Modern Age Online

"Well, at least these die." Kaleb said as he continued to fire over his shoulder.

"Yippee." Drawled Abby.

They both ran for the train that wasn't really far away. But the rabbits kept popping up near them. Kaleb learned that the loud whomp always proceeded with the appearance of an aggressive rabbit. They popped into existence mid-jump mostly, trying to take a bit of him or Abby. It was hell on his reflexes to keep them at bay as it was. But Abby seemed to be in far better shape. Whenever a rabbit clamped its jaws down on her, a shadow would rise from her skin and impale the fluffy bastard. Which Kaleb thought was cheating.

A tug on his lab coat almost took Kaleb to the ground. But he spun in place and found a brown rabbit with its teeth in his long coat. He blasted the little sucker away and watched as its weird paper mache body blew into pieces. A blue sheen was left in the air where his shot had gone, but Kaleb ignored it as they reached the train.

Abby was the first one up, leaping into the train car and rapidly pulling levers. Kaleb clung to the ladder as more and more rabbits popped into existence near him. Judging by the sudden weight on his back, he guessed that even more were clawing at his lab coat. The train slowly started moving as Kaleb dragged himself up and into the car as fluffy bunnies screeched at them. They were clawing and biting into his back armor, but all Kaleb felt were tiny jabs.

Once he pulled himself up into the car, Kaleb rolled over onto his back, trying to crush the cartoon rabbits. They squealed in protest and squeezed out from under him. Thankfully, Abby was there to slice them up as they glared at Kaleb in a rage. Getting to his feet, Kaleb blasted the last remaining rabbits into confetti and then looked around.

The bunnies were scaling the engine car and popping into existence all around them still. Abby became a shadowy blender as Kaleb vented and continued firing his Cybar. The train was already in motion. All they needed to do was hold on until they were at speed. Drawing his Sun Gun, Kaleb went wild as he fired off blast after blast of energy. Each dead rabbit seemed to glow with the yellow or blue energy with which it was killed.

Kaleb kept an eye on Abby to see if her black shadow blades left a similar glow. But they did not. A horrifying thought entered Kaleb's mind. But he couldn't dwell on it, as there were more rabbits to kill. Even if he was right, that didn't mean he could stop. They'd be overrun in seconds.

"Can't your damn rat do something?!" Abby screamed as she punted a rabbit off the train.

"We can't risk destroying the train car. She nearly shook the wheels off last time!" Kaleb shouted back.

The squealing rabbits and the blasts of his weapons made the tiny engine car echo with the sounds of their fight. He thought he heard Abby growl in annoyance over the squealing rabbits, though. Milly, safe within his arm, chittered silently, watching the battle unfurl. Kaleb could feel that she wanted to help, but she was unsure how. Before he could stop her, the little marmot phased out of his arm and whistled harshly, drawing the eye of several rabbits. They zeroed in on the big blue creature and charged.

Kaleb watched as four rabbits leapt at his new pet, popping into existence on all four sides of her. With a sharp whistle, Milly's fur bristled as blue electricity danced across her back. Her resulting jolt to the rabbits sent them sprawling into the wall of the train. The arc of electricity hit the metal train car and seemed to momentarily electrify it. The cries of multiple rabbits exploded as they were shocked clean off the sides of the moving train.

"Holy shit, Milly. Way to go." Kaleb smiled as the marmot stamped her four paws happily.

The fight eventually died down as their train moved faster and faster. With Milly's help shocking rabbits en masse, things went much smoother. Eventually, Abby and Kaleb were leaned against opposite sides of the train car, panting.

"What are you tired for? You barely had to move your arms, shooter." Abby complained.

"Hey, these guns get heavy after a while. Killing creatures by the horde like that is just as exhausting for me as it is for you, sword-flinger."

"Sure." Abby's half-grin told him she was just kidding. "Are you sure you're killing them, though?"

Kaleb tilted his head in confusion until he realized what she was asking. "The glow?"

Abby nodded.

"I don't know, Abs. That flashed appeared after I killed one with my guns. Every time."

"Same with your pet as well. When she shocked those things, her electricity hung around for a beat longer."

Kaleb glanced down at the tiny creature that was sniffing about the cartoon train's engine car. She didn't seem like she was going to dive into it again. At least not yet. Returning his gaze back to Abby, Kaleb thought about the weird phenomenon around the rabbits and his hypothesis about what was happening.

"I think this dimension absorbs errant energy." Kaleb started as he checked his weapons were still good. "The way it dissipated around the rabbits differed from how it normally does in the real world. Here it hung in the air longer and seemed to seep into the air."

