Prologue 0.0: The Hatter's Trick

Red Queen wanted for nothing more than a worthy challenge, and it seemed she'd finally found one.

"The first step to hosting any tea party...is to set a date!" An shrill man's voice, layered in a strong a British accent, had greeted her. "Ours will be at the coordinates I've sent you--I do hope you can make it, my girl!"

"It'll be a blast! And you're welcome to bring as many friends as you like."

This was the recording she'd recieved, through her private Ys-mail address, that prompted it all: sent anonymously, via an untraceable proxy.

It intrigued, and excited her.

It aroused, and instilled within her...

A sense of thrill, and adventure: the likes of which she hadn't experienced in some time!

Having reached her pinnacle as a Vorpal Knight, life had grown excrutiatingly dull.

Outside of the increasingly rare, truly difficult missions that pushed her to the extreme, Red Queen had little else to do but manage her small private army of elite Rank A Vorpal Knights--the Red Heart Head Knights--to perform all the most menial of missions for her, while she anxiously lounged in the cozy confines of her private suite, at Iroshiro Academy...

There, she would often reminisce about her early days...

Thinking back to a time when the post-collapse world was still a fear to be conquered, and her strength as a warrior was yet to be proven.

That is why, in the chronically bored S Rank Vorpal Knight's mind, she NEEDED this excursion into the unknown: the message's directions leading her to a secret, underground lair, found in a cave hidden among the rocks of a remote seaside cliff.

Red Queen was positioned at the forefront, her photon-bleeding Vorpal Scythe hitched to her back by a golden chain; a regal, white fur-lined red silk cape trailing in her wake.

Being as much renowned for her strength, as for her majestic beauty: hers was a doll-like, snow pale face possessed of an intensely staring amber eye, marked by a tiny red heart tattoo upon her right cheek--the extended bangs of her bobbed, scarlet red hair being draped over the other half.

As for her wardrobe: she wore a tight, belted red corset with a black collar, bearing spikes the length of knives; powerfully treading, thigh-high black boots, adorned with ever more belts; elbow-length white gloves, with shimmering gold highlights.

Indeed, to be as powerful as her, in this "Charming World," meant also having to look the part.

Joining her, were members of he Heart Red Head Knights: other young girls equipped in matching crimson red, basinet-style helms and gauntlets; black bikini tops, and armor-plated skirts with platemail greaves--a ruckus, of metallic rustling and clinking, accompanying their every resolute step.

Red Queen and her knights were one of the strongest fighting forces in the land, and yet something gripped even their hardened, brave spirits on that day.

From the very beginning, it seemed like something was incredibly wrong.

The interior of the secret lair was like nothing they'd ever seen before: the floor and walls imitating the subtle folds and mounds, as well as the rhythmic throbbing of the inside of an intestine despite its firm, metallic consistency, and adornment of tiny, neon-green glowing toadstools. As though the troop was progressing further,and further along, into the tangled bowels of some impossibly massive, mechanical behemoth.

After a long period passed of just walking, without any observable change in their environment, the entire troop halted abruptly--detecting a change in the atmosphere.

"Commander!" One of the Head Knights alerted. "That smell..."

Red Queen had caught a wind of it too:

"Green tea." She asserted--her thin, burgundy-painted lips creasing into a smile. "Have your weapons ready."

The corridor was ultimately resolved with an enormously large chamber, home to several clusters of giant-belled mushrooms, on a small cliff of lightly grassed earth with an overhanging ceiling--like a balcony--overlooking a vast ravine.

The space is fully illuminated: by the sickly, yellowish green eminence of one bulging, glowing pustule--attached, like a dangling uvula, to the centerpoint of the ceiling.

It is there, situated directly beneath this eerie light, where a bizarrely alien manifestation sits: comprised of an unfathomable number of black, fibrous cords, protruded forth from the alloyed ground like an outgrowing of tree roots--becoming so tightly entertwined as to form the shape of a short, flat-topped mound.

Upon this mound, a collection of porcelain crockery and silverware is arranged.

Their placements are alligned, perfectly, with the positioning of a dozen or so unmoving human forms, set at intervals around the mound's perimeter: their shoulders sunken and heads fallen, facefirst, against the devised table's slick, oily surface.

"Looks like we're late for the party." Red Queen murmured.

She viewed the eerie scene, in a lascivious awe--drawing her Vorpal Scythe and clutching it close to her pumping chest, in anxious anticipation...

