[Plot] The Wonderland Complex

[Hatter]

"I'm not sure we actually get a choice anyhow," Hatter said.

[Basil Benson]

Cheshire shrugged, feigning disinterest.

"My liege is here. I don't have any need to leave.

But I suppose if it's what she is requesting, I'll play along."

[Narrator]

"Well... now that that's settled-

Have I ever told the story about how Bunny left me on top of a Millennium Wheel observation pod the with an assailant?"

[Hatter]

"Color me curious Mr. Caterpillar."

[Alice]

"That's some real comic book stuff right there!" Alice said, waving her fork.

[Narrator]

As if on cue, Dormouse's eyes fluttered open, and she reached out to take up her spoon.

Everyone else around her started to feel quite cozy and lethargic, bordering on slightly tired. Not exhausted, more like the warm comfort of an afternoon nap.

"Are we really encouraging a man who's stories are so boring they put people to sleep better than my powers to orate?" She asked, digging into her meal.

[Hatter]

"Aren't you usually asleep anyway?" Hatter smirked before yawning.

[Alice]

Alice let out a contented sigh, slumping in her chair with a little grin, not fighting the feeling in the slightest.

"We can always poke him with our forks if he gets long winded."

[Narrator]

The Caterpillar did indeed weave a very interesting tale, though whether or not it was entirely true could only be stated by Bunny and himself.

"Now you have to understand that at this period In Court, Bunny and I were the only team members left. An... incident had dwindled our numbers, but that didn't mean we suddenly got to stop working. It just meant we had to work a bit harder."

He picked up his pipe and took a long inhale, then released the vapor from his lungs slowly. As he did so, the smoke billowed and shaped into a pair of basic shapes, a feminine shape with a pair of rabbit's ears sticking up from the top of her head, and a masculine one wearing a top hat. Vague approximations that most of those seated to take in the story could recognize.

"Some group of neer-do-wells had managed to secure psychotronic parts and we were tasked to unburden them with such dangerous things. We got them, but Bunny was having to get a bit creative with the portal-thinking since neither of us were designed to be heavy lifters by nature.

Those who had stolen them weren't mundanes, and my illusions weren't working on them. In hindsight, perhaps the whole point of them stealing the equipment in the first place was so that they themselves could boost some kind of telepathic power one or perhaps all of them possessed. "

Caterpillar took in more vapor to blow rings, which lined up perfectly with the little Bunny, morphing into the rectangular shapes of doors, which the vapor Bunny seemed to bring into being before her. The figures would pass through, and the puppet Caterpillar would shut them behind him as hurriedly.

"Bunny thought surely no one would want to follow us up there, but she was apparently wrong. I didn't get the door closed behind us fast enough, and someone else forced their way through." Caterpillar breathed another vapor creation into life, who began fighting with the figure that represented him inside one of the doorways he was attempting to close. As those two figures fought, the puppet Bunny opened another door and drug the box through it on her own, then disappeared as the two other figures grappled with one another.

[Alice]

Alice's attention would have been rapt if she wasn't so relaxed. But the cloudy illustrations did help with the narrative.

"Bunnyyyyyyyy, did you put the mission first, or were you trying to tie up a loose end?" If she hadn't been so relaxed she probably would have been more concerned about that previous incident mentioned at the beginning of the story. There was little doubt that when she was no longer under the Dormouse's influence she'd be fretting over such a detail.

[Hatter]

"Bunny... yer... a bad girl, aren't ya?" Hatter said groggily, her accent going full bore.

[Narrator]

"I would never." Bunny replied almost flirtatiously to the idea she may have left him there on purpose.


"She's awful. I don't know why anyone trusts her." Caterpillar quipped to Hatter's playful admonishment. He then took another large intake of vapor, and blew it across the remaining two figures. Now they were locked in hand to hand combat, grappling with one another. Caterpillar was clearly 'on the ropes', being the one pinned to the top of the Ferris wheel's glass surfaces.

"I thought I was done for." He added, and his attacker overtook his silhouette, grabbing him by the collar and throwing him over. The puppet Caterpillar tumbled through open air, but as he fell, the shape of a door traced below him. perpendicular with a line that must have symbolized the ground.

