The Queen of Hearts fanning herself with a heart shaped fan as she impatiently sat upon her podium. She raised an eyebrow when she saw the four defendants and supporters of the accused finally return. "Well there you are. Have you managed to bring me any evidence?" she asked impatiently.
"We have, your highness. It's all right here." Ruby said, trying to be respectful and proper. Though she certainly didn't feel like giving her any respect with how she behaved. She was actually starting to miss the old Weiss compared to this queen.
"Well then. Stand up to the podium and show it to everyone so we can all see. Hurry up and show me what you've found." the Queen ushered impatiently. Wasting no time, Sora marched up to the podium with Ruby, Donald, and Goofy on the jury stand, distributing four boxes containing their four pieces of evidence.
The Queen looked at what was presented with an unconcerned expression. "Well, that's certainly a lot of evidence, but I'm still not impressed. Cards, bring forth MY evidence." The cards hopped to attention and presented...a single box against all four of theirs. Suddenly, all five of the boxes converged on one another and seemed to merge into one...before suddenly separating into five again. "Hmm, checking all five would be a waste of time. Alright, choose the one you wish to present. I'll decide who is guilty based on that evidence."
Sora blanched with disbelief at the Queen's ploy. "What?! After all the trouble of collecting it?" She was just trying to pull every possible underhanded tactic to feel like she could win.
"You dare to object? Then you will lose your head! Now choose! One box!" the Queen shouted indignantly.
None of Alice's defenders could believe it. After the absolute headache they endured trying to get all this evidence, she was really going to pull this nonsense on them? Sora should have expected this with how unreasonable she'd already shown herself to be. Ruby nearly threw out all sense of decorum at the Queen's behavior, but managed to calm herself down. Now wasn't the time to lose their heads...literally land figuratively. With a mutually nervous look themselves, Sora, Ruby, Donald, and Goofy, the Keyblade Master looked between the boxes of evidence...and pointed to the middle one.
The box trembled for a moment after Sora pointed to it, and suddenly...it burst open with two figures flying out of it. It was a Soldier Heartless accosting...what looked to be a girl a little older than Ruby with a bright, white, elegant, short, long sleeved dress laced with a red interior, boots with a similarly elegant design and long white hair tied into a ponytail hanging down her right side. "Agh! Get off of me!" she grunted, kicking the heartless off of her before reaching to her hip and drawing an elegant, dark silver rapier and thrusting it through the Heartless with expert precision and grace, destroying it almost effortlessly. "Ugh. Utterly unbelievable."
Weiss?!" Ruby exclaimed, her eyes nearly bugging out of her head when her mind finally registered who she was seeing.
The white clad young lady wheeled around in response to Ruby's voice and turned to face her. At first her face was riddled with confusion, then it shifted to astounded surprise at the sight of her leader. "Ruby? What are you doing here?"
"WEEEIIISS!" Ruby squealed with delighted relief as she rushing and and embraced the girl, much to Weiss's embarrassment and dismay. "Weiss, I'm so happy to see one of my teammates is okay! You've no idea how worried I've been! There's so much that's happened and I want to tell you all of it! I woke up in this place that wasn't anywhere on Remnant-!"
"R-Ruby, stop it! Get ahold of yourself before you embarrass us both!"
Sora, Donald and Goofy watched in silent, wide eyed confusion at the display. They snapped out of their reverie and jumped at the loud rumbling from the Queen of Hearts slamming her fan like a gavel again. "What's going on here?!" Sora looked from the Queen to the two girls between them before speaking firmly.
"The creature from the box was the culprit. And that other girl stopped it before it could attempt taking your heart or anyone else's. There's your evidence. Alice is innocent."
The queen sputtered and verbally fumbled, as if shocked that she had been proven wrong. Donald and Goofy smiled victoriously at the favorable turn of events. "SILENCE!"...until the Queen suddenly shouted with unhinged fury. "I'm the law here! Article 29: Anyone who defies the Queen is guilty! That girl burst out of the box with that creature! And if she's friends with your friend, she must be friends with you! So YOU were all involved with the attempted theft of my heart!"
"What!?" Ruby screeched at the Queen's ridiculous tirade. Now suddenly THEY were the criminals!? Weiss winced at Ruby's raised voice, clearly not appreciating it, nor the situation she found herself in.
"That's crazy!" Donald shouted, now also finally fed up with the Queen's rotten behavior. Was she seriously so stubborn that she refused to admit she was wrong?
"Seize them!" As she bellowed her command, the blindly loyal cards obeyed the queen's will. The podium and jury stands suddenly sank into the grassy ground and a short red roofed tower seemed to poofed in a cloud of smoke into the center of the courtroom, with three handle laden wheels on three of its six sides. One of the cards pulled down on a wheel, forcing the cage that held Alice to rotate around and rise up out of their reach.
"Cards, if they touch the tower, you lose your heads!" the Queen yelled to her servants, thrusting the hand holding her heart-shaped fan toward the 'criminals'. An order they obeyed by leaping into the air and attempting to dogpile Ruby, Weiss, and Sora. Which they fortunately jumped out of the way of.
Suffice it to say, Weiss was now utterly confused. Both in the change of scenery, and the sudden accusations she, her team leader, and her team leader's strange new acquaintances were being assailed with. "Ruby, what is going on, where are we, who are they, and what did you just drag me into!?"
"I'll explain later, Weiss!" Ruby cried out as suddenly all five of them were jumped by the cards. Immediately, the fivesome drew their weapons and fought back against the cards. The Spade and Heart adorned flat footsoldiers brandished black halberds and red lances as they attempted to subdue the newly labeled criminals.
