The 'candy shop' was not a candy shop at all. It was a hollowed-out shipping container wedged between two derelict atmospheric scrubbers in the lower levels of Sector Five. The air smelled of ozone, stale urine, and something copper-sharp that Alice couldn't quite place.
"Here we are," the Candyman said, his friendly smile stretching tight like old rubber. He gestured to a rusted metal table where a single, flickering bulb swung overhead. "Best sweet tea in the Ark. Sit, little miss."
Alice sat, smoothing the pink fabric of her bodysuit. She looked around, clutching the empty space where her book should have been. She felt a strange dissonance; this place did not look like the tea party the Hatter would host. It looked like the places Rabbity told her to avoid.
"Where is the hero-candy?" she asked, her voice small.
"Coming right up," the man said. He moved to a grimy counter, pouring a dark, viscous liquid from a plastic jug into a chipped mug. He slipped a small, white pill from his sleeve, crushing it into the drink with practiced ease. "Drink this first. It prepares your tummy for the magic."
Alice took the mug. It was warm. She trusted Rabbity, and this man said he was a friend of Rabbity. Friends didn't lie. She took a large gulp.
She expected strawberries. She expected clouds. Instead, a harsh, chemical bitterness assaulted her tongue, tasting like battery acid and burnt rubber. She swallowed hard, suppressing a gag.
"It... tastes funny," she whispered.
"That's the magic working," the Candyman said, watching her closely, his eyes dilated with anticipation. "Just give it a minute. You'll feel nice and sleepy."
Alice blinked. She waited. The man tapped his fingers on his thigh. Ten seconds passed. Thirty. A minute.
Alice tilted her head. "I don't feel sleepy, Mister. I feel... awake."
The man's brow furrowed. He glanced at the jug, then back at her. "That's impossible. That dose would knock out a sumo wrestler."
"Maybe it's broken magic?" Alice suggested helpfully. "Should I try again?"
"You..." The man took a step back, his friendly mask slipping to reveal something ugly and snarling beneath. "What are you on? Stimulants? Augments?"
He grabbed her shoulder, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise human skin. Alice didn't flinch. Her Nikke physiology registered the pressure, but no pain.
"Mister? You're hurting the suit," she said.
"Why won't you go down?" he hissed. Panic flared in his eyes. He reached for a heavy pipe wrench resting on a crate. "Fine. We do this the hard way. I'm not losing a payout like you."
He swung the wrench. It struck Alice on the temple with a sickening crack. Her head snapped to the side, her pink hair whipping across her face.
She blinked, dazed. Her vision static-glitched for a second, a red warning overlay flashing: *IMPACT DETECTED. STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY 98%.*
"That wasn't nice!" Alice cried out, raising her hands to protect her head.
"Shut up!" The man swung again, harder, striking her shoulder.
Alice's combat subroutines screamed at her to engage. *Target Hostile. Engage CQC. Neutralize.* Her muscles tensed, ready to shatter his ribcage with a single backhand.
*ERROR. TARGET DESIGNATION: HUMAN. NIMPH INTERLOCK ENGAGED. LETHAL FORCE RESTRICTED. NON-LETHAL FORCE RESTRICTED. DO NOT HARM HUMANS.*
The command froze her. It was a wall of ice in her mind, absolute and terrifying. She could not fight back. She could not push him away. She could only cower.
"Please stop!" she begged, curling into a ball as the blows rained down. "I'll be good! I'll wait for Rabbity!"
"Just! Go! To! Sleep!" the man screamed, putting his full weight into a blow against the back of her skull.
Her sensory feed fractured. The world dissolved into static. The darkness wasn't sleep; it was a system crash.
*Rabbity...* she thought as her optical sensors dimmed. *I don't think I like Elysium anymore.*
***
Arthur Cousland tore through the streets of Sector Five like a man possessed. His breath smoked in the cold air, his goddesium legs driving him forward at speeds that blurred the neon signs into streaks of light.
"Exia!" he barked into the comms. "Give me a location!"
