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CHAPTER 9: THE CAT GOT OUT OF THE BAG

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In the clover tower, the dream demon Nightmare Gottschalk, leader and ruler of the land of Clover, came back from the dream world after trying to look out for the stranger that had fallen from the sky during Alice's wedding.

The immediate smell of burned tabacco invaded his nostrils and he turned to see his aid Gray Ringmarc, his aide, smoking like a maniac. He also noticed that the previously white shirt of his assistant was stained red with blood.

"Oh? You actually had to get close enough to someone?" – Nightmare mocked, knowing well that Gray could perfectly shield his thoughts from him.

Gray exhaled the smoke through his nostrils. He looked distressed and that caught Nightmare's attention even more. Not many things could distress the ex-assassin. -" I went to the other tower to look for a certain lazy caterpillar that might had been hiding there. Instead I found the place empty and in the mortician's office there was a masked person holding some clocks and a cloak."

"So?"- Nightmare said and urging him to continue. A person entering the tower to steal the clocks was rare.

"I of course attacked. The person managed to evade a direct hit but the knife broke down the mask. I was already there to land a kick and I did. I sent 'her' crashing towards the desk."

"So it was a woman?"- This was curious indeed. Not the woman part, but that she had evaded a Gray's knives.

"Not any woman. She had eyes."

Nightmare raised his eyebrows and smiled. That was even more rare. Few people here had eyes. And someone with power enough to enter the clock tower was most likely someone with duties who had been breaking the rules. A roleholder.- "Oh? So someone died?"- Now this was indeed fun information. Someone probably had died and had been replaced-" Did you kill her?"

"No. But when I checked on her she was unconscious and quite hurt. She was very beaten."- He inhaled and exhaled on the last of his cigar before squishing it in the already full ashtray -"She's in the infirmary right now."

"You brought her here to get treated? Why didn't you leave her there. She would have been fine in a few time changes. I doubt the clock master would have killed her" – Nightmare raised his arms and shoulders into an uncaring but teasing gesture.

Gray huffed another puff of smoke. That was exactly what was bothering him. The moment he saw her he had felt a shock on his clock and such familiarity on her face. He hadn't thought. He had just known that she needed help and had brought her to the infirmary immediately. He didn't knew why he had reacted like that, and once in the infirmary, when the doctress was checking her, he had felt such powerful sense of familiarity and even worry that he had simply left to smoke a bit. He had no idea where this reactions had come from, and that bothered him greatly.

"I see..."- Nightmare actually managed to read some of Gray's thoughts of distress and stood up- "Then I guess I should pay her a visit now that she is unconscious. " – He made a complicated floriture with his hand and began floating in the midair before he stopped and looked at Gray with a bit of surprise.- "Did the medic gave her some anti-dream drug?"

Gray blinked –"No. Why?"

"Because I can't even find her dreams. It's as if she wasn't dreaming at all."

In that instant, the door was banged open and a metal shine came sizzling through the air, full force, towards Nightmare's head. A rattle of metal against metal was heard when the projectile was deflected by a knife thrown by Gray and both cutting weapons fell to the floor with a clang and Gray saw with surprise that the attacking weapon was one of his own knives. A second later he moved aside just in time to evade the swing of a broad sword and jumping back to avoid a round kick from the knave of hearts.

"Attacking a neutral party is against the rules." – Nightmare reminded the knight but knew it was useless. If Ace had come to 'practice' with Gray then it was no helping it.

"I'm not attacking. I'm just accepting your invitation to come and play."- Ace's smile was quite happy and psychoticly deranged. His mind was full of murder with a hint of possessive worry deep in the back- "Did she play nice, Mr. Lizard?"

Both Nightmare and Gray raised an eyebrow. This wasn't mere 'training'.

"You started the attack back in the Clock tower."- Julius came behind Ace and he didn't look happy.

"What is it clock master?"- Nightmare was surprised to find the mortician here. If Julius had actually come then it was serious business. He read the mortician's and the knave's thoughts. They were revolving about a girl.

Nightmare smiled. He now understood the confusion. It was obvious that the evidence pointed at Gray attacking someone directly under the other's territory's protection. That counted as an attack. What was strange but very entertaining was that this was about a female. It appeared that the hermit had accepted this woman under his domain. But why? He was very tempted to play with this, but he also felt some sort of urgeness to clear this out. Two neutral territories attacking each other was against the rules. –"Don't worry mortician. She is in the infirmary. "

"So you sent her straight to the infirmary. That ain't much of a gentleman's behavior Mr. Lizard. How cold blooded of you."- Ace commented and swung his sword again and hit a chair that was destroyed by the clean cut of his blade.

Gray gritted his teeth at the younger man's behavior. – "It ain´t so to leave a hurt female without medical attention either, knight"- Gray tried to kick Ace away, but he found that the knight had every intention of continuing the fight in a serious way.

Sword clashed against knives as the tension went high in the room when suddenly someone banged his firsts on the door to catch the roleholders attention but had the precaution of remaining outside the door and as much behind the wall as possible – "Excuse me...but the doctor want's to tell you something about the foreigner you brought Sir Gray. It is important."

Nightmare's and Gray's eyes widened. -"Foreigner!?"

Nightmare's first though was about Alice, however he quickly got even more surprised because the man had referred to the person that Gray had taken to the infirmary. Which was no doubt the mysterious girl that Gray had found at the clock tower and that the murderous knight and the pissed off Clock master had come to retrieve. The thoughts of the knight and the mortician confirmed it. Another foreigner! Who would have thought? And they had kept her secret! This was fun.

