The Red Queen

The Red Queen was exactly where Alice and Rosaline thought she'd be. The dark forest that encircled her foreboding castle. She stood facing away from them as Alice and her friends, Rosaline, Hatter, and Rabbit started toward her. Behind them, Rosaline's entire army. The Red Queen clearly wasn't phased, however. She kept pulling petals off a rose and flicking them carelessly onto the ground.

After Rosaline's memory returned and everyone got their hugs in, Alice told Rosaline they needed to defeat the Red Queen once again. To stop her from hurting anyone else.

Rosaline agreed and sent word to her right-hand man that she needed an army assembled. They were going to the queen's castle in the dark forest to take her down, once and for all.

Now, the queen turned around to face them.

She smirked, unimpressed by the foes that stood before her.

"Is this all you brought?"

They had an army of fifty of Wonderland's best soldiers behind them. The queen could act as unimpressed as she wanted to, but Alice knew her magic alone couldn't defeat all of them.

The queen put her fingers to her lips and let out a horrifically loud whistle.

A moment later, Alice heard them. Out of the shadows emerged nearly one-hundred soldiers, tall as buildings, marching in organized succession toward them.

"Uh oh," Hatter whispered in her ear.

Alice put a hand out to calm him. "Nothing to worry about. We've got this."

Her voice shook a little and even she couldn't believe her words.

The Red Queen's soldiers arrived, all gathered neatly behind their villainous leader.

"Do you really think you can defeat me, Alice?" the queen asked, her glistening red lips threatening her with their confidence as much as her words.

"Think?" Alice replied. "I know I will."

Alice let out her hand and imagined a sword was there within it. She pictured a gleaming silver blade. She smelled the cold metal. She felt the weight of it, a phantom feeling at first. Then, her arm dipped from the heaviness of something in her hand that wasn't there before. She opened her eyes.

Her fingers were wrapped around a hilt. From the hilt extended a long, silver blade that ended in a deadly point.

Her lips turned up into a smile. "For Wonderland!"

The battle began.

Alice faced the Red Queen across the checkered battlefield of white and red rose petals. The sky above them had turned a vicious, bruised purple, with charcoal gray clouds swirling like the queen’s temper.

The Red Queen lifted her sword first. The thin, glittering blade hummed with barely restrained fury. She met Alice's blue eyes with a flaming amber glare.

Alice tightened her grip on her own sword, its hilt warm in her palm and metal blade gleaming brighter than it had any right to. She caught a brief glimpse of her wavy reflection in the blade: older, steadier, fiercer than the girl who had first tumbled down the rabbit hole.

"I'm not that girl you once knew," she said. "And still, that girl beat you."

The queen yelled and struck out at her.

Steel rang against steel, a sharp, shrieking note that echoed through the garden. The queen’s movements were precise and vicious, every swing meant to wound, to dominate, to kill. Her red skirts flared like a bloodstain as she advanced, her crown rattling with every step.

All around them, The Red Queen's soldiers fought theirs. The sounds of battle ugly. Cries of pain, metal clashing against metal.

The queen lunged for her again. Alice dodged and kicked out.

The queen recovered quickly and went for Alice again, this time with more ferocity and determination. Alice had spilled some of her blood, and now she was out for Alice's.

Alice retreated at first, feet dancing across the forest floor, heart hammering in her chest. The queen was good. Really good.

How was she going to defeat her?

But then she remembered. Wonderland. She remembered how she had learned to navigate this mad world, not by force, but by wit and imagination.

When the queen lunged again, Alice didn’t dodge.

She met the blow head-on.

Their blades locked, sparks flashing between them like tiny stars and creating a flame that warred the fire in the queen's eyes.

The queen’s face twisted — fury, disbelief, something almost like fear.

Alice leaned in, eyes blazing. “You don't know this world,” she said quietly. "Not like I do."

The Red Queen never could understand the magic of Wonderland or how it all worked. Alice was the best at it. She understood the singular truth of Wonderland: Anything is possible if you just believe.

She saw it in her mind's eye. The queen losing her grip on her sword. Her grimace as the sickening taste of fear hit her tongue. Her collapse as the shame of defeat brought her to her knees.

And then, just because she imagined it, it happened.

With a swift twist of her wrist, she knocked the queen’s sword aside. Metal skidded across the ground, clattering to a stop at the feet of a petrified solider in red.

The forest went utterly silent.

The Red Queen stared at her empty hands, then up at Alice, whose sword now hovered inches from her throat. "Impossible," she breathed out.

"No," Alice shook her head. "It's Wonderland. Nothing is impossible."

What happened next still haunts Alice to this day. But she did what she had to do.

That was the funny thing about Wonderland. Nothing was impossible - except the choices they all had to make.

With one quick swipe of her blade, Alice beheaded The Red Queen.

Her death changed everything around them.

Her soldiers fell. The roses still on their stems bloomed brighter. The clouds parted and the sky softened to a bright lilac. And as Alice turned away, she felt the weight of Wonderland shift. Things would be different now.