Owner Pose
Terry O'Neil Uffish had been true to his word, even if he had a tendency to write his words down so poorly that the spirit of the words tended to run contrary to the letters. This is something that almost anyone who has had to transcribe doctors' notes has experienced at one point or another. But that is beside the point. The Titans are making their way down from the Hill of Surveying, where the portal has opened, giving them a good view of the sprawling Woods of No Names, where the Red King is kept safely in anonimity, away from the Jabberwock's ability to detect him.

But the Nemonic Locator, which bizarrely looks like a gnomon whose shadow has absolutely no relation to the actual position of the sun, can find him. Indeed, the shadowy arrow seems to point somewhere, like some sort of nemonic North.

"From where we're standing," Terry says, shielding his eyes with his hand, "It looks like the King might be somewhere up in the North... North-east of there," the redhead points. "Now we just need to figure out if going into the Dream-side of things will help us avoid having our Names taken by the woods," he glances at Nick, "Hopefully, we'll be able to stay in the dream that's on the underside of Wonderland instead of... you know, dumping into someone's birthday party."

That kid definitely got one hell of a surprise. But at least he came out with two autographs. Terry, on the other hand, had to send his costume to the dry-cleaners because some cake frosting just won't come off.

Don't ask.

As the Titans approach the treeline that neatly demarcates the beginning of the Woods, however, from the neighboring square a surge of cavalry suddenly appears, as White Knights and pawns close ranks in front of the woods with incredible celerity, serving as a barrier to stop anyone from entering. A white Bishop with a three-tiered Papal hat holds up a hand and takes a step forwar, bellowing:

"You will not pass! These Woods and its contents are hereby placed under the hold of the Church of Alice, and none shall pass. Defy us and you will be treated as Heretics! Return from whence you came!"

Terry stops and looks back at the team, and purses his lips, "Well, that's unexpected-" he calls out, "Hey! We're just on our way to recover the Red King, guys. Just let us throu-"
"NONE shall have the Red King, but the Church!"
"Okay, this is ridiculous, we're just going to go in no-"


The army, as if one, reaches for its weapons, and the Bishop raises his staff.

"Okay... so maybe someone /else/ is better suited to negotiate-"

And then there is an awful rumbling coming from the opposite square.

The Titans know this sound. A mass of corrupted tree-beings comes forth, trailing dark ooze behind it and waving massive, sharp branches in the air. Behind them come several dark creatures that shift shape as they move, as well as Card Soldiers that once might have belonged to the Queens, but which now only bear a black mark across their suits. There are even some towering Rooks, shambling across the landscape, painted black with that viscous substance. The Jabberwock's minions are coming.

"Shit!" Terry hands the Locator to Nick, "Change of plans- Nick, Jon, get to the Dreamside and find the King. Gar! Go with them, Rabbit Hole them back to Queen Amy's castle when you find him! And Maddie-" he turns to the littlest Jedi, "You keep them safe!"

Because Gladys HAD been at the Tower, and she had taken GREAT exception to The Jedi being put in so much danger. This way, he figured, Gladys would not kill them all.

Much.

"And for the rest... Titans, you know what to do. Let's give them some hell!"
America Chavez     America has been waiting for this. Wonderland, for all intents and purposes, is another dimension and who better to help save it from itself that the transdimension heroine: Ms. America. She's in flight, because of course she is and doing her best to be be near the head of the pack. She's not a leader among the Titans, but it's in her nature to lead groups. (That's the entire reason for Titans NYC/Young Avengers after all.)

    She remembers the Forest, it's where she almost lost herself... if not for a very strange witch. (She hopes the woman was -just- a witch.)

    What she doesn't remember is the chess board figures of an army--and a Holy one at that. She listens to the dialogue between Terry and the Bishop and is just about to start negotiations herself... which is code for punching through, of course... when the Jabberwock's forces arrive. "Terry..." she says, hovering just above and behind him and straightening her star spangled jacket. "I'm a canon... point... and fire" she says, eyeing the rolling mass coming closer.
Kyle Rayner     Staying in the back of the class as the green knight, and making sure not to put his foot in his mouth after suffering a minor injury to his soft tissue earlier in the adventure, Kyle has been relegated to, be quite and be out of the way.

    And he's done a good job of that up until now and yet, once the triple-pope appears out of the woods with an army, the Lantern can no longer abide.

    The ring on his right hand begins to activate, when a second force appears with black ichor and the lantern hears the team coming up with concern.

    Kyle doesn't wish to circumvent leadership and so, he too looks to those that have been doing things in this group longer, lest he step on toes and get some panties ruffled.

    "What's the plan here?" Kyle asks, a green ball and chain weapon appearing in his hand.
Kian     "How can I be a heretic when I don't believe in their church in the first place?" Kian asks, quite reasonably... then sighs and shrugs.  "I should know better than to ask by now."
    He kicks into the air, not too high.  No gryphons... yet.  He definitely keeps an eye out.
    "Plan?  I don't know, I don't think we've ever had a plan actually survive the planning stage."
Kaida Connolly After her recent situation, Kaida was not happy with this Jabberwocky bully hockey! She came prepared. She was wearing her usual sword but her shield was not to be found. No, she left that behind because today she brought hell! Well, it wasn't clear it was hell. Anyone looking would see her usual cloak in place but something lumpy was in place.

She stayed silent as they spoke and casually shifted something on her shoulder with, what appeared to be small gloves on her tiny hands? That's strange. She is about to say something to the stupid bishops when the whole situation ignites, so to speak. She watches the incoming enemies and grins before laughing and rushing to the front of the group without even a thought, her cloak flying aside.

