Rocket and the twins rushed back to the workshop. Even though Rocket didn’t fully understand the alien terms, he was sure that it meant doom. There was no more time to question the details. Whatever he had in his mind could be resolved later after he rescued Cheshire.

Mctwisp was in the workshop, mania in his eyes as he worked on multiple weapons at the same time. He was stopped by the first twin—Tweedle Dum—as the fat man made his way to a lever attached on the wall.

“You’ll have to postpone that for now,” said the first twin. He gripped the lever tightly and pulled it down with a strong jut. The rusty lever screeched like nails on chalkboard. Rocket cringed. The floor beneath them grumbled and then moments later it parted in half. A stage ascended, carrying an old war jeep. Its colors long faded to a murky green with tires almost the size of the white rabbit and Rocket combined.

At the back of the jeep, seated a weapon—a machine gun loaded with belts of ammunition. It had a compartment at the back carrying steampunk-based offensive techs and though ancient had it looked, it was still enough to earn the awe of the high-tech raccoon.

“Seat your arses now,” commanded Tweedle Dum to which his twin and Mctwisp followed obediently. Rocket, however, was still dumbfounded from seeing such an exotic ship. “Aren’t you getting in?” Tweedle Dum asked as he dangled from the door of the driver’s seat.

Rocket snapped out, scurrying to the seat beside the driver’s. “By any chance, would you let me veer this thing?”

Tweedle Dum snorted. “Grow your legs first, lad. If you could reach it, I’ll let you drive it.”

Rocket opened his mouth to protest but closed it when he realized that he couldn’t really reach in for the gas and the breaks. He wasn’t used to seeing a ship that required the cooperation of one’s legs. A typical spacecraft was much simpler to maneuver but it had everything in hands’ reach whilst this simpler thing required something he couldn’t reach.

Rocket fastened his seatbelt and Tweedle Dum turned the old thing to life. The jeep growled a few times before it roared to life and they were set for Salazen Grum. Tweedle Dum stepped on the gas and the tires screeched rebelliously against the garage floor. They drove through the small gap of the doorway, smashing the side of the wall and crashed through the piles of junk in the workshop.

The jeep also served well as a tank with its stout and sturdy materials. Despite its feeble technology, it also seemed reliable had it possessed the speed of a modern land vehicle, much faster with the inventor himself driving.

They drove through miles away from Tulgey Wood and they were set in a landscape that Rocket felt so familiar with.

Dry sand, reddish and brown with enormous boulders atop towering plateaus—Rocket couldn’t mistake that he had traversed this path. They were heading straight for the palace in the gorge. Sand was set off in the air as the trail of their speeding jeep. The image of the castle in the distance grew larger by the fraction of minutes and Rocket hoped that he wouldn’t witness the entire palace turn into vapor.

“This had happened before,” Rocket told the first twin, “and will happen again if not done correctly?”

Tweedle Dum kept his eyes on the road, “Aye…”

“And only your twin will be able to remember all of this happening?”

“Vaguely,” Tweedle Dum said. “When Alice created this world, she couldn’t quite create the Oraculum.”

“The Oraculum?” Rocket repeated, “What’s that?”

“It’s a time map. Supposed she could put the fragment of the time gem to create the Oraculum but then nobody would reset the loop. So she thought of possessing that fragment of the time gem herself and exempt my twin from forgetting what’s about to happen. In a way, my twin and I are the Oraculum. I tell the past, he tells the future but only in the right time.”

“I still don’t understand how I got myself in this mess…” Rocket trailed off. He gazed at the castle, letting the wind blow against his fur. “Why me?”

Tweedle Dum shrugged… not sure of his answer. “Perhaps the first time this happened was real. Perhaps you were really here and your presence in the past registered itself to repeat because of the time gem. And whenever the loop resets, your consciousness visits this time to repeat what happened.”

Rocket thought for a while, remembering the last thing he did to arrive at this mess. “So in other words, I really did get lost in the multiverse… once but how come I couldn’t remember it?”

“Perhaps because in this time, it’s just happening,” Tweedle Dum said, “and you can’t really remember the future, yes? You know, I have faith that this time we will win for sure.” Tweedle Dum chortled, “My twin isn’t allowed to give off your identity until we’re already with you but the rules didn’t say that he couldn’t speak of what happened in the previous loops.”

Rocket shifted positions, “What did happen?”

