Private/Closed Trainsekai

[Mr.RMA]

(As stated in the title, this is a Private/Closed RP. Those involved know who they are)

Sometime, someplace, you’ve just boarded a train. For what reason, and to what destination, only you know, but wherever it was you were expecting, you’re about to find yourself taking a detour. As the train moves along, everything suddenly goes dark, you feel the entire car shaking violently… and then in an instant, everything goes still. Quiet. You feel as if you passed out somewhere along the way, but the incident has left you rattled enough where you can’t say for sure. All you know is that now, you feel rather… different.

Moments after your supposed reawakening, a bright light illuminates the vehicle. With your vision having returned, you quickly realize that your earlier hunch was more accurate than you could’ve possibly imagined. You don’t simply feel different, you’ve physically changed in an undeniable way. For that matter, so has the train, and your fellow passengers.

Yet... this new body is familiar to you. Indeed, it is a form you have envisioned before, at some point in time; something stowed away in a corner of your memories and imagination… A mysterious circumstance indeed, and as you look out the window to see where you have emerged, you will find it is not the only thing perplexing about this current situation. Where it was once a mundane railway with mundane views, perhaps even at the crack of dawn, edge of dusk or dark of night, it now appears to be midday, in a strange world where vast sets of rails seem to be going every which way, many even defying any semblance of physics by rising up into the air without any apparent support. Trains of all types, familiar and completely otherworldly, chug along these bizarre roads, and it seems you've made an unexpected transfer onto one of them.

You and your similarly affected new(ish) accomplices are faced with some baffling questions indeed: What happened to you, where are you now, and just where could your next stop be?

Oh, and you should probably figure out if anyone’s actually driving this thing.

---

He didn't know where he was going, nor how much it was going to cost; he didn't even know if he'd be able to get back home in time before the last train on the route finished its shift for the night. All this young man knew as he stared out the window of the train passing through the Ibaraki countryside was that he needed to get away from everything, just for a little while. He'd gotten a job on the other side of the world to see new things and take on new experiences, but lately he'd fallen into a routine. Go to work, go home, eat, sleep, repeat... and all with very little socialization at that. The boredom and isolation were eating away at him, he was squandering his time here, yet he never seemed to have any energy to do something about it. Not until now, and even then, what was he doing? Traveling northward to nowhere...

Surprisingly, this particular passenger car was entirely unoccupied apart from the man himself, something he hadn't been very familiar with when it came to his experience on such public transportation, especially not at this hour, but then, usually he was taking the trains south, toward the perpetually busy Tokyo area. Not that he was complaining of course, it was nice to have an entire portion of the train to himself for once. Still, there was a bit of an eeriness to it, sitting there alone, especially when it was so unlikely. The whole having-no-destination thing didn't help matters. It all forced him to really think about what he was doing. What was the point if he had no plan in mind? Just impulsively get himself lost somewhere for the thrill of it?

"...This was a stupid idea..." he muttered, shaking his head as all his lost rationality seemed to come back to him at once. This whole venture was quite literally going nowhere, and at the cost of his thoroughly limited cash-supply. If he was going to do something like this, he needed to actually plan ahead. Best thing he could do now was just cut his loses... When the next station came around, he was going to get out and wait for the next train heading back. That was the plan at least.

He wasn't aware that this haphazard trip of his had only just begun.

As he got up to await the next stop, the train passed through a short tunnel and began shaking rather unexpectedly before coming back out into the light, only to delve into another tunnel... but this one seemed to last a lot longer... What was more, it suddenly became so dark from within the train that the hapless man couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. This... wasn't exactly commonplace. The violent shaking only seemed to increase, but at the same time, not only could he see nothing, he couldn't hear anything either. He tried to reach for one of the handlebars that dangled from the center of the car to steady himself, but as he reached for where he last saw one, his hand grasped little more than air as he tumbled forward, collapsing onto the floor.

Exactly what happened next, the man couldn't tell. All he could do at that moment was regret how his impulsive decision had led him to this mess before everything went hazy. For a moment it almost felt like his entire being was undergoing some kind of change, but the sensation only lasted for an ever-so-brief moment before fading off. How long he lingered in obscurity afterwards was all but a mystery to him, but just as he felt it would never end, suddenly the light returned, brighter than ever... and as he picked himself up from his fallen position, he noticed something just as strange as the previous event... if not far more so.

"What the hell happened to the train?"

It was all he could manage to say as he noticed he was in a completely different sort of passenger car than before. Whereas the prior vehicle had been somewhat small, with bench-like seats along the sides and handlebars along the middle, akin to a subway car, that had all been replaced with something far more... opulent and old-fashioned. Fancy carpeting lined the floors, with nicely cushioned seats running along the sides; Red curtains were strewn along the windows and lamps were hanging in the spaces between them.

Looking out the windows, he could see a very different landscape than before... What stood out the most was the sheer number of railways that seemed to go every which way, not to be hindered by such things as gravity or any laws of physics as some seemed to float effortlessly in the air without supports. To downplay the sheer lunacy of it all, one could perhaps call it a "baffling turn of events".

