Fanfic: Imperial Tales: Wonderland

(What happens when you watch a full series marathon of the anime "Deadman's Wonderland"?

For me, you have this dream apparently.

 

    My name is Ganta Igarashi, and I’m a prisoner. My crime? Being born different. I don’t mean like different ethnicity or hair color or anything stupid like that; I was born with special powers so they locked me up; and I’m only fifteen. I didn’t kill anybody, all I can do is shoot these energy balls from my hands, they’re like fire works. One day in class at my middle school I was being picked on by a bully and they just…came to me; I shot him in the chest; he was pretty badly burned and had to go to the hospital. His family wanted to press charges but the government hauled me off to the Wonderland Institute.

 

    They say it’s a gated community just for people with powers; there are high class apartments, pools, game halls, and guards everywhere. They say the guards are there to protect us; but the truth is they are there to keep us inside; it’s no village it’s a prison. The director even told me so himself when I first arrived, all the publicity and anything we say to anyone on the outside is carefully scripted. After this the director showed me a video, at first I thought it was stupid, I mean everyone knows the story of how the Dark Breed came to be. But lets stop right there; I mean really what the fuck man, Dark Breed? I remember when I was little and they talked about making this Wonderland community village, an easy step forward to peaceful relations between normal people and Dark Breed, but seriously man; if they really wanted a peaceful coexistence why’d they choose a name like Dark Breed? What the fuck man, it makes since to me now though; they have no intention to eventually let us integrate back into society.

 

    Anyways, that video, well it started off talking about the disaster; at the time the government covered it up saying it was a natural disaster; hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunami going in different directions, and a massive earthquake; not to mention lightning bolts that blasted buildings apart and all sorts of weird things survivors say they saw including a rectangular tornado with a face and monsters. Eventually some private investigators looking into the sudden appearance of (Dark Breed), people with these strange and really evil looking powers; I mean even my energy balls are blood red. I mean, sorry, got off track again; well these investigators found out the center of the disaster was a secret particle accelerator outside of Tokyo; it was designed to try and tap into an infinite energy source between universes. It worked, but the power went out of control, the radiation effected the weather; they said the monster sightings were due to hallucinations it caused; but the radiation also mutated people into what the papers had already started to call The Dark Breed. I still can’t believe in this day and age a name like that stuck; this isn’t a fucking anime or manga or some shit man. That’s just messed up.

 

     The director then showed me something else, top secret footage, he told me he shows this to all the Dark Breed who come to the Wonderland Institute; its real name behind the locked gates; everyone here calls it that unless in front of a camera. He shows it to us because he knows we’ll never be allowed to talk about it to outsiders, and we can’t talk to the guards either. What he showed me was camera footage of the experiment that caused the disaster; they opened a portal to another dimension and something came through; it was hard to make out in the blurry footage but it looked like a woman with long hair and wearing a cape. You could see the machine doing something to her; the director explained it was an energy siphon, it was supposed to draw power from the wormhole to fill batteries, but this woman it looks like was caught by surprise and; well to me it looked like she was shooting lightning from her hands; the director says the scientists say it was something like dimensional ripple energy or something crazy like that; I don’t really remember; it was something really complicated. But she overloaded the machines causing a meltdown and all that weird energy got into the atmosphere; the rest is history you know. He says they dubbed her The Witch. I asked what happened to her; the director just shrugged and said she went back through the portal according to the reports. That particle accelerator or what ever it was was ground zero, but also like the eye of a hurricane, so it was perfectly fine for the most part; the director said they even built the

Wonderland Institute right on top of it.

 

     But he just smiled and said none of that mattered, next thing I know I’m being asked what I call myself; I mean really they took away our names and had us make up new ones. I still can’t believe I got away with Ganta Gun for my code name; I just wanted to make sure I could still be called Ganta; I mean seriously that’s my name for crying out loud. I was shown around, it at first looked a lot like what they showed on television, apartments, state of the art virtual reality books, exercise equipment, pools, lots of nice people; but the main apartments; where they stuck me; underground was a whole other story. Down here were whole rooms; really weird rooms, where the really dangerous guys lived. I had no idea why they stayed there; with their powers they could easily overpower the guards, tanks, I saw some guys who looked like they could take on the defense force single handedly. There was this one guy I met, called himself Corpse Crow, he could stretch his body; it turned all splotchy green and black with these stone spikes all over it when he did; his hands even turned to stone claws when he extended them. I couldn’t tell if that trench coat he wore was part of his body or actual clothes after seeing him stretch.

