11261/Alice Not What It Seems

Alice Not What It Seems
Date of Scene:	25 May 2022
Location:	Somewhere in the Monarchy of Hearts (Wonderland)
Synopsis:	Nadia Who Is Not Alice, Vorpal who is the Cheshire, and Gar who is ... well, Gar venture into Wonderland looking for clues and have encounters with trees, unusual milk, unusual fauna, and then Nadia join a cult.
Cast of Characters:	Terry O'Neil, Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Gar Logan

---

Terry O'Neil has posed:


"We need to have some care," Vorpal says to Nadia, faint light filtering through the canopy above them, "The last time we went this way, we had something come for us. But, admittedly, I think it was because Jon was with us and he was all... order-ly."

The Cheshire peers at his friend, and thinks for a few seconds, "You're not feeling particularly... orderly, are you?"

The mission was simple: Some recon, try to reach one of the populated areas and try to suss out some hint as to where the White Rabbit or the Caterpillar's Hookah might be. One would led to the other, anyways, since the former had stolen the latter.

The path through the edge of the Tulgey Woods was slightly lugubrious, a little ominous, and a little weird- with its strange trees whispering as they passed, and odd fauna peering from the foliage- but it was the fastest way to one of the villages. At least, as far as Vorpal recalled.

His memory wasn't exactly trustworthy, since it was acquired second-hand from his father...

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia's gaze keeps darting this way and that, as if everything around them is utterly mesmerizing. Because it is. Perhaps it is the elemental chaos that pervades the place making it so the experience never seems to be the same twice or the fact it is reminiscent of things she has only seen during mother/daughter bonding in one of Janet's peyote sweat lodges, but the ability of this place to defy any sort of repeatable categorization or even basic logic as she is familiar with it is endlessly fascinating for her. The laws of physics are often revised and rewritten with new discoveries but when basic logic comes into question the struggle to understand is real and Nadia is a girl who very much wants to understand.

"Orderly?" Nadia tilts her head lightly furrowing her expression as if she is unsure what to make of the question. "I'm not sure I understand but..." The sentence doesn't quite finish as she is already distracted by another bizarre and fascinating sight, peering up at a particularly odd tree.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"It's very important to stay focused while we- Nadia?" Vorpal stops mid-stride to look over a shoulder. Retracing his steps, he approaches Nadia and notices what she's looking at.

"Oh, this old thing? That's just a pantry." The tree in question is unusually broad, and its trunk is somewhat quadrangular. A knob protruding from one side of the trunk is almost unusually round and polished. Vorpal pulls it, only to have an entire section of the trunk peel away, like a door, revealing a large storage area inside the tree, with organic-looking shelves. Only one item is stored on the otherwise dusty shelves.

"Huh... milk?" Taking the Jar, Vorpal uncorks it and gives it a slight sniff, only for his eyes to cross a little. "... whoa, this is..." He corks it quickly. "This is Milk of Amnesia. Not something we should play with, but it might prove useful... uh..." he glances at Nadia, and his eyes go a little wide, "Uh... Nala? Er, what was your name again?"

Strong stuff, that.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Nadia." She supplies helpfully. She looks at the Milk of Amnesia, clearly a play on Magnesia, though knowing Wonderland that might actually impart the knowledge of how magnets work.

A number of ideas related to how this amnesiac milk might be used race through Nadia's mind, but when Vorpal suddenly can't seem to remember her name from just holding the bottle, she thinks better of it. "Yeah, maybe you should put that back." At least it's not Milk of Anemia.

Taking a step back she looks up at the tree again, "Though somehow I would have expected a Pan tree to have more pans or at least some pipe music." Someone has been reading about Themysciran 'wild life'.

"Right. Focus. Mission." She tells herself slapping the sides of her face. They do have a mission after all.

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan had been circling overhead in bird form, looking for a potential pathway good for pressing further ahead. There..is not much. Maybe it simply doesn't work that way in here.

