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Ahhh, my fav. 

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This is going excellently so far~~ 

I too have been insanely busy with school. Spring break can't come soon enough. There is no end to the homework.  

So... much... homework.  

LLAMAS

*takes a bow*

that was entirely necessary.  

Day 1 Part 1 - The Luggage

One person's junk is another person's clutter.

- The Ominous

The Disorienting Express loomed over them, it's shining face stamped with the fateful number 42. Below, the grille hissed and steamed as the train settled. And above, the huge smokestack sat like a strange metallic birdfeeder, emitting small puffs of steam. Where there had once been only sand, there now lay beneath the huge train great shining iron tracks, stretching from horizon to horizon.And it seemed that all the sand that had covered the tracks now covered the station platform instead.

One by one, the CBers popped up from below the surface of the newly-created sand dune, spitting sand out of their mouths and yelling at their Captchas and AEs and digging for their luggage. Jiminy closed his umbrella and looked sadly at his now sand-filled coffee cup. Then he looked up at Brooklyn Newsie. “It seems your train has arrived. My train won't be here for another three hours, but it was good to meet you.”

Brooklyn Newsie reached up to brush sand off her cap, and she realized it wasn't there. “Hey, where'd my hat go?”

Jiminy frowned, and then glanced down at his paper. There, in a grainy photo with the caption “Brandino and Deck standing proudly in front of their new (not-yet-burnt-down) chocolate mousse shop” was a hat that had not been their before. It sat on the head of a short moustached man who was grinning broadly. Jiminy prodded the paper, and his hand went right through, knocking a few letters out of place. He pulled his hand out, and this time it held a newsie cap! He stared at it for a moment, and then brushed a few letters off it and handed it to Brooklyn Newsie. “Is this what you're looking for?”

“Oh yes! Thank you!” She grinned, put her hat on, and strode towards the train, where all the CBers were gathering.

The train groaned, and then it chuffed and chugged and pulled forward slowly. Coaches moved past, but while there seemed to be passengers aboard (wearing mainly Victorian outfits), no one looked out, and no doors opened to let the CBers in. Then, the outside of the coaches changed – where before they had all been similar shades of silvery metal, these new coaches were brightly coloured, and covered in ornate decorations, like those of an expensive theater box. The curtains in the windows no longer white, but purple, red, blue, and midnight black. After five or so of these new carriages, the train screeched to a stop again.

A moment of silence.

BANG! A pair of great oaken double doors in the coach in front of the CBers slammed open, and a folding stair painted in swirls of red and orange swung down and landed on the sand where the platform had once been. A lanky, ramrod-straight man wearing a train conductor's hat and an orchestra conductor's suit. He seemed to glow with a slightly metallic sheen, and the sleeves of the suit were too short. In an Italian accent, he shouted, “All aboard! All aboard the Disorienting Express!” He ducked away out of sight, and the CBers looked at each other for a moment, hesitant.

The man leaned back into sight, and frowned at them. “Quit waffling, you people! I hope I don't need to tell you that you'll be in a sticky situation stuck here in the desert!” The way he said “people” seemed almost as if he didn't entirely include himself in the category.

The CBers hesitated no more, and as one they flooded up the steps and into the Disorienting Express. Once they were all inside, the man heaved the doors shut, hung up his hat on a hatstand, adjusted his rust-coloured tie, and then addressed them. “Wait here! I have to attend to myse – the engine!” He pulled a hammer from a rack, pulled on a pair of brass safety goggles, and strode to the far end of the room, where a door presumably led to the next carriage.

The CBers looked around at the piles of boxes, suitcases, wardrobes and closets. A few were open, or had broken from the weight of their contents, and the CBers could see all sorts of random junk. Somebody folded her arms. “This isn't nearly as big as my Secret HQ.”

Chinchilla picked up a frog statue and tossed it from hand to hand. “Anything's better than that suitcase!”

orangelemon kicked a rusting suit of armour gently, watching as a puff of dust escaped the visor. “Huh, this place looks like it hasn't been cleaned in a while. I suppose it's better than being stuck in a hole in the middle of the Earth.”

The floor beneath them shuddered, and then jerked forward, and then with a steady rumble the train gathered speed along the tracks. The CBers looked around for a window to see the platform disappear behind them, but there was no window, only a faint light trickling down from somewhere far above.