"Looks like the cat got out of the bag..."- Ace jumped away from Gray but kept his sword pointed at the lizard - "Still she is our minxy kitty and we're taking her back to our bag."

Julius mentally cussed and moved aside to let the faceless enter. Now her existence was known and her status seemed to have gotten worst if possible. It wasn't that he wasn't worried for her, but she was also a danger and would be in constant danger if her little 'commands regarding clocks' ability was known to others. He was followed by a woman wearing a white coat.

She bowed politely and looked at all the present holders, knowing quite well what a new foreigner meant. –"Sirs..."

"Say it aloud" – Nightmare urged her after reading her thoughts.

"Yes, Sir Nightmare."- Her uneasiness was very evident- "The foreigner is not in a good condition." – She took a deep breath and began.- "She has multiple lacerations of different deeps and lengths, suffers from heavy exhaustion, presents multiple hematomas and hits, shows heavy signs of malnourishment, has a twisted ankle, suffers from possible continuous lack of sleep and recent constant physical strain, present blood lost... "- With each symptom mentioned by the doctor the men flinched (except Ace, who had an idiotic smile of appreciation). –... "She has several wounds including deep needle like punctures in her back, and even has mild food poisoning... She's a complete mess."

"Are you for real!?"- Nightmare could barely believe that someone could be in a worst condition than him.

"Unfortunately so Lord Nightmare."- The medic was very serious indeed –" And from the looks of it, she has been struggling for a while. Some of that damage is sure to have occurred since a while ago. Not just hours or days. I mean weeks if not even months. – The woman hesitated for a second- "But that's not all..."

"You mean there's even more!? -Julius was as surprised as everyone.- "How can there be more!?"- He knew that she had been in a bad condition, but never did he imagine that it was SO bad. Not only was she troublesome. She was foolish.

"I'm afraid that it is"- The woman sighed and looked down –"She... we'll. We are not sure how to treat her properly."

"You're a medic, are you not? Then do your work Miss medic" – Ace said while pointing his sword now at the woman.

To her credit, the woman didn't flinch- "I do Sir Ace. We have patched her up the best we can, but her anatomy is a bit more different than what we thought. It's not only her heart. Her mass proportion and weight are different and she seems to have some sort of implanted... 'stuff' along her body that we are completely unfamiliar with. "

"I knew that those breasts were too big!" – XD Ace commented aloud causing everyone in the room to almost drop down.

"Mmmhh... no, those are real"- the medic said, losing all respect she might have had for the knight – "But she seems to have strange metallic lines engraved in her skin and weird metal pieces incrustrated in her back at the puncture perforations and some mechanical parts under her skin... without the proper equipment we can't be sure what else. "

"Will she be fine?"- Julius interrupted the woman.

"We are doing all we can. But until she wakes up and gives us more information there is little else to do"- The woman shook her head –"For now she needs lots of rest. It was lucky that the medic from the castle was visiting us today. Without her confirmation of the patient's previous wounds it would have taken us longer to diagnose her. "

"Previous wounds?" – Gray was confused by that – "How can there be previous wounds and a record of them?"

The medic took a deep breath before answering. And Nightmare held his breath. It was not possible, was it?

"She was here before. More precisely before the storm" – Total silence filled the room. The medic continued her explanation –"Apparently during that time there had been a ball room event at the castle of hearts where an attack happened."

"Someone dared attack the place of an event"- Nightmare raised an eyebrow.

The medic nodded and continued –"Yes. And it seemed that during such event a foreigner was kidnapped. She received a huge gash at her side, a bunch of smaller cuts, was poisoned, drugged and received multiple hits, probably acquired in a nasty fight and had ended up losing a couple litters of blood too. The medical report also said that the person had to ride a horse back to the castle by herself to reach medical attention... there was also a mention of rape intention against her"- Had the woman any eyes, her gaze would surely be very severe. – "That woman fought alone and rescued herself. And that was apparently months ago. She had not stopped fighting for long since then. Maybe even before then."

Everyone's eyes widened. It was surprising that she came out alive by her own feet from such an experience, a miracle if they considered that she was a foreigner, more so if she indeed had been alone.

Julius found this piece of information as much worrisome as it was revealing. Was this the reason she didn't trust them?

Nightmare was as confused by this as everyone. A second foreigner was an extremely rare ocurrence, that she had been here for months but didn't remember her and... How could she even be alone!? If that had been at an event then all roleholders should have been there!? – "How do you even know that it's the same person?"

"Because the wounds and description of the patient match sir but no one seems to know or remember her or what happened before the storm."- The woman was puzzled too - "The medic from hearts doesn't remember her either. She was revising her records last week when she stumbled upon that, but even after she revised, there was no further reports about Miss Aria Hadron Scherzi. Right now she is waiting to go back to check again in case she missed anything."

"That's not all is it? "- Gray didn't need the ability to read minds to be able to read the doctor's body language.

"No Sir Gray. That report also said that a few hours after the operation to sew her gash she disappeared from the castle of hearts. Apparently by her own accord and despite her state, she went back to 'work' on various of the other territories. "

No sooner than the woman finished, another man came running into the room with urgency.

"Sir Gray! The foreigner in the infirmary disappeared!" – A man came bustling inside the room as if invoked.

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And they finally found out... well, it wasn't as if she had tried to hide all of her activitie in the past because she though she was going back to her world.

But know they have a clue as to why she is so damn paranoid and wary... even though she was so even before Wonderland.

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Thanks to 'guest' for pointing me that Gray's reaction wasn't all that clear. Hope it's now explained well :)

5 reviews and the enxt chap is yours.

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Oh! And if you have some scenario for me to work in the Mature one-shots just tell me ;)

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