 

    It wasn’t all bad, I met a girl; her name; well she calls herself Iggy, not sure if that’s her real name or what. She has these tentacle hair things; her hair is black, but it turns red and becomes like these razor sharp whips. But that’s nothing, she’s cute, and nice, and funny. Things were starting to go my way, just had to make sure to stay out of the way of the director; and those crazy doctors who like to experiment on us, even make us fight each other to test our abilities.

 

    Things changed one day, after a few months there was an earthquake and all the power went down; next thing I know Corpse Crow is telling me now is my chance, Iggy and mine’s chance to escape to live that life we wanted away from all this control, did we want our children to grow up in this concentration camp is how he put it; I’d never heard him talk like that; and next thing I know he’s attacking me; just out of the blue. I dodged his claw arms; not sure how he missed me; well in retrospect I think he was aiming at the walls, including the elevator shaft, which me and Iggy jumped down; right guess I forgot aside from our special powers we “Dark Breed” are also physically a lot stronger than normal people; that helped justify segregating us saying even with out using our powers we could still accidentally hurt someone or in a fit of anger kill someone when we didn’t mean it just because we are so much stronger than them.

 

   Well we went down the elevator shaft, next thing you know there are guard robots after us, during a disaster we are supposed to report to the nearest guard station or our rooms; Iggy and I were overdue; luckily the room we ended up in going down was “The Playroom” a really large open room with tall rectangular pillars, not sure how tall, but the space under them is filled with those plastic balls you see in those kiddie ball pits. Well this room belongs to a young girl called Daisy Mist; she’s scary powerful, I heard she has psychokinesis, you know moving things with her mind and reading thoughts, and something called Necrokinesis, not sure what that is but I guess its what allowed her to make this green mist around her that turned into these freaky snake things that attacked the robots making them rust and fall apart; she’s one of those I can’t believe is being kept here against her will. When we first showed up she thought we were there to play with her; I had heard scary stories about her ideas of playtime; we took the opportunity of her “playing” with the robots to flee out the unlocked doors. Thinking back I thought the doors were unlocked thanks to the power going out from the earthquake but the lights were on.

 

   Iggy and I made our way through a bunker, the guards were no where to be seen in there, they were all outside yelling and shooting; I heard later that some terrorist Dark Breeds were attacking the Institute or something; I didn’t care. We got into an armored car and fled. I couldn’t believe we’d done it, we’d escaped. Hours passed and no one was following us, Iggy was falling asleep, the sun was setting; I knew we needed to ditch the armored truck as soon as possible. But now we have our whole lives ahead of us.

 

    ******

 

    The scene fades to black as Ganta pulls the virtual reality reader away from his face, sitting back in his chair.

 

     “You want to read it Iggy,” he says as Iggy sits next to him on a different device in their forced futuristic looking apartment reading a touch screen tablet of a novel.

 

    “No thanks,” she says.

 

    “You know,” says Corpse Crow behind them, having entered their apartment yet again uninvited, “I’ve read your little story, still can’t believe they let you publish all that.”

 

    “Well,” says Ganta, “its not like anyone outside the institute will ever read it.”

 

   “True,” says Corpse Crow, “but I can’t believe you and Iggy came back here; given how you ended the story.”

 

   Ganta looks confused for a moment, “I didn’t…write it…did I? Well you know, we figured we couldn’t make it out there…get away…in an armored car….ahhhhh!”

 

   “Ganta!” yells Iggy as Ganta falls to his knees grabbing his head.

 

   “No! We didn’t…Iggy, we escaped…it was…that woman.”

 

   Iggy screams as well grabbing the side of her head.

 

   “Woah,” says Corpse Crow, “what’s going on here?”

 

   “The woman,” says Ganta calming down.

 

   Iggy too calms down and gives Ganta a concerned look.

 

   “You saw her too right?”

 

   Iggy nods.

 

  “Woah, what woman?” asks Corpse Crow.

 

  “She,” says Ganta, “was wearing this red leather outfit,”

 

  “Tight red leather,” says Iggy, “very shameless.”

 

  Corpse Crow just smiles and leans on a wall as Ganta continues, “She was also wearing this black cape, and had short white hair. I remember she flew down in front of the truck, her arms, the forearms split open, her blood flew out, turn black, and became these giant claws. She knocked the truck off the road, ripped it open and dragged us out. I remember her eyes glowing as she looked at us and…”

 

    “She blocked your memories,” says Corpse Crow, “made you write this story that hides most of what happened that day so when it is declassified someday there is official word terrorists attacked this place; and you came back. I’d stick to that story kid, otherwise Clover Cluster might come after you again.”