"If you knew that, why did you keep firing?"

Kaleb waved a hand at his body. "Every one of my weapons uses energy in some way, Abs! What was I gonna do? Punch the rabbits to death?"

The shorter woman scoffed, but said nothing else as she straightened her back against the train car's wall. Eventually she asked. "So, what do you think that energy is being used for?"

Kaleb's answer was to look around at everything. It took her a second, but when Abby realized what he was saying, she blinked owlishly.

"You've got to be kidding."

"It would make sense. Some mage cast some kind of spells within their own pocket dimension so that when energy is spent within it, the dimension grows."

"So you are empowering this dimension just by using your weapons?"

"I think so?" Kaleb shrugged. "But probably not just me. Everything people do generates some kind of energy. Maybe this place is siphoning all sorts of power from the people in it."

Abby raised an eyebrow at that and asked. "Think that's what was up with the cowboys?"

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Kaleb could only shrug. Nearby, Milly was climbing the side of the car by Abby. She seemed intent on getting to the window on the car's side, and Kaleb watched with idle interest as his brain worked on the information. If whatever mage was running things had planted energy siphons throughout their pocket dimension, then they really needed to get out of there. Every action they took would feed into their cartoon nightmare and eventually the Mage would have their own little fiefdom. A place like Korrigan's or maybe even Cog's.

Kaleb couldn't suppress a shudder as he walked over to Abby's side of the train and picked Milly up. He placed her front paws on the window and smiled at the sudden joy that flooded their connection. She stuck her nose out the window as sniffed the passing air happily. Then a spike of confusion hit their connection and Kaleb practically jolted the marmot out the window. Milly had seen something ahead that had shocked her.

Pulling her back in and sticking his own head out the window, Kaleb cursed.

"Fuu~uuck!"

"What?" Abby asked, sticking her head around the side of the train and looking along the tracks.

Two poles sat on either side of the train tracks ahead, holding a long black wire between them. Hanging off the wire was a yellow rectangular shape holding three differently colored lights. A bright red light was lit up at the top of the rectangle and Kaleb hurriedly pulled himself inside.

"What?" Abby asked again.

"That's a stoplight, Abby." Kaleb explained as he pulled on the brake lever of the train.

"So?"

"This is a cartoon train in a cartoon world." Kaleb explained, as the train didn't stop.

He went back to pulling levers as the train seemed to speed up at his actions. Abby, apparently, still was getting it, as she tried to pull him away from the levers.

"I don't know what that means! My parents never let me watch cartoons."

Kaleb rubbed a hand down his face as he let the smaller women drag him away. Summoning Milly back into his arm, Kaleb pushed them toward the engine car doorway.

"In a cartoon, when you have a speeding car moving down the road, the best way to make them stop is by pulling out a stop sign. When that happens, cartoon physics dictates the car stop… violently."

Abby looked out the train door at the oncoming stop light with panic. "Are you sure?"

"I'm not sure of shit in this damn dimension. But the brakes aren't working, so I can only assume I'm right."

Abby looked between the traffic light and the speeding landscape outside the door. With a grimace, she wrapped her arms around Kaleb's chest and looked up at him.

"If this kills us, the same rules apply as before, Lizard."

"Yeah, yeah." Kaleb said before wrapping the smaller woman in his arms and leaping from the train.

As they soared through the air, he heard Abby gulp in some air and a shadowy bubble surrounded them. The momentary darkness was immediately broken when the shadowy ball hit the speeding ground. But it cushioned at least the first blow. The second and third, however, Kaleb took right on his armored back. He heard the metal crunch and tried his best to hang on as the two of them spun along the ground like a Frisbee. He felt rocks and twigs scratch into his body until Abby again summoned her powers and made a shadowy sled beneath them.

They skidded away a few more meters before eventually they came to a stop on the grassy plains. Kaleb released Abby as she rolled away from him and dismissed her shadows. Lying there panting, Kaleb was taking a mental inventory when the loud sound of crunching metal echoed through the air. Abby jolted up into a sitting position, but Kaleb remained lying down. Mostly because his spine was killing him, but also because he knew he was just proven right.

"Train car flip over?" Kaleb asked.

"Right into the traffic light. Took the coal car with it and smashed into the tracks ahead." Abby answered.