Rounding his way back in time to see the end of the little interlude with the Milk of Amnesia, he lands back in his usual form, costumed red and white. "Is it coincidence that you picked these colors out for me, or was there something more to it?" Beast Boy wonders, head angling in a show of curiosity before he turns toward Nadia. "We got anything to go by here? I didn't see much up there."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal snaps his fingers, "Nadia. Right. Nadia... no... it's fine. I just got a whiff of it. As long as we don't uncork it or drink it... it might just come in handy." He glances at the bottle, "But if you think we should take it..."

When Gar lands, the Cheshire smirks, "I just thought they looked good on you. Dressing in dark and drab colors doesn't show your best asse--" He pauses, side-eye in Nadia's direction, and correction course, "Doesn't go well with your skin tone. The red and white makes your green look brighter instead of duller. Basic color theory!" Yes, that's exactly what was going on. Totally.

The cat rubs the back of his neck, not putting the milk back until there's a vote from the team, "Well, if I recall correctly, there should be a village here somewhere. It'll be hard to see from above because it's in the woods proper, so under the canopy. I was figuring we might be able to get some clues on where the White Rabbit might have gone..."

As he leans against one of the trees, it begins to make an awful, whooping noise, and the Cheshire's eyes widen. "Crap. A sentry- that means someone's watching this place, we should move... quickly."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
There are elements of lab safety that might normally come into play in Nadia's mind, but this isn't a lab. She thinks for a moment and then nods. "If you think it will come in handy and you're not going to accidentally forget how to breath or something, you're the expert on this place." She gestures around generally at their surroundings. "For all I know the dangerous things are the safest ones here."

Nadia smiles when Gar joins them from above but shakes her head. "Not much, Terry says this is just a normal Pan Tree, even though it doesn't have any pans just non-magnetic milk of amnesia." She looks back towards the direction they'd been heading. "We should probably just try to keep pressing forward and see what happens." But she's definitely guessing, because in this place everything is at best a best guess.

Gar Logan has posed:
Beast Boy gives Vorpal a look that suggests he doesn't quite believe him at face value. "Uh-huh. That's it? Basic color theory?" Attention turns toward whatever the most likely path is, and he points toward one less so. "What do you think? Do we have to go off the beaten path to find it?"

There's a little jump in place at the racket from the tree, and he swears under his breath. "Do they /have/ to do that? What the heck kind of tree is a.."

His eyes narrow, and he deadpans. "Of course. A Pan-Tree, now a Sen-tree. Right. Maybe there's a Pas-Tree, too?" Shaking his head, he goes whichever way they all decide on, aiming to keep together now that someone's liable to be expecting them.

"What we should be finding is the En-Tree," Gar adds, raising a brow toward both of them.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I clearly have been rubbing off on you," Vorpal says to Gar, and then he holds up a hand to place a finger on his lips, "Don't. Even. Say. It."

And that's when things get weird. Or wierder, that is. It turns out that the alley of trees is made up of... sen-trees. Vines shoot out and nab Vorpal on the spot, and several twine around Gar as well, but Nadia manages to elude getting nabbed. All at once, the trees begin to pull their captives towards them. The milk of magnesia jug falls to the ground, off Vorpal's hands, but doesn't shatter.

"Crap! We've been had for saps-"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Well this is certainly a pickle. When the vines shoot out, Nadia practically seems to vanish with the speed that she reduces her size and extends her wings zipping about to evade the grabby vines of the trees. "For Sent-rees you're not very good at Con-SENT."

Swooping down Nadia grabs the discarded jug of milk of amnesia from the ground, what she has in mind is either a perfect use for this stuff or very stupid, possibly both. If it can make Terry nearly forget her name when she's standing right there... she zips about buzzing through the trees and uncorking the bottle begins splashing the tree sentinels with the milk of amnesia, doing her very best not to get any on herself or her friends.

Gar Logan has posed:
Beast Boy remarks, "There's no need for me to say it when you already did." Gesturing toward Nadia again, he adds, "Everything he says has two or three different meanings, minimum. Whoa!"