As the cloak goes flying into a passing wind, the reason for the missing shield and lumps is revealed. At her back, Kaida has four tightly wrapped tubes. She grins wider and then calls out.

"Today I came prepared and your friends aren't gonna like it!" She laughs out loud, "Not gonna like it at all!" And with that she pulls two tubes free and holds them before her, laughing. If one looks closely at the tubes, they have handles. One, well, one appears to have some kind of...puncture or needle at the top and do they seem to fit together? Strange.
Nadia Pym-van Dyne After multiple appearances as Alice, include an Alice on Mecha-Alice kaiju battle quite impossible to ignore, subtlety has gone right out the window in Nadia's mind and she has embraced her role as the prophesized second coming of Alice. It has proven remarkably useful on several occasions so far when dealing with the Church of Alice, what could possibly go wrong stepping into the role of a cult's messianic figure?

True to the role, Nadia is dressed in a yellow pinafore dress and black patent leather Mary Janes as she walks up behind Terry while he is speaking to the Bishop making no attempt to hide her presence. Her pace slows for a moment when the Jabberwock's army appears, pausing to look at it before marching straight up to the Bishop.

"You are holding what for whom? Why that doesn't make any sense at all. You are far too small to hold an entire forest let alone its contents. Over there is a horrible army of terrible things, if you expect /me/ to erase Him then you're going to have to help deal with all of /that/."
Michael Hannigan With the busy schedule set for Mike, the prep work to get into Wonderland mode was pretty minimal. Most of his concert attire was on hand to quickly change in to, and he's gotten well practiced in the art of hair mana-

... Either way, with enough warning, Mike had switched over to his on stage persona of Nick Drago, wild hair and all. The entrance in wasn't that much of an issue. The device that Terry holds gets a curious glance as he observes the shadow arrow moving about, indicating a direction.

And then things get complicated.

In a world of Chaos?

You don't say.

Finding the locator handed over to him and the change in instructions being given out, the musician nods as his features start to mirror themselves. "Got it." Nick replies, stepping back to look towards Jon, Gar, and Madde. "Okay, dream travel cliffs notes. Grab on. Preferably one of the arms. Close your eyes. Step forward when I say so. Don't open your eyes til I say so. Got it?"

Of course they do.

Once he's sure everyone's grabbing on and following instructions he nods, although they should not be able to see it. Nor after he starts to filter some of his energy into them, should they feel the nod either. They end up losing a few key senses. Touch, Taste, and Smell. "Alright at the count of three. Step Forward. One... Two...Three!"

When three is reached and the group steps forward, the four vanish from the view of the remaining teammates as they seemingly step behind an unseen curtain.
Madison Evans     Madison gets a solemn look on her features as she's given the job of 'protecting' her team of adventures. "I'm on it, Vorpal," she agrees - saluting cheekily.
    Though of course the thought of having to protect the Archivist is ridiculous.
    "No going Sith on us today, okay Grand Moff Sims?" she adds in a bright voice - before grabbing hold of Nick's arm as directed. Hanging at her waist is a pair of boken - the longer one having been replaced after she ruined it in a kaiju battle. She also has a telescope tucked into a pouch and- "HEY!" she calls over to America. "Did you bring that little vial of the stuff the weird lady gave us? Someone should have that stuff just in case!" She waves cheerfully with her free hand.
    Off to have an adventure!
Jonathan Sims     Jon hemmed and hawed before going ahead and wearing his super-suit to join the Titans on this venture. Whatever his current issues with certain things, he /is/ here as Archivist, kinda-sorta. And anyway, the armor's handy. He's much quieter than usual as they head through Wonderland, not really commenting on anything or seeming to have any desire to wander off. He just carries his ankh-topped staff (no sword today) along and watches. He doesn't seem /terribly/ worried about the Jabberwock coming for him. Not so much because he doesn't care as because he presumes all the Order that makes him so tasty is off wherever Ma'at's been while she's giving him some space.

    Wishful thinking, probably. Jon's whole body and mind were made from a certain kind of Order.

    When Terry tells him to go with Nick, he doesn't protest, and though he could surely get to dream-space on his own, if they're going Nick's route he'll follow instructions precisely. Madison gets the barest whisper of a smile before he reaches out with his left hand--very deliberately that one, not the glowing emerald one--to grab Nick's arm, and closes his eyes. Steps forward on three.
Garfield Logan "Well, I can't say this was completely unexpected," the Cheshire Beast remarks, clad in the same dapper black and purple as he's been most of the time since taking on the Cheshire side. He's left the flamingo cane behind, though it isn't as though Gar can't conjure it up with but a thought.

Yes, they should have been ready for some sort of resistance. The numbers game puts things at a bit of a disadvantage, however, and an audible is called to get some of them into the woods without risk of them losing their minds (any more than usual, that is).

Raising a hand with a V for the victory to come, the green feline says, "We're on it! Time to go get Kingsy back! But before that, a little parting gift for our adversaries!" Another bit of conjuring sees an oversized rocket launcher come into being, one that might give Terry reason to duck and cover. It's not aimed at him, however. No, not this time.

*K-THOOM!*

Instead, a bomb is shot out toward the opposing forces, and it explodes above them to rain green glitter down over the area. "Test your might!" he intones, providing a quote from a famous fighting game.

