The door etched into the side of the tree took Alice back into the well. Where it was firstly a place of terror, she found comfort in its confined walls. The door disappeared as soon as all four entered.

The shelves were messy now. The jar of marmalade had an eyeball inside of it. Alice’s illusions were waning now, and she saw the world for what it was. Her body seized like last time, but she didn’t curl up into a ball and weep.

“… this place was my father’s house.” Alice finally remembered what this place was, hearing the footsteps outside. “I never knew his name. Or what he looked like because he was always sleeping underneath this house.”

“By the sound of the chains and shackles, it sounds like we have company from the 5th Order.” Revy confidently said. She had become an entirely different person. It has been said that people change drastically when under pressure. The timid look on her face had disappeared, replaced by nothing but devotion to escaping this place alive.

“5th Order?” Sana wondered what this meant.

“One of thirteen Orders from Grandis. All of them were part of the Kingdom of Puritas. Like Houses or Clans. Nowadays they’ve dissolved. The 5th Order were cruel to everyone that wasn’t them. They were the people who villages called upon to discipline troublesome members.” Revy explained as if reliving certain turbulent moments of her life.

She eventually relaxed, pulling her hair back as she fondly looked over at Alice.

“Looks like you had it rough too. Even humans weren’t spared from the misery. Alice. Let’s go beat it.”

“We’re resorting to violence now?” The Cheshire Cat wondered if it was the right thing to do, but immediately agreed when she heard the metal clanking of Sana’s Standard Talon.

“No. Not just any kind of violence. Extreme violence. Now that I think about it…” Suddenly, the barrel of the gun was pointed at the face of the Ceshire Cat. “… Be a good cat and die for us.”

Her broad grin instantly disappeared as despair consumed her.

“Wait! Don’t do that!” Alice jumped in front of her, throwing her arms out.

“Sana, this one’s alright!” Revy vouched with a hand on her chest.

“That’s until it shows you its real colors.” Sana was unconvinced. “Just lurking until the time is right. Waiting until it can take us all out in one fell swoop. Or to torture us day in and out and kill everyone close to us…”

“She’s… She’s not bad!” Alice defended.

“Sana! She’s not like the Impuritas!” Revy was also on the Cheshire Cat’s side. It was the first time the Cat was taken aback. Even when faced with the looming death from the Tea Party, she did not tremble as much as she did now.

Sana was the incarnation of death. Because unlike the constructs of this world, Sana would not make a show of their death. It would be instantaneous and unceremonious. The kind of death that would never be remembered.

“It’s a monster regardless. And if something happens again? If you two were to be crushed and mangled before my eyes? I’d never be able to forgive myself. Move.”

“Sana!” Revy grit her teeth. “This isn’t like you at all!”

“Not like me? If I were like this from the very start… From the very beginning…” Suddenly, a crater formed right between their legs. Sana fired a warning shot at them, her eyes narrowed to a terrifying degree.

Revy’s animal instincts screamed at her to flee. Sana would undoubtedly shoot them and heal them afterwards. She was certain of this.

“Then my friend would never have had to die!”

A train crashed through their world from seemingly nowhere, tearing down the walls. Sana’s past was revealed in a terrifyingly visceral manner. There were no illusions to mask the cruelty of the train crash.

A garden beyond the broken walls revealed itself. There, many more trains hurdling in random directions could be seen. Electric attacks in the shape of a giant fang could also be seen rupturing the air, dismantling the trains with ease.

Each train that crashed was crumpled into a ball that oozed with blood. Tatter clothes stuck out from them as she remembered how every passenger of her train was crushed like they were no more than ants.

A thunderstorm brewed from the garden of tall flowers. Petals scattered into the air as meadows were violently torn apart. Cinders fell from the skies as a certain proud wolf found herself in the middle of the onslaught.

The four were so preoccupied with fighting that they did not realize the train hurdling their way. By the time they noticed it, and their faces widened with horror, it was already too late.

“Would you all just shut up!?” Cer roared, appearing before them as though she had teleported. The sheer speed of a full-fledged Moon was unmatched, and with merely a single bite, the train was split into two.

Both sides passed by them, barely grazing their shoulders. Cer grabbed their hairs into a collective bundle and threw them aside to avoid another oncoming train. They toppled onto one another, with Sana’s gun luckily landing in a small clearing.