Before he can get much further along with the thought, the vines snake around him. This is what leads to him turning /into/ a snake, making it much harder to wrap around him. "Nice try, but sssso sssslow! You almosssst had me, but I'm fasssster than you!" That remains to be seen. "And I don't know why I'm talking like thissss! I'm just turning into a ssssnake, but I don't really have to hissssssss!"

He sidewinds his way out of their grasp, but he isn't the quickest like this. "Keep sssslithering forward!"

Nadia's idea might just help make the way forward safer.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
And Nadia's plan works to perfect. The trees forget what they were doing- and, depending on the dose each one got, some even forget that they are sen-trees altogether. The vines recede and leaf them alone almost as quickly as they attacked.

"You know," Terry says as the vines leave him, glancing at Gar, "I had a dream like this once and you were in it, too." He smirks.

"Beatiful job, Nadia! Let's hurry before a forget-me-not gets torn by the wind and lands here and we'll have to deal with that bullshit, or something..."

The Cheshire leads them down the path, which winds into the forest deeper and deeper, the light coming from the sky dimmer with each second.

And then, light- the soft light of torches shimmering through the trees ahead.

"Aha! The village! I thought it would be this way!"

He quickens his pace and leads the small group to circular space that has been cleard in the forest, quite large.

It does look like a small village has set root here, with quaint little houses and shops organized around the circumference of the clearing, with one important building appearing to be a type of church ahead of them.

"It's a bit... empty," Vorpal remarks, for indeed the village doesn't seem to be bustling at all. There seems to be absolutely no sign of activity in the village... at all. Although there are signs that there was activity, until recently. A market stall of breads and sweets is still open. A bucket full of water is a little ways off from the well, as if someone was transporting it and forgot, or decided to do something else. It's rather eerie.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gar might be able to spot something- someone watching them from the slight-cracked-open door of the church. And then, it closes silently, but quickly.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Didn't we watch this for movie night once? Where everyone got taken away to get turned into zombies that came back to eat the travelers who stumbled into their seemingly abandoned village?" Nadia offers as she peers around the eerie clearing. She can't seem to recall the name and from the description it could literally be any of a dozen horror movies the Titans have watched at one point or another, but its certainly seems apt.

"That looks like a really big church, does Wonderland have churches?" She asks Terry curiously. "I wonder what religion they are. Did Jesus come here too? Seems he got everywhere depending who you ask."

Gar Logan has posed:
Once the path is not so bogged down by Sen-Trees and vines, the Garter snake returns to the usual Beast Boy form, the better for him to squint at Vorpal. "Dude, I do not want to know." All the same, there's a twitch at the corner of his mouth before he adds to Nadia, "Yeah, quick thinking, Buzzy."

It isn't long until they find the clearing that's been carved out to create the village, and his first reaction to it is, "Oh, this is kind of cute. But where is everybody? Hey, no eating or drinking. One, we don't know if it'll make us bigger or smaller. Two, if we don't pay, I don't want some card cops coming after us. In fact, we should--"

Eyes dart toward the church. Yes, there's even one of those here. But a church of what? Placing a finger to his lips, he motions that way before he creeps around toward one side. "Someone's in there. I'm gonna see if there's a back door I can slip into."

Grimacing, he adds, "Now you've got me doing it, cat."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"There... weren't churches in Wonderland. Last I remember..." the Cheshire frowns. "Nadia, can you make yourself real small and peer through the windows? Gar's taking the ... yeah, that thing." A meaningful look at his boyfriend. "We should be careful. Religion wasn't something I remember in Wonderland..."

Coming in through the back (shutup Gar), Gar will find something not too uncommon for churches of the era. He stumbles into the Vestry- the area that can be used as an office and for changing into vestments. This one just also happens to have a back door.

The Vestry is... a little unusual. There are no outward religious symbols in display, but there are a lot of icons of white kittens hanging from the walls. On the wall by the desk, there is a large icon of a young girl with dark eyes, black hair cut short, wearing a yellow-and-white pinafore dress, holding a silver scepter and crown.

