Chase Redforth's POV

Holding onto Crimson's horse reins, he walked alongside the Wonderland group. Maxwell had taken the lead, guiding everyone else with the map that would show the location of the Well of Wonders. Crimson trotted steadily, nickering gently. He was a stallion with a black coat, he was well-trained and a loyal companion to Chase. "We'll be there soon," he told Crimson.

Scarlett, next to Chase, stroked Crimson's coat. The horse didn't mind, he was used to Scarlett's presence. "He's just as docile as he was in Wonderland," she said, smiling to herself. "He was a gift from my mother to you, no?"

Chase nodded. "And I'm very thankful."

"You know, because we're visiting Wonderland again, there's a chance that we can go to the Red Palace." Really? Chase didn't want to get his hopes up. He and Scarlett had to abandon the Red Palace after the Wonderland Curse, it could be in ruins for all he knew. "You can see your father again and the Red Queen." If they're still alive...

"You don't sound excited to see her Majesty," Chase noted.

"I don't know," Scarlett admitted, shaking her head. She trailed off, grimacing. Perhaps you haven't been the only one doubting their loyalty to the crown, he thought hesitantly. Although Chase was reluctant to confess it, he started having doubts about the true intentions of the Red Queen and whether they were pure or not. It doesn't matter, a voice crept into Chase's mind. You're in the Red Queen's debt, you owe her lest you forget that.

The Red Queen had built Chase and his father a future; a secure life that no one else would give. Loyalty to the crown was not a demand—it was an unspoken requirement. Going back to visit Wonderland was no time to question a knight's undying honour or not.

"Hurry, the Well of Wonder should be behind those trees," Maxwell urged, taking a left turn. They quickly followed and Chase's heart nearly stopped once spotting the Well of Wonders. It was a gray brick well that overflowed with colourful liquid instead of water. It painfully reminded Chase how homesick he has been.

"The water is rainbow?" Dahlia asked uncertainty.

"I assure you, it's normal in Wonderland," Scarlett reassured her. Coming closer to the well, Chase peered over Scarlett's shoulder. Who knows what the depth of the well was. If it was the only unsealed portal left to Wonderland, then they ought to hurry before the well disappeared again.

Maxwell seemed to read Chase's mind, clearing his throat. "Well, there's no time to dally. We need to get into the well before it vanishes."

"So we just, erm, hop in?" Dahlia questioned.

"Well... yeah," Melina replied. "That's Wonderland for you."

Chase patted Crimson, unhooking his reins. "Sorry, I can't take you unless you can magically fit in that tiny well. Go back to Ever After High's stables, you know the way, don't you? I'll be back before you know it."

Crimson nickered, turning back on the path they took to arrive at the Well of Wonders.

Maxwell got closer to the ledge, leaning in. "Well, I suppose we just—" Suddenly, he lost his grasp on the ledge, falling straight into the well. "Aaaaah..." His voice faded out as he was swept away. That's certainly an unconventional way of travel, Chase thought.

"Maxwell!" Dahlia shouted, looking absolutely baffled. Without hesitation, she swung her legs over the ledge and jumped feet-first into the Well of Wonders. Almost immediately, she sank and vanished out of view.

"Well, I guess that's our cue, huh?" Melina held her nose as she dove into the well dauntlessly.

Chase exchanged a glance with Scarlett, holding out his hand. "I suppose I would have to escort the Red Queen." She cracked a smile and grabbed his hand, jumping into the well's waters without a warning.

Immediately, the cold waters hit Chase as colours swirled around his eyes. His chest squeezed together tightly and he thought he might drown, but then all pressure subdued and he could open his eyes. They were slipping all over the place and it seemed as if the Well of Wonders' portal was like a giant waterslide. In a chaos of blurring tubes and mouthfuls of rainbow water, Chase heard the others ahead of them, shouting as the water currents carried them away like a whirlpool.