 

    “Who?” asks Ganta.

 

   “That’s who you described,” says Corpse Crow, “how do you think they keep us all in line kid? They use those guys; especially that white haired band of mercenaries; they are uber-freaks to us freaks; they’re the real guards, the guys with the guns are just for show…and *heh* actually are to keep outsiders out who try to get in. But the real big bad-asses are paid to keep the rest of us in line. Clover Cluster scares the shit out of most everyone; even Daisy Mist; but I think she’s Clover’s daughter or something…not really sure, I know she babies Daisy Mist. But *shrugs* I don’t know, later.”

 

    Ganta and Iggy look at each other confused for a moment not sure about how to process this revelation.

 

    ******

 

    “Sir,” says Clover Cluster to the director who is playing with some toy, “Ganta Gun and Iggy Strand have recovered their memories sooner than expected,”

 

    “So,” says the director, “we just needed them out long enough to spread that delightful propaganda to the whole institute.”

 

    “Sir,” says Clover Cluster, “On that note I have other news for you,”

 

    “Really?” says the director sitting in his chair, child like curiosity in his eyes.

 

    “Yes,” says Clover Cluster putting a disc in a player, the big screen showing the pool and exercise rooms on the 14th floor of the apartment building.

 

    “As you will see sir,” she says as the video plays showing what she is saying, “shortly before the earthquake started a woman teleported into the pool room, no one thought anything of it at the time as we have several teleporters here in the insititute.”

 

    “Such lovely blood red hair,” says the director, “and I just love her cosplay outfit; what do they call that? The dark sorceress look?”

 

    “I wouldn’t know sir,” says Clover Cluster, “she walked around the pool, talked to a few of the inma…residents sir, and examined the exercise equipment. The resident known as Handsome Chap, as you can see here, started to talk to her; apparently inviting her to a game of air hockey before she started to look down as though looking directly at something. She teleported and then the earthquake began. As you know sir we have reports of Corpse Crow suddenly attacking Ganta Gun, he claims to have no memory of anything past passing him in the hall and when he was found lying unconscious in the hall; there is also the sudden attack by the robot guards; reports indicate they targeted only walls, computer terminals, and security gates. Then the guards began to hallucinate, claiming to see dragons and other monsters flying around.”

 

    “So,” says the director losing interest and now playing with a top, “are you saying these things are related?”

 

    “Sir,” says Clover Cluster, “the energy signature detected by the sensors did not recognize her as a resident; however when ran through the database they did find a

match; the catastrophe.”

 

    The director starts to look more interested.

 

    “and,” continues Clover Cluster, “when we ran a comparative analysis between this woman and The Witch…in the clear version of the security tapes; they came out as a match.”

 

    “Interesting,” says the director, “so the progenitor of the Dark Breed has come back to check up on her children? Or perhaps…”

 

    The director picks up a couple of dolls, “she was testing our her new toys, seeing what they could do.”

 

   “I…don’t know sir,” says Clover Cluster.

 

   “That is all,” says the director bluntly, “I want every last one of you on the look out for her. Who knows, maybe she can turn invisible and is spying on us right now.”

 

    “Sir?” says Clover Cluster, a hint of stress in her voice.

 

   “You said teleport,” says the director, “but no one saw her after she vanished right? But there was still an earthquake, and all that other stuff right? So maybe we have an invisible puppet master spying on us planning her next move.”

 

   “I…” says Clover Cluster, “will issue scanners to the guards if you wish.”

 

   “Yes do that,” says the director, “now go away I want to play with my toys in peace.”

 

   “Yes sir,” says Clover Cluster as she leaves.

 

    ******

 

    Later that night Clover Cluster is looking at her reflection in a mirror in her private apartment; completely free of surveillance devices per her contract; and of course seeking out and destroying the ones she knew they planted anyway. The mirror turns dark and the woman with blood red hair and dark leather like clothes appears in the reflection surrounded by swirling purple mist.

 

    “Two decades is all that has passed in their world since my foot step altered it so dramatically,” says the woman, “hmm, so how long have you been there?”

 

    Clover Cluster bows before the mirror on one knee, “My squad arrived fifteen years ago,”

 

    “So,” says the woman, “nearly to the time of when my self from so many centuries ago traveled through their world so briefly. A bit further back then I intended.”

 

    The woman in the mirror giggles a dark giggle, “Well so long as there is no overlap…anywho…so then my soldier report to me what has happened since my little…visit.”

 

    Clover Cluster’s skin turns silver, and her ears become pointed as she raises up and says, “Yes my Empress…”