Fellowship & Fairydust

“This is Wonderland?” Jason asked as we approached from our two Gummi ships. I was surprised that Sora, Donald, and Goofy had a ship of their own, though it was smaller and not as impressive as Scrooge’s was. Right now we were outside of Wonderland, and all I could see was a big gaping hole that led down somewhere. Not exactly the most inviting place to see. 

“Yep,” Sora said with a smile on his screen. “We’ll meet you down there.” With that, his face disappeared and we saw them emerge from their gummi. I expected them to fall super fast into the hole, but to my surprise, they didn’t. Instead, they slowly floated down like gravity had been turned off for them. 

“What in Gri’s name?” Jason asked. 

Heading to the door, the seasoned adventurer told us, “Well, come along. We cannot keep them waiting.” 

“Waiting? They just jumped down a hole!” 

“Then we should hurry and catch up to them,” Scrooge told us as he opened the door. “Come on, then. Let’s not wait until Christmas.”

“Until what?” I asked. 

“It’s a holiday… I’ll tell you about it if you hurry up.” 

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I was always willing to learn new things and tended to be too curious for my good. Heading to the door, I prepared to jump out when I made the mistake of looking down. All I could see was blackness in that hole, with no indication of it having a bottom. I ended up taking a step back from it.

“Is there no other way?” Jason asked from behind me.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Scrooge asked. 

I heard my cousin give out a sigh as he said, “Then I guess we’d better hurry this along.”

“What are you– Jason!” I cried out as I felt my cousin push me in the back sending me out of the gummi and towards the hole. At first, I couldn’t help but scream as I fell, but stopped when the effects of gravity slowed on me just like I had seen with Sora and the others. I have to be honest, this was one strange sensation. I felt like I was back in space, outside of the station before I had been pulled from my world. 

As I floated down the hole, I noticed an old lamp that was lit, and several pieces of furniture that were all floating in the air. Beds, couches, chairs, bookshelves, tables, they could all be found in this strange hole. I took a book from one of the shelves, but to my surprise, it was full of nothing but pictures. No words to be found whatsoever. What kind of world was this?

As I kept on with my descent, I noticed the bottom was approaching, and the others were waiting for me. As I approached, I felt gravity turn back on for me a few inches before I touched the ground. The effect was jarring, and I almost fell over, but Kairi grabbed me before I could fall over. “Careful.” 

“Look out below.” We heard Scrooge warn us, prompting us to look up where we saw him and Jason floating down. AS we took a step back, the two of them made it to us, though Jason ended up falling over when the weightlessness wore off. “Ah, nothing like feeling light as a feather to start your adventure with.” The old duck said as he looked around. “Though I must admit, I’ve never seen a place this strange before.” 

“I’ve heard about this place, but this is my first time seeing it,” Kairi said as we started down a hallway. The tunnel was all sorts of colors that shouldn’t be used for a hallway, like blue, and green, and had furniture painted into the walls, floor, and… the ceiling? What in Gri’s name? 

As we turned a corner, we came across a door that just seemed abrupt and out of the blue. Muttering something about strange things, Jason opened the door, except there was another door behind that one! And it was smaller than the last one. “What is going on?”

“Yeah, nothing makes sense in Wonderland,” Sora explained to us. “It’s pretty much anything goes.” 

“NOW you tell us.” Jason groaned as he opened that door, and found yet another, smaller door behind it. Grasping the knob like he was going to rip it off, he opened it to find a hole. “About time.” Getting down, he began to squeeze his way through the hole. Well, that was going to take some time for us to all get through. 

 

***

 

A few minutes later, we had all managed to squeeze through the hole only to find ourselves in a strange little room. It was all decorated with a table and chairs, a fireplace to one side, a drawing of a bed into the wall with a hole in the wall, and a door with a golden doorknob. I wonder, is every room in Wonderland like this? Eini would probably like this room, even if it was getting crowded with the seven of us. 

“Well, on we go,” Scrooge said as he moved to the hole. 

“Wait,” Donald said as he grabbed the back of the old duck’s coat. “You can’t go through there. First, you need to drink the bottle.”

Picking up a bottle from the table, my cousin looked it over. “It just says to drink it. Sounds like a good way to be poisoned to me.”

