The Alice Games

Justice

The next chapter in the Alice Games came, but not as a surprise. It started with basic chess lessons. Everyone was required to attend, and no one was excluded. From what Delia had managed to read, she had learned that Chess was the national game of Wonderland, and even more so since one of the ways Alice had her enemies killed was by making them pawns on a giant chessboard. If they were lucky enough to be carried to the eighth square, they were absolved of their sins and simply put into the dungeon for a short time. If they were taken, they were killed. It was really just Alice's decision.

The chess practice was long and boring. Delia's professor was always telling her that she was making a bad move, then waiting impatiently as Delia worked out how the move was bad. And she got beaten every time.

"My dear, my dear, you will die in the challenge if you keep making move like that," he said, every day.

"Well maybe if you told me what the right moves were, I'd win every once in a while," Delia replied, frusstrated. The professor shrugged his frail shoulders and coughed delicately into his handkerchief. Though, he did start telling her what to do every now and then afterwards.

By the end of the week, her professor had pronounced her 'hopeless, but not a lost cause.' It was the closest he'd come to giving her a compliment.

After the lessons were discontinued, chess sets were left scattered around the dormitory. Teodora immediately set up a chess club. Everyone who followed her rules was invited. Of course, as she announced this criterion she glared at me. Emile smiled and said that he didn't follow her rules, either. Which meant he wasn't in the club, either.

"You're the exception, Emile," she replied sweetly.

Delia rolled her eyes and pulled a chess board up to herself, imagining her mirror image sitting there, grinning evilly at her. For a moment, she was dressed in what looked like textured black leggings. They were ripped, too. A black tank top hugged her skinny frame, and red streaks ran through her dark hair. Khol lined her eyes and earrings were stuck all up and down her ears.

Delia blinked. The leggings were called jeans. And the other her, the right her, had vanished.

She moved one of the chessmen forwards.

*****************************************

It had been barely two days since the formation of Teodora's chess club, when the second challenge was initiated. The small group of girls was escorted to a giant room.

It was made up of five tables. The girls looked amongst themselves, confused. How could there be only five tables? There were twenty of them.

Alice entered from the opposite side of the room. "You are wondering at the number of chess tables. Let you wonder no longer. Bring in the chess boards!" This last statement was said towards the darkness behind her. Servants streamed from behind her, carrying cubes marked like chess boards. Magnetic pieces were all stuck to a side. "There will be four players at each board. Only attack from the top square. Only the winner survives. This will cut your numbers down to five!"

Immediately, Teodora seized three other girls and dragged them to her table.

So that was the pupose of the chess club, Delia realized. Find the weaklings and use them. She had to admire the strategy.

Delia watched as all the other girls paired off until a seat was left at one table. She walked over calmly and took a seat. Her chessmen were silver- a color she could live with. "I'll go third," she volunteered. the others looked at her queerly, but didn't say anything.

They squabbled over first for the longest time. Delia, bored, looked around. Teodora's game was already in motion. But Teodora wasn't looking at the pieces. Delia followed her gaze across the room, to Emile. He seemed to be writing something on a notepad. Then he held it up, when Alice couldn't see. Knight to D4.

She was cheating!

"Your turn," one of the other girls said nastily. While she was distracted, they'd made their moves.

From then on, Delia concentrated on her own chess game. Luckily, she'd practiced far more than these girls, who had been in Teo's chess club and only practiced for an hour a day. Delia, who really didn't have much better to do, sat and practiced or read almost all day. She knew the mechanics of the game, better than anyone perhaps.

The other girls were stretching themselves too thin, trying to attack every other person all at once. Delia stuck mostly to her side, letting them stretch even more to reach her. Then, in the middle of the game, she suddenly changed initiative and began attacking the player to her right. The player on her right scrambled to recover her pieces and, seizing the weakness, the other two players cut down every piece she tried to move, one by one.

Soon, the player to Delia's right was surrounded by the other two girls' pieces. Delia had drawn most of hers (except her pawns, which can't go backward) back to home. She began to cry. "No! I don't wanna lose!"

Alice strode over to the table, took one look at the crying girl, drew her sword and cut her head off. A splash of blood hit Delia's cheek, and she closed her eyes, trying not to cry herself. When she opened them again, they were like chips of ice inside her skull. She had to lock down her feelings, for now.

The game continued. Delia lashed out again, to the player across from her, who seemed to be a realatively good player. True enough, when Delia withdrew, letting the other player attack, it was the player on Delia's left, not the one she'd been aiming to beat, who was excecuted. She had tried to run away through the gloomy door. There was a shriek and then a head, rolling across the ground. Taking her eyes off the poor dead girl's head, Delia returned them to the game and made her move.

The third portion of the game was longer than the first two. This player was always on the defensive, and never to be trusted. So was Delia, however, which made things... interesting.

It was down to one move. If her opponent blocked her, Delia wouldn't win. But perhaps her poker face was good enough...

She didn't make the move. Delia smiled in triumpph and moved her queen forward. "Checkmate." Then she closed her eyes, waiting for the shriek.

There wasn't one. Alice was standing behind the girl, congratulating her. "You are very luckky there was a stalemate," she said happily. "I killed the two in a stalemate, so you get to live!"

Delia was surprised- the girl was lucky. If this were an ordinary competition, she'd want to get to know the girl. But this is the Alice Games, and friends just make for sadness.