The man went to clutch at his forehead to try and calm himself down and regain some semblance of bearings, only to see that his hand wasn't the familiar organic one covered in skin. That had, somewhere along the line, been replaced by a metallic limb of some kind, which, jarring as it was to behold, somehow also seemed a tad familiar, but he was too shocked by its presence at all to make the connection. It wasn't until he jolted back in astonishment and knocked over the panama hat that had just recently found itself on his head that he started to realize who he'd suddenly become.

"No way... This is... some kind of crazy dream... I must've hit my head or something..." he said as he nonetheless put the hat back on his head and bent down to pick up a pair of sunglasses in front of his sandal-covered feet... which had been made similarly cybernetic along with his lower legs. He knew this persona... It was a character he'd created... He'd visualized it in his mind more than a few times lately, even written it down... but now, beyond all sense of reason or reality, he had somehow become the character, and despite his claims, this all felt far too real to be a product of mere delusion... He certainly never dreamt something so real before. Moreover, he'd never felt so... physically capable. Even whilst still in a confused daze, he felt far stronger than he'd ever felt before, but then, knowing who he'd turned into, that actually made a whole lot of sense... A shame nothing else did.

This was quite the mystery... and as with any good mystery, he was eager to find some answers. As such, he began looking about for other passengers. Perhaps they'd be able to clue him in... or perhaps they were in a similar position themselves...

 

[Dark Soul]

The days had begun to blur together, to a point where if asked, Jesper probably couldn't produce what day today was. There were two phases to his life- the long days where he adhered to the identical routines of home, travel and studying, and the two days where he could catch up on much needed sleep. The subject matter changed from day to day, sure; but increasingly, he found it harder to retain new information in his already clouded mind.

Like any young adult his age, he liked to turn to distractions to cope. Videos, podcasts, music, it didn't matter what, long as there was something. For a change, the WiFi on the train home he'd just boarded was working well. His thumb hovered over the selection of apps on his phone before settling on Netflix, and the merry themesong of a baking show blasted through his earbuds soon after. As the sun was beginning to set below the horizon, he squinted against the light coming through the window, until suddenly it went away and he looked outside to see why. There was nothing but enveloping darkness, as if they had simply passed into a tunnel.

Of course, Jesper realized with a sinking feeling of dread, there were no tunnels on this track; in fact, it was elevated dozens of feet above the wetland of the river Rhine by embankments and bridges. He looked around the cabin, to others' faces, but not only did none of his fellow travelers appear bothered in the slightest by the sudden void, they seemed to be still squinting against the light. With as little warning, the lights of the cabin itself went out, and rather than the shrieks of surprise he expected he heard no sound at all, and the texture of his seat was all he could feel. Panic began to set in, most of it revolving around the idea that he must be having a stroke, and he got up from his chair to call for aid- when he was jolted forwards with force, imagining he would end up on the lap of the man who had been sitting diagonally opposite him, but striking only a hard surface with his head.

Jesper couldn't tell if the moment of barely clinging on to consciousness through the pain had lasted three seconds or three hours by the time it waned enough for him to move again. His first thought was that the train must have crashed, and he opened his eyes to confirm, only to find he was no longer in the train. Some train, but not the one he'd boarded.

A train like this, he'd only seen ones like it in museums. The cabin was pannelled with rich wood, decorated with red fabrics, all in a decidedly old-glory style. He couldn't think of a thing to do but stare out blankly at it, at least until he heard groaning noises and mumbles indicating other people nearby. He found the strength to pull himself up on the wall, at which point he noticed two things; his hand- both hands- were black as night from the elbow down and ended in sharply angled talons, and the world outside the window had returned to light, showing nothing he could have even imagined seeing. It was an endless sky, broken up only by a tangle of traintracks floating without support and twisting strangely in all directions, some carrying other trains like ancient steam locomotives or utterly alien machines.

Oddly, between the two, his attention went first to his hands, which shook as he regarded them. They felt not damaged or in pain, but certainly different- the talons felt like a part of him, rather than being strapped on like a costume or prosthetic. A memory eeked out between waves of shock and confusion; he'd written a character with this exact condition before. The witch's son. That gave him no answers, though. Other things about him felt off; he was wearing a strange trenchcoat rather than his sensible all-season coat, and something hard and pointy was strapped tightly, but comfortably, to his head.

By some instinct he decided to turn to the other people, either to help or recieve help, he wasn't sure yet. Stumbling into the hallway he saw one man, who looked rather like a tourist from a Hawaiian beach were it not for the arm and leg that looked like more advanced prosthetics than he'd ever seen. Reflexively, he switched to his rather accented English as he approached and spoke up. "You okay?" He started. "I think we crashed." It was all he could think to say in his state, and not even accurate- the train they were now in seemed to be moving smoothly along the tracks.

 

[Dwayna DragonFire]

Sara tended to be cooped up in the house a lot, so opportunities to get out and have fun were definitely a top priority. As such, a convention was the perfect excuse to get everything prepared for the long journey to downtown Vancouver. It would take more than an hour to reach her destination, and she had to remember to transfer to the bus when she reached the correct Skytrain Station.

The so named 'Skytrain' was an electric train that ran on tracks built above the ground level of the Metro-Vancouver area, a more convenient way for the public to travel from the more suburban parts of the smaller cities in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Stepping onto the public train and sitting down on one of the vinyl blue seats in a corner, Sara made sure she could sit away from most people. Being an introvert, crowds tended to give her a lot of anxiety.