“It’s not poison. Watch.” Taking the bottle, the hero of the Keyblade drank from the bottle, and… holy Gri above! He’s shrinking! Kairi then took the bottle next and drank to enact the shrinking process on her. Probably a good idea given she was wearing a mini skirt. But who in their right mind would wear such a short skirt? Well, at least she was out of one awkward situation. 

One by one we all drank from the bottle and shrunk ourselves down to three inches tall. At least that was my guess. All I know is one minute I was my normal size, the next I was standing next to a table that could’ve been used by Tetsukyo. Very nerve-wracking indeed. But at least I wasn’t alone. And I could still feel an assortment of tastes in my mouth, like I had eaten a full-course meal in one drink. 

No sooner had we shrunk than an assortment of Heartless appeared. We saw lots of the Shadows and Soldiers we had fought before, but there was also a new assortment of Heartless around. They all looked the same, with tall hats and cloaked bodies that floated in the air. What separated them was the colors they had. Red, yellow, blue, green, and purple. 

“Watch out. Those things are immune to certain spells.” Donald warned me as he fired a Blizzard spell at one of the red ones, but a blue one took the hit instead. “See?” 

“So we don’t fight with magic,” Jason said as he swung his Keyblade at one of them, hitting it. Scrooge also joined him, whacking several of the floating Heartless with me. However, the ground-based Heartless didn’t give us any room to breathe as they came forward, slicing at us with their claws. Goofy managed to stop a Soldier before forcing it back with his shield, while Sora managed to take down a couple of Shadows at the same time. 

Blasting one of the yellow Heartless with a Fire Spell, I watched as the crystalline heart flew up into the air before I was attacked by one of the blue Heartless. Frowning, I imagined it being set on fire while I pictured the flames erupting from the end of my Keyblade. “Fire!” I cast the spell, only for a red Heartless to take the blow instead. It didn’t take much to realize that only made that kind stronger.

“Don’t hit that one!” Donald told me while he hit it with his staff before Goofy rammed his shield into it as well. Their teamwork ended up killing the thing, but more Heartless were starting to appear around us. More Shadows and Soldiers, and these multicolor hat things. Realizing my magic wasn’t going to be much good against these things, that only meant I had to do what the others were doing. 

Leaping up, I swung my Keyblade around to hit one of the green hats, and managed to land a blow. I tried to swing again, but I cried out in pain as I was hit by both fire and ice from these things. Spinning her Keyblade around Kairi came to my rescue, sending the Heartless that attacked me back to wherever they came from. 

“Gah!” Jason cried out as one of the Soldiers scratched him with its claws. Swinging his cane, the elder duck knocked it away from my cousin before tripping up a Shadow. Jason then brought his weapon down on the Heartless, destroying it and sending it back into the shadows. That’s when I noticed the Heartless seemed to be converging on Kairi. Wait. Was that because her heart was pure light? 

Running over to hear, I swung my Keyblade to hit one of the purple Heartless away from her while Sora finished it off. We then gathered around her, resolved to stop the monsters from getting anywhere near her. However, several dark burning objects then flew out, destroying many of the Heartless and freeing the hearts they had captured. There was one Shadow left afterward, but it was quickly destroyed by a new figure.

“Riku!” Sora named the figure, who had short silver hair, and was dressed in a black leather jacket with matching gloves and boots. His white shirt and blue jeans seemed to convey a sense that he was a seasoned warrior, and anyone who crossed him would regret it. As soon as the thought entered my mind, I knew who would win in a fight between Riku and Jason.

My cousin would lose. 

Giving a nod to acknowledge his friends, the guy said, “About time you guys got here. I was having a hard time fighting boredom.” Looking at us, he asked, “These the newbies?” 

“Yep.” Gesturing at us, Sora said, “This is Jason and Clair.” 

“And Donald’s Uncle Scrooge,” Goofy added, before getting hit on the head by Donald. “Ow! That hurt!” 

“How are things here?” I asked. “Is everything okay?” 

Shaking his head, Riku said. “I’m afraid not. While I was doing some reconnaissance, I noticed some card soldiers taking someone prisoner. If we don’t hurry, we might lose Alice to the Queen of Hearts.”

Blinking, I asked, “Who’s the Queen of Hearts?”

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