"Processing," Exia's voice came back, devoid of her usual gamer slang, sharp with focus. "I hacked the local grid. Traffic cams show a man in a trench coat dragging a small, unconscious figure into the sub-level maintenance tunnels near Block 42. Heat signatures match a localized cluster. It's a nest, Commander."
"Block 42," Arthur growled. "Rapi, take point. Anis, V, flank right. Cut off the exits."
"Copy," Rapi said, her voice tight. She was running beside him, her rifle held low, her eyes scanning every shadow.
"Who takes a kid?" Anis hissed over the channel, her usual humor replaced by cold fury. "Seriously, who does that?"
"We're about to ask them," V said, checking the charge on her shock baton. "Though I doubt they'll like the interview."
They reached the entrance to the maintenance tunnels—a heavy blast door secured with a rusted keypad. Arthur didn't bother with a code breaker. He gripped the edge of the door with his goddesium hands, the servos whining in protest, and ripped the steel plate from its hinges with a shriek of tearing metal.
He stepped into the darkness.
***
Once upon a time...
*Beep. Beep. Beep.*
The sound was rhythmic. Sterile.
Alice wasn't Alice. She was a girl with no name, lying in a bed that smelled of bleach. Her body felt heavy, like it was filled with lead. Her lungs burned every time she took a breath.
"I'm sorry," a voice said. A doctor in a white coat, his face blurred by the bright lights. "The cellular degeneration is accelerating. There is nothing more we can do for her human body."
"Is she going to die?" a woman's voice sobbed.
"Not die," the doctor said gently. "Change. We can transfer her brain into a new vessel. A Nikke frame. It is... her only chance."
The girl on the bed turned her head. It took so much effort. She looked at the window. There was snow falling outside. It looked cold. Beautiful.
"Reborn," the doctor whispered, leaning over her. "Who would you like to be, little one? In your new life?"
The girl thought about the book her mother read to her. The girl who went down the rabbit hole and found a world where logic didn't matter, where cats smiled, and where everything was an adventure.
"Alice," she whispered through dry, cracked lips. "I want to be Alice."
***
The door to the inner sanctum of the warehouse exploded inward, sending shrapnel and dust billowing into the room.
The Candyman spun around, dropping his wrench. Behind him, rows of dirty mattresses lined the walls. On them lay a dozen figures—teenage girls, mostly human, drugged into oblivion. In the center, strapped to a chair, was Alice, her head lolling forward.
Arthur stepped through the smoke. He didn't look like a Commander. He didn't look like the man who hosted galas or debated politics. He looked like the Reaper.
"What the hell?" one of the traffickers shouted, reaching for a shotgun leaning against the wall.
Arthur crossed the distance in a blur. His goddesium fist connected with the man's chest. There was a wet, sickening crunch as ribs shattered and the man was launched backward, crumpling against a concrete pillar like a discarded doll.
"Hostiles!" the Candyman screamed, backing away. "Open fire!"
Three other men emerged from the shadows, raising submachine guns.
Bullets sparked off Arthur's prosthetic arm as he raised it to shield his face. He didn't slow down. He grabbed the nearest gunman by the barrel of his weapon, twisting it with enough force to snap the man's wrist. As the man screamed, Arthur delivered a piston-driven knee to his midsection, rupturing organs.
Rapi and Anis breached the room behind him, but they didn't fire. They didn't have to.
Arthur was a whirlwind of precision violence. He wasn't subduing them. He was dismantling them. He caught a swinging fist, crushing the hand until bone powder ground together. He threw men through wooden crates, his movements efficient, brutal, and utterly silent save for the impact of metal on flesh.
The Candyman scrambled backward, tripping over his own feet. He pulled a knife, his hands shaking. "Stay back! She's—she's just merchandise! I didn't know she was a toaster!"
Arthur froze. The silence in the room was heavy, broken only by the whimpering of the broken men on the floor.
He walked toward the Candyman slowly. The blood on his metal knuckles gleamed in the dim light.
"Merchandise," Arthur repeated. His voice was a low rumble, vibrating with a frequency that triggered primal fear.
He grabbed the Candyman by the throat, lifting him off the ground with one hand. The man clawed uselessly at the goddesium fingers clamping around his windpipe.