“The same thing over and over again,” Tweedle Dum turned solemn, “Like I didn’t have to ask what happened in the previous resets because it’s just the same thing. Now, however, we’re actually venturing to rescue the Cheshire cat!” He broke out into laughter.

“Why, in the past what had happened?”

“We cannot tell you more than you already know,” Tweedle Dum said, “The Cheshire cat detonates that’s as far as you should know. The rest is up to you.”

“Screw it,” Rocket snarled, “If you want this loop to be different then you have to tell me what happens so I could change it.”

Tweedle Dum nodded, unconvinced. “The more one avoids the foretold future, the more it is likely to happen.”

***

Cheshire floated invisibly to the throne room of Crims palace. He scattered his vapor in the air so as it wouldn’t be obvious that he was there. The throne was occupied by the red queen—a rich monarch with stress under her eyes. It was dark, almost out of life as she dismissed the captured parties fated for execution.

Cheshire heeded Mctwisp’s warning that the palace had sensors so as much as possible, when he spots one, he materializes immediately. In the vacant space of the throne room however, there were no sensors that would detect his presence.

He made his way before the throne of the red queen and whispered to her.

“Iracebeth…” Cheshire called.

Iracebeth was alarmed, looking around her for the familiar vapor but she couldn’t see it. “Cheshire…” she whispered with a closed mouth. Alice kept an eye at her—a very close eye so she couldn’t drop character as the cruel red queen.

“There is a retrieved ship on your spaceport,” Cheshire said, “I’ve already fixed it. Ride it and get to the mad tea party. Our friends will be there. Take them to Marmoreal, get your sister and flee this infernal prison.”

Iracebeth pretended to have been by herself, keeping a closed mouth as she spoke like a ventriloquist. “Alice is keeping an eye on me… I can’t leave.”

“Just pretend you’re going somewhere else. You must get out of here… I’m going to vaporize this entire kingdom including Alice.”

Iracebeth breathed deeply but kept her poker face. “I’m scared…”

“Listen,” Cheshire’s voice emanated from one ear to the other, “We must keep Alice as oblivious as possible so she couldn’t flee. You remember flying modern spacecraft, yes? Once you board, head out to the Tulgey Wood as fast as you can. I’m setting my timer to T-minus ten minutes.”

Iracebeth got up. Underneath her enormous dress, her legs trembled but she managed to keep her face as deadpan as possible. Without saying a thing, she just walked out of the throne room, heading for the spaceport.

Behind the giant throne, Cheshire materialized and took out a timer from his pocket. It had outstretched wires that needed attachment to the radiators on his back. Tarrant had informed him that there was an easy way he could detonate the bomb infused with his power. And the mad hatter had handed him a remote control but Cheshire couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go out that fast.

When he attached the timer on his back, he lay back against the throne and gazed at the high ceiling. The timer displayed the last minutes of his life. The floor around him began to sublime just as the walls and everything made of solid matter. It didn’t happen instantly but it was still happening. He watched as the walls and floors sublime like dry ice.

There were buzzes outside the throne room and red lights flashing by the doorway. He could only guess that it were the sensors Alice had placed to detect him. With everything slowly turning to vapor, it detected its environment.

Cheshire sighed, lifting his arm. He watched it with much thought as his hand was vanishing into vapor. It was the very hand he intertwined with Rocket’s, it was the very hand he used to cup his beloved’s face and it was the hand where he thought his promise would make things okay.

He placed that hand on his chest and embraced it, curling into a ball as his entirety and everything around him slowly fades away.

***

They parked outside the main entrance of the palace. There were roars and grumbles inside—faint but agonizing to hear. Rocket readied his bazooka, unstrapping it from his back and taking the first steps to the entrance.

There was a force that stopped him albeit not completely. It seemed there was just a subtle push that stopped him on his tracks and then there was pain. It was only when Mctwisp had pointed out that Rocket was ‘burning’ had Rocket noticed that smoke was emanating from him.

When Rocket looked back, he noticed that everybody else was releasing smoke. The Tweedles looked at each other—to the areas where the surface of their skin was turning into vapor. They bled and the blood they shed turned into mist as well.

“Perhaps we’re already too late,” Tweedle Dum said, “Hop back in, Rocket.”