As the train ride went, with people leaving and getting on, Sara tiredly put her head on the window next to her. She listened to the mechanical speaker box rattle off what stations were next, and the dinging to indicate when the doors would open and shut. Soon enough, Sara was completely alone in her car, a strange occurrence for the bustling cityscape, but she was too tired to think on that too much. Just five more minutes, she thought to herself, as her eyes fluttered closed. She had intended just to rest her eyes and listen for the next stop, but sleep overwhelmed her soon enough.

When she came to, Sara rubbed her eyes underneath her glasses lenses a bit, and let out a noise of pain when something sharp poked her. She blinked a few times and looked at her hands, finding sharpened fingernails that looked more like talons. Then she noticed her surroundings – a red cushion seat that trailed the length of the cabin, and instead of the large windows looking outside, there were several smaller windows, shedding light in intervals along the cabin length.

Sara got up, and then immediately sat back down as she stumbled, an unfamiliar weight on her back. She turned and sat in shock as she realized that she had a large pair of emerald wings on her shoulders, her shirt styled to let them sprout out freely. The young woman also started to feel a bit of pain in her backside, and she looked to her other side where she had sat upon her own tail. Wait... my own TAIL?! There is no way this isn't some kind of elaborate dream... Slowly, she stood up and went to the nearest window.

The outside seemed to prove her suspicions immediately, because there was surely no way that their train could actually be in the sky right now. Even the 'Skytrain' still had rail that was attached to the ground in some way, but this train didn't appear to have much ground beneath it to stand on at all. There were so many things to distract her brain that Sara almost didn't notice her own reflection. Eventually, she focused less on the impossibility of the outside and stared at her own transformed appearance in awe.

Her eyes had turned emerald green to match the wings on her back, the pupils like reptilian slits that she observed looking back and forth whenever she would move her own in turn. Her ears had become green and a bit webbed, which she tugged on and felt the slight pain of the tug. There was a pair of sharp fangs slipping just past her lips, which she was curious enough to test; her bottom lip soon stung and bled where she had bit. This is... too elaborate to be a dream... she thought to herself. A shiver ran down her spine as she rubbed her hand over a green gem protruding out from her neck. It didn't move, embedded into her skin and very much a part of her body.

I'm Dwayna, she thought, and was surprised at her own acceptance of the fact, as if it had always been true. But how? One minute I was heading downtown, and the next... She had no memory of anything except falling asleep and waking up here. Something had happened in that five minute interval where she was waiting to arrive at her destination. Sara licked the blood on her lip a bit and gave the situation a bit of thought. If I'm Dwayna... does that mean...

In her mind, it had always been about concentration, so she centered her thoughts around the wound that she had created and thought about wanting to heal them. Slowly, Sara felt a strange feeling welling up inside of her, a soft purple glow coming from her soulgem that she couldn't help but to peek at, the feelings dissipating when she did. Sure enough, when she touched her lip, there was no blood or even sting, and her reflection bore no scar. It was as if the wound had never been there in the first place, but Sara knew what had really happened. In her mind, Dwayna had always had healing powers, and this was more evidence to the fact that she had become the very vision of her main roleplay character.

Looking around the train cabin some more in disbelief, Sara found a scabbard that looked to have a longsword in it, and a steel shield bearing a sigil of a green dragon on it. She carefully picked up the shield, knowing it should probably be weighty, but instead it felt almost like a feather. Then, she put the shield down and picked up the sword instead, carefully pulling on the pommel. Green lines of light ebbed along runes carved into the sword, in a language she didn't understand... But I do understand, she thought, and immediately read the true name of her sword Eternity. This must be Draconic, then...

Deciding that it was just quicker to think of herself as Dwayna for now, she put on the scabbard and shield, and it felt like she had done this a thousand times over already. Then, carefully making sure she still held her pommel, she peered through the window at the end of her cabin. There were already two people there, both of similarly strange appearances, talking to one another. Dwayna didn't want to have to fight when she barely knew anything about her situation, but... These people... don't we know them from somewhere? She carefully slid open the door and peeked through nervously.

“... Ah... hello. Do I know you?” Dwayna asked, idly wondering in the back of her mind if she would ever be able to return home.

 

[Psycho Monkey]

It had been a long day. A man had taken the MARC train down to Washington DC to see the cherry blossoms in bloom around the National Harbor earlier that morning and with a day well spent behind him, he was ready to go home and call it a night. The man was doing his best to remain focused so that he could get off at his stop at the appropriate time but as the train went through a tunnel that he didn’t quite remember being there, he felt his consciousness fade.
------

“Hmmm…” he groaned as he began to wake up feeling well rested and refreshed. When he opened his eyes, he jumped back in his seat in surprise. His surroundings had completely changed! The MARC train he had been riding previously had steel grey walls and blue seats. The train car he was in now looked more like one seen in the anime Baccano! What separated this world from the anime however was the view outside. At first glance this train seemed to be flying through the air but upon closer inspection, a floating railway could be seen turning and arcing like the so called Ghost Train that brought Sora, Donald, and Goofy from Twilight Town to The Mysterious Tower in Kingdom Hearts II. The only difference from that then was the fact that it was daylight outside and not the fancy colors of space.