There is another door leading into the rest of the building, where voices can be heard.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"I don't buzz! Do I buzz? I guess I buzz." Nadia had never really thought about it but listening to her wings there is definitely a slight buzzing sound from the engines that drive them. "Yeah, generally best not to eat the food in the scary horror village."

She nods slowly at Vorpal's suggestion. There isn't really a need to get small as she never returned to her normal size after the trees, still just flitting about on bio-synthetic wings. She has often found a more pixie-like state to be advantageous in scouting and exploration.

Flying over to one of the church windows she peers through the glass and just sort of stares for a good minute before making her way back again. "It's too echo-ey to really make out what they're saying but it's very Churchy, like the ones Cait goes to with all the weird rituals, but these rituals are weirder than most. Actually they're kind of like when you're feeling especially pretty, but with less glitter." She informs Terry. "There is a man in a long blonde wig with a young girl's hairband and wearing a yellow pinafore dress, but super long. A dress robe.. a drobe? And he's addressing the congregation. There's no dead guy on a cross though, instead its an image of an actual tree with a young girl sleeping under it. Almost like they worship little girls..."

Gar Logan has posed:
While Nadia is working things out with the more direct route, at least peering through whatever she can and listening further, Beast Boy works his way back around to the 'alternate' entrance. Upon trying the door, it opens for him and he pokes his head in cautiously before finding the room within is deserted. "Ah, right. The office and the vestments and all that," he says to himself, taking a look at the different things that are visible. White kittens, the same girl Nadia tells Vorpal about, and a few other things.

He gets small - really small, as in ant small - before skittering under the door into the nave. From there, he rises higher as a bee. If it clicks in automatically, Nadia will notice.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"... See what else you can find out," Terry says, sneaking up to the church door but not opening it. He puts his ear against the church door...



The priest is speaking with an altisonant voice, trying to sound quite important. "'Come, there's no use in crying like that!' did Alice sa to herself, rather sharply. 'I advise you to leave off this minute!' and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes." The man gives his congregation a good, solemn look, "And, you see, it is really quite important that we be as equally exacting upon each other as Alice was to herself- for it was our inexactitude, our inneraptitude, our profuse profilgatilectitude that caused her to depart from us. It is then, and only then, once we have exacted our most minutientious selves to standard, that she may-"

"OW!"

That cry? That came from Vorpal, as one of the faithful had opened the door for reasons of her own, and macked him right in the face.

"Someone's spying on us!" A rather weather-feathered eagle screeches, dragging a dazed Vorpal into the church and throwing him down on the nave, where the Cheshire oofs.

The priest looks absolutely furious, and points with a gnarled finger, "We must suppress him!"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Having relayed the information Nadia flitters back towards the window while Vorpal makes his way to the front door. The sudden presence of a bee in the viscinity does not escape her notice either as the small deely bopper antennae extend from the top of her own headband. <<Can you hear what they're saying?>> She asks the bee, half assuming it's Gar, but even if it isn't it might be willing to help her anyway.

When one of the congregants begins heading for the front door, she starts making pssst noises trying to get Vorpal's attention, but she is too small and the distance too far for him to hear her. She watches Terry being dragged inside the church. In a last moment bit of quick thinking she gets even smaller, closer to the size of a fly and zips around the church and through the crack of the closing door before it can completely shut following them inside.

Gar Logan has posed:
The connection is established, and while there's an initial moment of weirdness from it, it isn't the first time Nadia, or Waspette, has felt his mind that way. <<Yeah. It's a bunch of mumbo-jumbo nonsense, but that's how it is most of the time with a lot of these guys. They're talking about being as exact as Alice and using some ten-dollar words, and..hey, there's a bird dude coming for the front door and..aw, well. That's our cover, blown.>>

The time for being small is over, as the bee descends toward the floor while quickly growing larger, and the mental tie ceases. Beast Boy holds up a hand. "There isn't gonna be any suppressing going on here, pal. That's someone famous you just dragged in. Don't you recognize the Cheshire Cat when you see him? Come on, smile for them." Vorpal better be playing along. But what of it? Will that even matter?