The ground shuddered as the Standard Talon fell. Were that to land on someone then it would’ve been a scene far worse than colliding head-on with a train. Cer didn’t even need to dodge the train. As if to display her power before them and the world, she anchored her legs knee deep into the soil and allowed herself to become a living buzzsaw.

“We all got stories to tell and relive. Don’t go thinking you’re something special!” Cer belittled Sana. “I don’t care what you’re going through right now! My priority is to make Frost proud, so none of you are going to die!”

Sana could not refuse the order of a Moon. Not this one of all people. Cer spoke to her like a stranger. In these desperate times, bickering was a death sentence. Reluctantly, Sana kept her mouth shut and agreed to spare the Cheshire Cat who had already forgotten that she was out to kill her.

“Weird.” The Cheshire Cat uttered. “These trains aren’t from the Escape. So where are they coming from?”

Where the trains originated from confused the Cheshire Cat, whose ears flapped and pointed in all directions. Her head twisted and turned like a keen meerkat as confusion filled her blue eyes.

“There’s an adult in this place?” She looked into the direction of where Cer stared towards. “Hey… Trespasser!” A strange determination took over the Cat as she tried to march her way to stand beside Cer, only to be grabbed by the fur of her chest.

“If I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut. Fuck off from out of here or I’ll finish what Sana started.” Cer ushered her only warning before she threw the Cheshire Cat tens of meters away. “Take care of them.”

“E-Excuse me! But what about you–!”

An electric fang severed one of the Cheshire Cat’s paws. She didn’t reel in pain or scream. Terror froze her in place, and she was unable to respond. The attack was so overwhelming that her sense of flight or flight ceased to exist, and she could only stare down at her missing appendage.

The wound did not bleed. It was cauterized and blackened by the sheer trauma alone, never mind the burn from the electrical aberration.

Cer wiped her lips and spat:

“It’s your neck next. Hurry and get them away from here. This place is about to disappear.”

Sana, Revy, and Alice whispered to one another as they moved towards the Cheshire Cat.

“H-Hold still. I learned this from someone.” Revy was about to tear off cloth from her dress but was quickly stopped by Sana who pointed the barrel of her gun at the Cat’s back.

“Tch. Leave it to me.” Sana assured.

One bullet was all it took to begin the healing procedure. However, the Cheshire Cat groaned in agony. Regrowing limbs was not a painless endeavor unfortunately, nor was it instantaneous.

“Why is the wolfwoman so angry?” Alice wondered as she was dragged by the hand by her fleeing group, sensing pure animosity poison the air.

Severed petals danced around her. She was caught in the middle of a flower storm as the scent of roses assaulted their senses. Cer, however, could only smell blood stir in the air.

The world shifted around her, for it reacted to her mental state as the rivers that ran through the flower fields turned red.

When the petal storm subsided, they were greeted with a shadowy figure.

It was a wolfman in a suit, with eyes, ears, and a tail matching that of Cer’s.

That figure was none other than Raoul, Cer’s older brother.

However, it was obvious that something was awry.

“What an unwarm welcome. Is that how you greet your own family?” It spoke identically to Raoul, going as far as to mimic his tired, drawn-out inflection.

 

 

“Fractured… Nilhim…?” Revy uttered.

Cer somehow heard her voice despite how far away they were. She was already suspicious of the entity, so to hear it be confirmed caused her to bare her sharpened fangs.

“So that’s how you dig underneath people’s skins. And I thought I was immune by the virtue of being a Moon. This place is scummier than I thought…”

“Is it not a wonderful ability of ours? To bring out the despair of others to light? To think that this form is all that fills your mind. Family as a nightmare. You’re truly despicable. You should reconsider who you work with.” It spoke again, offering her to switch sides. “The Deaf Paw lends his hand. The same hand this body had taken so long ago. Isn’t it poetic?”

Cer trembled uncontrollably.

Normally, Cer would grin and smile when in the face of danger.

Yet in the face of this aberration of her brother, she could wear nothing but pure malice. A massive, ten-meter field of charged electricity surrounded Cer as she loosened the buttons on her shirt.

She had already dropped her tie and suit prior to entering this place.

Such things were a nuisance even if they provided defensive benefits.

“… I’m going to give you one warning. Drop dead or you’ll wish you did when I’m done with you.” Cer had never been more offended in her entire life. She didn’t even bother to entertain its putrid offer.

Even fighting against two Woe of the Fallen Stars did not rile her up as much as this. Electricity cackled from her fangs, eager to annihilate the false Raoul that was insultingly paraded before her eyes.