"Please," the man choked out, his face turning purple. "I can pay you. I have credits. I have—"
Arthur tightened his grip. His other hand activated the Omni-Blade. The orange energy edge hummed to life, casting a demonic glow on Arthur's face. His eyes were dead. This wasn't justice. This was extermination.
"Commander!"
V's voice cut through the red haze.
Arthur didn't look away from the terrified man's eyes. "He dies."
"If you kill him, the network survives," V said, her voice calm, analytical, stepping into his peripheral vision. "This is a logistics hub. He has shipping manifests. Client lists. Locations of other safehouses. If you execute him now, we lose the rest of the victims."
Arthur's blade wavered, inches from the man's chest.
"Arthur."
Rapi was there. She didn't grab him. She didn't restrain him. She simply placed both hands on his rigid, metal arm. Her touch was gentle, grounding. She leaned her forehead against his shoulder.
"Look at me," she whispered.
Arthur took a ragged breath. He turned his head slightly. Rapi's red eyes met his, filled not with judgment, but with a plea for him to come back.
"She is safe," Rapi said softly. "You saved her. Don't let him turn you into something you're not."
"He hurt her," Arthur rasped.
"And he will pay," Anis said from behind, her weapon trained on the man's head. "But let the A.C.P.U. rot him in a cell. Don't stain your hands for trash like this."
Arthur looked back at the Candyman. The man was weeping now, dangling like a rag.
With a snarl of disgust, Arthur deactivated the Omni-Blade. He threw the man hard against the wall. The Candyman collapsed, gasping for air, too terrified to move.
"Secure him," Arthur ordered, his voice hollow. "And get the medics for the girls."
He turned his back on the filth and walked toward the chair in the center of the room.
"Alice?"
He knelt, his metal knees thudding against the dirty concrete. He gently unbuckled the straps holding her. She slumped forward, and he caught her, cradling her head against his chest.
Her pink bunny-ear headset was cracked. A dark bruise was forming on her temple.
"Rabbity..." she murmured, her eyelids fluttering.
"I'm here," Arthur choked out, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face. "I'm right here."
She opened her eyes. They were hazy, unfocused. She looked around the room, seeing the unconscious girls on the mattresses, the broken men groaning on the floor, and the flashing blue lights of the A.C.P.U. drones arriving at the entrance.
"Did I fall asleep?" she asked groggily.
"Yes," Arthur lied. "You had a bad dream."
Alice frowned, trying to catch a memory that was slipping away like smoke. "I... I dreamt of a white room. And snow. It was sad. But then..."
She looked up at him, her vision clearing. She saw the dent in the wall where Arthur had thrown a man. She saw the tension in Rapi's shoulders.
"You came," she whispered. "Like a hero in the stories."
Arthur closed his eyes, feeling the weight of his own violence. "I'm not a hero, Alice. Heroes don't do... this."
Alice reached up, her small hand patting his cheek.
"The other princesses..." she gestured weakly to the human girls being tended to by the medics. "Are they okay?"
"They will be," Arthur promised. "The police are taking care of them. They're going home."
Alice nodded slowly, leaning her head back against his shoulder as he lifted her up effortlessly. They walked out of the warehouse, leaving the stench of the dungeon behind for the cool, recycled air of the street.
"Rabbity?" she asked as they stepped into the alleyway.
"Yeah?"
"I don't think I want you to be a hero anymore," she said softly, her voice muffled by his coat. "Heroes have to fight monsters. And fighting monsters makes you sad."
She tightened her grip on his lapel.
"I just want you to be Rabbity. The one who stays by my side. The one who reads the book."
Arthur looked down at her. The rage that had fueled him moments ago had drained away, leaving only a fierce, protective ache.
"Okay," he whispered into her hair. "Just Rabbity."
Alice sighed contentedly, closing her eyes.
"The Hatter lied," she murmured, drifting back toward sleep. "This place isn't Elysium. It's dark and it smells funny."
A pause.
"But if you're here... and the Queen is here... maybe we don't need to find Elysium. Maybe we can just... make a fort?"
Arthur stepped out onto the main street, where the artificial lights of the Ark hummed overhead. He held her tighter.
"Yeah, Alice. We can make a fort."