Scarlett clung onto Chase as they passed onto a loopy tube, going at such a fast rate that it'd be enough to kill a man. "I regret this, I regret this very much!" she yelped as Chase's eyes stung from the water. He thought he was going to hurl until they landed in a dark tunnel in a pool of water. Chase wheezed, trying to catch his breath as he processed what had happened.

"Are you all alright?" Dahlia asked, straining the water from her sweater. Everyone nodded as she sighed heavily. She wrung her hair, giving up half-way as she trudged through the knee-high water. "Well, we should get going. Where are we? This doesn't seem like Ever After High nor Wonderland."

"You're right," Melina agreed, "it must be some odd cross-over threshold. It's the portal's 'meeting place' between both realms." She trekked further and everyone followed until they came to the threshold that Melina spoke of. There were thousands of rushing streams, most likely interconnecting portals to other realms. "Whoa... This isn't the threshold, this is the Well of Wonders. It's its own system."

"Wonderland is something else, isn't it?" Chase mumbled.

"Ah-ah-ah," a purring voice tsked through the system of flowing streams. "Didn't your mother ever teach you to hold your tongue?" Crackles echoed in Chase's ears as he unsheathed his sword, his jaw tensing. You're in the Red Queen's debt, you owe her lest you forget that, the voice crept into his head.

Your life is only worthy if you protect the Queen, he thought.

"Put the sword away, Chase Redforth, this isn't a game of Un-Chess." From above them, there was the Cheshire Cat laying on her side, residing on a clifftop of the Well of Wonders. She had graying lilac-streaked hair with pale purplish skin accompanied with her wire kitty ears as a headpiece. She sat up, dangling her feet on the ledge. She grinned with that Cheshire Cat-like smile of hers, highlighting her sharp cheekbones and mauve-coloured lips. "Always so resilient, so silent too. Daddy's boy if I had a say in it."

Chase merely scowled, putting his weapon away. "Guys, this is... well, it's the Cheshire Cat."

The Cheshire Cat jumped down from the clifftop at startling height. "What?" she asked boredly, flaunting her long and sharp nails. "A kitty cat always lands on their feet." Circling around the group, her grin only widened. "It's about time that someone discovered that Milton Grimm left at least one portal unsealed. Old, forgetful Milton," she mused.

Crossing her arms, the Cheshire Cat's cat-slit eyes landed on each one of them. "So little Melina Ivory has come back to Wonderland, but ah! Her darling cousin, Scarlett Rouge, is with her as well. Don't you realize that your mothers' feud nearly caused a war to erupt?" she asked tauntingly. Chase glanced at Scarlett, seeing how the anger was boiling inside her.

Then the Cheshire Cat fixed her eyes upon Maxwell, which made him shrink back. "My King," she said, surprised, no tone of humiliation in her voice for once. "You have come back home. The Queen of Hearts will be delighted!"

"Well, I was always going to return to Wonderland. Just had to finish school at Ever After High first," he said stiffly. Chase had almost forgotten that although Max had come to EAH because of the Wonderlandian Curse, he and the Queen of Hearts had family issues to say the least.

The Cheshire Cat's eyes caught on a drenched Dahlia, her grin vanishing immediately. "Who's she?" she asked, a tone of malice in her voice. Chase's jaw tensed—Dahlia was a ray of sunlight and a good friend of his, she always had made good impressions.

"Dahlia Dopey," she answered, smiling awkwardly.

"Mhm," the Cheshire Cat said untrustingly, backing away from Dahlia as if she was a blackening plague. What had Father always told Chase? A cat always avoids the puddles for fear of the danger ahead, the Red Knight said wisely. And judging by the way that the Cheshire Cat eyed the short girl wearily, Dahlia was certainly a rainy puddle to her. But Dahlia wasn't a threat, she was sweet and kind. What the hex is Ms. Cheshire thinking? It displeased him.

"Well," Chase said, breaking the silence. "We ought to get going, Ms. Cheshire. Have a nice day."