Then, he shrugs and goes over to wrap a hand around one of Nick's biceps, waggling his brows at the guy. "You been working out, big boy? Let's go do this." Eyes close, and when they show up on the other side in the Dreamscape, the senses that are lost cause some strange sensation at first, though once all is ensured to be working out right, they come back.
Colette O'Connail     Where to point cannons like America? Or green will-power construct flails? Or secret mouse-weapons? There's a lot. The Church of Alice is here in force, and in recent days what had once been a small cult has swelled with eschatological fever. The serried lines of the Church's forces now contain what must be the bulk of Wonderland soldiery, and under the command of the Bishop-Pope of Alice, they have a new, distinctly un-Wonderlandish sense of discipline about them. As the force arrays itself, more and more soldiers of different types come into view: pikemen with sharp-toothed pikes on the ends of their lances; a small group of berserkers yelling threats to the world, wielding great warhammers with hammerhead sharks as the hammer's heads; artillery units with academic mortars and more.

    And across from the army of the church is the army of the Jabberwock. Smaller in number, but far more twisted and unpredictable, an assortment of creatures that the Jabberwock's corruption has made far more fearsome. The dark force approaches with wary determination, and the cavalry of the church rides out to flank them.

    "FALSE ALICE!" The Bishop-Pope calls out, pointing his crook towards Nadia. "See! See how these outsiders prove their heresy with the false Alice! Do not listen to her, my soldiers! Do not be swayed by her lies!" He reaches within his robes and pulls out a mitre, which he balances on top of his three-tiered papal crown. "I, the Bishop-Pope of Alice, will lead you until the TRUE Alice returns! Behold the power of the TRUE ALICE!"

    The Bishop-Pope extends his crook and points it towards the corrupted trees. A stream of numbers and mathematical symbols streaks out from the end of the crook, and he sweeps it across the front row of the oncoming arboreal horde. Everywhere the strange numerical ray touches tree, the dark and twisted wood just peels away in a shower of bark and woodshavings, leaving dank and musty heartwood exposed, that bleeds the same dark ooze. The afflicted trees stop their rush with pained bellows, their roots extending and burrowing deep into the ground. Where they have planted themselves, the ground dims and loses color, and the trees -- slowly -- start to invigorate themselves.

    Behind the trees, the ranks of the Jabberwock's forces try a new approach. Ranks of card-soldiers come together to form a defensive phalanx, behind which a swarm of the dark, shifting shapes gather around one of the towering Rooks, clinging on to its stony skin. The Rook, already huge, starts to grow larger and more complicated, crenelations sprouting out all around until it becomes not simply a tower but an entire castle of dark stone lumbering across the battlefield, dozens of cannon on the ramparts taking aim at the Church soldiery.
Colette O'Connail     And now, just to make things even /more/ complicated, another force arrives on the scene, coming up the path the Titans had taken to get here. At the head of the small column is a short man, beating out a march on his drum. A man some have seen before -- Captain Drum. Behind him come Uffish, Hatter and Hare, the enormous twins Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, a great fat walrus with a carpenter riding on his back, leading a small rabble of townsfolk, mostly armed with flamingo mallets. Drawing up the rear is the Caterpillar, slowly inching his way to battle, and alongside Drum is perhaps the oddest figure of all -- a perfectly normal superhero.

    "Cheshire!" Captain drum calls out to Terry, unaware that the Cheshire is in fact elsewhere right now. "I heard you needed aid. There's not many of us, but we will do what we can to aid you!"

    "Tell us what too do..." says Tweedle Dum. "...and we shall do it!" continues Tweedle Dee.

    "Least we can do," says Theophilis, the Mad Hatter, giving Hare an awkward glance. "After the trouble we caused.

    "I have brought a device that may be of some assistance with some of the enemy," Uffish says, looking mildly embarrassed, and holding out a tiny box in the palm of his hand. "I had intended to make a portable fission device, but... well you know how I am with writing. I made a fishoff device instead. Perhaps it can be used to disarm some of the enemy..."

    Here at the last, it seems the denizens of Wonderland are acting almost rationally. It is therefore inevitable that the apparent non-Wonderlander would be the one to make things weirder. The blonde woman in the purple-and-white superhero costume and domino mask steps out from behind Drum, and stares at Terry. "Keith!" she says gleefully, her accent distinctly a little French. Before Terry has time to react, she swoops on him and gives him a hug. "God, I thought I'd never find you in this crazy place. Where have you been hiding? Is Gar with you? And the other Titans? I haven't seen /anyone/ since we got all split up. I was beginning to think I ended up in the wrong Wonderland /again/. Look, I brought you this!"

    She holds up a cat basket, then quickly lowers it again. "Oh! No... don't look inside it. I caught a boojum." She gives a pleasant laugh. "What was I thinking! Sorry. It was an accident! You know what I'm like. I accidentally created a Boojum trap, and I haven't known what to do with the thing. I'm sure it'll come in handy now though!"

    From behind her, a small shark's fin swishes through the grass, and surfaces by her feet. A familiar baby ground shark peers up first at Terry, then peers up more to look at Kian, and gives a happy "Mrrrr."
Terry O'Neil Terry doesn't have his powers. He does, however, have the swords that he has trained to use with Leonardo. For all the good that might do him- he is still squishy. And absolutely dumbfounded when the Crew comes to /him/ for leadership. He freezes for a second, because that hasn't gone /well/ in the past, at east in his own mind. But he /is/ from Wonderland, in a way. He brought them here. He's responsible.

"Right... right... Tweedles! Go and-"

And then it gets even weirder, because a Frenchwoman is hugging him and basketing at him, and his eyes go wide.

