Poisoned Piece: Castled Kings, Part 2
The day March was supposed to begin the hunt for Carpenter dawn clear and cool. He slept through it, straight on till mid-morning, then got up and had a leisurely shower- or as leisurely as it could be, with the need to keep his head in a plastic bag.
The Queen said he had to get started today. She was less specific about when today than she might have been, though.
He wandered around the Casino for a while before grabbing a late brunch in the mess hall the Diamond birds normally ate in. They tittered at his arrival and gave him wide berth, which was fine by him. He was just there to enjoy the view while he ate, after all.
Halfway through shoving a platter of bromeliad scones down the hole in his throat, he noticed that the tension in the room had skyrocketed again. He frowned, surveying the room: the Tweedles hadn't entered, so what was all the fuss about?
He watched as several more broads hurried in, moving coltishly in their heels and twittering among themselves.
"Hey," March called, finally. "What's got your panties all in a twist?"
They fell silent. He sighed, and stood up. "I said, what's happening?"
One of the dancers piped up as he advanced. "The knights are attacking!"
"The knights?" March repeated incredulously. "The knights? They were all wiped out years ago!"
"Evidentially not," the Diamond said. "You can see them out the windows on the east side, if you don't believe me."
He didn't, not for a moment, but he left to go have a look anyway.
Charlie waved his fist at the Casino, shouting to the heavens. "Come out you cowards! Come and face the wrath of Asclepius!"
Owl wondered for a moment who or what Asclepius was, before being distracted by the deranged grin on Dodo's face. It was a truly terrifying sight, more so even than the sword he wore on his hip. No wonder the Suits weren't coming out.
But even as she thought it, the familiar black of the Suits began to pour out of the Casino, and there was the whizzing of flamingos overhead. Owl clutched her shotgun to herself as she and Dormouse waited for the inevitable, watching as dozens of arrows as long as a man were launched to meet the Suits.
Alice sat in the grass next to her father, and waited. The plan Duchess and Jack had come up with was a fairly simple one: one of her contacts would let them in through the back door when the Queen had ordered her Suits out front to defend against the attack. Once inside they would make their separate ways; Jack and Duchess would go to the Throne Room and secure the Ring, Alice, Felix and her father would go to the laboratories, free the Oysters, empty the cell block, and essentially activate the self-destruct.
Hatter… she'd kicked up as much of a fuss as she felt she could get away with, but there was no getting around the fact that searching the entire Casino for a man who may or may not be brainwashed into thinking he was their enemy and may or may not be bed-ridden would take up more time than they had available to them. She would have to hope that one of their parties ran into Hatter, or else that he evacuated the Casino before it collapsed. She couldn't just leave her father with only Felix for protection: even if he was armed, his claim that Clubs didn't fight made her leery of his ability to protect him- at the very least he was out of practice.
Hopefully, if he was still laid up in the infirmary, someone would help him out before the building exploded. Or they had enough time after sabotaging the Tea distilleries to do a little poking around before getting out themselves. Or Duchess' contact would be willing to look for Hatter while everyone else was occupied. Or any number of the thousands of things that could go wrong didn't and he got out of there alive and relatively healthy.
"That's our signal, I think," Felix muttered as the whine of flamingos became audible.
"Okay," Alice said. "Let's do this."
"Quickly," Jack added.
They crept along the base of the building, crouching beneath windows pressing themselves against the wall until they came to the door. The door opened, and one of the Clubs who had escorted her to the Truth Room poked his head out.
"Darrel?" Felix asked, nose wrinkling in confusion.
"Hello Felix," Darrel said, tugging on his goatee… thing. "I suspect we'll be having these sorts of conversations a lot in the coming days."
"We should be so lucky," Duchess said, ushering him aside and gesturing for the rest of them to follow. There was the sound of a distant explosion and they hurried to comply.
Duck brushed some errant sod off his jacket, grinning frumiously.
"Down with the bloody Queen! Down with the bloody King!" he shouted as the Suits recoiled from the smoking ditch that now separated them from the Resistance. Then as the thought struck him, he added "And enough fucking cabbages!"
"Oi!" Charlie protested.
"Oh don't bother," Dodo ordered. "There's no reasoning with him when he's in this sort of mood."
"That's right, I am perfectly unreasonable," Duck agreed, still smiling.
Owl, he noticed though, was frowning. "Do you think that might have scared them too much? Mightn't they just go back inside?"
Dormie shrugged. Dodo scoffed. "Only if they're less afraid of the Queen than they are of us."
Duck turned back, and then frowned. "I don't think they are…" The Suits seemed to be moving towards them, running towards them as a matter of fact. The flamingos came around for another pass.
"Incoming!" Charlie yelled.