Rocket looked at his subliming hand where a mix of colors was taking with the wind—blackish from his fur mixing with crimson from his blood. Even in the state of disappearing and immense pain growing by the second, Rocket still felt the sensation of his hand intertwined with Cheshire’s. He closed it to a fist and strapped his bazooka on his back.

Everybody else was boarded in the jeep when a spacecraft hovered above them. Rocket recognized that it was the cheap ship he rented for ten-thousand units. By the pilot’s area seated a redheaded woman who spoke through the radio.

“Tweedles! Mctwisp!” she called, “Thing over there!” she referred to Rocket. Then a bright light emanated from the base of the ship. It engulfed the jeep and Rocket as well, pulling them up to an entrance from under the ship.

“We’ve only a few minutes left before the final explosion,” Iracebeth explained, “We must flee.”

The jeep took to the compartment of the ship first and then it was Rocket’s turn but the raccoon didn’t seem to have the intention of getting rescued. Taking his bazooka, he blasted the weapon where the light emanated from and he was released.

Hurrying on all fours, he didn’t leave any words to his rescuers.

Iracebeth didn’t wait for Rocket. When the raccoon acted on his own volition, she fled with the others, taking flight as fast as she could out from the hazard zone.

Rocket hurried. He didn’t know where Cheshire was and even if he did, he’d have no idea where to go so he relied solely on instinct. Where the strongest force was coming from, he traced. He followed the paths where it was most painful. Deeper into the castle things didn’t seem to just evaporate anymore. Some began to float while vaporizing midair. Gravity seemed to be a little tricky where Rocket headed and that’s how he knew he was in the right direction.

The walls crumbled, debris falling where Rocket was but it had fluid grace and was barely harmful. Rocket simply pushed it aside and some were vaporized before they could even make contact.

More and more of him was lost as he stayed longer and approached nearer the source. He still thinks it was a stupid idea to approach the hazard and he had no plan of what to do once he arrives at Cheshire but he did it anyway.

There was a long hall up ahead with velvet doors turning into red smoke. Once it vanished, Rocket saw what he came for.

The blue feline floated midair, curled into a ball as everything around him was rapidly evaporating. Rocket stopped where the velvet doors once were and watched with great happiness after seeing Cheshire once again. He forgot about the pain that was slowly eating up its way to vaporize him.

He just stood by the entrance. There was debris floating nearby and he pushed it inside the place that what once seemed to be a throne room. The chunk of rock evaporated instantly, leaving no trace. Then there was a pulse—a force similar to when Rocket was by the entrance of the palace. The radius had expanded. Rocket had to step back as the floor he stood on vanished immediately.

Rocket gritted his teeth, “Smug-face!” he yelled with all of his breath.

The blue feline’s ear twitched and he looked at Rocket’s direction. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?” Cheshire shouted.

“I came here for you, you idiot!” Rocket retorted. “Have I told you how stupid this thing you’re doing is?”

There was another pulse but this time it went inward, pushing Rocket from behind and debris that got caught up inside seemed to have slowed down vaporizing.

“Not as stupid as you coming here.” Cheshire said lowly. They were far from each other but Rocket could see through those luminescent eyes of the feline.

An outward pulse came and the radius expanded once again.

Cheshire continued, “I’m glad I get to see you again but it’s still stupid. Get out of here now! I’ll try and contain the explosion as much as I can.”

“No!” Rocket said stubbornly and an inward pulse met him. “You made me promise so you could do this? I don’t think I’m fine with that, Smiley.”

Another inward pulse. Debris getting caught vaporized much slower.

“Why would you do something like this?” Rocket asked, “You know what, screw it. I don’t wanna know. I just want you to stop this right now!”

Cheshire looked down, “Please leave… even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. There isn’t much time you should at least get as far away from here as possible. I’ll try my best to minimize the radius of influence.”

“Not enough,” Rocket shouted. “I want you to stop it completely.”

Another inward pulse pushed Rocket from behind and it was all he was waiting for. Walking a few steps back, the raccoon dashed directly towards where everything was floating. He just dove through where beneath him was a fall that was enough to paint his remains everywhere but instead of descending rapidly, he got caught up in the most dangerous zone which also saved him from falling.

He floated almost where Cheshire was but they were still apart. It was like diving through acidic water. Every second was agony as every part of him felt like being skinned.

Cheshire was stationed where he was and he couldn’t move freely. Rocket could only float helplessly as he was tortured a very slow death. Regret was in the eyes of the feline and Rocket could see on his face how much he wanted to stop this but couldn’t.

