by Lotus Rose
“Okay,” the Prince says. “Is there anything else? We must hurry to catch up with them.”
“No,” the bunny says. “Oh, please save our human!”
Malice, the Hatter and Prince waste no time running down the trail.
Soon they come to another mass of signs. One of them reads: Queendom of the Black Rose so they go down that path.
As the scene appears around them, Malice gets a sudden sense of deja vu, but focuses on the sight of the two girls flamboyantly dancing in front of them. One of the girls is Cinderella, spinning in the air, kicking high. The other girl looks similar to Cinderella, but with brown hair and is dressed in a simple peasant dress. And she wears black Mary Jane shoes. She must be Goody Two-shoes, Malice thinks.
And now as Cinderella’s calf cracks into the side of Goody Two-shoes’ face, Malice realizes they aren’t dancing at all, they’re fighting. And now she realizes Cinderella must’ve struck with her calf instead of her foot in order to avoid shattering her shoe.
The Prince is rushing forward with dagger drawn. But Malice and the Hatter fall back.
She takes in the scene. Behind the two sisters is a tightrope going over a cliff, connecting to a platform on a column of stone ten feet from the cliff’s edge. On the circular ten foot wide column is a throne next to a pedestal with a black rose on top of it.
Other than the fact there is no skeleton, it is exactly the same as it looked before, when Malice and Cinderella attained the Black Rose in the first place. Malice is not overly shocked about the strange occurrence. She comes from Wonderland, after all, but she does wonder if the scene is a replica or is actually the same place, before returning her attention to the sisters.
The Prince is letting out a war cry as he runs. When he is still seven feet away from them, Goody performs three cartwheels, landing atop the tightrope, which she starts running across.
Cinderella, caught by surprise, watches. She wants to follow, but the Prince is upon her, slashing at her with his dagger, which Cinderella dodges.
And meanwhile Malice and the Hatter are rushing over, but can do little more than watch as the Prince slashes and Cinderella delivers a series of spinning kick attacks.
From the platform, Goody is calling out, “Alice! Alice can you hear me?! Please, help me! Take me out of this place! Please, Alice!” Malice looks to see the girl is shouting up at the sky with tears streaming down her face.
Malice hears a cracking sound and looks to see the Prince reeling from a kick to the side of his face.
Cinderella takes the opportunity to flee, performing several cartwheels to land atop the tightrope.
“No!” the Prince shouts before rushing after her.
She is already partly on the tightrope when he arrives at the edge of the cliff.
Meanwhile, Goody Two-shoes is pressing her hands against the invisible dome around the Black Rose, struggling to force her way in—she’s turned away from Cinderella, can’t see her approaching closer on the tightrope, the tightrope that the Prince now starts shaking.
“Fall, betrayer!” he shouts.
But she doesn’t, as she lifts her arms to her side, and her balance is unerring, magically enhanced.
Goody Two-shoes once again calls out to the sky, “Alice! Help me to destroy the Black Rose! Let me grab it! Please!”
Goody notices just in time, and dodges from a spinning kick to the back of her head. Cinderella’s leg clangs into the rose’s protective dome as Goody rolls to the side.
Malice stands beside the Prince now. The Hatter is behind them. They are watching helplessly as the sisters resume their kicking battle on the narrow ten foot wide, circular area.
“What can we do?” Malice whispers, mortified.
“I hope to watch Cinderella die,” the Prince mutters.
The fight between the sisters is spectacular and acrobatic. It would be like a beautiful dance, if it wasn’t such a deadly endeavor.
“No,” Malice says. “We must save them.”
“There’s the rope,” he says, without looking down at it, which Malice realizes is because he doesn’t want to risk missing the moment of Cinderella’s death.
The fight continues. Goody Two-shoes manages to knee Cinderella in the stomach then hits her in the back of the head with the back of her hand. This sends Cinderella reeling almost off the edge of the platform, but she drops to her stomach on the ground to keep from toppling over.
The Hatter lets out a whimper. “I can’t watch.”