Kitten looked up. The ceiling looked farther away than it should have been, given the view of it from the outside. It also was also slightly luminescent. “Well, this is slightly disorienting... What are we waiting for, anyways?”

“The Ominous, presumably.” Rose bud peered at a stained-glass windowpane propped up against the wall. The strange part was that although it should have given a view of a few dust bunnies, it instead seemed to show a night sky filled with clouds.

Crypto grinned. “Oh goodie, then I can kill him!”

Brookeira sighed. “For the last time, what have I told you about killing people? It's not polite!”

There was an awkward silence, and then UniCat tried to make conversation with Shoshannah: “So... about the inevitability of death?”

Before Shoshannah could reply, a deep voice came from a figure nearly obscured by two large red rolled-up carpets, “Oh yes, yes, very inevitable. My own death seems more inevitable than most, seeing how Crypto is obviously so eager. But I'd prefer he wait until I put these down first, and then I can pull out my list and book you – and the rest of my enemies -  into my busy schedule. That is, if none of them kills me first.” The figure didn't sound like he was joking. In fact, the announcement felt . . . ominous.

The CBers turned to see the large hoodied figure put down the carpets. He clapped the dust from his hands, and then spread them wide. “Hello, hello, hello! CBers. Welcome to the Disorienting Express! Well, my portion of it, at least. Much of it had already been reserved for dinner parties and suspicious masked balls, so I was lucky to be able to couple my coaches onto it at the end. But I happen to be a very good part-time blackmailer, and I managed to dig up a sand dollar or two.”

Danie looked alarmed at the mention of blackmailing, and the figure smiled at her. “Don't worry, it's just corresponding by mail with black envelopes.” He grinned a friendly smile, and then pulled back his hood. “Anyways, welcome again. I'm The Ominous, but you may call me George if you wish – I like the name. No one is to call me Ommy, or I may suddenly become very good at part-time tickle torture. You'd be surprised how many part-time hobbies (other than digging) one picks up when one's been stranded in the desert for a long while. You are free to wander the 13 coaches that are in my possession, but I would recommend that you do NOT board the other coaches, ahead of my 13. Ever since a certain moustached detective boarded those coaches, the probability of being murdered seems to have risen dramatically. But that's nothing to worry about, there's no way to get across the bare coupling unless the train is stopped, and now that you are all here there should be no reason for the train to stop until we reach our destination! Any questions?”

Tux raised her hand. “Who was that guy who showed us in here? He seemed a bit . . . odd.”

“That was Hans the engine...eer. Yes, he's the engineer! While we are at the back of the train and do not have access to the train's engine, we have the RMS Tiny's engine in our own engine room – a room that you must not enter under ANY circumstances.” He paused ominously, and then brightened up. “Any more questions? No? Well then, let me show you to your rooms, and give you a bit of a tour on the way.”

The Ominous led the way through the piles of dusty boxes towards one end of the coach, saying as he did so, “This is the luggage coach, but it's also currently acting as a storeroom for all the miscellaneous treasures that lay within the RMS Tiny – a lot of the dust came from her lower levels, where Gollum spent much of his time going through the pockets of many historical coats... He may still be in these piles now, I haven't been able to find him and put him back in the book he escaped from...”

Shoshannah glanced down at a coat with puffed Elizabethan sleeves and pockets overflowing with broken quill pens, bits of parchment, and what looked briefly like a candle. “Exactly how did you get all these famous people's coats? Do you seriously collect pocket litter?”

The Ominous smiled. “One coat historian's treasure is another person's rubbish, isn't that how the saying goes? Somehow I ended up on someone's will – quite against my will, I assure you – but perhaps someday it will be useful. Ah, here we are!”

The Ominous opened a door in the wall, and the CBers walked down a short hallway, where the rumbling of the train over the tracks was considerably louder and shakier, and the walls were a dark red and green-striped accordion cloth.

At the other end, the CBers crowded through another door, and into a bright, paisley-wallpapered room filled with squashy sofas, chubby chesterfields, and blimp-like beanbags. The room was long and thin and looked, unlike the luggage room, like it would actually fit inside the coaches that the CBers had seen from the outside. The two long walls were lined with windows, complete with wide windowseats.