"COLETTE?" he says. "Why are you dressed... like that?" And yes, his mind may be broken, because this woman is dressed and acting in ways that he cannot possibly comprehend anyone called 'Colette' acting. So it takes him a moment, very much a moment. "I... er... Gar is with the others and... wait, did you just call me /Keith/? What the-"

Deep breath, Boojum basket in hand. "You know what? Just roll with it. Roll with it, O'Neil. Weird shit is happening. Wonderlanders!" Terry turns to face his countrymen, "Use those mallets to fend off the pawns, give them a good 'whack'! Green Lantern!" he glances at his friend, "You tussle with the knights, be careful, they can jump in an L! America-" Terry points, "Those Rooks are dangerous, see if you can punch some holes into them, but try not to get that dark goo on you. Kaida!" Terry watches what she has brought out, and the glint in her eye, and says ".... Carry on and give them hell! Alice-" he says to Nadia, making eyes, "Get your church under control!" Wink. He hands her the Boojum basket, "You might be able to use this."

"Carpenter, you know how to deal with wood-" he points to the trees, "You and Walrus take care of those. Kian? Those things that shift shape? They're dangerous don't let them come near! Theophilus and Hare- try to see if your friend Time will help us a bit, okay? But try not to irritate him." Pause. "Again."

The rest of us- let's show those playing cards how you /really/ play!"

He grabs a flamingo mallet that's being handed to him, taking Uffish's device in his other hand. "Titans! For Wonderland!"

And he runs off to join the clash.
America Chavez     America grins at the mounting forces. "Castle crashers..." she says, cracking one set of knuckles with the opposite palm and then repeating the process. "Got it." She streaks forward toward the mass of blackness and it's growing fortress. She dodges one cannon fire, and then another, a third she fires back at the fortress with a punch and a unworded grunt of aggitation, the fourth hits her squarely and sends her off trajectory.

    She rights herself before the massive structure and a wide smile is plastered on her face. "Oh... big guns... I've got a couple of those too" she says standing heroically before the massive sentinel of the fortress. "Lets see how your existence enjoys the dysfuctinal nebula of of the Gap Junction"

    She rears back a fist and punches a star shaped hole into the air directly in the path of the approaching fortress. It's a big hole too. Bigger than most she uses and she pushes the Starling powers to the limits making it bigger and bigger in order to eat away at the most she can of the Rook's growing form. The blue light clears enough to show a devastated landscape of ruined buildings and cloud dust in a place no one else present has ever seen. "Enjoy and you know what... so you're not alone. Let's send one of your -hombres- with you." Her other hand pulses with blue white light and she throws a similar punch at one of the crenalated towers with it's myriad cannons, sending it into a hole ow its own to the same location.
Kyle Rayner     "Weird Alice in Wonderland Orthodox to the right. Jabberwox to the left. And I'm stuck here in the middle with you... I'll fight the knights." Kyle says to no one in particular and in response to Terry, then a stupednously mischevious smile has appeared on his face, arming him much like the flail in his hand.

    The Green Lantern seems more than stoked to dive into a great battle in the hundred acre woods. He steps forwards towards the hosemen, with a look over his head to the rest of the team, "Maybe convince them we're on the same side, I'll... buy you some time to talk." The space cop says, his flail at his side and with each step, another green piece of hard light appears across his body. Slowly, piece by piece, plate by plate, the Lantern equips himself with what appears to be holy scale armor, but green, with a large shield on his left arm, flail still in the right.

    "I beseech you riders and fellow countrymen, to stay thy armies, and still thy need for war for we have yet to ... ummm... ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!" With a mighty swing, the flail is cast aside, but in the air above Kyle, he constructs and sends out a large icosahedron and sends it through the air towards the armies of the Alician Chruch.
Kian     "Shape-" Kian begins, still trying to get his bearings.  There's a **lot** going on, and very little of it makes any sense.  "Yes, fine, whatever, when this is all over with we're taking a vacation on **my** world."  It's not a question or an offer.
    They seem to be creatures of darkness.  The birdman first tries to discombobulate them with bright lights.
    And if that doesn't have any apparent effect, there are always explosions.
Kaida Connolly A look at the situation and Kaida grins as she looks back at the others. She makes sure her comm is on so all hear her and then she carefully starts connecting the two tubes, not finishing the process. She then zips off. She appears by one of the large tree enemies and calls out into the comm.

<<Do not come near where I am, FIRE IN THE HOLE!>> And she finishes the last twist and jams the thing right into what could be the foot of one tree and zips away. What follows is, well, not that big of a deal at first. You see, the first tiny chamber was an ignition switch of sorts. Each tube contained just the tinest amount of lithium and water at the tip. A spark of pink flames. Then, suddenly the two chambers broke and what was the equivalent of two packs of lithium batteries, cut open, disasembled and just their lithium sheets rolled into battery sized tubes gets hit by a jet of pressurized water.

A flash of bright pink fire blasts up from the sight of the inertion as she runs away laughing.

<<It's PINK!>> She declares while laughing.
Nadia Pym-van Dyne     Nadia eyes the Bishop-Pope and his 'science-math beam' "First, who even are you? Mary Ann is my High Priestess and she happens to look much better in a pinafore. Second, you can't be both a Bishop and a Pope, that isn't how ranks work, it doesn't make any sense at all. Third, Why should a /man/ be leading the Church of Alice? That is the most non-sensical thing I've heard yet. If anyone is a fake it is undoubtedly you. Fourth, I wouldn't even want Popes or Bishops in my church, religious authority based on hat size is absolutely ridiculous, a high priestess in a nice pinafore would be ideal, speaking of which where is /Mary Ann/?" She asks as she begins to grow, before adding. "Fifth, Physics and Mathematics are not just some magic ray you can wave about. Have you learned /nothing/ of questions, of logic?! That is no more the power of Alice, the power of Logic and Science, than you are a frog. Preposterous."