When Malice looks back, he is covering his eyes.
She doesn’t blame him, but she knows she herself must watch.
Cinderella manages to roll to the side, and get back to her feet. The twirling kicks continue, for several long moments.
Cinderella connects a spinning kick to the side of Goody’s face, sending her head crashing into the side of the throne.
Goody lies slumped against the side of the throne, so dazed she can barely move. Goody twists so that her back is against the throne’s side, only to see that Cinderella is now facing her with a smug expression on her face.
Barely moving, Goody Two-shoes looks back at Cinderella. Goody’s mouth is bloody, her jaw looks crushed—she seems to barely be able to focus on the image of Cinderella in front of her.
Next to Malice, the Prince mutters, “No, she mustn’t win.”
“You’ve had this coming for a long time, sister,” Cinderella says, as she lifts her glass-slippered foot up, preparing to stomp in the front of Goody’s face, and Goody is helpless, looking at the bottom of the shoe with a blank expression.
Malice hears a scraping sound next to her. In her peripheral vision, Malice sees the Prince’s arms rise. She looks over to see him holding the slingshot, aiming a lit golden egg at Cinderella’s head.
“No!” Malice shouts. She pulls at his arms, but fears it’s too late as the egg zings through the air.
The egg slams hard into the top of Cinderella’s thigh through the fabric of her gown, partially spinning her body, causing her to let out a yelp of surprise.
Malice’s eyes lose track of the egg and she thinks it may have gone past the edges of the platform, where it will explode safely somewhere in the chasm below.
“What?” Cinderella yells. She turns and glares at the Prince, who is already rummaging for another egg.
But now Malice hears a clink. Her eyes focus on the point of the sound and she realizes now that the egg had sailed straight up in the air and has just landed again on the platform.
She watches its path, spinning and meandering under the legs of the throne, coming out between the front two legs. She watches it spinning and going on a bizarre wobbling curve. With dread, she can see from the spinning blur, that the egg is still lit.
Cinderella sees it too, spinning a couple feet away from her.
Malice can almost read the thoughts running through Cinderella’s head, as Cinderella watches the spinning egg, trying to track its twisting, curving path, wondering if she’d be able to grab it and throw it over the edge in time, or if it would spin and twist out of her grasp.
A change comes across Cinderella’s features—perhaps she doesn’t think she’d be able to grab it in time, as she turns her head to the right to glare at the Prince, who is lighting another egg. Cinderella turns, starts running full speed in the Prince’s direction, despite there being only five feet between her and the edge of the platform. Cinderella leaps high off the edge of the platform just as an explosion erupts, consuming all of the platform in a ball of flame, hurling the sprawling figure of Cinderella upward in a boom of air and fire.
It sends Cinderella sailing directly at the Prince, who drops the slingshot and lit egg, and he almost seems to romantically catch her in his arms as he attempts to lessen the impact of her slamming into him.
In a daze, Malice is now lying on her side, watching them from the ground. She has been knocked off her feet, she realizes. She struggles to get back up, as she watches Cinderella and the Prince grap
pling, clasped in each other’s arms like vicious lovers, rolling on the ground. In horror, Malice realizes from brief glimpses, that the upper part of the back of Cinderella’s dress is gone, burnt away, and the skin of her back has been reduced to blackened cinders.
She hears the Hatter cry, “The egg!” to her right.
She looks to see him fling himself on top of the egg, sees the flash of fire beneath his stomach as it explodes, then he disappears from her sight.
Hatter’s mangled, smoking body lands with a thud into the ground, twenty feet away. His hat has been blown from his head. But she doesn’t have time to check up on him as she returns her attention to the Prince and Cinderella.
The couple are still on the ground, entwined and struggling. At the moment Malice looks at them again, Cinderella slams the side of her fist to the Prince’s neck, and he lets out an eerily inhuman cry. Cinderella pushes away at him, and rises shakily to her feet, leaving him on the ground on his back.
Cinderella looks down at him and laughs at him, but now her laugh begins to sound pained. She looks down to her abdomen, and Malice and Cinderella see at the same time that there is a dagger stuck in her stomach.
