The group rushed over to where Goofy was pointing and sure enough, it was the same shade of blue as Alice's dress. "You're right! But when did they drag her this way? And how did the Heartless slip past us so easily?" Ruby wondered, looking around the forest. "They couldn't have...taken her heart while we were distracted, could they?"
Sora's brow furrowed slightly at Ruby's worried theory. "But wait. If someone becomes a Heartless, they completely vanish. Including their clothes. If this piece of her dress was torn off, then maybe they just kidnapped her?"
While it was likely, there were still several unexplained aspects of this mystery. "But I thought Heartless attack anyone who has a heart. Why would they try and kidnap somebody?" Goofy asked, scratching his head.
Crossing his arms and tapping his webbed feet, Donald tried to think of how the Heartless could have pulled off a kidnapping. For as long as they'd fought them, the group noticed the Heartless weren't much for subterfuge. Which also brought about the question of how they managed to not only attempt to steal the Queen's heart and nearly get away with it. "I don't know. Somethings screwy here. Maybe something or someone controlling the is Heartless." Donald theorized with a frown.
Ruby didn't like the sound of that. Controlling the Heartless? The mere thought of that brought back memories of the Grimm being set loose in Vale. The idea of such monsters as the Heartless and Grimm being controlled was...
"AHEM! Could you all stop having a conversation as if I suddenly don't exist?!"
"Gah!"
"Eep!"
"WAK!"
"WHOOAAOO!"
Sora, Ruby, Donald, and Goofy jolted from their thoughts as they turned to the sound of an irritated Weiss glaring at them with her hands on her hips. "YOU still owe me an explanation!" she said, pointing to Ruby before pointing to Sora, "Now who are you-" then to Donald, "-who are you-" then to Goofy, "-who are you-" then back to Ruby, "and what are YOU doing with them?" and finally back at the flabbergasted Sora, Donald, and Goofy.
Ruby only just realized that there was A LOT that she had to bring Weiss up to speed about. "Sorry, Weiss," she said before gesturing to each of her friends. "Okay so. That's Sora. That's Donald. And that's Goofy. I'm with them because I'm trying to find everyone in the other worlds we're visiting. And we found you!"
In hindsight, she should have expected the raised brows as Weiss asked, "What do you mean 'other worlds'? Like, different planets?" But hindsight was not with her as Ruby found herself at a loss for words. "No, not exactly. It's more like... um... I honestly don't know how to explain it myself because I hardly understood when Cid told me."
Weiss facepalmed herself and shook her head, muttering, "Typical..." This lack of foresight was of the many reasons she initially took issue with Ruby being named team leader. Just as she was about to ask the others, Donald rushed over to Ruby, frantically whispering "Hey! You can't just go around telling people about things like that. They're supposed to be secret."
"But Donald," Sora started saying. "Does it matter since we know Weiss and Ruby aren't from this world?" An annoyed glare touched Donald's face in response to the boy's presumption. "It's supposed to be a secret because if we went around telling other people about places outside their own worlds, it could bring chaos to all of them. Some things are better off not being known, Sora."
"Oh but aren't the worlds already in chaos as it is?"
Everyone looked around in confusion at the sudden, disembodied voice that rang out around them. Ruby's eyes soon found the source as she looked to a nearby mushroom. The Cheshire Cat was there, laying on his side with an elbow used as a prop as he lay one side of his face upon the paw of the propped forelimb. "If you bring chaos to a world full of chaos, does anything change? It's like trying to fill a teacup when it's already full. It can't get anymore full when it already is, right? And besides, chaos is as mandatory as harmony. They are separate yet it's because they're separate they exist. So what harm does more chaos bring, honestly?"
"You!" Weiss exclaimed, pointing at the bizarre cat in surprised recognition. Her exclamation drew looks from the rest of the group. "You know him, Weiss?" Ruby asked, looking between her teammate and the Cheshire Cat. She didn't think Weiss to be the type to hang around such a bizarre figure...then again, Ruby couldn't really judge. "Well...sort of. He just appeared in front of me shortly after I woke up in this forest. He said some nonsense about how 'In searching for what I desire most, it may come to me instead.' Some nonsense like that." to which the Cheshire Cat nodded as if to say, 'guilty as charged'. "And suddenly, those monsters appeared out of nowhere and attacked me! I think I might have dropped my necklace in the fighting, because I haven't seen it ever since I was first attacked. It was just before I was pounced by that one creature and suddenly ended up in that situation that apparently all of YOU dragged me into."
Sora, Ruby, Donald, and Goofy lurched back as she pointed at them accusingly. Why did she suddenly sound like she was BLAMING them?! In the midst of her rant however, Ruby remembered something. "Wait, your necklace?" she said, reaching behind herself. "We actually found it stuck to a Heartless antennae when we were searching for Evidence to clear Alice's name."