“Yup. I’m definitely dreaming.” said the man nonchalantly. “Alright, time to wake up. We don’t want to miss our stop now.” he said to himself closing his eyes and trying to will himself awake. When he opened his eyes again he was still on the Baccano Ghost Train. “What. THE FUCK!” he yelled jumping to his feet in frustration. This was unusual. Whenever he caught himself in a dream before, he could always force himself out of it. There were rare exceptions but those were always when he was in a deep sleep in his own bed. Not taking a power nap on a train.

He grunted as he put his hand to his chin to think about the prospect but immediately something felt… different. Several somethings actually. The fist was the feel of his hands. He looked at his hands to see black fingerless gloves with a light metal plating on the back of the hand predominantly around the knuckles. He hadn’t been wearing gloves today and didn’t own any like these. What’s more his fingernails had grown sharper as if they were claws. He became distracted from his other realization by his long, flowing black sleeves. That wasn’t right. While he had worn a long-sleeved black shirt, it was tighter fitting than the loose ones he saw now. And the t-shirt previously worn over top? He looked towards his torso. Gone. It was replaced with a black martial arts gi tied with a blackbelt around his waist. The pants were equally loose fitting with the legs tucked into black combat boots. What could he say? Be it his normal outfit or this hauntingly familiar attire, he looked good in black.

“These clothes…” he trailed as he noticed something swinging across his hip. Was that a prehensile monkey tail covered in black fur? He grabbed the tail and felt a sensation run up his spine. This was definitely attached. It was his tail. His human body lacked one but it didn’t feel out of place. It felt as though it had always been there as a part of him. He relaxed his grip on his tail and wagged it around as easily and effortlessly as any of his legs or arms. Arms. He rolled up his sleeves to see his arms covered in thick black fur. And that reminded him of the other difference he noticed before getting distracted by his new duds. He put his hand back to his chin but went further back to his neck. Also furry.

“It can’t be!” he squeed in disbelief. He looked back out the window hoping to catch his reflection. There! Until now he had always had facial hair but now it had gotten thicker. The hair on his head would normally stand on end when short but when it grew too long, gravity would cause it to collapse on itself and lay somewhat flat. While it had been a while since his last haircut and his locks had grown to that point, it didn’t matter. The extra body hair must have come from his head as his head hair was shorter than it was this morning and was now spiky once again. Shorter hair made it easier to see that his ears had also gotten longer and pointier. And his eyes! Crimson red. The sight of his reflection gave him a wide, toothy grin showing the physical changes in his mouth as well. While his molars and incisors remained the same size as before, all four of his canines had grown into fangs.

“Psycho Monkey, you beautiful primate!” he boasted to himself rubbing his fingers over his new features. The oversized monkey laughed gleefully as he pulled his cheeks to the side to get a better look at his fangs. “This form… Indeed. I am Psycho Monkey!” At first it was just a fun nickname he had for himself. Then it became an online persona, nothing more than a character to roleplay as. But now the creature that had always been bound to the wild imagination of a mere human had been made flesh, replacing the vessel that once contained him.

“As I’ve said for years, long before it became a meme. Reject humanity. Return to monkey!” cheered Monkey with uproarious laughter. He was absolutely giddy. Who cares if this was a dream that he’d soon wake up from or if this was a new reality. He wanted to enjoy this as long as possible. But if he truly was Psycho Monkey, then…

“Ah, there they are.” he said finding two footlong silver cylinders hanging from his belt. Monkey detached them and with the press of a button, ignited his duel red-bladed lightsabers. He carefully inspected the bases of his sabers and once again smirked when seeing the puzzle piece like patterns. He put the two bases together and, with a twist and a click, now had a double-bladed staff. Best. Day. Ever! As badly as Psycho Monkey wanted to test out his abilities to see if he truly was the persona or if he just looked the part, a train car was just too cramped. He put away his lightsabers for now and decided to head towards the front of the train. At the very least he could ask a staff member or the conductor when the next stop was.

The next car down was an exact replica of the one he was just in, as was the one after that. The third car he entered though had other people in it. Well, in this case the term people did not mean human. One was a cyborg wearing a Hawaiian shirt, another was some kind of demon hell spawn wearing a black trench coat, and the last was a green dragon woman wearing glasses. While all of them seemed familiar one way or another, the dragon woman was by far the most recognizable. A close friend Psycho Monkey regularly RPed with online had posted pictures of her persona. There was no mistake.

“Lady Dwayna? Lady Dwayna DragonFire is that you?” he inquired trying to hold back an excited grin. He turned towards the other two in the room. “Then that means these two are…” if everyone here were who he suspected, this day might have just gotten even better.

 

[Chadwyck]

“I wish you could have come along,” the man said aloud, if not for the commonplace sight of the white, wireless earbuds in his ears, the other passengers on the train might have thought him mad, talking to himself. “I know you have work and Mia has school, I’m the one who reminded you of that before I left, remember? It’s just, we've all never been on a train before. It’s kind of a cool experience, though it seems a little dated. I bet you guys would have enjoyed it.”