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal is, alas, too dazed to fully be 'with it' here. He lifts his head, stars circling around it, and gives a half-ass smile before thudding back down.

"That," the priest says in indignation, "... does not look like the Chesire."
"Too young!"
"Barely a /kitten/!"

The congregation rises as one, baleful expressions on their faces, "Enough! He has heard too much. You have seen too much. You must be His agents- his spies! You will not prevent us from ushering her return! Brothers, you know what to do!"
"Dissolution!"
"Deformation!""Reformation!"
The Priest nods, "Dissolve!"

And, with a frightening alacrity, some members of the congregation start tearing down the church. Or, rather, taking parts of the buildin and folding them, as if it were only so much paper. Other members, though, start moving towards Garfield and Vorpal, chanting "Deformation!"

Two of them are holding something that squirms in their hands. It appears to be nothing, but it is a nothing that warps space around it, like a distorted glass. And it pulses, angrily.

The priest nods, "Let all of His servants know we are not afraid. We do this in the name of Alice-"
"Curioser Be Her Name" the congregation chants, as they advance towards our heroes.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Things quickly go from bad to worse to even worse, then worser than that and several levels of worse the English language is simply not equipped to even begin to deal with. Gar makes a noble attempt at playing the Chesire card but the congregation doesn't seem to have bought worse, they've gone from dissolution to deformation to /dissolve/. Nadia might not know a whole lot where Wonderland is concerned, but she knows she definitely does not want to be dissolved or for her friends to be dissolved either.

For all of her tactical acumen she just doesn't have enough information to make a plan, there's too many of them, she can't even rely on basic laws of physics being what she thinks they are. The plan in the end is more instinct than anything so rational as to really properly be called a plan. Really it's the only thing that she can think of in the moment.

"STOP!" Nadia shouts waving her arms as she returns to her full size, seeming to suddenly appear from thin air in the middle of the church. "Don't hurt my friends!"

Gar Logan has posed:
So, this isn't quite going according to plan. Welcome to Beast Boy's life. Welcome to the life of a Titan. Welcome to being in friggin' Wonderland, period.

"Okay, okay. Let's not get crazy..ah, crazier here. I'm sure we can work something out. Confession? You want a confession? Fine. When I was twelve, I.."

Blink. "Deformation? That doesn't sound too good. And what's with taking down the place? You really don't have to go that far. It'd explain a lot about this, though." It's the pair holding that distorted /nothingness/ that causes him to blink, stare, and back up, right into the waiting hands of a couple others. "Uh, in the name of Alice?" he all but squeaks.

Perfect timing, Nadia. So perfect. "Well, about that? You done gone and did it now. You made Alice upset."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
There is a moment of complete silence, and the astonishment is almost palpable. And then, as one man, the congregation drops to its knees.

"Alice! Alice! She has returned!"
"We are spared!"
"She will save us!"
"She has come to erase him!"

Vorpal slowly gets to his feet and glances at Nadia. "Right... did I mention that you kinda..." gestures.

The priest makes his way down to Nadia, his wig- which looks like her hair- lopsided in all the commotion. "Your Aliceness, I did not- I didn't- that is, we wouldn't /mean/ to harm your friends! We didn't know- please, do turn a blind eye to our ignorance and do not leave us again, we have much need of you!"

The church still has several panels missing, through which the light of day can be seen. Little by little, though, the light outside starts to dim at a slow, imperceptible rate unless one is watching. An Egret makes his way to Beast Boy and offers him a cup of water, "Our apologies, this was really most unfortunate- but fortunate as well, for She has returned! Drink with us and rejoice!"