The Ominous lifted his hands and turned to the CBers, who were already making themselves at home, bouncing on the sofas and falling onto the beanbags. “Welcome to the Rec Room! Or, as the universe seems to insist on changing the name to, the Wreck Room!” He pointed to a framed piece of door-wood on the wall, bearing the words “Rec Room” carved into it, with a W and K added in permanent marker. I would have liked to have called it the Lounge, but nobody wears proper loungewear anymore.” He sighed, and remembered the good old days (which weren't actually that different, really).

elementgirl stared out the window at the empty desert whizzing by, with only an occasional cactus to enliven the scenery.

T.S. sighed and sat down on a chesterfield, and then said in a strangely loud voice, “I'm sure no one would ever even think to be chaotic in here! Why, the mere thought hadn't even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind!”

elementgirl raised her eyebrows at T.S. “What, really? What would we do without chaos?”

T.S. raised her own eyebrows (with far too much expertise for her own good), and inclined her head towards the nearest paisley corner – there sat a spinning, innocent-looking wormhole.

At that moment, on the other side of the room, The Ominous finally remembered to say, “Oh, and watch out for the wormholes – they're probably a safety hazard, but I'll install railings . . . eventually.” He then turned and strode to the far side of the room, where another door stood. “Those of you who want to stay here can do so, you just have to keep going this way to get to your rooms – you can always unpack later - and the kitchens should find you if you need them. Those of you who want to come with me, come along – and Evil, please stop peeling the wallpaper – I don't mind any other messes, but that wallpaper was expensive!”

“It's Evil Devin! How hard is it to say them both! You can't have Evil without a Devin, and you can't have Devin without Evil! Seriously!”

Hailey chimed in, “Yeah, AEs have feelings too, you know! We have thoughts, and emotions, and morals – well, mostly. But anyways, just because most of us have world domination plans doesn't mean we're all bad.”

“She has a point!” shouted Luc.

“I second that motion!” added Wren.

“Yeah!” yelled Lily, pumping her fist in the air.

Notes jumped up. “Precisely! If you prick us, do we not bleed?”

“And then seek mildly horrifying revenge?” Crypto added with a grin.

“Anarchy! Anarchy!” shouted Pepper, but she was quickly shushed by Notes. They grappled in the background while Squeak rose up, swayed for a moment as the train jerked slightly, and dusted off his newfound speech-making skills:

“You can't write us off as angry kleptomaniacs, for do we not have the possibility for anger management? Was it not said that when an AE is angry, they shalt count to 3, and 3 is the number that they shalt count to – not 2, not 4, and 5 is right out! I say to you, so there! Friends, fellows, countrymen, do we not make our point?” He stepped down from the sofa-back he had been standing on, and then added hesitantly, “Some people don't like being shoved into cupboards and turned into unicorns – I happen to not mind it, really, but some people would!”

The CBers all cheered and shouted, “AYE!”, because it seemed like the thing to do, and certain people didn't want to be trapped in parallel universes again – at least, not without a way back.

The Ominous clapped. “A stirring speech! I would be foolish to not agree entirely, and I apologize. Come along then, Evil Devin, and Crypto, I'll bump you up the queue. And all of you AEs, perhaps we can have tea and plot world domination together sometime, to make up.” He turned and opened the door into another accordion hallway, and the CBers, excited by the rallying of the AEs and curious to see more of the train, followed him through the hallway and into the next coach, with smelt of fresh paint and was a longer hallway, with windows and purple curtains on one side and doors on the other.

The CBers filed in, and then they looked up and realized that there was a second floor to this coach – there were several rolling library-ladders that led up to a balcony above the doors, with more doors up there. Between the doors, there hung a collection of strange portraits. The paintings were large and small, colourful and drab, shining with newness and flaking with age. One showed what looked like The Ominous, wearing a naval officer's suit, his face obscured by the smoke from the ship's smokestack that he stood in front of. Another portrait showed an old man in a victorian outfit. Stuck onto the paint was a red-and-white nametag sticker, which said “Hello, my name is: Dorian!”.