Another pause while the person on the other end of the phone call responded, Chad took the opportunity to glance out the window at the endless trees of West Virginia passing by outside. “Well, as soon as I’m finished with this training they’re sending me to, I’ll rush back home. At least I’ll get out of West by-god Virginia for a few days.” He chuckled, stretching and standing, sliding his way out of the coach seat he found himself in and turning toward the exit to the next car. “Alright, I love you. I’m going to get something from the dining car and then take a nap, I won’t be at my destination until tomorrow after all. See you in a few days. I’ll call you before bed.”

Chad reached up and pressed the headphone in his right ear, ending the call, immediately the podcast that he was listening to, Critical Role, began playing again. He was still dozens of episodes behind their weekly shows, so this trip gave him a good chance to try and close the gap. He opened the door with a satisfying click and slid it aside, walking into the dining car, which looked like a small restaurant squished into the confines of the train car.

He glanced for an open table before the train suddenly jolted, causing the man to nearly lose his footing. Then everything went dark, and while he definitely wasn’t an expert on the railroad lines of West Virginia, he didn’t feel like there should be a tunnel here. “Hey! What’s--” the train jolted again, violently shaking from top to bottom. It sent him sprawling, fearing he was about to crash into the family that had been sitting at the table to his left. Instead, he felt soft, lush carpet beneath him as he unclenched his jaw and opened his eyes.

The dining car was completely transformed, elegant carpeting and drapes adorned the floor and windows, the tables were set like they were at a five star restaurant, candelabras burning and fine china set for service. “What the hell?” He moaned aloud, he reached up to steady himself as he stood and grabbed the end of the table beside him with his left hand. It felt different as he moved it, and the clink that resulted when his hand grasped the table was wrong, the sound of metal tapping against the surface. He glanced to his side and noticed his hand was covered by a clawed gauntlet, the unexpected sight startled him and caused him to fall backward, scrambling to his feet a moment later. He examined his hand with a sense of hesitant familiarity, “Haven’t I seen something like this before?”

The transformation of the train came back to him, and he decided to put the gauntlet’s appearance on the backburner for a moment, moving to a nearby window to examine his surroundings. Only, there weren’t surroundings to examine, exactly. The sight was alien, an endless sky stretching on for what felt like eternity, tracks zigzagging every which way, impossibly, carrying all manner of machinations on them that ranged from classic, old-fashioned trains, similar to where he now found himself, and completely foreign, alien looking machines. The tracks were suspended in midair, no supports to be seen.

“A dream, then? Maybe I got knocked out by the fall. Do you dream when you’re knocked unconscious?” He wondered, he reached for his smartphone but found nothing there. “Right, why would I have my phone with me in a dream?” He rolled his eyes, turning toward the door back to his seat and catching a glimpse of his reflection in the process, on a placard by the door made of polished metal. The face looking back at him was not entirely unlike his own, but younger, with no facial hair, and a certain look in his eyes, whether confidence or cockiness he couldn't say. He turned to the table beside him again and picked up a polished silver platter that was set on the table for serving, “no way,” he whispered as his breath escaped his lungs.

His appearance had completely changed, and yet it had remained similar enough that he recognized himself. His hair was black now, though, with red streaks woven throughout, his eyes a vibrant green, his left arm was encased in the clawed gauntlet, and his outfit… “Oh god.” He sighed, he was wearing a black t-shirt with red flames crawling up the side beneath a black jacket covered in zippers going every which way, not unlike the tracks outside, that were purely aesthetic and had no actual pockets behind them. His pants were black slacks with a chain dangling from his back belt loop, down his right leg, then back up to his front belt-loop. The outfit was complete with black combat boots on his feet. It was peak mid-2000s Hot Topic. “Well, I guess that explains the gauntlet.” He thought with a sarcastic smirk. He had somehow become his RP persona, Chadwyck, but an admittedly older representation of the character. One of the original iterations, before many of the changes had been made.

“Well, now I know this must be a dream.” He said aloud, trying to convince himself that was the explanation for what he was experiencing. He quickly moved from the dining car to the seat he left behind. Also transformed, the same elegance was present in this car as well. Reaching his seat, his luggage had disappeared, but there, in its place, was his massive sword, like a combination of the Buster Sword from Final Fantasy VII and Guts’ sword in Berserk. “There is no way.” He thought, reaching out for the sword and expecting it to be entirely too heavy to lift, but finding it lighter than he thought. He managed to lift it, but it was entirely too large to wield comfortably in the confines of the train car, so he, somehow, managed to slide it into the clasps of the holster that was fastened around his torso.

“I couldn’t have imagined a more reasonable weapon for myself, I guess. This isn’t even the newest version of the sword with the runes of protection and featherweight… Why this version of Chadwyck?” He wondered aloud. For a second, he almost rubbed his eyes with his left hand instinctually, before deciding that would be a bad idea and rubbing them with his right.

“There has to be other people on this train somewhere,” he breathed in deeply, strengthening his resolve and looking toward the next car. “Maybe someone can tell me what the hell is going on.”