Owl sighed, and released the counterweight on the trebuchet, which catapulted a large rock right into the advancing Suits. All turned to stare at her.
"What?" Owl said, blinking behind her glasses. "Isn't that what 'incoming' means?"
Hatter had gotten out of bed at the first sign of panicked activity, and repeated the same process of filching clothes he'd used before, with the added step of pocketing some more painkillers before he left. It's how he found himself staring out the window at a sight that shouldn't be possible to see.
"Hatter!" March called from the down the hall. Hatter didn't turn around, but watched his approach in the translucent reflection in the window.
"Those are knights," Hatter said slowly when March stopped just behind him. As they watched, several large crossbows were launched towards the Suits, who ran to take cover behind a steaming pile of dirt Hatter was pretty sure hadn't been there before.
"They ain't knights," March replied shortly, grabbing him by his shoulder. Hatter winced as it began to throb again, and March loosened his grip slightly. "They ain't knights, and we gotta get you back to the infirmary."
"Oh, come off it," Hatter snapped, twisting out of his grasp. "I'm fine, especially if I don't move more than I have to. And what do you mean they aren't knights? What else could they be?"
"A distraction," March said, reaching for him again. Hatter backed off. March sighed, and smacked his hand against the ceramic of his nose. "Look, Hatter, even if they were knights, how long do you think they'll last anyway? We have guns remember?"
"Yes…" Hatter replied, wincing again as he felt a pang of disappointment.
"And whoever is out there knows that as well as we do. So why would a bunch of people start waving swords and catapults right under the Queen's nose?"
"To draw attention to themselves," Hatter replied instantly. "So you think they're the Resistance. That they're diverting Suits from whomever they're sending inside. And that whoever's here is going to come after me."
"You got it," March replied, putting his hand back on Hatter's should and using it to steer him back towards the infirmary.
"Wait," Hatter said, turning around to face the older man. "I shouldn't be in the infirmary, then. They know you found me and what a state I was in, that's exactly where they'll expect me to be."
March didn't move, blank ceramic features mere inches from Hatter's face. If they could move, they'd be arranged into the Look- the one March gave him when he knew Hatter was right, but found it dead inconvenient. Hatter could tell. It was a Look he'd gotten many, many times before.
"Listen to me," Hatter told him sternly. "I'm the clever one."
"You're too damn smart for your own good, that's what you are," March snorted. "Tell you what, go pick a room to hole up in, I'll come find you when this is over and you're in too much pain to walk."
"Won't be necessary," Hatter said, retrieve the painkillers from his pocket and brandishing them. "Because I'm more clever than you."
March snorted, and began to walk back the way he came. "Don't get into any trouble while I'm too busy to bail you out!"
"If you're not going to be there to introduce us, I think trouble and I will stay at opposite ends of the party," Hatter called back.
March made a rude noise and an even ruder hand gesture before disappearing around a corner. Hatter felt the smile fall off his face.
His first inclination had been awe- a good kind of surprise you felt when you realized that only half the fairy tales your parents told you were lies. His second had been to root for the knights, to mentally egg them on as the Suits advanced towards them. That wasn't how someone who had contacts in the Resistance only because of their books thought. It wasn't how they felt.
Which begged the question: who was he, then?
Duchess walked uncertainly along the ill-lit passage way. This part of the plan was all up to Jack; he was adamant that he knew a secret passage that led from the fitness center to the Throne Room. Of course, they had to have gotten to the fitness center first, and the passage in question seemed to be taking a lot longer than she thought it really ought.
"Are you sure you know where we're going?" Duchess asked, ducking around a cobweb.
"Yes, dear," Jack said, then cringed violently enough that she could make it out even in the dim lighting. Duchess could sympathize; he had just trodden on the toes of the elephant in the room and now it was trumpeting loudly.
"We will talk," Duchess told him. She couldn't afford to phrase it like a question, or a request. "But later, after this is all sorted."
"Fair enough," Jack agreed, then after a beat, added. "I know where we are. We just need to take the ladder at the end of this corridor, and we'll end up just behind the drapes behind the throne."
Reassured, Duchess continued after him.
Robert kept trying to lead the way, which put a hamper on Felix's ability to protect him. Not that his ability seemed to be much needed, since every Suit they'd come across had ignored them and scurried away as quickly as they could, but the sentiment remained.
"Are they supposed to be doing this?" Alice asked incredulously after the seventh or so time this had happened. "Because it's too regular not to be a coincidence, but I feel like it might also be too stupid to be planned."
"Good question," Felix said, reaching to push Robert behind him again. "They are Clubs- they're pretty much just supposed to shout for help when they see trouble."
"So why aren't they shouting?" Alice asked.
