"Blaspheme—" Rafferty started.

Blaspheme opened her mouth and hissed again, longer and louder this time.

Rafferty stood up, and Blaspheme's legs tensed.

"Something really weird is going—" Rafferty tried to say.

Blaspheme sprung forward, and Rafferty ducked and rolled to her right, avoiding the lunge, but only just barely. As she passed, Rafferty noticed that her friend was sporting a long black tail.

That's new.

Rafferty thew a glance over her shoulder, and saw Blaspheme tensing up again, ready to pounce. Whatever was going on here, it wasn't good, and Rafferty clearly wasn't going to solve it by having a conversation with her suddenly fanged friend.

Because both parties had to be able to, you know, use words to have a conversation.

So she took off.

Rafferty glanced over her shoulder, and saw that Blaspheme had given chase. She had maybe ten strides on Blaspheme already, and if they were in a wide open space, where Rafferty could really get her legs under her, she'd have been able to pull away and get herself some time to think.

But Wonderland was full of stuff. A small metal hill, for example, that she was approaching. Fast. Rafferty made a decision.

Before she jumped, she passed another sign.

Wanna play a game? You be the mouse, and I'll be the… you know. You'll have to get pretty high, and go awfully fast if you want to win. Don't look back. Penny Panther will be RIGHT behind you. By the way purple hair, sometimes I look like I'm your friend. But I'm not. I'm really, really not.

As she soared past the sign, Rafferty changed her hair on general principle, a dark blue mane trailing behind her as she hit the rising metal.

She wasn't prepared for the hill to be runged like a ladder. Rafferty hit the hill hard, one foot slipping into the space between the rungs, and fell forward, her arms out to the side, smacking her head on the steel.

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Blaspheme apparently had overestimated Rafferty's ability to stick the landing, and had jumped too far, landing further up the hill. As Rafferty wobbled to her feet, Blaspheme hissed again, and came running straight at her.

Still trying to avoid a fight, Rafferty hopped toward another arm of the ride. She landed right this time, and found herself running downhill. There was a thunk as Blaspheme followed, but Rafferty didn't look back. Besides, she already knew where Blaspheme would be.

She'd be RIGHT behind.

The hill rose up again, and Rafferty climbed it as fast as she dared, trying not to think how easy it would be to miss a rung again, and either tumble to the ground or fall right in Blaspheme's path.

As she crested the hill, Rafferty noticed movement below. It was Sheridan, head down, bow strapped to her back, running as fast as she could. She was being pursued by a group of at least six. All of them looked like Cody.

Rafferty thought she was going too fast to control another descent, and spotted the next hill, not too far away. She jumped and hit the next hill about halfway up, but she'd only taken two steps when she was hit from behind, hard.

Blaspheme hadn't overestimated her this time, had, in fact, estimated her just right. When Blaspheme landed on her, Rafferty's weight shifted, and the pair tumbled off the track. She managed to grab the metal with her right hand, and when she saw Blaspheme falling past her, she reached out with her left.

Rafferty caught Blaspheme's wrist, her right arm burning as she tensed and pulled against the tug of gravity. She was trying to figure how she might flip Blaspheme back onto the track, when she heard another hiss, and felt pain in her left arm.

She looked down, and saw that Blaspheme was digging into her wrist with her nails. Two lines of blood were already running toward her palm.

Are you kidding me, bitch?

Rafferty couldn't activate any of her gear without letting go of the metal, but without it she couldn't hold their weight much longer. If Blaspheme wanted to bring them down, she was going to get her wish.

"Blaspheme, I'm letting go in, like, five seconds. I hope you remember what to do," she said.

If Blaspheme let go, and concentrated on a proper landing, they'd probably be fine, even without the Blue. They were only halfway up the hill, and the hill wasn't nearly as tall as a God.

Or Blaspheme could do what she did, after Rafferty released the bar, which was to snarl and grab onto Rafferty with both hands, essentially turning them into an uncontrolled, momentum gathering ball of death.

Rafferty had roughly three seconds to call Blaspheme all sorts of names in her head before they hit the wooden platform below very hard.

It took a moment for her focus to return. When it did, Rafferty rolled her head to the right, and saw Blaspheme lying nearly. At least her hallmate was breathing, which Rafferty was pretty sure was a good thing.

Pretty sure.

They had hit the platform hard enough to break some of the boards. Rafferty's left arm dangled in the open air, and she thought that if she pulled it up and looked, it would be full of splinters.

Rafferty had had about enough of this, and had settled on a plan. She was going to grab Blaspheme and smash her stupid blonde head against these wooden boards until she came to her senses.

In that moment, it seemed like the height of rational thought.

So she grabbed for the part of Blaspheme that was the closest to her.

Which was the tail.

Except when she closed her hand around it, she couldn't feel it, like it wasn't actually there.

See, I totally knew Blaspheme didn't have a tail.

Blaspheme's eyes opened, and she flipped to her feet in that graceful way she had. Rafferty only had a moment to roll out of the way, as Blaspheme tried to stomp on her face. Blaspheme's boot drove past her ear, and ended up in the same empty space that Rafferty's arm had occupied until a moment ago.

Rafferty got to her feet as quickly as she could, and turned toward Blaspheme, who was still stuck in the space between the boards. She flicked her wrist, activating her bracelets, and landed an uppercut square on Blaspheme's jaw, enjoying it a little more than she should have.

The blow lifted Blaspheme into the air, and deposited her into one of the little wheeled carts lined up on the platform. The ones that looked like mice.

Already woozy from the fall, Blaspheme wasn't getting up anytime soon. Rafferty stood on the platform, drawing deep breaths, and tried to take stock of the situation.

Blaspheme with fangs. An angry pack of Codys. Tails that weren't really there.

And you had an extra finger. Don't forget about the finger.

What is this place?