As there, sat hunched upon a tall throne at the head of the table--

It jerked upright, suddenly, like a marionette having its strings yanked: a crooked sillhouette of a man, donning an overfitted patchwork top hat and faded, dirty, threadbare pink tailcoat; producing a hollow, creaking banter as he stiltedly hoisted up his head, to face Red Queen.

He inspected her: with sunken in, luminescent amber eyes, devoid of any hint of expression or blinking; set within a skeletally thin, alabaster-white face like a man's, draped in shoulder-length blonde, curly locks of of hair.

It spoke in a dandy Englishman's voice-- matching the one she'd previously heard in the message.

"Ah...my guest of honor. You've made it."

"Oh, but the March Hare was just hopping here, and now is hopping gone!"

"No doubt, he'll be sorry to have missed you."

"Is this it?" Red Queen said with a shrug, bitterly unimpressed. "Your invitation lead me to expect something...a bit more--"

"Exciting?" The voice interjected.

"Oh, no, no, no: I really did only say it was a tea party."

"A shame you arrived so late, however--we had a grand old time, as you can probably tell." He chuckled. "Everybody's passed out! Why, I've been sitting here with only myself for company, for such a long time, I'm really quite glad that you--"

"Shut up!" Red Queen snapped, never one to suppress her irritation. "One more peep out of you, and the next flavor of tea you'll be drinking will be your own fucking blood!"

Meanwhile, the Head Knights fanned out to secure the area. Some ventured out to the edge of the abyss, peering down it to find a pool of still water; others took up defensive positions around the cavern entrance; while the rest, forming a group, began inching cautiously toward the unresponsive tea party "guests," their Vorpal Assault Rifles poised at the ready.

Just as contact was about to be made by one of the Head Knights, however: a loud, shrieking cry could be heard, echoing from the farthest depths of the cavern.

In the ensuing dead silence, Red Queen turned to the crooked man with the top hat.

"What the Hell was that?"

Churlishly giggling, with his head cocked sharply to one side--so that it is laid flat against his shoulder--he delivered his ominous response:

"The March Hare, it seems..."

"Is hopping his way over here, again!"

Suddenly, the dark dismal surroundings melted and peeled away, to be replaced by a modern, plain white dining room with a long black dining table, set by elegant chairs where the unresponsive guests now sat, before an enormous window wall overlooking a bustling, night-lit city.

Red Queen's clothes had changed, too: as she now wore a blood red slit dress with the slits rising all the way up to her thighs, and much of her slight, lovely figure exposed by styled windows. Her hair was sideswept so as to no longer cover her face, the space around her eyes darkened with mascara and lips painted a glossy red: altogether to impart a sexy, mature vibe.

The Head Knights were changed into similar attires, their previously veiled individualities exposed with their helmets being gone.

Red Queen bit her lip, hiding a smile.

"This entire cave...it must be..."

"A simulation room!"

As she made this declaration, one of the tea party guests abruptly turned--raising its head toward a nearby situated Head Knight--exposing rodentlike visage with a high-pitched shrillits before clamping down unto her arm, with its huge molars--

"They're...Jabberwocks!" One of the Knights yelled as the other guests stirred, one-by-one: all of them varying degrees of human and animal hybrid.

"Fire at will!" Red Queen commanded, as a hail of bullets ensued--instantaneously eroding sizeable chunks the rat-headed party guest: leaving behind only a bloody, hole-riddled corpse to collapse to the ground, away from its brutally dettached head--left dangling, lifelessly, with its fiendish bite still gripping the Knight's arm.

Then, hearing a blood-curdling scream, Red Queen turned--just as one of the Knights was sent flying past her, a geyser of blood spilling forth like a trailing ribbon in her wake: issuing from the remaining stump of her recently severed arm.

Red Queen, rather than feeling remorse, or fear at this spectacle: was overwhelmed by an ecstatic, heart pounding, skin-tingling sensation.

Something...was slaughtering her Knights.

Something, significantly more powerful than the average foe.

Something, that might prove to be...

A worthy challenge.

Red Queen drew her scythe, a crazed grin forming on her face.

"Knights!" She barked, at whoever might hear.

"Restrain that crazy bastard with the hat for later questioning!"

Grinning to herself, she adds:

"So much for this just being a tea party."

..

..

"The March Hare," it had been referred to as previously, although it possessed traits of several other species as well as some defying any conceivable attempt at a natural explanation: the lean, sloped body of a canine with muddy brown colored hair, reared hindlegs and curved clawed feet; a height as tall as an adult elephant, but much longer horizontally--from its unvaried, vacantly staring rabbit's face to its fluffy, cotton ball tail.