Felix couldn't come up with a better answer than "I don't know" so said nothing and pushed Robert behind him again.
"Felix," Alice called. "Why wouldn't they be shouting?"
He still didn't have an answer, but thankfully one presented itself at the far end of the hall.
"Ickle nine? Aw, look at you, you almost look tough holding that gun," Mad March said. The three of them stopped in place.
"Now- which one of you ladies is the broad Hatter kept calling out for again?"
March had told him to find a room. The way he said it made Hatter think the he'd probably been thinking of a broom cupboard or something, and also left him with a fair amount of wiggle room as to what sort of room he actually ended up in.
"Don't mind me," Hatter said amiably as he closed the door to the security booth. There. Now he was inside, secure, and had one hell of a view. "I'm just here to observe."
The Clubs shrugged and went back to their duties, and Hatter began to scan the many screens displaying the vantage points of the Queen's many eyes inside the Casino, looking for March- or the Resistance. Anything that might give him some answers.
The Suits had stopped their advance and backtracked a bit. The flamingos still whizzed overhead, but they stayed up high, flying useless circles up out of range of the arrows. They hadn't quite retreated, and to anyone watching from inside the Casino they would appear to be fighting the good fight, but neither side was doing much damage to the other. Amazing how great an incentive there was in not being crushed by a boulder.
"What are the chances that they'll go back inside?" Charlie asked, sounding worried. It confused him for a minute, before he remembered that Alice was in the Casino. Then he rolled his eyes.
"Not good, I should think," Dodo told him. "The Queen would have the lot of them killed, and for something like this not even the King could pardon them all."
Charlie's attention wandered visibly at that, and the Resistance fell into a disquieting silence. Every now and again one of the flamingos would dart within range, one or two arrows would answer it, and then the Suits would fall back, but for the time being the fighting had more or less been halted by the Suit's unwillingness to die in defense of their Queen, and the Resistance's knowledge that if the two groups were to face each other in close combat, well… it's not that Dodo minded the idea of hacking Suits to bits, but he did object very strongly to being shot.
"This is ridiculous," Duck said, shaking him out of his thoughts. "I should just blow the second set of explosives and be finished with it."
"Isn't that the set behind us?" Owl inquired.
"Yes," Dodo told her. "Which is why he's not going to do anything but sit tight and wait for them to get as bored as we are."
Duck snorted, but didn't move towards his detonators. Charlie however, tilted his head and stared at the Suits. "Do you think we could negotiate?"
Dodo rolled his eyes again and went to go sit underneath the trebuchet. He was surrounded by idiots.
Jack held out an arm to steady her as she alighted from the ladder. There were behind the giant cream drapes which had surrounded the Throne Room as long as she had been in Court. She'd heard it whispered that this was so because it cut down on the temptation to stare out the window when the Queen was speaking, which in turn cut down the risk of having your head chopped off. Today, she expected that it was so because otherwise the Court would be overlooking the battle, which didn't appear to be going so well. Actually…
She squinted, confused. There didn't seem to be much fighting going on. Suddenly the buzz of conversation in the Throne Room ceased. Jack grabbed her arm as the King's voice rang out.
"Okay, everyone out, she's coming and she is not in a good mood!"
There were the sounds of footsteps hurrying from the room, and Jack jerked his head to the side and pulled her after him as he made his way around the circumference of the room, trying his best not to disturb the drapes. There was the sound of the double-doors opening violently, crashing against the far end of the room, and Jack stopped abruptly.
"Winston!" The Queen shrieked.
"Now my dearest," The King soothed.
"Don't you dearest me when we're under attack!" She growled. "How are the knights alive? I wiped them out! I bombed them into oblivion! I set their homes aflame! I hunted their bishops down! I left their rooks to rot in prison! I killed the Queen and King myself! How could this possibly be happening?"
While the King hemmed and hawed, Jack let go of her and motioned for her to stay put. She motioned back several unflattering things about his sanity. If he was doing what she thought he was doing…
He moved forwards, pulling his gun out of his jacket pocket. Babd, Macha, and Nemain, he was! She followed him, and he spun around so violently that the draped billowed outward slightly. They both froze, but the Queen and King continued their conversation, oblivious to all else.
Stay hidden, he mouthed. Please.
And before she could protest he was gone again. She fumbled for her own weapon and suppressed the urge to scream. Yes, they needed to confront the Queen about the Ring before they could leave. But not like this- not now, when she was in the middle of the sort of rage that could be most easily satisfied by bloodshed. They should wait until the King talked her down a bit instead of charging in when she was liable to react with violence.
They should, but they weren't: because Jack, the love of her life, was as noble, honorable, and chivalrous as any of the Hearts had ever been, traits which at times also made him an utter imbecile.