The Ominous turned and announced, “These are your rooms, 4 people to a room, pick whatever one you like. The rules are as follows: pillowfights are mandatory, lights out never, absolutely no murdering or maiming, and please don't bother the paintings, they can get grumpy. I will leave you now to unpack, and Hans and I will meet you in the Dining and Kitchen Carriage later. The engine room is clearly marked so do not enter it, and you may go anywhere else.” The Ominous snapped his fingers and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

xp opened a door, and shouted, “Bunk beds! Awesome!”

“Pillowfight!” yelled Danie.

Chaos ensued.

The next few moments were filled with flying feathers, running CBers, and the bustle of activity as they picked their rooms and threw their luggage on their beds.

Somebody looked up at a tiny painting of an old man with a long beard and an interesting hat. “Hello Gandalf! I have a painting just like you in my HQ.”

The man in the painting frowned. “I'm not Gandalf, I'm Dumbledore! How many times do I have to say that, Dum-ble-dore! I'm not some sloppy wizard carting around a mop bucket for The Ominous, I wouldn't stand for such a low salary! They pay me big bucks to be headmaster, you know!”

SopranoTwo overheard this rant, and frowned skeptically, “You don't sound like Dumbledore to me...”

“Well I'm sorry if I've just had a bad day! I can't be all 'Harry, it is your destiny to mumble grumble mumble' all the time, you know! Being a painting ain't flowers in a handbasket, you know! There isn't even any good sock wool around here!”

Vyolette stopped as she ran by with a pillow in her hand, Agatha clinging desperately to her shoulder. “Wait a sec, did you say Gandalf's a janitor for Ommy?”

“Yup! And not a very good one! Us wizards are naturally messy, why only last week I spilled floo powder everywhere!”

Brooklyn Newsie fought her way through a mound of pillow feathers. “Wow, the world is chaotic here, isn't it!”

Quill, who had just been wondering how there were so many feathers and yet no deflated pillows, nodded. “Very. Although I'm not opposed to having feathers rain down on me, it's like warm fluffy snow!”

Suddenly, someone screamed, and all the CBers jumped and turned to look for the source. The scream came again, from the coach down the hall, where the CBers had not yet been. The door burst open and a figure slid into the room, and before he slammed the door shut again, everyone got a glimpse of what was chasing him: a mummy, covered in yellowing bandages.

The figure paused for a minute to catch his breath, and then his eyes widened and he opened the door, grabbed something from the floor on the other side, and then slammed the door shut right in the mummy's face.

The door swayed as the mummy pounded on it, and the kid leaned his shoulder into it as he held up the glasses he had rescued – he put them on, and blinked as he saw the assembled CBers.

Leafpool grinned. “Wow, that was dramatic! Do you have a snappy comeback too?"

The kid blinked again. “What, I need a catchphrase now?”

Leafpool frowned for a moment, and then said, “Well, you could say something like 'Hello, I'm the librarian!'”

“Do I look like a librarian to you?” The mummy continued pounding from the hall. “Uh, could you help me with this door?”

In the background, Dumbledore's painting muttered, “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but it takes even more courage to stand up to your friends. Remember this, Harry . . . mumble grumble mumble.”

The CBers ignored him, and charged as one to hold the door.

Rose bud yelled, “For Narnia!”

St. Owl, who was at the front of the crowd, leaned against the door and asked the kid, “Who are you anyway? Indiana Jones?”

Leeli added, “And where did you come from?”

“I'm Kid, MinecraftKid. And I stowed away, it wasn't that hard – the next room is a huge library, and there were lots of hiding spaces.”

Suddenly, a Roman sword was thrust through the wood of the door, and there was a brief moment where Evergreen thought she'd been stabbed. Then the moment passed, and she yelled, “The mummy is armed! With more than just its arms!”

The CBers screamed, and the door crumpled inwards as the mummy pushed through, its expression unseeable beneath the bandages, its steps heavy and thudding, the sword dull and rusted, yet glinting with sharpness on the edges. Sword raised high, the mummy loomed over them. Screaming, the CBers scattered. And then, all at once, the train lurched and the banshee-shriek SCREEEEEEE! of the brakes, and then

BANG!

and SopranoTwo noticed that Hans stood in the other doorway, holding a shiny, steampunk-brass revolver, his eyes wide with shock.

END OF DAY 1 PART 1

*  *  *

Note: To those of you whose names we've shortened, if you don't like them just say so and we'll go back to the long forms. Same if we've messed up anyone's genders.