Its massive, floppy ears would stick out aggressively: plated in rough sheets of scrap metal, as well as the top of its head: to serve, at the very least, as capable protection from the fired shots of the Vorpal Assault Rifles wielded by the Head Knights.

Red Queen could not safely approach it--whatever it was--through all its vicious thrashes.

Not through any "normal" means, that was.

So she shifted her attention around--seeing that the party guests had all been dispatched--then honing on the now fancily dressed Head Knight she'd watched be flung past her previously: now sitting, with their back propped up against the wall, desperately trying to stop the flow of the blood from their severed arm wound with a bandage.

She strode toward the Knight in a slow, suspenseful gait with a depraved, distant stare--recieving a timid glance from the cowering knight in response.

"You're badly wounded." Red Queen mused.

Then, she grinned: showing a vicious, full-teethed snarl--the very last sight of anyone who had crossed her.

"Might as well give me your neck."

The Knight's breath caught in their throat--a brief, startled moment of hesitation.

However, he knew what his role entailed.

He struggled to his feet before her, giving a proud salute with his wounded right arm.

"Yes, your Highn--"

TSHWIING!

Red Queen had reared back, preparing her Vorpal Scythe for a swing--

And cleanly removed the Knight's head.

In the torrent of blood that resulted, she split from reality as we know it--

A parallel, "mirror" reality--

One through shich she can view and pursue others, but cannot be seen.

6.28 seconds: that's how long Red Queen could phase into this alternate plane of reality, whenever she beheaded some-one or some-thing; or, for a much shorter duration, if she were to disllocate any other limb.

In this case, she had needed all the time she could get.

While existing in this plane, she glided effortlessly and invisibly through the air, like a ghostly reaper of souls armed with her scythe--wholly unbound by the laws of gravity, in her dogged pursuit of her prey.

3 seconds remaining...

Through her dyed red vision, she observed the beast closely for the first time:

With 1 second remaining, Red Queen sliced through the thin fabric of the alternate dimension with her scythe--creating a rift, through which she could escape back into the native dimension.

"Off with your head!" She screamed, followed by a maniacal laugh--

Falling from the sky, drawing back her scythe--

She arced it forward, to land a carving blow against the surprised Hare's unguarded neck--

Spraying forth its blood, the beast screamed.

She landed on its back, clutching its fur dearly to avoid being tossed by its wild thrashes.

Holding her scyth-blade in hand, she stabbed and sliced into its hide repeatedly, without mercy, without a hint of reservation or squeamishness at the sight of its torn flesh and gushing rivulets of briny blood.

The hare bucked and rolled--

It crashed and slammed into walls--

It shook, screaming at the painful bites of its unshakeable flee, before launching a final, desperate bound--crashing itself through--shattering the glass of the giant window, while simultaneously shattering the illusion of the simulation, as it is sent cateening off the edge of the cliff within the dark cave: plummeting into the still waters below.

There was a great splash, and a huge force of impact.

Red Queen was cast adrift, sinking deeper and deeper before collecting herself: glaring around frantically, but being unable to see through the black murk.

Yet, she could feel the ripples of something nearby...

She tasted its blood, mixed in the water...

Suddenly--

A great pair of jaws snagged her by the leg!

Opening her mouth to scream, only a deluge of bubbles spilled forth.

Her Scythe was gone--lost during the fall.

The March Hare shook her in its grasp, and began extending its paws to claw at her--tearing at her flesh and clothes, while she remained helpless to avoid it, and unequipped ro fight back.

Her chest and undergarments were gradually exposed by the damaging claws, baring her pale nakedness.

Through all this, mind was going numb.

A vacant smile inherited her face: a face of someone dying, whilst drowning in pleasure.

For once, Red Queen was on the losing foot: being beaten, and humiliated, by a stronger opponent, in a completely helpless situation--

Her heart pumped with sickening glee.

Her beautifuk naked flesh, now rended and torn with brutal scratchmarks, flushed red as roses.

Her mouth opened to emit an unheard moan.

However, the moment was still lacking.

Such a moment of pure, mind-numbing exlcstacy still could not be perfect--because she knew her situation wasn't yet well and truly hopeless, as she still had possession of her Charm Ring: a machine of incredible power, compressed into a tiny machine core that could fit neatly as an adornment on her finger.

For a moment, she'd had a blissful brush with death again, like it was a long, lost lover...

However, the climax would still have to wait.

The Charm Ring's core glowed bright pink, responding to Red Queen's subconscious will--commencing with materializing another Vorpal weapon, held within her right grasp...

It being, a Vorpal Bazooka.