"Please," The priest implores to Nadia, "Will you forgive us?"
"We have followed your ways!" a toad in livery croaks, "We have questioned! We have asked!"
A solemn-looking lizard adds, "Do not cast us off as Kitty- we have been good!"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
It is one thing to be aware of your resemblance to Alice, it is quite another to stand beneath the concentrated attention of a reverential cult. But Nadia manages to take it in stride, at least on the surface. She was trained by the Red Room after all and in truth after being informed of her resemblance to Alice, given the unfolding Wonderland situation, she took steps to learn as much as she possibly could about Ms. Alice Liddell. Which may also explain why she is suddenly speaking with a British accent as well.

"Of course I forgive you." Nadia beams a bright smile at the priest and congregants, which is hardly a stretch given her smiley nature. "Questioning things is good, asking questions is how you learn. Now I have a question, what is it that you need saving from and what is this about erasing someone?"

Gar Logan has posed:
Good. It's working. While there are gaps in the church, the villagers have all, to the last one, seemed to buy in to the sudden appearance of 'Alice,' thus proving she must be as powerful as they believe. How else could someone just do that? Well, Gar did too, but he doesn't look a bit like Alice.

"Right, what I was going to ask," he says quietly, as the egret is pushing the cup of water into his hands. "Ah, thanks." He doesn't sip from it, not yet. Instead, his nose wrinkles at something and he edges closer to Vorpal, as much to make sure he's doing all right as anything else. "And let's try to be quick about it. I can smell something pretty awful getting closer. Like rotten meat, or spoiled fruit, or Vorpal's underwear after a couple days."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The congregation grows apprehensive and quiet, and look towards the priest for guidance. The man clears his throat and readjusts his wig before speaking.

"We dare not name him. His ears... his eyes... we never know when he's not listening."
"Nor when he is listening," the Egret says helpfully, "Even though one should be able to deduce the one from the other,"
"Contrariwise," says a squat woman, rotund everywhere, "One might be able to infer when one isn't and the other is by a process of observation,"
"And counter-contrariwise," says another woman, her almost identical twin, "One might say that without knowing what to observe, the entire process would be futile."
"... after you left, Oh Alice, it all went wrong," the priest speaks again. "Only we didn't know. Not right away. It took some time... at first, it was merely a suspicion of things. Some pike here and there did not look properly spiky-"
"Nor appropriately acquatic-" interjects the Egret,
"And then more things... the whispers. The crumbling of the air. Certain parts became /dangerous/ to know. Mad- but bad mad..."
"And then, the heartache-" one of the squat women whispers.
The priest nods slowly. "And then, the Queen lost her heart. That was the first warning we had-"

And then, there is a sound. Like a peal of thunder in the distance. Or a roar.

And the smell intensifies.

The Egret tenses up and walks over to one of the openings, poking his head out, to try to see.

"After the Queen lost her heart... /he/ appeared. In the deep dark. In Tulgey Wood. The claws that catch..."
"The jaws that bite-"
"And he stayed in the shadows. For a long, long time. But some time ago... he started getting stronger..."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Despite having read through multiple editions of the Alice story, Nadia still struggles a bit to make sense of things. The Humanities was never her strong point, a STEM girl through and through. Still there are some facts that stand out readily enough.

"But if the Queen lost her heart then what is the Queen of now? Wasn't that what she was, the Queen of Hearts?" Questioning Wonderland is often a futile gesture, though questioning is exactly what these people expect her to do and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't actually curious. The bit about crumbling air is still being turned over in the back of her brain, not quite sure what to make of it other than that it could very well be literal knowing this place. Things that are dangerous to know, 'bad mad', that bothers her to as it only could someone who wishes to figure out and understand everything in the universe.

Some of it is easy though, the roar itself perhaps a dead giveaway. But the claws that catch, the jaws that bite, she recalls those lines from the poem putting name to the unspoken villain: Jabberwock. "Chesire?" Nadia turned Alice addresses Vorpal in such a way as to try and reinforce his identity in the mind of the Wonderlanders. "I don't suppose you have that blade?" She asks looking in the direction of the roar, where that intensifying smell has been reaching Gar along the wind has been wafting from. Her expression is torn. On the one hand there is the thought to get the heck out of here and retreat, on the other they'd be leaving all of the people to their fate after she just appeared as their savior. And it looks like that is something the Waspette is not want to do.

