Welcome to Oz (Elaine/Red/Ryan)

Often times you hear stories begin with "once upon a time", most often those are folk tales or fairy tales or something to those effect. Those words "Once upon a time" are instrumental in the development of the story, by setting the stage of the event. Specific enough to let you know it wasn't close enough to affect your life...mysterious enough to let your imagination run wild. But what do you say when the event happens so close to your time that you can't use that phrase? What happens when "Once upon a time" turns into "Right now in time"? Only time could tell with what was about to happen, and how eerily easy it was for the malevolent force to make it's move.

Welcome to Washington DC, the city of politics and lies. It was here in a great ivory building that events unfolded which would light a spark, a spark that would carry with us until our aspiring protagonists would successfully overcome all odds. Or die, either way... in the White House some stuff happened. This "stuff" was nothing less than perhaps the most curious and obvious assassination attempt ever made. A lithe figure dressed in tight black pants, each one having a series of three buckles with straps going through them by the thighs, the sop being nothing less than an old-fashioned black tunic with green lacing. He looked akin to something that one might have expected from a renaissance faire, save for two pieces of attire. The boots were shin-high with clockwork cogs and buckles, pitch black while atop their head was what appeared to be a version of a stereotypical witch's hat. This hat was not a perfect cone however, it was flimsy, in all honesty the hat bent off to the side and the draped over the figure's shoulders before the tip touched their mid-back. This person looked like they had a wind-sock sewn to a point and attached to a flimsy brim.

This lithe dark figure had nothing seen on them save for the tips of hair poking out and a bright white smile on their face, shadow cloaking their eyes and most of their nose. They walked up to the front gate and the vehicle gate opened. A man with black glasses held up his gun as the person began to tread through.

"You there! Put the knife down!!" He demanded but the person wasn't relenting, just a thin lipped smile as they continued to walk. The man went to pull the trigger...but nothing happened. He couldn't do it, he couldn't pull the trigger for some reason. The man looked as his gun and dropped it, quickly drawing his secondary weapon and trying to fire. The attempt ended the same. For some reason he was not able to discharge the weapon. The person continued walking, a knife slipping from their sleeve and into their hand, but they just kept walking. The man was frightened but tried to do his duty to the American people, but as he moved to try and disarm the enigmatic trespasser they were unable to move. Any and all attempts to intervene lead to his mind and body stalling up, forcing him to think of a new course of action.

Thankfully this person simply continued to walk into the white building. The entire building went on the appropriate protocol, but some doors simply wouldn't lock, an when the shady assassin came into perception none could fire upon him, stand in his way or hinder him. It seemed as though not a single person could intervene, directly nor indirectly as the figure worse their thin pressed smile all the way to the oval office. The witchy figure stepped through the door several people with their guns trained on him, one of them being a man in a black suit, snow white hair with piercing hazel eyes behind a set of glasses. The figure's lips split as the strode towards the desk, on leg out crossing over the other, the doing the same with the other, flourishing the knife. Holding up it's left hand a bright green and black fire with an orange outline formed before being flung at the window behind the esteemed head of state, reducing it to ashes upon contact. Then they deployed a cute little plush ball that looked like a little cartoonish kitty face with a smile.

"Well hello Mister President." The soft voice said, somehow it was obviously distorted as they pulled out another knife from their belt, this one much more plain and mundane seeming than the other. Leaning over the desk the grabbed the presidant's tie and pulled him forward, the mundane knife sliding up and poking the man on the nose gently. "boop!" The voice said with an amused giggle before yanking the tie and slamming the knife blade through the tie and into the desk, pinning him there. Reaching back the lithe one reached for their satchel and withdrew a small ribbon, one that unraveled as the held the tip pinched between their fingers. The little kitty spheres deployed a gas that instantly shot up to the higher layers of the room, knocking out all present people, save for the president himself and his eccentric and exotic attacker. When the agent rushed for the open air the seeming assassin stood up and began to strut around the desk.