"But apparently Bunny took pity on me." The puppet of Bunny popped out of the door frame and his own fell through the door, after which puppet Bunny snapped it shut.

[Hatter]

"I'm amazed any of us trusts any of us. We ain't exactly the Superfriends, now are we?"

[Alice]

"Awww, well that was awesome then! So exciting!" Alice seemed to enjoy the story, but took Hatter's comment to heart.

"You... you guys don't trust me? It's because of the tea thing, isn't it?" She grabbed her cup in both hands like a grumpy toddler and guzzled the lukewarm mixture down, letting out an unpleasant wet noise of displeasure when she was finished.

"gleck - ugh, I'd even take a cup of instant right about now."

[Basil Benson]

"To be fair, I don't know any of you well enough to say I trust you.....

But I trust you the most Alice." Cheshire replied, smiling a bit.

[Alice]

Alice smiled through the pain of the stewed mulch she'd drank.

"Well, then I guess I'm doing a pretty good job so far of being an Alice."

[Hatter]

"Nobody ever trusts the lady with DID," Hatter mock-pouted.

[Narrator]

"The Caterpillar's story is amusing, but it also provides a valid moral that we should all take into consideration.

We're here because we're different, even from those who are like us. We can only rely on each other for support. We must learned to trust one another if we want to continue to exist.

Which is why, Hatter and Alice, you will be in charge of training Cheshire and getting him up to speed on how we operate, what we do."

[Alice]

Alice reached across to give Hatter a little pat on the shoulder. "I can't very well ask for trust without giving it, can I?" And it was true, she trusted the woman. It was the other entity, that one she was wary of.

The girl grinned wide as she was given her mission, looking up at Cheshire. "Oooh, you're stuck with us! Lucky you!"

[Hatter]

"Aww, aren't you sweet," Hatter smiled in response to Alice, "I like you too."

Turning her kind smile to Cheshire, she said, "Yeah, stick with us, kiddo, and you might just make it through this."

[Basil Benson]

"A-alright." He replied, finishing the last of his beans.

[Alice]

Alice smiled and reached to gently pat Cheshire atop his head. "That's a good kitty."

[Basil Benson]

"Mon pauvre petit matou."

A voice echoed in his head as Alice patted him on the now wilder than previously poof.

Cheshire beamed at Alice's praise. He was fairly certain they were going to become best friends.

[Basil Benson]

((Some time later))

The days ran one into the next. Cheshire had no idea how long he'd been here now. He didn't even remember what before was.

He could remember he was once a boy. He remembered something about having a religion, which explained why he knew Hebrew as a secondary. It didn't explain the French, but knowing most British students had a forced secondary did. He knew he liked girls and that he felt comfortable as a man, though he didn't always feel comfortable with the restraints of masculinity. He knew somewhere, he had a grandmother who loved him dearly. He knew he had a queen who loved him more than anything. He only remembered that much because she woke him every morning for training with Alice, Hatter, or some combination of the two depending on how things are going around the facility.

He was eager to see Alice again today. He enjoyed her company. He hoped she enjoyed his company as much in return, bit he couldn't be certain, and had yet to summon the nerve to broach the subject. She was watching after all.

What would she think if she knew? Nothing good he assumed. Best to keep it to himself then.

He was wearing the comfortable gear they had assigned him for training, waiting for Alice to show.

[Alice]

Over their days together, Cheshire and Alice had talked. They had talked about many things, things they could remember, and things they couldn't, but always only things they felt they were allowed to talk about. There were certain subjects that did not meet the Queen's approval, dangerous things; that was why she had helped them to forget them. She couldn't tell Cheshire how long she'd been in Wonderland. The only scope of time she knew for certain was that she had shared a room for two months before she'd been invited to the court and given her new name and number. After that point she had lost count, and once she'd lost it there didn't seem to be much of a point in finding it again. She couldn't even tell him where she was from "outside", only that it wasn't the same place that he and most of the people in Wonderland were from, and the food there was definitely different. She had an older brother, and a little sister, and they were very good, and they had names but she couldn't remember them. There were others, but they seemed more distant. She remembered endless sky, hot summers, and white winters. They'd discovered that they both spoke French, though her tongue was much more gruff and basic than his.