“This is still much better,” Rocket grunted. “If I could go back to the entrance of the palace while this is happening, I would still find my way to you.”

Cheshire swallowed, engulfed in guilt to even speak a word.

Nearby debris floated beside Rocket and the raccoon kicked it to gain movement towards Cheshire. In a few moments they were finally with each other—lovers in doom of their final moments.

Cheshire couldn’t bear to look at Rocket but the raccoon forced him to by cupping the cat’s face with his injured hands. Rocket wasn’t even bleeding as before the blood could even drip, it already turns into vapor but the wounds are still there being slowly ate up by a force they can’t even see.

Rocket’s hand trembled against Cheshire’s face. God knows how much he was enduring right now.

“You know I—” Cheshire choked on his own breath. He swallowed and took a deep breath, “At the very least, I wish I could share the pain you’re feeling…”

Rocket chortled and kept a smiling façade. Perhaps he was happy and then he couldn’t be. “You think I came here just to spend my last moments with you?” Rocket laughed, “To die with you? I don’t think so. We will survive this.”

Without further words, Rocket maneuvered his way behind Cheshire and unzipped the feline’s jumpsuit.

“Rocket… what—”

“You just said you wish you could share my pain, right?” Rocket traced the wound on Cheshire’s back with his claw, “Don’t get me wrong. I’d spare you from pain as much as I could but for now, bite something hard.”

Rocket scanned the radiators bulging from Cheshire’s back and noticed the one above the tail had a wire connecting somewhere. He pulled the wire and from Cheshire’s pocket came out a timer that had two minutes dwindling by the seconds.

He thought fast, no longer tampering with the mechanisms of the timer and went straight on tinkering with the wires. In the final minute, he managed to destabilize the bomb but everything still was getting vaporized.

“It’s the bomb…” Cheshire said, “I told Tarrant to modify it where I couldn’t stop it in the last minute. In that way, even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to.”

“You make the lousiest decisions,” Rocket said through gritted teeth. “Bite something hard.” Using nothing else but his claws, he pulled the stitches off from Cheshire’s back and dug his claws deep, severing the healing tissues that almost closed up the wound.

Cheshire screamed painfully, his fur bristling in every direction. Blood soaked out from the wound, encasing Rocket’s hands and it too, vaporized but no longer as fast.

Cheshire’s claws retracted in and out from his hands and he groaned as he felt Rocket’s sharp claws literally dig inside his flesh. It wasn’t just like when they had a couple of days ago. This one wasn’t pleasurable anymore. It was agony.

“T-the bomb is just a small chip about three inches big,” Cheshire said through his groans, “It’s at the top of the vertebral column.”

“I see it,” Rocket analyzed the tech. To him it was a simple enough task destabilizing it. The chip rested above Cheshire’s spine with thin red wires attached to small spindles that bridged the radiators and the neuro-receptors that gave the feline the ability to manipulate his powers freely.

Cheshire grew weaker by the second from blood loss and the raccoon worked as fast as he can in cutting the wires that attached the bomb inside Cheshire.

“I got it out,” Rocket held the chip between his fingertips but everything seemed to have still been vaporizing.

“Quickly,” Cheshire lifted his hand and asked for the chip.

Rocket placed the bloody bomb on Cheshire’s hand. With great effort, Cheshire vaporized the chip. When the small device evaporated out of existence, everything stopped. And it also meant that Rocket and Cheshire could no longer float.

Beneath them was hundreds of feet of darkness but they needn’t see where they were going to fall to know that hard ground awaited them. Using what’s left of Cheshire’s strength, the feline held Rocket’s hand and pulled him to sit on top of him. He embraced Rocket from behind, wrapping his arms around Rocket’s waist before inducing his power to float.

Meters from meeting the ground, he was able to postpone the momentum they gained from falling and that’s when he finally lost consciousness. They met the ground hard but not as hard as it would have been.

In the distance, beyond loads of debris, a light flickered—giving Rocket a glimpse of what seemed to be an entrance to an underground laboratory. If there’s a way he could medically save Cheshire, it would be inside that lab. Although weak and injured himself, he forced himself to carry the unconscious feline inside his arms.

Whatever danger awaited them in the lab, Rocket was willing to face—a risk he is willing to take.