Sure enough, that got Weiss to stop her accusatory ranting as she soon saw the little silver chain held apple. "Oh my gosh! Thank you, Ruby!" Immediately her tone seemed to change as she immediately took the necklace back and donned it around her neck. "I suppose I owe you and your new...friends my thanks, Ruby."
"Uhh, no problem." Sora said with an awkward rub of his neck. He was clearly out of his element with how hot and cold Weiss was running. Leaning toward Ruby, Sora whispered, "Is she always like this?" To which Ruby leaned toward him and whispered in a VERY hushed tone, lest Weiss hear them, "This is her on a good day. You should see her at her worst."
With that out of the way, Donald turned back to the Cheshire Cat and asked, "Have you seen Alice?" To which the Cheshire Cat replied with characteristic ambiguity, "Alice, no. Shadows, yes!"
If he was implying that he'd seen the Heartless, then they couldn't have gotten far! They still had a chance to save Alice! "Where'd they go?" Goofy asked.
"This way?-" the Cheshire Cat said pointing one direction with one arm, "-That way?-" his other arm pointed the opposite way, followed by a shrug. "-Does it matter?-" his arms pointed where he spoke before his limbs rearranged themselves in places that weren't how a cats body should have looked "-Left, right, up, down. All mixed up thanks to the shadows-"
Everyone was speechless at the dismemberment and reattachment of the unusual being before them but their befuddlement was gone at his next choice of words. it was much more clear than anything else he said so far. "Steep deeper into the forest to the deserted garden. You might find shadows in the upside-down room."
Just like before, the Cheshire Cat disappeared into thin air, clearly knowing he was leaving everyone uncertain and befuddled in equal measure. "Are we sure we can trust him?" Donald said suspiciously. "He did help us find the evidence to prove Alice wasn't the one that tried taking the Queen's heart." Goofy pointed out. "Yeah but he also said 'What about us?' when we could prove her innocence. Even then, we still found ourselves in trouble. I think he knew that was going to happen." Ruby said, thinking back to his behavior.
Sora looked back at where they ran with worry. "Well one things for sure. We can't go back the way we came. That nasty Queen is probably looking for us right now. I say we get as far as we can from her." he said before looking to Weiss and smiling with his usual cheery demeanor returning. "Why don't you come with us, Weiss? I'm sure you don't wanna stay here. And you're friends with Ruby after all. Plus you know how to fight like all of us. We could always use more help."
"But she-" Donald started saying.
"She's not supposed to be in this world. So if we keep her here, won't that be problematic?" Sora said with a smirk, confident he was right. Donald's beak opened up, as if to protest, but even he knew that Sora was right. So with a wearily quacking sigh, he shook his head and turned away. "Fine." he said.
With that decided, Ruby looked toward Sora with a grateful smile and nod. She knew that Donald would likely try to deny Weiss a chance to join them as he did with her back at Traverse Town. Sora returned the gesture with a cheery grin.
"Alright then. I suppose I should introduce myself properly to you." the young white haired heiress said, stepping in front of Sora. He seemed, at the very least, to be the most reasonable of the group. "I am Weiss Schnee, heiress of the Schnee Dust Company. Now don't bother wasting time with questions about it because there's not much to tell with how things are. And you are, Sora was it?"
Sora was certainly surprised by her demeanor. Ruby on the other hand was feeling a little jealous. Why couldn't Weiss have greeted her more like this when they first met?...Then again, she did 'explode' and singe Weiss upon their first meeting sooo perhaps it was kind of her fault...sort of.
"Uhh, yeah. I'm Sora." Sora introduced, reaching his hand out to Weiss who looked at him, raising the brow above her scarred eye. After a moment's pause, Weiss gave a small smile and reached her own hand out, shaking his. Though she'd only just met him, she could see a lot of similarities to Ruby within him. Which in her eyes was both a good and a bad thing. Particularly that wide-eyed, innocent, welcoming, though at times annoying cheer. Yet those were among the things that made Weiss think that Ruby really would make a good leader...not that she'd never say that aloud. "Well then. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, lead the way Sora."
Despite that brief jealous episode, Ruby couldn't help but smile at how pleasantly the meeting of her first friend at Beacon and her first friend beyond worlds went. She let out a small cheery squeal of delight as the rest of the group walked ahead. That small spark of hope she had when they started this adventure was burning brighter than ever.
"Ruby, hurry up!" Weiss called, drawing the girl from her thoughts. "Oh! Coming!" she called back, rushing after her partner. She couldn't wait to reunite with the others. They were all out there somewhere. She just knew it.
