Magic is a funny thing. It exists in the oddest places, congealing and expanding through the hidden warren of tunnels and strata that burrow through the skin of reality. It’s a cancer, really, when you come right down to it. Benign mostly. Sometimes though, sometimes it ain’t.

This was one of those times. Hoo-boy was it one of those times.

The Jabberwock was a nightmare in a plaid waistcoat with burning eyes and great, grasping claws and it wuffled and burbled as it came galumphing through the halls. A tail like a bound bunch of steel wires snapped and popped, cutting paint from the walls and sending oxygen molecules running.

It was a nonsense beast, a Questing thing, made up of rhyme and chaos and the random, unfocused magic that coats certain ancient texts like the saliva of a particularly friendly dog. It had existed in its tulgey wood, a shadow on the mind, until the proper condiments of madness had been spread upon the reality closest to its gate.

The White Rabbit was its mustard sauce.

She reflected on this while she ran, her disjointed mind bouncing merrily down the bunny -trail of a back-lit ego that knew no literary foil. White-gloved hands slid across a glass display case as her lithe form vaulted over a collected folio of Ezra Pound’s greatest anti-Semitic rants, provided by the Jewish Gentleman’s Society of Stevenage.

She landed lightly, high-heels clacking on the floor. Behind her, the Jabberwock, wild and wonky, burbled and smashed Ezra Pound aside as if it were no more than words. A claw, wet with the blood of the unfortunate Dormouse and Extremely-Dead-If-Not-Mad Hatter, tore through the floor, tossing tiles willy-nilly.

“Eep! Eepeepeepeep!” The White Rabbit squeaked as she hopped aside and began to run again, bobtail shivering. “Oh fie, oh fee, whate’er shall become of meEep!” A tail barbed like a fishhook darted over her head and came down in front of her, sending her flying. She hit the ground hard and rolled, dust covering her. Her eyes narrowed as sanity, what there was of it, gathered together its tattered dignity and reasserted itself.

“You’re just lucky I left my vorpal sword at home, sirrah!”

The Jabberwock chuffled, lamp-like eyes swiveling and glaring about. It flexed its talons and flapped bat-like wings. It smelt something...

The White Rabbit heaved herself up and brushed dust off of her blue suit-coat, glaring back at the creature she had summoned. Intentionally, of course. Accident was happenstance for proles.

Granted the creature was harder to control than her source had promised. Impossible, in fact. Maybe it had something do with the fact the disc bearing Lewis Carroll’s features was not a chip from his headstone, but in fact, upon further and strenuous examination, plastic. She frowned and tossed the disc away. Glass shattered and she blanched.

“Whoops.”

The Jabberwock swung its head back towards her, frog mouth sighing in anticipation. It stepped towards her.

"Now, now, now, let us not be hasty, sir. Let us not be rude. Was it not this winsome hand which freed thee? Was it not this face which was your first sight upon existence?" The White Rabbit said, holding her hands out. "Fie, sir! Fie! This is unseemly-"

A red glow flared to life suddenly, brilliantly, drowning out the rest of her words in a crash of reality. The White Rabbit gaped. The Jabberwock grimbled. Howard glared up at the beast, a wreath of smoke crowning his head.

“Great.”

---

Elsewhere.

There was a pond. And in that pond was a frog. And that frog had once been a man, though this was ages ago and he only dimly recalled it. Instead, he contented himself with froggish activities such as extreme sitting, lily-pad edition, and fly-eating.

In truth, he was big for a frog. And growing bigger, though in incremental stages. An inch here, an ounce there. A slow, methodical process of re-evolution.

The man with the strawberry-colored eyes watched from his seat on a park bench near the pond. The man was everywhere and nowhere, a spec of frozen time that refused to move on.

Doctor Stephen Strange watched the man for a time and then, sighing, sat beside him on the bench.

“This is foolish.”

“Only in context,” the man with the strawberry-colored eyes replied. “Moment to moment, my actions make perfect sense. For instance, the killing of that frog will result in my death. Or my victory.”

“You have no idea which it is though, do you?” Strange asked, genuinely curious.

“No...omniscience is not with me at the moment.”

“But?”

“But what?” The man looked at Strange, smiling benignly. Strange frowned.

“But you are going to do it regardless.”

“Of course not. What kind of man do you take me for?”

“I don’t know, honestly,” Strange said, leaning forward, chin resting on his hands. “I do know that you have been manipulating certain...minor events on this plane of reality for a while now.”

“Minor events?”

“Forgive me-”

“No. You’re right. Little things. That’s all I can see,” the man said. “I’m a positive bear for small things. It’s part of the prophecy, you see.”

“What prophecy?” Strange raised an eyebrow.

“Why...the one I made.” The man with the strawberry eyes smiled, ruby teeth flashing.

---

Swinging London.

“You sir, are a duck,” the White Rabbit said, nose twitching. Howard looked her up and down.

“And you, madam, are a trollop.”

Ooh! Zing!

“Shaddup.” Howard shook the Star idly and looked around. He looked the Jabberwock up and down. “Well, at least it ain’t vampires.”

The Jabberwock hissed and lunged. Howard snapped his fingers. Aquarian swept a hand up and summoned a null-field into being, shielding them, the White Rabbit included, from the blow.

“Kid...cut its head off,” Howard said, pointing at the beast. Aquarian blinked.

“Howard, I-”

“C’mon, kid. I wanna go home. I wanna see Bev. I wanna eat a TV dinner and watch crappy public access programming like a good American,” Howard said. Aquarian shook his head.

