Alice Anotherbible

Alice Anotherbible (アリス＝アナザーバイブル), usually just called Alice (アリス), is a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal, introduced in Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index.

Etymology
Alice's given name is that of the of 's famous children's story, Fushigi no Kuni no Arisu (不思議の国のアリス) and its sequel .

Her surname, Anotherbible, is partially derived from the Bible, the holy book of Christianity.

Appearance
Alice is a girl who looks around 12 years old, with white skin, long blonde hair and sapphire blue eyes. Her hair has a pair of pointy curls that resemble animal ears. She wears a white apron (with a round white fluffball on the back, perhaps meant as a rabbit tail) over a blue short-sleeved dress, with white tights and black leather shoes.

The other Alice, that emerged from inside her during a talk with Kamijou Touma about her magic, wears a revealing outfit consisting of loosely binding red and black belts, apparently glistening with oil and with metal buckles.

Personality
Anna Sprengel has referred to Alice as bored and Aradia has described everything she says as being downright indecipherable and absurdities, and that when faced with psychedelic nonsense went along with it without questioning any of it. Aradia also described her as pure and innocent but capricious, cruel and violent, such that they could predict what she would do next.

Alice tends to refer to herself as "the girl" or "this girl" (少女).

Background
In reference to Alice herself, her name has been explicitly noted as that of the famous children's story,, which Aleister Crowley had suggested as must-read for those wishing to deepen their understanding of magic, claiming it took on a complete new meaning if the reader had sufficient knowledge of Kabbalah (though he never met Lewis Carroll and merely spread the legend himself), and listing it alongside the Goetia and the Golden Bough.

Alice's full background is unknown - although Aleister deduced that she was born from Magick, given his own role in connecting the story with the occult, it is not clear whether new life had been created for its creator's purposes or an existing person had their soul reshaped.

When Anna and Aradia first referred to her, they described her as though she has experienced Wonderland and events described in the book, including the game of croquet and the trial. According to Alice herself, she has gone on many strange adventures with people in the past, including one who wanted to become a god, one who wanted to be immortal and one who wanted to get back at academia for making fun of him.

At some point in the past, she became the center of the Bridge Builders Cabal, a hidden gathering of Transcendents for the purpose of making the world a better place. Seeking to make use of her unique abilities for their own ends, yet also afraid of Alice, given her exceptional power exceeding her fellow Transcendents as well as her capricious and childishly cruel nature, the rest of the cabal submitted to and catered for her whims, providing her with any toys or entertainment she wanted,  with their bases determined by her interests. She also played a role in them achieving their current positions and power, as the Transcendents had analyzed Alice to determine how to overwrite their own humanity.

Until recently at the time of December of the story's first year, Alice had been having fun in a remote island prison she had created (speculated by Aradia to perhaps be the influence of some American drama), and an incident in which she got upset was responsible for water and traces of life on a planet dozens of light-years away, which was subsequently discovered and being talked about by the public around the time that Anna was introduced to the group. The group's current base on December 29th was a cruise ship in a flooded stadium in the middle of a rainforest, with at least one giant yellow duck waddling around.

Los Angeles Arc
Anna Sprengel and Aradia referred to Alice during their conversation in the aftermath of the events on December 26th.

Post-Handcuffs Arc
Influenced by a suggestion from Anna Sprengel, who had secretly approached a bored Alice before Aradia and the other members of the group introduced Anna to her, Alice ran away to Academy City and snuck into Kamijou Touma's home, into his blanket while he slept.

She accompanied him throughout the events of December 29th, referring to him as "teacher" and adding to his problems as he visited Tsukuyomi Komoe for supplementary lessons and the Delivery Go Round for food purchases. When Touma was caught up in the Overhunting crash and the subsequent prisoner escape, Alice used her power to influence the resulting events, but Touma caught on and persuaded her to undo the changes she had made and let him try to resolve things properly.

After the events surrounding the prison train and the battle in the Vanishing Tunnel (both resulting from the events of Operation Handcuffs) were resolved, she was picked up by Anna and returned to the group's base, where the group were dismayed to find that Alice wouldn't use her power in the way that they hoped she would, due to Touma's influence.