Fine. She'd let him have his way, and when he got in over his head she'd come to his rescue. Again.
Today had been a good day for Dormie, if you measure it by the number of times he'd fallen asleep. He'd taken only four naps since the battle started, and didn't seem to have missed much because of it. When he woke up from nap number four, the battle had petered out to new lows of combat intensity; Charlie had wandered off at some point and returned balancing several large picnic baskets in a stack that looked to be slightly taller than he was. Dormie stared. He was far from the only one.
Duck walked over to where Charlie hefted the baskets on the ground, and was peaking inside each one in turn. "Did you bring a picnic to a battle?" he demanded.
"Why yes, I did," Charlie replied, reaching inside the basket he was holding and pulling out a sandwich. "Cabbage-and-rabbit sandwich?"
Duck stared at it in horror. Dormie's stomach gurgled, reminding him that it'd been a while since he'd eaten properly. Money was always a bit tight, but his wallet had reached new levels of slenderness since the Tea Shop was ransacked. He'd stayed, at first, trying to repair some of the damage March and the Suits had done, but once news of Hatter's arrest had reached him, he knew it was over. He'd fled for the Great Library, which wasn't exactly what you would call a seven-star hotel and restaurant, even if it did have some interesting gossip about Hatter and the girl he'd apparently given himself up for. She must be one hell of a woman to provoke that sort of reaction, though he hadn't spoken enough to her to judge for himself.
"If he doesn't want it, I'll have it," he called, hoping down off the trebuchet. Owl jerked out of her doze at the movement, and after adjusting her glasses to make sure that she was seeing things correctly, asked "Do you have any more of the ones with cucumbers?"
"Of course," Charlie replied, handing Dormie the sandwich. He bit into it, ravenously hungry now that there was food in front of him. He reached for the next picnic basket, frowned, and handed it to Duck, who spluttered.
The presence of food- and a great deal of it- drew attention from the other defenders, which in turn drew the attention from Dodo, who had previously been occupied with shouting insults of increasing creativity at the Suits. Whether that was more for his entertainment or theirs was probably open for interpretation.
"What's all this?" Dodo asked.
"Lunch," Charlie replied, smiling. 'Which type of sandwich would you prefer? I've got cabbage-and-rabbit, cucumber-and-mollusk, turnip-and-jub-jub…"
"You bought sandwiches to a battle?" Dodo asked incredulously.
"They're delicious," Dormie pointed out.
"Shut up," Dodo ordered.
"If you don't want yours I'll have it," Dormie said anyway.
"I said, shut up," Dodo hissed.
Dormie popped the crust into his mouth instead of answering.
"Good," Dodo said, before turning back to Charlie. "Now what exactly were you thinking when you decided to take time out of preparing war machines and pack a picnic."
"I thought that I'd keep these siege weapons in good repair, and that your people are decidedly underfed, you pompous son of a hedgehog," Charlie sniffed. Dodo's face purpled. "If you don't want one, then I shall give it to this young fellow over here."
He gestured Dormie, who was in the middle of licking the crumbs off his fingers.
"We're in the middle of a war!" Dodo roared.
"And an army marches on its stomach!" Charlie yelled back at such a loud volume that Duck jumped back several paces, clutching the sandwich he'd taken surreptitiously to his chest.
"Sorry, " Charlie apologized. "It's the escutcheon- it has a sort of echo effect, you know."
"You're mad," Dodo said flatly.
"I'm full," Charlie corrected him.
"Are we allowed more than one sandwich?" Owl asked.
"Yes, there's plenty go around! Help yourselves!" Charlie replied. There was a general murmur of approval, and Dormie grabbed another sandwich and headed for the trebuchet before he could be squashed by the incoming stampede. He got about halfway through it, with a pause to note that the Suits didn't seem happy about their lunch break either, before falling asleep again.
Alice stared, feeling the blood slowly creep up her face until her heart was pounding in her ears.
"Oh, that's right!" March continued. "It was Alice!" His voiced changed to Hatter's, ragged with pain. "Alice is safe. It was worth it. Alice is safe. I like the new duds, by the way." His voice changed back to normal abruptly. "Have you been shopping?"
"You two should go ahead," Alice said, keeping her voice as steady as possible. "This might take a while."
She was beyond furious, beyond raging. She was murderous. There was no doubt in her mind that not only was she capable of killing someone, she was about to.
"Alice!" Dad hissed from behind her. "You can't possibly-"
"Oh yes I can," Alice replied, not taking her eyes off the madman at the end of the hall. "Go. Get going." She listened as Felix dragged him away, and fell into a defensive position, waiting for him to make the first move.
March pulled out a gun and fired it. The bullet caught her square in the chest, and she was propelled several feet back before collapsing on the floor and lying very, very still.