Kaleb blew out a puff of air as he shook his head. Cartoon logic was no way to run a damn mini-world. He was about o voice his complaints loudly and viciously when a sound echoed in the air. It seemed to be an uneven, off-kilter tone, until it got closer. That's when Kaleb realized…

"Is that laughter?" Abby asked, looking for the source of the sound.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho! He-he-he! Ha-Ha-Ha! Ah-ha! Ah-he! Ah-Hoo!"

Kaleb slowly pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the sharp pain in his back and side. The laughter was getting closer now, and he had an idea of who it was. Judging by the look on Abby's face, she seemed to agree with him as she summoned her arm blades. Kaleb checked his weapons were in place before pulling his trusty Cybar and following the laughter.

It was a quick trip. The source of the laughter was seated high above them, overlooking the train wreck. For a moment Kaleb thought he was looking at an oddly shaped alien. But really, it was a man in a suit. An alien man for sure, but his odd proportions were mostly down to the jagged-looking suit he was wearing. He wore a half-cape and Kaleb could see the coloration on his wing-tip shoes as he kicked them up in delight. The mage was seated on a long cane, floating in the air above the smoking wreckage Kaleb assumed he had created.

The man's laughter nearly toppled him off the side of his cane several times, but each time he caught himself before he fell. Abby looked at Kaleb in worry before they both crept closer to the man. He was still cackling away, but Kaleb held no delusions of sneaking up on the alien man. This was his domain. He'd crashed their train intentionally. He was probably aware of them even right now.

"Oh, that was a spectacular crash, wasn't it? I mean, it was so much fun! Toys are so much better the more real they are, yes?"

The man's voice cracked several times when he spoke, like he wasn't in charge of his own voice's inflections. But something about it seemed off to Kaleb. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, though.

"I asked you a question." The man said in a sing-song voice, still half-chuckling.

Kaleb broke the silence first as Abby glared up at the mage. "Personally, I prefer when I'm not in danger of being crushed."

"Danger?! HAHAHA! DANGER? There's no danger here! This is all make-believe!"

The gray-skinned alien man finally spun his cane around in mid-air and looked down upon them. He was clearly some kind of stone-based alien or something. But Kaleb wasn't sure. The alien laid out flat on his cane and let a leg dangle off the side as he tried to contain his laughter again. Abby's glare seemed to harden as she shouted back at the man.

"Just because you force people into this cartoon doesn't mean they can't get hurt."

The alien cracked up again as Kaleb quickly caught Abby's eye. "No, Abby. I don't think that's what he meant."

"Ding-Ding-Ding! Give that man a prize!" The alien said, voice no longer cracking strangely.

"He's a Player!" Abby cried, smacking her forehead and groaning.

"Well, I do have a way with the ladies. He-ha-ha!" said the Villain Player, standing on his cane and spreading his arm out wide. "I am the mighty Karick Tore! Mage supreme and creator of this fine cartoon world of ours! Isn't it grand?! A place for all the world's cartoons."

"Oh my god, and his an RPer!" Abby groaned, rubbing a hand down her face.

Karick grunted at Abby's words and sat down hard on his cane again. "Well, what's the point of being a Villain, if you're not going to do it with some pizzazz? At least this way, it's more fun for everyone, right?"

Abby shook her head as Kaleb shrugged noncommittally. A meant what he said earlier about preferring Player villains to normal ones. But that was only because he could get a little rougher with Players. But a mage that ruled the dimension they were standing in? That was another matter altogether?

Seeing their faces, Karick's own soured. "You people aren't going to be any fun, are you? Typical Heroes. You're all sticks in the MUD."

At his last word, Kaleb felt the ground beneath his feet shift and looked down. The grassy plains he and Abby had been standing on were now a damn bog of mud. It sucked at his shoes as Kaleb pulled himself out. Abby simply shadow-stepped toward a nearby tree and continued to glare up at their attacker. He hadn't waved his wand or uttered a spell at all. Just one word was enough to shift the rules of the ground they were standing on. That was annoying.

Kaleb pointed his Cybar at the floating menace and let loose with three shots. Karick cackled as he waved his hand. The first two shots transformed into clouds of bubbles as the third one hit home and slammed into Karick's chest. The bright blue ball of energy exploded into a bright light but quickly dissipated. Kaleb saw Karick's eyes gleam with wonder as a soft blue glow appeared around his unruffled suit.

"Oooo! Now that's tasty. Have you got any more?"

Kaleb grimaced as he looked over at Abby. The short woman was clearly pissed and trying to plan their next move. But as Karick Tore smiled down on them from up high, Kaleb wasn't sure how they were going to deal with a god in his own realm. Not to mention one that was a Player.