New Year's Arc
On January 1st, with the Bridge Builders Cabal having established a consulate in School District 12 to give her a 'secret base' in Academy City, Alice greeted Kamijou Touma as he and others were making their New Year's Day shrine visits, accompanied by Good Old Mary and Trismegistus.

The next day, Touma awoke to find Alice had snuck into his bed again. After breakfast, Alice brought the group over to the consulate to show them her new 'secret base'. When Touma accidentally let slip about the Rescuers and Killers, Alice rendered him unconscious and went on a brief rampage. As the group stayed the night at the consulate, Alice was present as they had dinner, when Aradia was washed and when Touma visited the Bologna Succubus, with the latter briefly having to use her Cold Mistress on Alice to prevent her from taking an interest in the VR game and electronic devices the demon was playing with.

On the morning of January 3rd, after Trismegistus attempted to kill Touma, over his intent to persuade Alice and others to change the cabal's decision to immediately execute Anna Sprengel, and Good Old Mary fought him after resurrecting the boy from decapitation,  Alice intervened in the battle between the two Transcendents at full power and immediately brought them down, intending to punish them for their misdeed and failure. Touma's subsequent intervention to prevent her from killing the two and a misunderstanding of intentions led to a falling out between the two, with Alice setting her Gryphon on him. Around the same time, Touma's allies in Academy City were on the move. As the Gryphon bit off his right arm and was destroyed by the entity emerging from it, Touma tried to keep Alice's attention on him, but failed to avoid a bad outcome.

Following Touma's escape from the consulate, Alice was left in a broken, catatonic state. Concerned that her condition would worsen to the point of being unable to perform in their ceremony, the Bridge Builders Cabal chose to immediately begin the ceremony, calling in reinforcements from outside the city and departing the consulate, as Mut Thebes was dispatched to hunt down Anna Sprengel.

Late on January 4th, as the Bridge Builders Cabal's ceremony to bring Christian Rosenkreuz into the world was reaching its climax, Alice stood at a corner of the ceremonial ground rather than on the main stage as had been planned. When the cabal's intended savior was revealed to drastically different for the worse than what legends claimed of him and knocked down the Transcendents, Alice was the only one of the group left standing, attracting the attention of CRC, who crushed the unresponsive Alice's head in front of a helpless and distraught Trismegistus.

Abilities
As a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal, Alice is powerful enough to rival the regular magic side on her own, and she is exceptional even amongst her fellow Transcendents, standing above them.

Most spells used by people (including those of other Transcendents) are said to be built from the basics of magic, but Alice is said to be one of the exceptions alongside Magic Gods and some Saints. Given Aleister Crowley's role in connecting  to the occult and Kabbalah,  Alice herself has a connection to his Magick system, though her exact origins in relation to it are not currently known.

Like the other Transcendents, Alice possesses a seal that she can release and manifest her powers at their fullest. The exact designation of her seal is not known, but the seal is that of a children’s book. When released, the usual Alice tears open and another Alice emerges from within.

Even without displaying her full unrestrained power, she was able to instantly defeat two regular Transcendents fighting one another with their full power unsealed. During the events on December 29th, she was completely unaffected by deadly bacteria, bugs, and Frillsand 's 'curse', and on recalling this when having to face her, Kamijou Touma assessed that she was immune to other internal damage, scientific or magical. She can be affected by Bologna Succubus's Cold Mistress, said to be one of the only Transcendents in the cabal who could fight back against her if the spell was used right. While the actual capability of people to read her mind is unknown, her psychedelic mind was noted by Trismegistus to be hazardous to those who might try to do so.

Live Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's unique magic, known as Live Adventures in Wonderland (ライブアドベンチャーズインワンダーランド), is a Kabbalah-based power that is capable of affecting the entire world. By going on an adventure with someone, she can link together different ideas, laws and definitions, innocently using her magic to build bridges between them, regardless of pre-existing connections (or lack thereof) and flawed premises, to find new meanings, create new paths, and influence reality.