Felix came up with seven different reasons why the sound that had just come from the corridor they'd left Alice and Mad March in wasn't a gunshot, but he didn't need any of them. Robert either hadn't heard, or was ignoring it.
Good. He'd never liked telling people that their families were likely dead. Instead, he concentrated on more productive things, like urging Robert to go faster by not pushing him back and lengthening his own stride. They reached the laboratories nearly at a dead run, and he came skidding to a halt just outside the door.
"Ready?" he asked, double-checking to make sure the safety was off on his gun.
Robert nodded and they pushed to door open. The Egg-men all stopped what they were doing, staring at them.
"Okay everyone!" Felix yelled. "Back away from the controls! Hands where I can see them!"
"Please do as he says," Robert pleaded. "The equipment is delicate- you all know what will happen if he starts shooting."
He couldn't tell if it was genuine fear that was making the scientist's voice tremble slightly, or if it was an act for the sake of his former underlings, and didn't much care as long as it got them to obey.
It did. They backed away, hands point towards the ceiling. Felix nodded and Robert stepped forwards and fiddled with the controls.
And, one by one, the Oysters in the Casino woke up.
Things that begin with the letter 't'…
Time. As in once upon a time he was a boy who lived in a cozy apartment with his parents. They were from the Grand Chess Alliance, Rooks, and therefore members of the Resistance. They didn't want to run missions together, but when they did he was supposed to hide in the space behind the armour. One time they didn't come back, and he'd had to sneak out twice for more supplies (and to empty the bedpan) before the Resistance came with the news. They took the books. They left him.
Too. As in he was always too hot, too cold, too young, too old, too scrawny, too tall, and much, much too clever to have much patience with the rest. One day someone realized that, and he found himself a partner. He got the couch, access to the shower and fridge: March learned to stop coming home with blood dribbling all over the carpet and soaking through to his clothes in the hamper.
Texts. As in he loved reading, loved the remembrance of his family they gave him, loved the feeling of having gotten to something the Resistance wanted first, as much as he loved the ideas and words and thoughts inside them. He kept his stash beneath the couch and tried not to let March see, but he knew, he'd known…
Thick. As in he and March were thick as thieves but blood was thicker than water and he couldn't get rid of the fact that his parents would not have wanted him to make his living like this. He began doctor the evidence he found in his mark's homes before bringing it to March, and not only when they paid him to. He did it when they had kids, or were old and kindly, or young and in love, or just because he felt like it. He couldn't get around the fact that even if the Resistance had abandoned him, they hadn't killed his parents: that had been the Queen. He was being sucked into their wake, but that was somewhere March couldn't follow, not as he was. Hatter was thick too; he thought he could change that.
Thyme. As in he'd spied on Thyme, as in he'd gone through with having March reason to kill Thyme, as in Thyme was the one who gave him his idea.
Tea. As in Serenity Tea, as in Calm Tea, as in all the other Teas he'd used to try to make March less dependent upon killing others. It was why he owned the shop- so he had access to a ready supply. And it worked for a time.
Tortoise. As in the Tortoise and the Hare, the race Tortoise won against all sense and reason. March was too steeped in Hatter's wares to chase after her properly. The King wouldn't pardon him. He lost his head because of it. And when he'd come back, he'd come back angry.
Torture. Tweedles. Turncoat. Traitor.
Was that him or March?
"Excuse me? Are you alright?" The Suit said for about the eleventh time, waving his fingers in front of Hatter's face.
He didn't know. He wasn't sure he cared.
He balled his splint-less right hand into a fist and lashed out with a strength he didn't remember having. The Suit crumpled to the floor; he got the gun he'd been wearing before the other one could leave his seat.
"Don't move," Hatter ordered, reaching behind him blindly for the doorknob. "Or the shot will go through your head."
He found the exit, and left.
Alice was here. Alice wasn't safe. Alice was shot by March. Alice might be dead.
Not a 't' word in the lot, but they repeated themselves over and over in his head as he took off running, heedless of all the reasons why that wasn't such a good idea.
March walked down the corridor, his footsteps the only sound in the empty space. It was a shame he had to kill the broad like that, but he'd heard stories about her. Normally he'd be all for finding out how much they'd grown in the telling, but then again, normally his head wasn't made of clay; he didn't want to risk anyone with a sense of how to hit good and proper getting a crack at it. One shot through the heart, quick and clean, and now all there was to do was to get rid of the body before anyone who might go blabbing to Hatter saw it. He didn't want to upset the kid. He was still in something of a delicate condition.
He bent over the body and grabbed its arms, and then jumped back as the body grabbed back and pulled, unbalancing him badly enough that he nearly fell backwards onto the floor.