    At a height of at least thirty feet she towers above the 'Bishop-Pope' glowering down at him like the classic house-sized Alice after the eating and drinking mishaps. It is likely she had more to say to him, she was certainly interested in his answer about Mary Ann, but then her focus is stolen as a large icosahedron projectile hurls in their direction. "Damn it!" Money for Caitlin's swear jar. "I AM TRYING TO TALK TO THEM!" The already thirty foot tall Nadia pivots as she grows even taller and executes a spinning back kick connecting head on with the green icosahedron and sends it hurtling into the Jabberwock's armies instead, before turning her annoyed gaze back upon the Bishop-Pope and preparing to goal kick him into next week.
Colette O'Connail     It's not Colette. It does /look/ quite a bit like her, but it's clearly not her. Too friendly. Too French. "Bouf. Did you land on your head, Keith?" she replies. Perhaps she answers to the name Colette nonetheless. "/AGAIN/? I wear it because it is my costume, yes? Did you forget? And I call you Keith because it is your name, yes? And Gar is with Court? Jesse? Kara? Rae? Kori? Suun? God, it has been /months!/"

    America's assault on the castle tears great holes in the mighty battlements, the star-shapes rents in reality dragging masonry by the ton into the otherworldly realm beyond. Towers collapse throwing great columns of dust skywards, and cannon tumble to the ground.

    The shadowy shape-shifters clinging to the castle shudder and crawl over the surface in agitation; as they move, the walls start to rebuild themselves, the castle growing even larger and new towers sprouting even as America's tear in reality causes others to crumble. It is a finely-balanced struggle between creation and destruction, but the balance is shifted quite suddenly when Kian floods them with /light/. The shadowy forms flee from the brilliance generated by the Akiar's /Rhy'thar/, and as they cease being in contact with the castle, the great building's form ceases to change, and destruction starts to win out. Another tower falls, scattering a detachment of card soldiers marching below. The castle advances haltingly, stumbling on the hundreds of tiny legs that sprout from its foundations. Great blocks of stone come crashing from on high, and the tiny legs begin to trip and tangle on the growing mounds of rubble. Cannons swivel to bear, some vainly targeting the star-shaped rent tearing at the fabric of the castle, others to fire their iron balls at America - but they are no longer firing from a stable platform, and the castle is rapidly losing integrity!

    The shadowy shape-shifters flee from Kian's light towards one of the other Rooks. It looks like they're planning to repeat the trick.

    Kyle's great green dice starts its bouncing, tumbling roll across the smooth checkerboard surface of the landscape like a twenty-sided geometric solid of DOOM. Ahead of it are the flanking forces of the Church cavalry. Immediately the line of horsemen is thrown into a panic as they jump away from the onrushing dice. The careful formation that had been advancing across the field of battle in its careful battle order is thrown into a kind of disarray that can only occur when a large number of creatures that can only move in L shapes attempts to move without careful co-ordination. It would have gone ill for them had not Nadia redirected the dice with a mighty kick, but they remain largely in a tangled heap on the field of battle, and start the complex struggle of getting themselves back into the carefully arranged line of battle that allows them to actually progress. The giant dice continues to tumble in its new direction, where it crashes into a body of card-guards before coming to a halt, the number 8 showing proudly on the top.

    Nadia seems however to be having a lesser impact on the Bishop-Pope, who sneers at her, and takes yet another mitre from his robes to stack even higher on his head. "Young lady," he declares pompously. "I am the Bishop-Pope of the church of Alice, and if you think numbers cannot be a magic ray you can wave around, it is your logic that lacks, because I have just done so! That, my dear, is true logic. And this..." he raises his crook, and fires a blast of algebra straight at Nadia. "This is mathemagical power!"
Colette O'Connail     The trees that the Bishop-Pope had blasted previously have taken root, and as the ground around them darkens and looses color, they themselves grow stronger. Absorbing the very Wonderlandish nature of the ground beneath them, they are healing the damage done, and will soon be ready to attack again...

    Or would be, were it not for the intervention of a mouse. Kaida's lithium bomb, planted in the roots of one of the trees, starts with a slow blaze, but it's a blaze that only grows. The tree wails and thrashes around it as pink flames engulf it. Dried leaves catch fire and rain down around it, spreading the blaze to other trees nearby. The ground darkens faster, the corruption spreading as the trees struggle to draw in enough Wonderlandish energy to renew themselves against the implacable flames, but the trees cannot draw power fast enough, and soon the sap catches and a row of the terrible, twisted trees are no more than great columns of fire, dark ooze rising in smoke-like curls into the sky.
Terry O'Neil "Kori and Gar and the rest a- wait, who the hell is Suun?" Terry says, as he prepares to lead the charge towards the card soldiers. "Did /you/ hit your head and got an accent? I don't remember you being raised by a wild pack of Juliette Greco impersonators," he says, giving her a look-ver, "And it's Terry. Terry O'Neil... this is weird. Even for Wonderland!"

Using his mallet, he whaps several card soldiers, managing to disarm one and knocking two over, "How about a little help over here? I don't have any powers right now, Gar has them!"