Gar Logan has posed:
"Hey."

Beast Boy speaks.

"Hey..."

He waves a hand.

"I said hey."

Now, both hands.

"HEY!"

The green, costumed Titan is now swinging both arms around for maximum attention, short of actually turning into something larger and more difficult to miss.

"Whatever /that/ is, it's getting closer! And from what I've read, I'm thinking I have a pretty good idea what it is! We need to get the hookah back for the Caterpillar, and the White Rabbit apparently has it! How do we get from here to there?" The urgency in his voice is rising rapidly. Maybe they still need some of that information about the Queen and more first, before they can really move on. "And can you guys get to safety?"

If it /is/ the Jabberwock, can they even fight it in the first place? He's grimacing at the thought, or at a thought, as he looks between 'Alice' and 'Cheshire.' He's just...Gar.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"No, Alice," Vorpal falls in step into the ploy, "I... can only summon it when, er, bad things have happened to me." He glances meekly in Gar's direction. Gar remembers what happened to him during the Shi'ar attack on that household. And he has probably heard ample reports of what he almost did to Gar's doppelganger. "No, I can't use the sword... I don't know how to call it otherwise-"

"But we haven't finished Dissolving the church-" the priest protests, but without much enthusiasm.
"We could draft new articles of incorporation-" the Egret suggests,
"And incorporate new articles" The lizard adds,
"And-"
"Yes, yes," Vorpal says, raising a hand to interrupt the stream, "But /can/ you get out safely?"

He knows to heed Gar's warnings. He could feel something bad coming. Something bad, alright.

The Egret frowns, "Yes... my wife can help them. But we need some time. She can only take one at a time."

The Cheshire glances from Alice to Gar, and frowns, "Then I guess we're going to have to buy them some time, right, Alice? Meet 'him' before it meets our pious parishioners?"

Thrum.
Thrum.
Trum.

When the footfalls sound like drums, something wicked this way comes.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Not exactly wearing a pinafore, Waspette armor will have to do. Nadia gives a nod in the Cheshire Cat's direction before looking back at the Priest and the Egret. "We will give you all the time we can, get everyone to safety." She deliberately steers away from the 'buying time' expression, not sure what it might cost here.

Hesitation is mixed with exhilaration as she turns towards the breach where the awful smell and roars are coming from. The unknown can be scary, terrifying even, but for the Waspette there are also few things more enticing. Amidst the gnawing uncertainty and even edge of fear, she still wants to /know/.

Gar Logan has posed:
"You know you can always make a new building, right? Replacing you is a little harder!" Beast Boy exclaims, and he shares a briefly knowing glance with Vorpal as far as the sword goes. "Then just, like, help keep it guessing."

He moves outside, by way of stepping through an opening the villagers have made in the church, hands balling into fists to await what they all think is really coming their way.

For all any of them can guess, it could be some cute but deadly Wonderland squirrel. "Don't worry about us. Get to a safe place!"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Thrum.
Trhum.
Trhum.

As the congregation is led away from the building by the Egress, one member at a tine, the Titans prepare themselves for a showdown.

"I have a really bad feeling about this, you know," Vorpal says.

Up ahead, they can see what is making that noise now. Or, at least, one of the things. Trees are falling. Very quickly, in the path of whatever it is that is coming. This is merely more than trees being chopped down, this is someone passing through trees as if they were nothing at all.

And then it finally erupts into the circular clearing, scattering leaf and trunk and bark every which way.

A group of strange creatures, enormous in size- a species of Badger with smooth white hair, long hind legs, and horned like stags. At least six of them, their eyes red with fury and their muzzles foaming. But, worse still, is the fact that a dark shroud seems to encase each one, probably giving off the smell Gar detected.

"Mome-Raths!" the Priest shrieks from one of the openings, "He's using mome-raths!" and he disappears, back into the church.