His mother railing blindly, his father soothing ineffectively; it might as well have been his birthday again, if the sounds were anything to go by. Jack took a deep calming breath and stepped out from behind the drapes into the modestly-lit chamber of the Throne Room.
"You can stop your guessing," Jack told his parents. "The knights are here because I bought them here."
The stared at him, as though they expected him to be some sort of phantasmagoria. He stared back, level as calm as he could, and kept him gun pointed in their general direction if not actually at them.
"It was easier than I thought it would be," Jack continued. "They were tired of hiding, as was I."
Mother stepped forwards, color rising in her cheeks. "You foolish, stupid, worthless little-"
Jack trained the gun at her chest and cocked it. She stopped.
"Jack," his father said warningly from his seat on the consort's throne. "You can't shoot your own mother."
"Not any more than she could execute her own son," he replied evenly. "We need the ring, Mother. Things will go much better for you if you simply hand it over now."
For a moment, the color left her face entirely, and for the first time in his life, Jack saw what his mother looked like when she was afraid. Then her eyes narrowed.
"You won't do it," she sneered. She took a step forwards, and Jack raised the gun up. A shot through the head: the way the bullets in this gun worked, the body wouldn't even resemble his mother when the deed was done. "You don't have it in you." They needed that ring, everything depended upon that ring. They could clean the blood off later. "I can see you trying to talk yourself into it, and you're failing. You're just too soft, too-"
The sound of a gun going off rang through the room.
"How much longer is this going to take?" Felix muttered.
"It all depends on how panicked the Oysters get," Robert replied. He looked back at the video feed. Some of them had discovered that they couldn't move their feet. It wouldn't be long before the lack of mobility and sheer proximity to each other caused a spike of mass hysteria. He could release them then, but not a moment before, no matter how much he-
There was the sound of a gun cocking, then Robert suddenly found himself pushed to the floor as the Egg-men screamed and Tea began to leak out of the vat directly behind him.
"Robert!"
It was Walrus. Robert crawled beneath the table, scrambling around to the other side just before he would have waddled into sight. "Come out, Robert! The Queen's not very pleased with you."
Yesterday had been a busy day for Alice; in between reconnecting with her father and running between Charlie's camp, she'd also been properly introduced to the man known as Dormie. He was self-described as Hatter's best friend, a claim Alice had been skeptical of right up until he pressed a Kelvar vest into her arms and told her that if Hatter had really given himself up for her, he wouldn't want her to charge to his rescue unprepared.
"He wouldn't want you to charge to his rescue period," Dormie had confided, pausing to yawn. "But if you didn't, then I'd have to hurt you."
He then fell asleep, which saved Alice the trouble of coming up with the appropriate response, if nothing else. She'd been worried when she'd first tried it on that the vest might restrict her movements too much, but after a bit of thinking decided that the extra protection was worth it.
Now, as March reached for his gun and she ran for him, she was very, very glad that common sense had won out in the end.
The gun went off; the bullet lodged itself in the floor shortly before Alice's kick sent the weapon skittering across the hall. March started towards it, but was forced to retreat as she went on the offensive. Finally he lashed out with a well-aiming kick and Alice stumbled back a few steps as all the air went out of her lungs.
She fell into an attack stance, waiting for him to give her an opening. She needed to destroy that head of his, and she needed to keep him away from his gun. Everything else would just have to wait.
"Okay, so you want to this the hard way?" March nodded, the definite edge of a smirk to his voice. "Then we can do this the hard way."
Alice dodged his first punch, pivoting beneath it and striking out with her elbow. It barely grazed his ribs, but when he kicked out again she grabbed hold of his leg and used it to unbalance him. She lashed out again, latching onto his arm and throwing him to the floor. He rolled to the side just in time to avoid her heel coming down on his face. He spun, hooking a foot around her ankle and sweeping her onto the floor before getting unsteadily to his feet.
Club suits didn't fight, and Felix was beginning to be brutally reminded of why he'd preferred it that way.
He was waiting behind one of the vats, the sweat in his hands making his grip on his gun tenuous at best. He peeked around the edge, hoping for a clear shot. So many things could go wrong: he could miss and hit another vat and turn the entire room into a chemical bomb; he could hit Robert and doom all the Oysters trapped above to go down with the Casino; he could hit one of the Egg-men, and while he didn't think they were exactly innocent, he also didn't think that any of them deserved to die by bleeding out into a puddle of Lust.
He adjusted the grip on his gun again, swallowed, and chanced another look. Walrus' back was to him as he made his slow way around the lab tables.
Felix aimed and fired. The first shot went wild, hitting the door rather than anything valuable; the second and third shots hit his shoulder and waist. Walrus recoiled; Felix shot again, this time the shot went through the other man's eye, and he collapsed backwards, dead.