He stops for a second to admire the pink flame, and he lets out a whistle. Perfect for Pride month. "I have to admit, that mouse has /style/."

He takes a moment to glance around. Things aren't terrible, for once. He suggested the team do something and so far it's working out for them. "Amazing, I don't entirely su-"

And then he gets bowled over when a card soldier takes him by surprise and hits him with his shield. Down he goes, the air nocked out of him. "!"
America Chavez     America dodges and weaves through the hail of misaligned cannon fire. Throwing more portals to other worlds of destruction the light and fire show of Kian is given a whoop of approval. "We've got them on the ropes, Ter--" she turns, just in time to see her friend get beaned by the card solider.

    Her reaction is instant. "Oh no you don't!" she growls and reality suffers another blow as she hammers another portal at the air beneath her feet that she quickly allows herself to fall into with a dive. The star that appearas in the air next to the sodier releases a speeding Miss America, fist first into the man. "Off of him!" she bellows and adds a punt to her assault for good measure, the Fuertonan strength putting his trjectory somewhere in the next kingdom over.

    She turns her attention to Colette(?) and arches a brow. "I... know you, don't I?" she asks. "Or... maybe not. Look... keep him safe, and let us handle this." She looks to the gathered forces. "You hear that citizens of Wonderland! Protect the Cheshire!" she calls out with authoritative confidence.
Kian     "**TERI**!"  The accent breaks through the translator as out of the corner of Kian's eye, he sees the attack on Terry /tenar/, and he reacts instantly.
    Remember the centaur archers in Tartarus?
    Pretty much the same thing.  Let there be exploding.
    *No one* is allowed to attack his /tenar/.  At any time.  For any reason.
    And when that is taken care of, it's back to the critters trying to reinforce the Rooks.
Kaida Connolly Pulling forth the second tube she made, Kaida grins over at her work and shakes her head. She whistles and then looks over at the bishop-pope thing face head that is attacking Nadia and she looks at her tube, she starts to push it together and then disappears in a burst of speed. She zips between legs and enemies alike, moving at various angles. Her max speed, her mach one movements are not done but at straight lines. So, when she gets into range of the bishop-pope she slams the tube, twisting it right at his feet and then she turns away, her cloak (which she retrieved in her path for purely dramatic effect), is tied back around her neck as the reaction goes off at his feet.

"Anata no ashi wa sudeni moete imasu." She says to the pope over her shoulder and then she races off at her more normal Interstate Highway speeds. Meanwhile, the pink flame starts at his feet as a spark before bursting like it did near the trees.
Nadia Pym-van Dyne     The beam comes straight for Nadia and there is definitely part of her that considers letting it hit her, after all she /likes/ Algrebra. But something tells her magic fake Algebra might hurt. For a moment it seems like she winks out of existence as the giant Alice seems to simply vanish.

    She doesn't actually vanish though, once ones eyes pan downward it is immediately evident that Nadia very rapidly returned to her regular size, neatly evading the highly suspect 'magic math beam' in the process. "You still haven't told me what you did with Mary Ann." Nadia's tone is almost too calm. "I've met people like you before, manipulating and bending the hopes and dreams of others for your own power. Bishop-Pope? Don't make me laugh. You're nothing but an opportunist grasping at ideas you don't even begin to understand."

    Nadia steps forward lifting the basket the Terry passed off to her earlier. "Those like you have no place in My Church." And holding the basket forward near his face, she lifts off the covering blanket off the other side, revealing its contents for only the Bishop-Pope to see within. "Now disappear like the fallacy that you are."
Colette O'Connail     The Wonderlands brought by Captain Drum too join battle. Lead by Hatter and Hare, the Wonderland townsfolk with their flamingo mallets flood forwards to support Terry, clashing with the line of corrupted card-soldiers. The strange Colette is with them, flying overhead, and comes to land between Terry and the card-soldier that knocked him over. She reaches out to place a hand on the soldier's shield... which promptly turns into a wooden pizza, which makes a perfectly serviceable shield still. "Putain de superpuissance merdique!" she exclaims in annoyance. There's a "Mrrrrrr" somewhere at her feet, and the land-shark surfaces to chomp on the card-soldier's ankle, causing him to drop the pizza-shield right in time for America's portal-punch to send him to the shadow realm. The oddly cute little land shark grins toothily at America, licks Terry's face, and dives back down into the ground.

    Colette offers Terry a hand up. "Perhaps that hit knocked sense back into you, Keith? I don't have an accent, chaos kitty. It's you Americans who have an accent. Who's Terry? No, never mind, it can wait." She tilts her head curiously at America, then shakes her head. "You look vaguely familiar, but I don't think we've met," she says. "Aren't you with the Avengers or something? Don't worry about Keith, I'll look after him!"

    Across the battlefield, the Carpenter rides the Walrus towards the trees, but with Kaida-created fires bursting out all over, they come to a puzzled halt as they try to decide what to do. It's hard to carpent burning wood. They look around and notice the line of pikemen with their fishy polearms snapping the air marching across the field of battle in strict order, ready to fall upon Terry and the townsfolk from behind as they fight card-soldiers. The Walrus and Carpenter mutter to each other for a few moments before coming to an agreement. The Walrus lets out a great piercing whistle that echoes across the battlefield, and from the distance a strange sound can be heard approaching, like a horde of castanets.