That morning she padded into the gym in her slippers and oversized scrub top, though this time it wasn't tied up to make it tighter like she usually did - that was new. As were the black leggings that poked out from under the shirt, not the loose scrub pants that normally hung off of her.

"Mornin' kitty! Did you sleep well?"

[Basil Benson]

"As well as one does in The Music Box." He replied, standing to face her. "New look?"

[Alice]

Alice looked down at herself before she carefully kicked off her slippers to pad around barefoot. ""What, these? Sometimes the Queen likes me to train in different ways, and my scrubs aren't always great for that." True, they did have a tendency to get caught up when doing the pommel horse.

"C'mon, let's do some stretches and then hit the mats. I think it's time we really got physical with each other."

[Basil Benson]

"The Queen approves?" He joked with a salacious grin as he followed along as instructed and slid into stretching.

Flirting was allowed right? It's not like she wouldn't know if it became something more, so that made it harmless.

[Alice]

"Oh, I think she's a little miffed we haven't done this sooner. I guess I was just nervous, this'll be my first time with a boy." It wasn't too obvious whether Alice was flirting, or if the double-meaning was just going right over her head.

[Basil Benson]

"I can understand your hesitation. I've been told our kind don't prefer it. But duty calls. " He noted with a flirtatious smile, though he didn't clarify further as he found his position on the mat, squaring up as his memory dictated was correct for throwing a punch.

Alice might recognize it as a proper and incredibly practiced boxer's stance.

[Alice]

It seemed like a very uneven match. Cheshire was well over a foot taller than Alice, but even had they been closer in height it was likely that he would have been stronger than her. But this kind of uneven playing field was something that was common in the outside world, and something she had been trained for. He might have expected her to square up as well, to go on the defensive. Instead she turned to rush at him with her palms open and up like she was going to grapple him.

[Basil Benson]

Cheshire instinctively pulled away from the woman coming to try to grab a hold of him, feigning to the left to keep his primary hand to the front. He hadn't taken a swing yet as he was trying to observe what the hell she was doing.

[Alice]

Alice wasn't taking a swing either, as fast as Cheshire was backing up she was faster, like she was trying to get right up into his face. Was she trying to bite him or something?

[Basil Benson]

Cheshire abruptly disappeared, doing some fancy footwork to flip his body again in the opposite direction of where she was charging.

[Alice]

Alice let out a little gasp and then stopped, standing with her hands on her hips. "Hey, that's cheating! How am I supposed to train you if I can't see how good you are?"

[Basil Benson]

After a moment, Alice could feel his chest against her back, and Cheshire reappeared, looming over the much smaller girl , his head craned forward to look her in the eye. He was grinning playfully.

"How are you to train me when you don't know what my abilities are, or what I'm likely to do in a fight?"

[Alice]

Alice tilted her head back as she crossed her arms as she spoke to him. "I already know what your ability is, you showed me before. But when you use it I'm not able to know what you're likely to do in'a fight, 'cause I can't see what you're doin' in a fight. So I can't see how to help you if you leave yourself open on your left side, or you put too much weight on one leg when you throw a punch. That may work alright when other people can't see you - but what about when they can? What about if we find ourselves collared and have to fight our way to freedom? What if they're able to 'see' you without usin' their eyes?

"You really sure you want me to start doin' my schtick too? It's gonna make things one-sided real fast if I do."

[Basil Benson]

"You really sure you want me to start doin' my schtick too? It's gonna make things one-sided real fast if I do."

Something about this seemed to cut through Cheshire's confidence and he swallowed deeply, shaken by the statement more than she probably meant to.

"...Alright." He replied, sniffing a bit and moving back into his stance to restart.

[Alice]

Alice gave him a sympathetic smile. "Hey, chin up kitty. Lemme SEE what you can do, and then you can show me all your cool shit. Deal?"

She got back into position and waved her arms a bit. "Alright, c'mon, hit me. You can pull your punches if you want, but I want you to really TRY to hit me, even if it's just a tap. Don't worry about hurting me - the people you face won't be worrying, so you shouldn't either."

[Basil Benson]

"Well maybe, but those people aren't you.

I don't like hitting girls.... Maybe it would be different if you were my size. This seems... wrong..."