Robert got to his feet unsteadilly, and made his way back over to the controls for the Oyster rooms. His eyes widened.
"Everyone go!" he ordered. "Don't bother with the regular decontamination procedures, just run!"
His fingers flew over the keys as the Egg-men moved en masse for the door, and the vat Felix was leaning against began to shudder.
The light in the Throne Room spluttered and dimmed. All eyes in the room turned towards the nook just behind the thrones.
"Duchess!" The King exclaimed.
"Majesty," Duchess acknowledged, giving him a sardonic little curtsey before turning back to the matter at hand. "While we could debate all day about whether or not Jack has it in him to kill in cold blood, I'm sure no one doubts what I am capable of?"
There was an uneasy silence, which she felt comfortable enough to take as a yes.
"Now, Your Majesty," she said, addressing the Queen. "You're going to take that ring of yours and-"
There was a rumble and a shake, and with a start Duchess realized that they'd run out of time. "And come outside," she improvised. "We'll all be leaving the Casino now."
The Queen moved to leave, and Jack to follow her, but the King remained firmly in his seat. "No."
"No?" The Queen said, incredulously. Sadly, Duchess couldn't have put it better herself.
"You don't understand. The distillery is overloading. If we don't leave now this place will collapse around us!" Duchess told him.
"I figure it was something like that," he replied. Jack let his gun droop as he stared at his father in horror. Thankfully the Queen didn't notice, as she was busy staring at the same man in shock. "I'm tired. I love you, Mary, but there's nothing I can do to make you happy. I've tried everything! I would conqueror the world just for one smile- but it isn't coming, is it?"
"Don't be silly, Winston!" The Queen barked. "You heard the girl, we need to leave, now."
Duchess bristled, but didn't get a chance to reply before the King did.
"No," he repeated, then scoffed. "I've never said that to you, have I?"
"Father," Jack began.
The King spared him a glance, and shrugged, before going back to staring at the Queen.
"No," Duchess said. "You will get out of that chair, and will leave the Casino with us. Alive."
"What are you going to do?" The King asked, bleak humor dripping off every word. "Shoot me?"
"No. I will shoot her," Duchess told him, aiming for the Queen once more. "Then I'll take the ring from her corpse and leave you alone with the body for the rest of your short, miserable life."
The room groaned, and began to shake more violently, rattled the chairs against the table.
"Why not just shoot me anyway?" The Queen asked.
"Because after all you have done, you do not deserve the quick and easy route," Duchess sneered, as Winston got up and joined the rest of his family in leaving the throne.
They all left together, four royals in a mess of panicked Suits and Oysters, alive and with ring intact. Mission accomplished.
Alice rolled, crouched, and stood. March lashed out with a punch that might have dislocated her jaw if she hadn't been able to block it in time, and when he tried the follow it up with another punch she flipped him over, purposefully aiming the throw so that the majority of the impact would end up on his head. The ceramic make a great crash as it hit the tile, and she stomped down on March's face until all that was left was a smoldering mess of circuitry that lit the hem of her pants on fire.
Just as she was beating it out, there was the sound of footsteps pounding the floor. Hatter- Hatter!- came around the corner, skittering to a stop when he saw them.
He was dressed in suit, and carrying a gun. Alice froze, but he kept the gun pointed at the floor and walked towards them, looking as uncertain as she felt.
"Is he dead?" he asked. His voice was more ragged than she remembered it being, and the accent thicker.
'Yeah," Alice replied."I think so."
Hatter nodded, then emptied his gun into March's chest. Alice stared at him.
"Yeah, I," he began, running his free hand through his head. Alice caught the wince, and the splint that was still on his pinky finger. "I'm not certain of enough right now that if he's going to be dead, I'd like him to be really, really, absolutely dead."
"Okay," Alice said.
"You- uh," Hatter said, pointing at her. "You're- you-you are-"
"I'm Alice," she said, trying to squash her disappointment. She'd known this was a possibility. Things seemed to be better than she'd been told to expect; he wasn't shooting at her, and obviously knew that there was something wrong with him.
But, being Hatter, he surprised her.
"Oh, I know," Hatter protested. "I know you're Alice, I'm just stuttering because I'm trying to figure out everything else that you-"
There was the sudden sound of masses of people screaming in terror, and the building began to quake around them.
"Tell you what," Hatter said. "Do you know the game run now and sort the rest out later?"
"I'm very good at that game," Alice replied.
"Great!" Hatter cried. "Race you to the exit!"
It was only the sort of day that began with finding knights on your doorstep that could end like this, Hatter decided. His only consolation was that Alice seemed as perplexed by everything as he felt.