An example suggested by Alice herself to illustrate how her powers could work, was the idea that since there were four emotions and four elements, when roleplaying one could draw on special power by intentionally drawing on a specific emotion within oneself. This was described as a "stretch" or "sophistry" - it might seem reasonable at first, but there are no existing myths or laws behind it. Additionally, the four emotions are an Eastern concept while the four elements are a Western one. Other flawed notions that Alice mentioned included the idea that burning something requiring phlogiston, that neutrinos could travel faster than light, and that observing one of a pair of separated particles would determine the spin of the other regardless of the distance they were separated by. As stated by Alice and temporarily illustrated during the incident on December 29th, it works even if it is a theory on how to resurrect the dead.

The world as influenced by Alice's magic, sometimes called Alice's world (アリスの世界) or Wonderland (ワンダーランド),  is a storybook one that can be greatly removed from how the real world would normally be. When Touma confronted Alice on what she had been doing, time appeared to freeze and only the two of them remained facing one another in the space they were in at the time. The frozen landscape outside was greatly changed, with a giant tower above the current location, enormous pumpkins shaped like human faces growing from the ground all over the place and breaking through asphalt, five-point shooting stars drawing trails behind them in the night sky, and incomprehensible ancient characters and diagrams dancing around like neon signs.

On being convinced to put things back the way they were and Alice giving a verbal command to immediately cease all modified kabbalah bridge linking within Live Adventures in Wonderland, there was a thunk like a metal lock opening, followed by a light which enveloped Touma, with senses and surroundings fading away, eventually restarting at the time, place and events where Wonderland's effects had previously begun to be applied. Touma had suspected that if he had continued through the optimal world without questioning it, all of the pieces would have intertwined and become real.

Wonders
There are a number of "wonders" connected to Wonderland which Alice can manifest. Sometimes, these entities manifest automatically as a form of psychological defense to deal with any attack or obstacle which she cannot avoid by herself. This is apparently not out of protecting herself or fear of injury, but because an attack that hits her and obstructs her movement is likely to anger her and lead her to kill the offender without even meaning to or without thinking, so she makes sure to block attacks so that does not happen.

Initially, this psychological defense takes the form of a pink flamingo acting as a cricket bat and hedgehogs curled up into balls (the latter of which Alice sometimes uses as a cushion), appearing from her dress. Beyond the cricket defense is an emaciated, bony, axe-wielding figure, wrapped in a tattered black cloak, that emerges from her shadow, known as the Shokeijin (処刑人). Should an opponent escape the Executioner's blade, they will likely be faced by Alice's own power.

Another figure that was summoned during the events at the consulate is the Gurifon (グリフォン), a beast with the front half of a bird and the rear half of the lion, at least 7m long with a wingspan of 20m or more, with high physical destructive and defensive power. Alice also likely had a hand in the Shrink Drinks, anti-Transcendent spiritual items lent to the cabal's execution specialist Mut Thebes for use against Anna Sprengel, intended to diminish a Transcendent's power when injected, much like how the drink physically shrank the imbiber in story.

Trivia

 * Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is referenced in Aleister Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice. A quote from the book is featured at the start of , together with a quote from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The Magick in Theory and Practice quote comes from the bottom of Appendix I (Bibliography and Curriculum of the A∴A∴), under Course I (General Reading), Section 2 ("Other books, principally fiction, of a generally suggestive and helpful kind"). Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (in its shortened form as Alice in Wonderland) is the 14th item on the list, with Alice Through the Looking Glass and The Hunting of the Snark as the 15th and 16th items respectively. All are listed as by Lewis Carroll and "valuable to those who understand the Qabalah".
 * Numerous aspects of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland have been utilized or referenced in the series since Alice Anotherbible's introduction,  and a smaller number had been used before then, mostly outside of the main story's text.


 * Elements of inner Alice's design seem to bear aspects of both her Kabbalah and storybook-related origins.  The arrangement of belts and fasteners that she wears as an outfit is vaguely reminiscent of the arrangement spheres and paths making up the Sephiroth. As well as stars, some of the fasteners are in the shapes of hearts - although these are not associated with the main character of Alice herself, they are associated with another notable character from the story - the, a few aspects of which Alice Anotherbible has referenced or used.