"Wait, wait!" Melina cried out, turning to the Cheshire Cat. "We're looking for lost pages of a book, specifically the Storybook of Legends." Chase wanted to gouge out his eyes and perhaps drop dead at that moment. The Cheshire Cat was known for being a trickster, why could they ever trust her?

"Unfortunately, I do not have any information on that matter," the woman replied simply. Crisis averted, Chase felt a sense of relief. "But, my daughter, Katrina, has become quite the gossip girl along with following her mommy's footsteps. If she knows anything about your little storybook, then she'd be the person to go to."

"Rina?" Chase asked incredulously. He remembered Katrina Cheshire during his previous years in Wonderland High; Rina was a trickster who loved pulling pranks on others. They were usually harmless pranks and Katrina was actually quite helpful when out of her mother's influence.

"It's so sad that my kitten has grown so fast, but a mother couldn't be prouder of all the mischief that her child has caused."

"Wait, didn't Katrina and Blaise Blanc date during Freedom Year in Wonderland High?" Maxwell asked aloud. "Gosh, he's going to have a field day after we tell him we're going to see Katrina."

"So will Ladeline," Melina muttered under her breath.

"What?" Dahlia questioned.

"Nothing! Anyhow, thank you for your help, Ms. Cheshire. We best be on our way to Wonderland High then, if you could point out the exit. And no tricks this time," Melina said warningly. The Cheshire Cat rolled her eyes, but gestured to an exit next to them.

"That stream will lead you to your destination, do not stray from the paths and you should be okay. Good luck, and welcome back to Wonderland."

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Winifred Darling's POV:

They were all in Violet Bell's dorm room as she bustled around her desk, gathering pixie dust. Her wings gave a flutter as she produced a bottle of golden pixie dust. "Finally! Good Godmothers, I really need to organize my room more often..."

Ladeline, always adventurous from Winifred's findings, peered curiously at the bottle. "Blaise, Nari, and I are first-time Neverland travellers, so how does it work?" she asked, nudging Blaise, who seemed half-asleep. "This is so exciting, how can you fall asleep?"

"It's called being the White Knight," he yawned, "I sleep with one eye open."

"Sure you do," Ladeline said, waving a dismissive hand in the air.

"You just really sprinkle it around you and then you fly, but you have to be a make-believer for it to work. It doesn't work on normal, boring people," Willow jumped in, explaining the process. "Considering that Ladeline is practically jittering from coffee, Nari is a freaking fairy, and Blaise comes from Wonderland, there's no worry."

"Yeah, he's just boring," Ladeline said. Winifred couldn't tell if they were merely bickering or acting like an old married couple. Probably both. As Violet poured vials of pixie dust onto everyone's hands, though she seemed a bit annoyed.

"Hey, are you okay?" Winnie ventured.

"Can't believe I'm stuck at EAH while the rest of you guys are going on a Neverland adventure. I have to stay with Vanya, Holton, Daphne, Ali, and Fredrick. Out of all the people I'm stuck with, I got the worse... I'm convinced that Apple made me stay here so I can play babysitter. I wish I could go with you," Violet admitted, shaking her head.

From the corner of her eye, Winifred saw Tristan and Fredrick conversing. Now that Winnie thought hard about her, out of all of her childhood friends, Frederick was the one who visited Neverland the least despite being Peter Pan's son. Winifred adored Neverland, it was magical and dreamy, her mother had also loved it. Fredrick? Not so much, he just hated Neverland, a twist of events.

"So what's going to be in Neverland?" Ladeline asked excitedly.

"Well, there's the mermaids in Neverland Lagoon, but they're nothing like the mermaids in Book End. So, we commonly call them sirens," Violet explained as Ladeline raised her eyebrows.

"But why?"

"Well, the Neverland sirens are sweet; they'll sweetly drown you to death if you get too close," Tristan answered, unfazed. "My family's tribe, the Piccaniny Tribe, also lives there. They'll be happy to house us during our visit." Violet dumped pixie dust on his palms, backing away.