"Is it just me," Alice asked at they carefully made their way towards what seemed to be the main hub of activity, "Or did we miss a picnic?"
"I don't think we just missed a picnic," Hatter told her, nodded towards the giant crater, which had stopped smoking by now. "But I'm pretty sure some sort of picnic-type activity was involved somewhere along the line, yeah?"
"This has got to be Charlie's doing," Alice said firmly.
"Charlie?" Hatter asked. For an answer, Alice pointed behind him. Hatter turned to see and old man dressed in a white tunic and breeches- Charlie, he supposed- running towards him. That was all the warning he got before the same old man had grabbed him soundly around the middle and squeezed.
"Harbinger!" Charlie cried.
"Ow!" Hatter yelped. To his credit, Charlie let go and immediately began to apologize.
"No, no it's alright," Hatter wheezed, pressing and arm against his ribs. "Just give a guy a little warning when he's busted up, yeah? Okay?"
Charlie nodded, then smiled brightly. "You're alive!"
"Yes, that is true," Hatter said.
"I feared the worse when you were captured by the Queen's men," Charlie continued. "Lady Alice and I are both indebted to your valor."
"My what?" Hatter asked. "Wait, Lady Alice?"
"You charged to the rescue- distracted the Suits long enough for me to rescue Lady Alice and cover our escape," Charlie informed him, frowning a little.
Hatter blinked. That was what had lead up to all this?
"It's just Alice," Alice added quickly. "I'm just Alice."
"No you're not," Hatter told her. "You're never 'just' anything. That, I remember."
Alice smiled, and blushed, and Hatter was suddenly quite pleased with himself. She turned towards Charlie, and brushed a stray hair behind her ear. "Charlie, what exactly happened here?"
"After we reached a point in the battle at which neither side was willing to either attack or retreat, I decided that it would be a good idea to take advantage of the lull and eat some lunch. The Suits were even more tired and thirsty than we were at that point- it takes more energy to attack than to defend, you know, and don't let the trebuchet fool you they were definitely on the offense- so we came to an arrangement. They would lay down their arms and surrender, and we would feed them."
"You got the entire Suit army to surrender," Hatter summarized slowly, "With lunch?"
"My sandwiches are quite delicious, I'll have you know," Charlie informed them.
Hatter was still trying to absorb the knowledge of how interesting the company he was keeping these days was when there was a sound like a thunderclap, and they turned to watch as the Casino collapsed upon itself in a cloud of fire and dust.
"I have to find my father," Alice exclaimed suddenly, taking off for the group of people. Hatter and Charlie followed her apace, until she stopped short. Hatter began to look around for her father, remembered he had no idea who her father was, and then realized that it didn't matter. She hadn't stopped for dear old Dad; she'd stopped because of the Queen.
"No," Her Royal Highness was raging. "You can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!"
Alice grabbed a sword off the belt of a slightly pudgy man, ignored his outcry, and rushed at the Queen. The Queen very wisely recoiled, and then froze when Alice pointed the tip at her throat.
"That can be arranged," she said.
The Queen snorted. "Please. You don't have the instinct of a killer any more than my son does!"
"Tell that to March," Hatter said loudly, still not sure how to feel about that. There was a murmur through the crowd, and the Queen's face fell.
"Think about the people you've hurt," Alice said, very slowly. "And then tell me I wouldn't."
Looking decidedly sour, the Queen removed the ring from her finger and handed it the Jack. He held it aloft as she let the sword drop, to a loud, spontaneous cheer from all sides. For a moment, Hatter wondered why. Then he remembered.
It was the Stone of Wonderland. Jack-Prince Jack- King Jack?- had given it to her, she'd fallen through the Looking Glass chasing after him, and she'd fond him and he'd bought her to the man whose sword she'd stolen-Dodo! His name was Dodo!- who worked with Owl and Duck and Charlie! Charlie was a knight! A real, honest knight! He should tell Dormie. He was feeling a bit mimsy, though, so maybe that would have to wait...
Something was wrong. The hand he had tucked against his side came away sticky with blood. He must have pulled the stitches in his side, at some point, when he was running or hugging or shooting.
"I-"
But Alice was busy embracing a man who must be her father, and he couldn't get any more words out anyway. He was crashing too hard, too fast…
"Hatter!"
This was nice grass. He should take some for his office.
"Hatter, hold on," Alice said, clasping his hand. Obediently, he squeezed back, and then put his other hand on top of hers.
"Breathing hurts," he told her.
"I know," Alice told him, from under the lake she'd fallen in. "Just hold on Hatter, we're getting help. Just hold on."
The water was too deep and dark for his grip and Alice was gone.
Next chapter is here.