The Prince rises up on his knees, points at the dagger, and attempts a mocking laugh, but only sickly sounds come out. Malice looks and realizes now, why. The back half of a glass slipper is protruding from the side of his neck.
Cinderella is staring down in confusion at the dagger in her stomach that wobbles with each of her panicked breaths, afraid to touch it. The Prince, with a tender touch, presses his fingertips to the shoe slammed into his neck.
And Malice is frozen in indecision. This has all gone horribly wrong. She is almost too afraid to look at the Hatter again, because she fears he’s dead, or beyond hope. And the explosion has wiped the platform completely bare as well, so she knows there is no hope for Goody Two-shoes either.
Malice wonders if she should attack Cinderella. Cinderella still looks dazed and in shock. The Prince looks like he only has moments more to live.
The sky shimmers and flutters, like air in the heat.
A booming female voice rains down, saying “Goody Two-shoes? You called me? It’s Alice.”
And now a huge human girl’s face seems to peer over in the sky, like a girl peering inside a snowglobe.
Malice recognizes that face. It is her own face, and the face of her twin/reflection, Alice.
And at that spectral sight in the sky, Malice and Cinderella both cry out, “Alice!”
But the giant image of Alice does not seem to hear. Alice’s face peers around, squinting. “Goody Two-shoes?”
Malice calls again, while Cinderella coughs, but Alice doesn’t hear.
The features of Alice form into a pout. She thinks for a moment, her brow furrowed. “Fairy tales, unleash yourselves. I believe in you. You hear me? I believe in you!”
The sky begins to form what looks like cracks in glass, more and more cracks, jagged lines, until the very sky shatters and a howling wind comes over them, lifting them up like rag dolls, taking them to they know not where.
Everything goes black.
Chapter 19
Malice awakens to the smell of grass. She opens her eyes, and in her blurry vision, she sees that there is someone lying next to her.
She props herself on her elbow, and waits for her eyes to begin focusing again, and now sees that person is the Mad Hatter. A healthy Mad Hatter, unmolested by explosives, and with a dapper top hat upon his head.
Had Alice taken away his injuries?
Overjoyed by the possibility, she takes in her surroundings, and realizes that she is now on the grassy area outside the Queen of Heart’s castle. Well, last she checked, it was her castle, but one couldn’t be sure of what was going on, when it came to the comings and goings of Wonderland.
But nonetheless, her beloved Hatter is alive and well, which is all she can ask. The Cat’s head zooms up and delivers her a card from his mouth. Absently, she accepts the card in her hand, then she shakes the Mad Hatter to wake him. “Oh Hatter, my dear Hatter. Wake up.”
He gasps and looks about. “Malice, my dear! What’s going on? Why, the last I remember I was throwing myself on a grenade.”
“Alice, I think. Saved us.”
He sits up. “Alice? Well, I’m grateful, but I must admit, I don’t really know what’s going on. Perhaps I need to be filled in.”
“The Storyteller told me to give you that,” the Cat says to Malice, sounding peeved at being ignored.
Malice spies a little girl of about 10 years old in a blue and white dress and bonnet carrying a long walking stick with a big hook on top walking down the trail. Malice returns her attention to the Hatter. “I think Alice may have released all the fairy tale beings into Wonderland. And while she was doing that, she managed to save us both…”
“Yes on both counts,” says the Cat.
The Hatter casually takes the card from her hand and reads it. “It says deus ex machina.” He looks puzzled.
Malice says, “It’s like when the heroes of a story are suddenly saved from certain doom by the gods. So Alice was like the god.”
The Hatter sighs. “Well I can’t complain about being saved. And I’m glad you’re okay. But I can’t help but worry what the fairy tales being released into Wonderland means for our future.”
“Me too,” Malice says. “But come, let’s make the best of it. Here we are delivered just outside our castle.”
The little girl has walked close enough to them now, so she calls out to them meekly and politely, “Excuse me miss, my name is Bo Peep and I am seeking one of my sheep whom I have lost. Have you seen him?”