"I knew I had a bad feeling about thi-" Vorpal begins.
But then the priest appears again, with something red in his hands, "In the name of Alice!" he shouts-

And the red object, which looks like an enormous cherry, sails through the air and lands right behind the last of the mome-raths.

The thing goes off and, in a flash of light, only three remain.

The priest gives a blissful smile, and then he turns on his heels and runs back into the church.

And, shaking themselves from the shock of the explosion, the remaining mome-raths charge forward in a cloud of darkness, targeting each one of the Titans.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia watches the cherry looking red explosive with wide nigh sparkling eyes, she isn't sure exactly what that was but she's pretty sure she wants one! "That was positively wonderful!" 'Alice' tells the Priest. "I would positively love one for myself when this is over!" Of course if there were more they probably wouldn't still be dealing with three Mome-raths.

This time Nadia does not fly, she does not flit, and she does not buzz. Instead in true 'Alice' fashion, stepping forward she grows. Quite like the story soon she is larger than a house, towering as tall as the trees. And while it may not black Mary Janes or white ankle socks that comes to meet the first of the Mome-Raths, it is a huge stomping foot all the same that descends upon it with great force.

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan makes a show of cracking his knuckles and rolling his head side to side, as if preparing himself for a grand battle the likes of which will be sung about for ages to come.

What they see coming out is not the Jabberwocky, but rather the mome-raths. "Ooh. Ugly parents, ugly kids," he laments, but his nose is wrinkling again from that odor, stronger now that the source of it is before them. Suddenly, six are cut down to three as the priest steps up and it results in something useful. "...well done."

While villagers are aided in escaping to parts elsewhere, even Beast Boy is looking up as Nadia/Alice grows..and grows..and grows. "Oh, you're entering a world of pain," he warns, and while he doesn't get near as large as she does, he grows considerably and trumpets something about it before charging, as a green elephant, at another, darkness cloud included. "You shall not pass!"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
As Nadia stomps on one, turning it into purple sparks and a fleeting black cloud, and Gar Dumbo-charges at the other one, sending it into a tree with the same result, Vorpal just... stands there, watching as his two team-mates become positively enormous.

"Well, do /I/ feel woefully inadequate-"

And that's when his mome-rath charges for him. The Cheshire, however, was ready for him and a Rabbit Hole opens up to swallow it...

And then re-appears, high in the sky. The Mome-rath plummets into non-existence after dozens of feet free-falling. It also turns into a shower of sparks, and a fleeting black cloud.

But the black cloud passes by him. Close. And lashes out a tendril of darkness-

"Ow!"

Grabbing at his arm, the Cheshire cat steps back, a trickle of blood coming from his injury as the cloud dissipates.

"...Sore loser, I guess."

He removes his hand only to see that the wound has almost completely healed, just like that.

"Curioser and curio... well. You know the drill."

The cat frowns and looks around. The church is empty now, the last of the parish having escaped.

But there is a sense that something is watching them.

"I think we should beat a hasty re-group back at the tower. All in favor?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
It seems to a rout, though it is hard to feel confident with that sense of eyes upon them. Still if this was a test then perhaps their crushing it will give the beast pause. Still...

Unlike the Alice of the stories, Nadia has complete control of her size shifting and with the immediate danger passed becomes a more Alice sized 'Alice' in an instant. "Yeah," She agrees with Terry. "That's a good idea. This was a lot." And it will be a lot to tell the others about as they plan their next move. "And I don't like this feeling of being watched."

Gar Logan has posed:
All too easy, but it's better this way than the alternative. The villagers, strange as they appear to be with the whole Alice-worship thing they've got going on, won't be mauled and devoured this day. "And don't come back!" the elephant calls out to nothing, more or less, as the sparks dissipate.

By the time Gar's back to what passes for normal with him, he's on his way back over. "We all good?" A squint toward Vorpal, who looks like he got a little scratch, but the source of it went missed. "I think they're gonna be okay. We'd better get back before we have to deal with anything else. That could have been worse."