Sora, Donald, and Goofy batted away their foes, who fortunately were made of tougher stuff than most of the Heartless they fought...ironic considering they were animated cards. As for Ruby and Weiss, they decided it was probably best to NOT add murder to the apparent list of charges by shredding these cards, so Ruby instead struck them with the blunt end of the scythe, while Weiss expertly sidestepped their clumsy strikes.
"GET THEM, YOU FOOLS!" the Queen shouted over the chaos. How hard was it to restrain five people?
Goofy ran forward with all his might, toppling all the cards in front of him over. There were four of them and all were heart types consisting of 7, 10, an Ace and a 3. The way he knocked them into each other though had them laying on their backs and over each other. The 10 had the 1 covered by the 7 and for some reason the Ace had it's 'A' missing the dash in the middle. Goofy cocked his head to the side when noticing something and smiled, pointing to it while looking at his comrades. "Hey, look. They hearts spell out 'LOVE'. Ain't that perty?"
"Goofy! Not now!" Donald said, smacking a card soldier with his staff and knocking him down.
"Quit dolting around!"
At the shouted words of their Queen and how forcefully she slammed her stand, the card soldiers jumped up in worry. Sora looked around, seeing they wouldn't quit anytime soon. Just how many of them did she have at her beck and call? If this kept up, they'd run out of stamina sooner than she'd run out of card soldiers. He looked to the tower the Queen mentioned and noticed the gear-like switches on all its sides. After swiping his Keyblade at a card soldier charging at him, he thought back to Alice's cage being raised after the tower's levers were cranked. He had an idea and ran to it, making three downward strikes at it, the last one being stronger than the others. The lever broke apart into splinters and the cage where Alice was kept lowered. Sora's realized then his hunch was right. "Guys! This has to be what's holding Alice captive!" he announced to the others.
The cards scrambled toward Sora to stop him from destroying the tower. Only to be intercepted by Ruby, Weiss, Donald, and Goofy. "Keep smashing it, Sora! We'll cover you!" Ruby called out as she whacked a heart bearing card with the blunt part of her scythe.
Striking another spade bearing card with the pommel of her rapier, Weiss turned toward her team leader, pointing to her in annoyance. "You better have a VERY good explanation for me once we're out of this mess, Ruby!" she exclaimed, bonking another card on the head with the pommel of her rapier.
As he jumped and landed shield first atop one of the other cards, Goofy couldn't help but chuckle at the interaction between Ruby and her rather prickly friend. "Ahyuck. I think she and Daisy would get along nicely, don't you think Donald?"
"Not now, Goofy!" Donald yelled, rapidly whacking yet another card with his staff. Though he had to admit, listening to her, he couldn't deny Goofy was right. Weiss reminded him a bit of a teenage Daisy. Wait, he just said 'Not now' yet he was reminiscing?! This wasn't the time!
With his friends covering him, Sora kept up his assault on the tower, knocking off bits and pieces of it with every strike. With a bit of effort and the cover of his comrades, Sora reduced the tiny tower to a pile of rubble. And sure enough, as it was destroyed, the curtain veiled cage slid down to the ground. All eyes shifted away from the brawl and toward the cage as it rotated around to show...it was empty!
"Alice is gone!?" Ruby exclaimed, rushing toward the cage with Donald, Goofy, and a very confused Weiss following behind.
"She must have gotten kidnapped during the fighting." Donald theorized. But how could anyone have slipped in without anyone noticing? Was everyone really so focused on the ridiculous courtroom brawl that they didn't see her get out? Or was she taken by something...or someone?
"YOU FOOLS!" the furious Queen of Hearts bellowed to the cards who snapped to attention. "FIND THE ONE WHO'S BEHIND THIS! I DON'T CARE HOW!" The cards didn't need to be told twice as they scrambled in a comically ineffectual manner. Just when things seemed to go from bad to worse with this ridiculous brawl, it seemed almost like it only succeeded in getting even worse than worse.
Goofy looked at the empty cage and cocked his head to the side while scratching his head. Despite not being the brightest bulb, he tried thinking about how Alice could have been taken without their notice anyway. He perked up when noticing something at one part of the bottom of the cage. "What's this?" he said curiously when picking it up.
"And YOU!" The Queen said when turning to the five people who weren't under her rule. Everyone, save for Goofy still looking at what he held, had sweat drops down the sides of their heads as the temperamental woman snarled and huffed at them like a raging beast. "Don't think I'm done with any of YOU!"
"Yeah? We'll we're done with you, ya royal pain in the butt!" Donald exclaimed before running up to her and bonking her across the head with his staff.
The Queen yelped in shock as she flopped over onto the ground on her head. Her dress was lifted and they could see she had white bloomers with red valentine hearts on them while muffling under her fabric. "Donald?! What did you just do?!" Sora asked with an expression as gobsmacked as Ruby, Weiss, and Goofy.
"Run! Now! While we have the chance!" he shouted before darting away. Weiss realized what the short feathered guy was doing and ran with Sora following. Ruby was about to take off but noticed Goofy was preoccupied with whatever it was he'd noticed on the cage.
"Goofy, come on!" Ruby exclaimed as she grabbed him by the back of his shirt and darted away with Goofy letting out a shocked shout of, "WHOOAAOH!"
"Why you-!" The Queen said when finally regaining herself. To her infuriated shock, everyone was gone, with only herself to hear her furious ramblings and rantings. "Somebody's head's gonna roll for this!"