"Okay, that's everyone?" Once everyone nodded, Violet immediately shoved Willow out of the open window in their dorm. Nari shrieked out of shock while Blaise blinked blankly and Ladeline choked on her own spit. Nari rushed to the window, horrified.

Winnie wasn't surprised. "Wait for it..."

"Screw you, Vivi," Willow said, floating in the air right by the window. Winnie laughed as Ladeline sighed in relief that Willow hadn't turned into pancake mush. Whenever they did that party trick in front of others, everyone would think Violet was some psycho who pushed her friend out of the window to die. "Why am I always bait for our party trick?"

"Because I was bait last time," Violet insisted.

Nari had a puzzled expression on her face, a mix of disbelief and some amusement. "Wait, so you didn't fall out a window and die? Good Godmothers..."

"You gave me a heart attack!" Ladeline told Violet, but she seemed mildly impressed as a fellow prankster herself. Finally, she jumped out of the window, immediately floating. "This is wicked cool," she gasped. "So this is how Wendy Darling felt when flying to Neverland!"

After everyone jumped out of the window and was floating outside of Violet's dorm, Winnie rested her elbows on the window still. "Stay safe, okay? We still don't know who stole the Storybook of Legends, they can be dangerous."

The corners of Fredrick's lips quirked. "Haha, very funny."

"I'm not joking," Winnie persisted.

"And I will make sure Freddie doesn't get himself in more trouble since I'm apparently a babysitter now," Violet scowled, crossing her arms across her chest. Winnie looked between the two—Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, essentially—and laughed. The two always had a love-hate relationship. "What's so funny? That's usually Fredrick's job."

"You guys remind me of your parents so much," she teased.

Fredrick's gaze hardened. "I would rather drop dead."

Then Winnie realized she fucked up. Big time. "Well, it's probably time for us to go," she cleared her throat. "We'll hex you both later." As Violet closed the window, Winnie flew up to the others, grabbing the Neverland map in her pockets.

Unfurling the map, she started to lead the group in the sky. Her friends had already been and flown to Neverland a dozen times, though Ladeline and Blaise were a different story... Ladeline was a good flyer, but lacked any sense of direction in the skies. "That's east!" Winnie shouted when Ladeline was drifting too far away from them.

"Maybe I should stick to land," she admitted.

And Blaise? Well, he was a bit... confused. "You don't think, you just fly," Willow explained to him as he started to drop in speed. "It's simple, you don't even need to flap your arms like the wings of a bird." Still, Blaise nearly plummeted to the ground, which made Winnie give him their emergency pixie dust.

While the others flew ahead, they sat cross-legged mid-air. "For a knight, I don't flying is my strong-suit," he grumbled while Winnie laughed, pouring her pouch of pixie dust on his palms. Blaise—although having the personality of a grumpy old man—was a dear friend of Winnie's, she enjoyed their interesting conversations, which consisted of Blaise slandering all of the romance novels Winnie would read. What do mean he just fell in love with her? Didn't he consider that he was risking an entire war with their relationship?

And apparently, Winnie was the weird one.

"Hey, why don't you want to go back to Wonderland? I overheard you talking to Melina about it." Winnie watched as his expression shifted. I shoudn't pry, she thought. "You know, we should catch up with the others."

"I don't think Wonderland is good for me right," Blaise allowed. "It gets too complicated."

"Complicated?" Winnie questioned.

"More than you think you can handle."

A/N: Bro, I actually love Chase's character so much <3 BUT I FOUND THE MOST GOOFY PHOTO OF HIM EVER, I CAN'T DFEND CHASE AFTER SEEING IT 😭 LIKE WHY HE SMIRKING LIKE THAT BAHAHHAHA

AND HERE'S ANOTHER CHASE MEME, I LOVE PINTEREST LMAO