    As Kian turns his attention to the card soldiers around Terry, the inevitable consequence of a physics elemental capable of generating temperatures in excess of 451 Fahrenheit deciding to pick on soldiers made of paper is rapidly clear and the townsfolk find themselves having to back away from blazing enemies.
Colette O'Connail     Over where the towering Rooks march, Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee have intercepted them, the enormous twins bouncing Rooks from belly to belly between them to the beat of the Captain's drum. But with Kian distracted, the shadowy shape-shifting Warps have returned, and are in the process of creating another castle!

    To the rear of the Church forces, the scholars of the artillery regiment line up in a row, go down on one knee, and tilt their heads forwards. At a command from their captain, they all tug at the tassels hanging from their mortarboard caps and with a volley of booms that echo across the battlefield, fire their mortars. Columns of Earth erupt across the battlefield where the townsfolk are engaged with card soldiers. When the dust settles, the force of card soldiers, already ravaged by mallet-attack and Kian-fire, are thinned to breaking, but the townsfolk have taken significant injuries too. Dirty and bloodied, Theophilus lies amongst the wounded. "My hat..." he says pitifully. "I cannot feel my hat..."

    Small and easily overlooked though she may be, Kaida's actions in directly assailing the Bishop-Pope draws the ire of his army, and it's the score of Berserkers with their hammer-headed war-hammers that pursue the escaping mouse. With wordless bellows of rage they chase her at a speed not far from her own. Hammers smash the ground close behind her, taking great chomping shark bites out of the dirt with each each wild swing of a hammer.

    And yet behind her, Kaida's action has a far greater consequence than simply setting fire to things. For a moment, when Nadia shrinks to tiny size, a look of contentment spreads across the Bishop-Pope's face, and he reaches into his robes to place yet another mitre on the growing hat-stack on his head. "Now that I have dealt with that FALSE ALICE," he begins as he turns to look towards the Jabberwock's force. But then Nadia is back. As she opens the basket, the Bishop-Pope erects a field of integer numerators and denominators in front of himself to shield himself from the irrational power of the Boojum.

    "You think you could trick me so easily with that... thing?" the Bishop-Pope sneers. "Oh yes, I saw Drum and his Snark hunter friend. I deduced exactly what would be in that box you carried by the power of my logic, and I... I... and..."

    "AND MY FOOT IS ON FIRE!"

    The bishop-pope starts to hop around, bashing at his robes with his crook to put out the pink flames starting to burn there. The sweeping of his crook breaks apart the field of numbers, dividing them into fractions. He looks up aghast when he realizes what he's doing...

    And the Bishop-Pope of the church of Alice softly and suddenly vanishes away.
Terry O'Neil Terry gets up, after his friends have protected him. He has a nasty gash across the forehead, but any wound there looks nasty: there's a lot of blood to flow. It's nowhere near as bad as it looks. "T-thank you guys," he says, trying to pull his pride together. It has a long ways to go. But the sight of the townsfolk injured and blooded makes him flush with anger, "Colette!" Because yet, it's Colette alright. /A/ Colette in any case, It wouldn't be the first time, "Get the wounded out of there, I'm coming in to reinforce. America, take down the artillery, we're taking heavy losses. Kian, give Kaida some backup. Keep it up, everybody! We're making headway! For Wonderland!"

He sprints forward, as Kian clears the way for him, intercepts the pikemen that are coming from the rear. The Fishoff device comes out of its little box and he points it at the advancing horde of pike-men, and he pulls the trigger.

"You are of-fish-ially defeated!"

Hey, he's been hit on the head. Cut him some slack.
America Chavez     "On it!" America confirms at Terry's orders--he's the General here after all. The artilery shells coming for the group are met with star portal after star portal as Miss America decides that reality is her punching bag. The devastating mortar attacks are redicted, sending destruction into the new fortress being built by the warp creatures.

    All except one.

    America's worked with Kaida on a few missions now and trusts the little mouse to do more than her share of the heavy lifting. But a berserking band of hammer-sharks might be a bit much for the pint sized super heroine, so America is happy to lend a hand.

    "Kaida, coming your way!" she shouts, hoping the comms do the trick over the din of battle. A star portal appears a touch above the height of the Mouse-girl and a mortar shot flies out directly into the band of rampaging attackers in her wake.
Kaida Connolly "Whoa! I felt kinda bad about setting him on fire. Jeeze, I didn't think someone would blink him out of...WHOA!" And Kaida is forced ot dodge a hammer and then another and then she's off. She bursts of speed away briefly but the field is too chaotic for her to get any significant speed going. She is very fast in straight lines. Much slower otherwise. A hammer comes and and she dodges. Then another.

"Hey! Watch the tail buddy!" She then slips to the side of another hammer and then a portal opens up and a mortar flies out and they get smashed themselves. She skids to a stop to look back and then blinks several tims at the sight and then huffs. She puts a hand on her hip and looks toward America.

"Hey! I had 'em right where I wanted 'em! I mean, good hit and thanks but still..." She then laughs, spits on the ground where they sorta are and then zips off to see where else she can help.
Nadia Pym-van Dyne     With the Bishop-Pope vanished to who knows where, Nadia takes a moment to take a breath and steady herself. "Thanks for the help Kaida." She manages a smile at her mousy friend as she pops some pills she was apparently carrying in one of the dress pockets into her mouth.

    There is no time for respite though, there is a war to win, a war for Wonderland and the Jabberwock's forces must be stopped. Nadia turns to face the Church of Alice army growing as she does. "Church of Alice, I have returned! The time has come! It is time to fight! I ask you not to fight for me, but to fight for yourselves, to fight for Wonderland! The long dark time of living in fear of Him will come to an end, we will end it! Charge with me, lay waste to his armies, save the Red King! Only then will this world be saved! We can win but I need you to fight with me now!"