He moved to the next car, empty as well, and the following car. The young man was starting to give up hope. “Hello!?” He started calling out, beginning to grow desperate and terrified that he was utterly alone on the train, in this situation, when suddenly, he thought he could hear voices up ahead. Running now, not wanting these phantom voices to vanish before he could find them, he continued calling out, “hello! Is there anyone there?” As he moved to the next car, continuing to feel the terror at the thought of being isolated with no way home, hoping to come across a friendly face.

 

[Rex]

The best time to ride the Strasburg Rail Road, in his esteemed opinion, was around opening time, in the spring or fall. When it was still cold enough outside that they made use of the wood burning stove on the first class car, but not too late in the day where it started getting crowded. That way, you could eat an early lunch and feel pleasantly warm as you watched the scenery go by. This little heritage railroad, little more than a couple miles of track leading down to the Amtrak main line, was both the oldest still operating public utility in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the oldest operating railroad in the entire western hemisphere. That in of itself was impressive, if you asked him!

Of course, no one asked him. Still, living so close to Strasburg most of his life, he liked coming out to visit. Plus, the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania was literally right across the street, and the pair made for a good two-for-one day trip. He’d seen it all before, of course, but that didn’t make repeat visits any less enjoyable. He’d been especially lucky today, he was the only person riding the first class car. Plus, the excursion train for today was Number 475 – it wasn’t the largest and strongest, that was 90, or the fastest, that was 89, but it was the oldest of the three. The oldest train on the oldest railroad. That sure was something, wasn’t it?

He realized his mind was wandering more often than usual. Maybe it was the warmth from the stove. Maybe it was the way the coach rocked side to side as the train chugged along down the line. He hadn’t even gotten to the midpoint of the journey yet, when the conductor would tell a quaint little story about a ghost train blowing its whistle back to signal the all clear when the locomotive did so. Really, it was just the echo of the train’s own whistle bouncing off the foothills and coming back, but you did say that part out loud. It would ruin the magic!

He thought he heard the whistle as his eyes drifted closed. It wasn’t the one he was used to, and he found himself wondering if they’d replaced it again. Next thing he knew, he was catching himself from falling out of his chair by slamming his hand atop the seat ahead of him. Only, the thing was, there shouldn’t have been a seat ahead of him. He’d been sitting at a table, in the rear end of the first class car, nearby the wood stove. And this seat was all wrong too, he’d been on something that barely counted as more than a bare bench, and yet this seat was richly cushioned, though there was a nagging sense of something being pinched between the back of the seat and, well, his backside.

As he began to come to his senses, he began noticing other… Oddities. Like, for example, there was something protruding out of the bottom of his vision when he looked down. Something gray and fuzzy, but black at the very tip. Not to mention, his hand and bare arm awash in fuzzy gray colors, though it seemed like he’d gained a brown fingerless glove somewhere along the line. Wait a second, he’d seen this look before. In fact, he saw this look a lot. He shot to his feet, feeling plush carpeting tickling his bare footpaws – his shoes were gone. The pressure on his backside let up, too, and looking back, yup, he had a long tapered tail, that eagerly responded to his every attempt to move it. His other handpaw had a matching glove, and though he didn’t have a shirt, he was wearing an open jacket – the same black color as his pants – with the sleeves rolled up just above his elbows. He’d also ended up with a black patrol cap and a pair of goggles.

In all, a little more dressed up than he usually went for, but this was absolutely, positively, without a doubt his fursona. Rex knew it like the back of his hand, he drew it constantly after all. It was his public face, the version of himself he wanted everyone to think of when they read his name. Even the parts he couldn’t see he could picture perfectly: the way his three gray tones worked together to create the entire pelt, including the darker gray socks and sleeves, the cap on the end of his tail, the rings around his eyes, the way the ears were darker, too, except on the inside where they lightened to the same tone that ran down his front and the underside of his tail.

Which meant that this was the craziest, most vivid dream he had ever had. And Rex wasn’t normally one to have lucid dreams. In fact, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d dreamed he was his fursona – usually he couldn’t even tell what he looked like but just generally assumed he was his normal boring human self. And this, well, everything felt so real! He was still in a train car by the looks of things, and it was still rocking with the motion of whatever train was pulling it. The windows were covered by deep red curtains, which matched the carpeting that was seriously tickling his feet.

“Did you know?” his brain helpfully supplied him, “that the phrase ‘rolling out the red carpet’ comes from a practice where employees of the New York Central Railroad would literally roll out a red carpet for passengers boarding Twentieth Century Limited?”

Yes, brain, he did know that. More pressingly though, there was no one around for him to share that information with. Which was also unusual, usually people featured in his dreams, though the ones he half remembered tended to be hazy and indistinct. He took a few steps, and nearly tripped over himself in the process. Right, his fursona was taller than he normally was, and he wasn’t quite used to the longer stride, or the way he had to move and hold his tail to prevent accidentally kicking it. Though, he would normally imagine moving would come naturally to him in a dream? Maybe it was because it was a lucid dream he couldn’t?

Alright then, careful steps, tail held out behind him. He practiced walking up and down the train car, trying to get a feel for his surroundings as he figured out how his suddenly anthropomorphic otter body wanted to move. Eventually he fell into a sort of rhythm where his tail gave a sort of half-swish-and-flick as he moved. As for his surroundings, he felt like he could almost remember seeing his sort of make of train car in the past. He’d know it a lot better if he saw the outside, but for some reason he couldn’t even really bring himself to part the curtains and look out the window.