“I can’t. This being is alive, not like the vampires. I can’t simply kill it-”

“What?”

“I can’t!”

“Great. Perfect.”

“Besides which, only a blade vorpal and true can slay the Jabberwock,” the White Rabbit said, hands behind her back, looking up into the rage-contorted features of the beast she had summoned. “That’s why I summoned it, after all.”

“And you were going to do what with it exactly?" Howard said. The White Rabbit blinked.

"I don't believe I considered that. As such. Therein."

"You didn't-"

"It's a Jabberwock! Who doesn't want a Jabberwock?" The White Rabbit looked panicky. Howard bit his cigar in half.

"Stop saying Jabberwock!"

Jabberwock! Jabberwock! Jabberwock!

"I. Said. Stop. NARRATING!" Howard squawked. He hurled the Star of Capistan with all of his might. The stone sheared through Aquarian's null-field as if it weren't there and flew straight down the gullet of the snarling Jabberwock. The creature stumbled back, clawing at its serpentine neck, eyes bulging comically.

The trio looked at one another. Aquarian opened his mouth. Closed it. Howard covered his face with his hands, sighing. The White Rabbit watched the demon-entity stumble backwards, forwards, and side to side as it tried to extricate the mystic stone from its throat.

And then, with a strangled whimper, it died. As did the twelve exhibits beneath its flailing form, which included Hemingway-scribbled bar napkins and a volleyball signed by Helen Keller.

---

“A prophecy,” Strange said flatly. The strawberry eyed man shrugged and smiled sadly. In the pond, the frog croaked happily.

“I have my moments.”

“A prophecy.”

“What can I say?”

“This is idiocy,” Strange said, shaking his head. “The stone-”

“Is the heart of things, yes,” the strawberry-eyed man said. He smiled at Strange’s glare. “No pun intended.”

“I doubt that.”

“We used to be such friends-”

“You possessed me!” Strange shouted, eyes narrowed. The man shook his head.

“The stone possessed you, not me. But that’s why I want it back. To keep the world safe-”

“To reiterate-I doubt that,” Strange said, settling back, calm again. “What’s the prophecy?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s already begun.” The man spread his hands and smiled sadly. “You know better than most that once these kind of things have begun, they can’t be stopped.”

“I-” Strange rubbed his face and looked at the frog. “Such a small thing. They all are. Even the youth-”

“Ah. The boy. Yes.”

Strange turned. “He’s the one, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Howard will not give him the stone,” Strange said. “That’s why I put it into his care.”

“Ah yes. The duck.” The strawberry-eyed man blinked. “The duck. The rabbit. The frog. The cow. And what was it...ah, yes, the-”

“This won’t happen. I won’t let it,” Strange said, rising to his feet. His fingers curled into crooked shapes. The strawberry-eyed man didn’t look at him. He looked at the frog.

“Such small things,” he said. Strange lowered his hands.

“The small things are often the greatest,” Strange said. The two-men watched the frog for another hour. Then, going in separate directions, they left the park.

On his lily-pad, the frog snapped a fly out of the air. Only it wasn’t a fly.

It was a sparrow.

And the frog wasn’t a frog. Not really. Not anymore.

---

The White Rabbit watched the volleyball roll past and turned to the others. "Well, that was a lark, wot?"

"How did the stone pop your shield, kid?" Howard said, ignoring her and looking at Aquarian. Aquarian shook his head.

"I-I don't know. Nothing has ever-"

The Jabberwock sat up, suddenly, red light streaming from its open mouth, its eyes, its bat-like nostrils. Aquarian reacted instinctively, his null-field spearing out, flattening, slicing through the serpentine neck easily. He stared at his hands, appalled.

The creatures body fell backwards, but the Jabberwock’s head remained floating, dripping red light and black blood. Howard looked up.

“Cut that out.”

Can I keep it? Please?

“No.” Howard held out a hand and the Star of Capistan dropped glumly into it, exiting the stump of the Jabberwock’s head with a plop! The discarded head fell and Howard gingerly wiped the stone clean with the edge of Aquarian's sleeve. The youth grimaced.

“Great job, kid. Wish you’d done that in the first place.”

“Howard, I-”

“Fie, my foemen-foeduck-whatever, do we engage in pithy debate or sweaty fisticuffs?” the White Rabbit said, putting up her tiny fists. Howard stared at her with a gimlet eye.

“What?”

“Do we fight, sir?”

“Why would I want to fight you?”

“Because-because-I am a villainess! An arch-villainess!” the White Rabbit protested. Howard shrugged.

“Lady, I only handle the mystic crap. You’re just a broad in tights.”

“But-but-but-”

“Howard. Sirens,” Aquarian said. “We must go.”

“Yeah.” Howard held up the Star of Capistan. “Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.”

The red glow surrounded Howard and Aquarian and before the astonished eyes of the White Rabbit they began to fade. She could hear the sound of sirens now and a thrill of panic filled her.

“No! Wait! I’m-” she began, leaping towards them. Ruby light flashed. The world twisted. Then, heat. Intense heat. And finally, a blessed coolness.

The White Rabbit sat up out of the pond, spitting water from her mouth. Howard lay across her lap, blinking in shock. “What-”

“So,” something grumbled. A shadow fell across woman and duck. They looked up. And up. Into the bloated, amphibious, evil features of the creature looming over them. “So!”

“Oh, crap,” Howard said.

“Yes! Yes, ’crap’ indeed, duck! For I have returned! Let the world tremble at the tread of...GARKO, THE MAN-FROG!”