    And with that the giant Alice turns to lead her church-army into the fray and hopefully turn the tide of battle.
Colette O'Connail     America's quick-thinking portal use saves the townsfolk from greater devastation for the incoming mortar fire, but she cannot cover everything, and the Wonderlanders are forced to retreat from the continuing bombardment. They turn to run, only to find themselves heading into the lines of oncoming pike-men.

    The mortar shells America is able to redirect to the castle damages it, but soon the castle is returning fire with its own cannon. Kian's able to chase the shadow-creatures away, but they just flit over to another Rook, and start converting it too. Soon Captain Drum and the Tweedle Twins are forced to retreat from their battle, Dum and Dee shielding the captain from incoming canon fire with their enormous bellies.

    Even the mighty -- and rapid -- Kaida is in trouble with the berserker horde on her tail. The hammers are a slow weapon to wield against the agile mouse-heroine, but each swing tears a great sharkful of ground out from beneath her feet even if it misses. There's only so long she can dodge, and she's outnumbered.

    But the battle is turning!

    First it's the pike-men, who suddenly find their pike-staffs are pike-free thanks to Terry's use of the fishoff device. Suddenly weaponless, the line comes to a halt, staring at the oncoming townsfolk with their flamingo-mallets, and to a soldier they make the wise choice of surrendering.

    Then there's the mortar redirected into the berserkers. With their numbers much reduced by the incoming fire over Kaida's head, the mouse-heroine finds that she suddenly outnumbers her foe one-to-five. The five stare at each other and then at Kaida nervously, suddenly somewhat less berserk and considerably more polite. "So sorry," the berserker captain tells her, backing away. "Case of mistaken identity. Totally the wrong mouse. A thousand apologies ma'am."

    The remaining trees are on the march again, but that distant sound of castanets is getting ever-closer, and a veritable carpet of oysters comes swarming over the land. Under the guidance of Walrus and Carpenter together, the oyster army advances, shells clacking and snapping at the roots of the trees, taking woody bites out with every chomp.

    Then Nadia speaks up, to claim the role of the True Alice. After defeating the Bishop-Pope, will anyone deny her?

    Yes they will. Another bishop steps forwards, taking the fallen crook of the former Bishop-Pope, and placing the triple-tiered crown atop his mitre. "We will not be swayed by this false Alice!" he declares. "She cannot be the true Alice. She has too many answers, and not enough questions. She must be the ANTI-ALICE! Paladins of the Church, /habemus papam/ and it is I! I, Bishop-Pope Balthazar the f-ARGH!"

    Balthazar the fargh drops his crook, and his crown tumbles to the floor as he leaps in the air, clutching his hands to his fundament and grasping at his torn cassock. From the ground behind him comes a very self-satisfied "Mrrrrrrr."

    It is as if a sign from above, only from below. The other bishops in one voice call out "ALICE! ALICE! ALICE HAS RETURNED!" A general cheer goes up, and in a flash the paladins of the Church of Alice see to rearranging their lines. "Save the king! FIGHT FOR ALICE!"

     No longer to the church soldiers attack the Titans and their allies, but instead turn all their weapons on the forces of the Jabberwock. A powerful volley of mortars crashes into the remaining rooks, toppling three, and smashing into the already damaged castle. The cavalry, finally rearranged, sweeps across the battlefield to engage the shifty, shadowy warps and rout the last of the card soldiers. The oyster army is joined by pawns wielding axes, hewing at the trunks of trees.

    The battle is won.
Terry O'Neil "Good job, Titans! Let's see to the wounded," Terry says, brushing a hand across his forehead and smearing blood everywhere. Obviously when he says 'the wounded', he doesn't include himself in the count. He slides on the mud and comes to a stop by Theophilus' side, kneeling down, brushing more blood off his own face. "It's alright, Theophilus, we've won... just hold on and we'll get you patched up-"

And that's all he can say at the momentm because four figures suddenly appear on the battlefield.

Cheshire Gar, Madison and Nick Drago are familiar ones, but the man being held between them is not to the Titans: A man dressed in rich red clothing, with a long silver beard that goes all the way down to his knees. He is also dead asleep.

Gar hunches over to catch a breath, hands at his knees.

"Guys!" he exclaims, waving with both arms to get their attention, multiple sparkly, glittery signs popping up around him:

'LOOK HERE!'
'THIS WAY!'
'THIS MEANS YOU!'
'ARE YOU EVEN PAYING ATTENTION RIGHT NOW BECAUSE SERIOUSLY THE GREEN CAT IS YELLING AND EVERYTHING SO WHAT THE HELL ALREADY!'


He clears his throat. "I've got some good news and some bad news! First, the good news! As you can see, the Red King is secured! I repeat: target acquired! And you guys look like you rocked it!"

Then the other shoe drops. "As for the bad news, you might have noticed we went in with four and came out with four, not five. The one guy kiiiind of jumped through my rabbit hole and the Jabberwock kiiiind of had lunch. It was not cool. At all."

Madison cuts in, "We have to go back for Jon Jon!" she cries desperately, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

Gar snap-points at Madison. "Yes. Jon Jon. So, that's very much not good, and it's probably coming for dessert."


The Jabberwock just ate Jonathan Sims!


TO BE CONTINUED....
Terry O'Neil =====================================================

For a full view at what our OTHER heroes were up to, take a look at https://heroesassemble.mushhaven.com/scene/scene.php?id=11778 , true believers!
-Editor.