Maybe if this was just a dream, the world outside wouldn’t even exist? He half remembered a dream he’d been on a train once before, and outside as far as the eye could see was a featureless expanse of water. Someone had had to jump into the water and point out the way to land – which according to that dream’s logic meant that they sacrificed their life – to get the train on to where it was supposed to be going. Then the dream camera had pulled back to reveal it was actually something he was watching on television, and he’d had to explain to his mother what it had meant. If he had to guess, it meant his subconscious had remembered a few scenes of “Spirited Away” and valiantly tried to stitch something esoteric out of them. Whatever his dream self had explained to his dream mother, however, he did not remember.

His thoughts were getting off track again, though. And if he stopped to think about how he’d just inadvertently made a train pun he’d be here all dream. It seemed clear he wasn’t going to wake up any time soon, even when he tried pinching himself – which hurt a lot more when you actually had claws! So he might as well explore. Assuming he was near the front of the train, since he had been to begin with, he orientated himself towards what he thought was the rear of the car and marched to the door. It might not be a proper nightmare just yet, but it was starting to get kind of unnerving being alone. He’d feel better with a few weird dream people to hang out with until something woke him up.

Rex grabbed the handle to slide open the door. He took a deep breath, not knowing what he might find on the other side, and yanked it open.

 

[Prof. Cinders]

"Shit."

She would have liked the word to echo ominously about her, but the plush carriage rendered that impossible-

As did this one. "Shit." The girl sighed dramatically. It seemed that the train she found herself on was taunting her, much as everything else was right now.

Ten minutes ago, everything was normal - on the train home from work, one of those rubbish trains from the 50s (or was it the 60s? Whenever they'd decided to make trains out of buses to save costs, at any rate). Rickety, loud, crammed full of people. The exact opposite of this place! And as it'd entered the short tunnel just out of the city centre, approaching the sidings full of similarly crap trains and the occasional cross-country sleek ride, she'd found herself tossed about like a sack of potatoes. Except instead of the usual screeching of wheels on tracks, and her body ramming into the passenger perched beside her... Nothing. Darkness. A void.

"Shit."

The word was basically a mantra at this point. And it certainly described the experience. As the lights, for want of a better word, reappeared, she had found herself in completely alien surroundings, in a completely alien body. Literally. While the train had transformed into what she could only assume was a masterpiece of engineering (like something from York's NRM down the line), she... didn't even know how to begin to describe her own changes. And before she could...

"Shit."

The carriage seemed to shift somehow, to invert itself and place her somewhere else, though she knew that it wasn't the carriage that had moved, it was her. To another carriage. Another... Similarly plush carriage. She attempted to place a hand on a nearby table to steady herself, only to find her too-long fingers tangled in an even-longer cloak of some sort. It completely covered her in a thick wool-like material, beautifully patterned in red and orange, obscuring her features from the casual onlooker, though there didn't seem to be any of those right now thank goodness. A hood completed the look, covering both the top of her head and wrapping round in front of the bottom half of her face. Foiled in her stumbling movements, she turned to take in her surroundings, only to find herself - urk - in yet another carriage.

"Shit."

It served to punctuate her feelings at the very least. Even the voice was foreign, though familiar somehow. Like her own, but as if she'd contracted a cold that deepened it slightly. Just enough to be wrong. Just enough to remind her of someone she'd dreamt up once upon a time. And that thought was perhaps the most worrying of all.

This latest carriage looked to be a dining car, and its door had just clicked shut as she entered (appeared, apparated, teleported in?) There must be someone else here then. As she lurched towards the end of the car, her legs still in an unfamiliar configuration, she found herself shifted again, twice, three times in quick succession... People. Oh. There are people here. And she knew them.

"... Shit."

 

[JadaDoesArt]

Okay, this is fine, you got time off work, no need to stress out over this. She sat in the train car trying to push the stress of the idea of a vacation out of her mind. It's been almost a decade since she had even been on a train let alone been home, but at the same time it felt as though it was long overdue. She had been working nearly nonstop for the past few years and her sister finally convinced her to come back home to visit.

She glanced out the window of the train and sighed. This wasn't going to be a short trip either, but it sure as hell beat trying to drive the 26 hours to get back to Washington from southern California. Leaning back into her seat, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She had been planning on taking a nap for at least a few hours when suddenly she felt the train lurch forward and she nearly fell out of her seat. Opening her eyes she looked around the car, which had suddenly gotten a lot darker, and frowned. There weren't any tunnels coming up for at least another few miles. What the hell is going on?

She moved to stand up and the train lurched forward once more. She tried to brace herself on the seat ahead of her, but her hands didn't make contact for some reason forcing her to stumble forward a few steps into the darkness.