Malice is getting a bad feeling from the girl. Malice doesn’t know quite what to make of it all, so she says, “Maybe I have. But why do you ask?”
“Because,” says Bo Peep, as she pulls out a dagger, “I wish to slay him.”
PART TWO
Malice Hates Fairy Tales #2
Chapter 20
The two young men known as the Brothers Grimm are on opposite teams, which is exactly how they prefer it. It isn’t surprising to the Queen of Hearts, because it had become increasingly obvious to her how competitive the two are to each other.
Sibling rivalry, she thinks to herself, after catching the glare Wilhelm shoots to the Queen of Heart’s teammate, Jacob. The Storyteller, meanwhile, looks bored.
It’s the Queen of Heart’s shot. “Now mind how I grip the handle,” she says while demonstrating proper technique. And even as she’s doing it, she’s quite surprised at herself. Because to be honest with herself, she’s usually not one to help anyone else become better croquet players, but the truth of the matter is that the brothers and Storyteller are such horrible players that beating them had stopped being fun.
Because the Queen of Hearts had decided to at least have some fun while waiting for the twisted fairy tale beings to be unleashed.
“So now,” says the Queen of Hearts, “watch my posture. You must stand correctly if you wish the ball to travel in a straight line.” Her eyes narrow as she sees a cat head begin to form in front of them.
“Well there he is again,” she says with a huff. She puts her hand on her hip. As soon as the floating Cheshire Cat’s head has stopped forming, she says, “Now what—”
She doesn’t get to finish her sentence, as the Cat’s eyes grow wide and he lets out a quite cat-like noise of, “Mrreeeeowww! Alice contacted me during my catnap. We must speak to her! It’s happening!”
Jacob says, “What is?”
“The snowglobe! She wants to break the snowglobe.”
The Queen of Hearts is excited that the awaited moment is finally at hand. The magical snowglobe is where the Storyteller hid away the magical fairy tale creatures for safe-keeping. It is currently in Sleeping Beauty’s room of the Fairy Tale Castle, where the 11 year old girl lies in her bed in unending sleep.
They rush into the bedroom, put the magical top hat on Sleeping Beauty�
�s head, which allows them to form a line of communication in the dreamworld, as long as Alice, who is currently in the outside world, is sleeping.
The image of Alice appears as a floating image above the bed.
The Queen of Hearts notices the girl is wearing the same day dress she’d been wearing just a half hour ago when they had spoken with each other. This time, the girl’s age hasn’t changed—she looks about 16 years old.
The image of the girl does appear different from last time in one way, though—the image of her is waving, as if viewing her through rippling water.
The girl turns her head, with heavily lidded eyes, to look down at them. “Goody Two-shoes is calling me to…save her…” She slurs and is talking slowly. She explains, “Sorry, I took a bunch of sleeping pills to force me to sleep so I could contact you. I have to save Goody Two-shoes.”
“Why?” the Storyteller says.
“There’s no time!” Alice shouts in alarm. “You must show me the snowglobe! I must break its glass to save her!”
The “glass” she’s referring to is the glass dome of the snowglobe, inside of which reside all the fairy tale beings and Fairy Tale Land, miniaturized in order to fit in such a small space.
The Storyteller considers her for a few moments, before nodding. He kneels, opens a door of one of the nightstands. “The day has finally arrived,” he says. He rises up, holding the snowglobe in his hand. “Here you are, love.” He holds it up to the girl’s floating image.
Alice looks down at the orb of glass over the block of wood. “I shall connect my mind with the Fairy Tale Land.” She narrows her eyes, focusing… “I can feel it. Like my mind is reaching inside. Hold it closer, please, so I can look inside,” she tells the Storyteller and he does so.
She peers closer. “Ah, it is opening up. I’m starting to see inside, as if I am peering through the clouds.” Now she shouts, as if to the very inside of the snowglobe, “Goody Two-shoes? You called me? It’s Alice.”
