were split in half- the more logical ones (such as Serena) looked freaked out because there was obviously something wrong. The other half looked ready to yell at them for barging in without knocking (Tashie). A woman began to herd all the students into a corner, while some teachers were crowded around in a circle and moving something into the back of the classroom. The rest of the teachers took up defensive positions and barricaded the door.

As the students (and moi) sat around looking rather confused and asking what was going on, some of the teachers in the circle parted a bit to reveal a man with one arm. And judging by the look of immense pain on his face and he blood covering his side, I'd say he'd lost that arm rather recently. Someone next to me screamed, obviously I wasn't the only one who had seen it.

"Mr. Elric!"

Heads immediately began turning.

"Oh my god- it is Mr. Elric!"

"Is he okay?"

"Yes, he's perfectly fine- does he look okay?!"

"… Holy ****"

"Ryan, don't curse!" The teacher keeping us in the corner snapped.

A small 'plop' was heard and a large blob of blood was suddenly next to one of the teacher in circles' feet. I gulped down the feeling that I was about to vomit. Apparently someone else wasn't as good at it as me, because I heard retching coming from somewhere in the crowd of teenagers. That really didn't help me keep it down either.

"Everyone just stay calm!" One of the teachers at the front of the room shouted. "Students stay in the corner! Teachers, be ready!" The room arrangement pretty much looked like this: All the students huddled in back corner next to a few teachers surrounding the injured Mr. Elric, some teachers in front of the students, and about 8 teachers at the front of the room.

Suddenly something banged on the door. The teachers had done a rather nice job of apparently melting the edges of the door into the wall, as well as adding a couple… boulders in front of it. Whatever was outside banged on the door a couple more times. It seemed like it couldn't get through. It also seemed like every time it hit it, it got closer to getting in. Suddenly, the banging stopped. We sat in silence- I didn't even dare to breath, and, going by the looks of the people near me, they didn't, either. We seemed to sit perfectly still in complete terror for an eternity. Just as it seemed like whatever had been trying to get in had given up and left, an explosion left my ears ringing, and the next thing I knew there was a sharp pain in my back and I was thrown across the room, along with most of the other students. I gasped in pain as I landed, and, with great effort, turned to see the wall I had just been sitting by completely gone. Bits of the wall were scattered around the floor, some so big that they had trapped a student underneath them. And in the midst of all the rubble stood Bali-Lali- looking like she just stumbled upon a very tasty meal.


A word about the baby. When I planned out this story, I had no intention of having a baby randomly drop from the ceiling. However, the day we started to work on the second chapter, my Language Arts teacher decided that, within the first page and a half of the second chapter, we needed to have a baby enter the story. Therefore- I had a ton of baby Bali-Lalis come out.

Then, after I was almost done with the chapter, my teacher gleefully announced that the baby had to be human... I was not pleased. But you read what came out of it, and I suppose that it really adds to the whole sense of Delirium that runs wild in this Wonderland. Hope you enjoyed it!