----

She blinked a few times trying to get her bearings and looked around the train. Okay did the train just get bigger or… she frowned taking in the change of surroundings. This was definitely not the Amtrak she had boarded earlier. For one this car was far more lush, what with the red velvet and gold trim covering the plush seating and the drapes, and then there was the fact that everything was so much bigger than expected. It was almost as if she had, well, shrunk. No, I'm already short as is, there's no way… She shook her head. After a moment she slowly ran a hand through her hair. For some reason it felt like it was much shorter and it also felt like she had… cat ears?? she went to rub her eyes and froze, she had paws, and fur it seemed. "Okay that's.. odd" she muttered softly and went to check her reflection in the window. She tilted her head to the side and watched as the reflection mirrored the action, frowning a bit. That was definitely her but the reflection was not the one she, no they, had been expecting. In fact that actually looked a lot like their sona, mask included.

"Okay weird… but I guess that would explain why everything is so big…" their voice trails off. It had to just be a weird dream right? A dream would explain the foreign landscape, or lack thereof for that matter, outside the window for sure. But then again they had never actually dreamed of being their sona before so maybe it was something else.

In any case the car was completely devoid of other people and it was starting to make them a bit antsy, even if this was just a dream the idea of being alone didn't sit well with them. Taking a small breath they walked to the end of the car and slid open the door. Maybe they might run into someone else, who knows, but anything out there would sure beat being alone at this point.

 

[Mr.RMA]

Evidently, the cybernetic man now known as Mr.RMA had started looking in the wrong direction, as he heard a voice behind him call out, in a rather distinct accent, asking if he was okay. Spinning around with jarringly fast reflexes at the sound, he was able to get a glimpse of the speaker just as the man began to theorize that they may have crashed at some point. The guy seemed to really like black when it came to the conventional parts of his outfit… Black coat, black sweater, black pants… but then there was that whole business with the jewelry and that circuit-like pattern running along his threads, all silver in appearance, but that was hardly what stood out the most about this individual… No, everything else took a back seat to the wolf skull with the purple-gem-embedded eyes sitting on his head… and the pitch black arms that seemed to form into… what were those… Claws? Talons? Certainly not normal human fingers… And the strangest thing of all? There was the vaguest sense of familiarity… Somehow he felt he’d at least heard or read something about such a character as this.

“Ah… You… you think so?” he replied after a moment, still understandably a little thrown off by… everything. That was about as far as he got before more people made their way into the car. If that sense of familiarity was bugging him a little before, it was absolutely smacking him in the face now with the new arrivals.

The next to show was a woman with a number of unmistakably draconic features…Reptilian, slit-shaped pupils, green, finned ears, fangs, and most blatant of all, a pair of wings and a tail. She had herself quite the impressive-looking sword and shield combo for weapons as well. He knew who this was, they’d been a part of the same online community for ages now. He was right about to say her name in utter disbelief when someone else took the liberty to do so first. With a jolt he turned again to notice the next to arrive.

The individual who also recognized Dwayna Dragonfire by immediate appearances was a gi-adorned fellow who’d also taken to wearing quite a bit of black, and, yep… no way to miss that, he had a monkey tail… In fact, it seemed he was an anthropomorphic monkey entirely, giving the cyborg faint vibes of the mythical Sun Wukong from the Journey to the West. He seemed to recognize RMA and the other man draped in black as well… and yep, that feeling of familiarity was working in return here as well. Didn’t he know someone who had a monkey persona from that same community he’d known Dwayna from?

Without saying another word, RMA merely stumbled back into the nearest seat, knocking his hat back as he clutched at his forehead in utmost befuddlement. By some complete anomaly he'd ended up on an entirely different train running on some kind of magic railway, transformed into one of his self-inserts, and in the company of people he'd written the character to interact with in the first place, who had all supposedly gone through the very same bizarre event. This sort of thing just didn’t happen. It left him feeling sincerely thankful he’d rewritten this character as a cyborg because otherwise he likely would’ve been glitching out and blowing a fuse by this point otherwise... As it stood he was merely starting to hyperventilate… not that that was exactly better of course.

 

[Dwayna DragonFire]

Before Dwayna could entirely discern who the strange individuals in front of her were, another individual came into the train car. There were very few people in the world that formally addressed her as Lady Dwayna, even less so on a regular basis. The monkey-like appearance of the man in front of her only solidified it further in her brain. There was no mistake.

"... Psycho Monkey?" she asked, a bit bewildered at first. "Is that really you?" Dwayna smiled slightly, and then a dawning look came across her face. She looked carefully at the other two, and her jaw dropped a little bit in surprise, showing her fangs unintentionally. A robotic man in a Hawaiian shirt, and a goth-looking person with a strange accent. So that means...

"Arma... and Jesper, if I'm not mistaken." She pronounced the J as a Y sound, remembering that's the way it was done on his side of the world. "Well, I'm glad I'm not alone in this, but... I wonder why we've all transported here?" Dwayna seemed lost in thought about that. There's no way that this is a coincidence... We're all from Charms. Are there any others? Shouldn't we investigate further? I'm kind of freaking out here... They must feel the same way, if Arma's expression is anything to go by. As always, her mind was racing with all sorts of strange thoughts, but those were more focused on the situation at hand.

Dwayna was startled out of her thought train by the sudden appearance of a cloaked figure in red. Not to mention, she could also suddenly pick up sounds from far away, hearing the racing of footsteps a few train cars over. Just how many Charmsians have transported onto this weird-ass train?!