"Just close your eyes and pretend I'm Misses President. It might feel less uncomfortable." They offered half-heartedly before making their mark on Washington. The President was gagged and pinned to his own desk by his tie, his hands bound behind his back as he tried to wiggle free. Meanwhile this assailant would decorate part of the office to hang the ribbon over the broken window. Finally there was a response team arriving just in time for them to see the still bound president and the smile of the assailant stepping out the window. They attempted to open fire, and while they were successful they had ducked out the window quick enough to evade them. Several members of the squad went in pursuit while the others looked at the banner unamused.

"Goddamn freaks...Someone get him untied!" The head of the squad said as he lowered his gun and sighed looking up to the banner. A lackey of his stepped up next to him, standing as they both looked at the ribbon.
"First New York, now this shit? What in the Hell is going on here?" They asked as the older service member shook his head and sighed. He wished he had an answer but he had no idea how to react as upon the nicely green ribbon there was gold lettering that spelled out the message quite clearly.



Samhain couldn't help but wonder what exactly was going on. There was a situation at the White House but they described it simply as a training exercise gone incredibly wrong. The President himself made an appearance and expressed how grateful he was for the scheduling error, as it proved just how unprepared they were in this situation. He also made the assurance that everything was already being fixed and tested once more. He put on a brave face, but in truth Samhain was uncertain just how much he could trust on this matter. This was too unusual and there were too many things left unanswered for Samhain. Primarily the unanswered question was WHY did the "one man army" that was supposedly playing bad girl have one of the most dangerous occult items in all of existence?

Samhain was looking over a video that Dante had shown him n the computer. The lithe figure moving with a macabre grace as they walked, a very specific blade. The blade was one Samhain knew of only by appearance, as it was an occult weapon unlike any other. It was a weapon that made someone the perfect killer, without question. He needed a way to triangulate the location of this blade and ascertain it somehow. Whomever secured this blade had gone through great lengths to do so and they would likely make ways to defend themselves if an Eldritch arrived to simply take it. It would take a good while, but with the assistance of his goblet and Dante's extensive technological outreach, they managed to find the location of this weapon. A small town in Kansas, surrounded by cornfields on all sides.

"Dante, I have a little something I'd like you to look into..." Samhain said with a smile as he placed a hand on the young man's shoulder, Dante looked up knowing he was going to be shipped off to do Samhain's bidding by retrieving this weapon. The unfortunate part about it all would be when Dante got there. Samhain himself had been near the area, but found that surrounding the small town was a barrier of sorts, a warp and a rift that encompassed all of the town. Entering the barrier would trap you in there, in a form of skewed reality. Samhain himself could not go because once he entered he would assume his true form once more, his glamour would fall and all within would see his true form. Seeing as Prodigy was sending people to this location due to work of their little master of the occult, Samhain himself could not risk this. Thus he decided it was time to send Dante to do his dirty work for him.

With Samhain's abilities it wasn't soon before they were right outside the town barrier. Dante regretted agreeing as he arrived to the designated town, a backpack slung over his shoulder as he walked forward, Samhain waving him off. Upon appearing on the other side, Dante found that his neck and cheeks had a ton of scruff and his heart was racing. He was at the very beginning of a yellow brick road.

"Oh this sucks..." Dante groaned as he dropped his backpack and looked around at the small village of burning little people in the distance.

Two guns drooped down from a holster wrapping around a black leather skirt. Strands of cloth from a black poncho held over a white T-shirt cascaded down her left side as she brushed the poncho over her shoulder. Shadows from a black brimmed leather hat dared the light to attempt to accost her nose. The light flinched. A deep red bandanna wrapped around Elaine's neck with enough hue to paint a wagon red... with blood. Anyone daring to look any further down Elaine's legs would tremble at the ruby red boots, burning with the passion of a thousand suns, having its glow stolen by one hundred thousand moons, because the moon is a dick who does not know how to cite its work. "Fuck the moon."

"That is the first thing you have said in five months." Always faithful, but not strong in trust, the small spirit dog arose from his slumber to walk next to his charge. "I thought for a moment I finally found a way to just tune you out entirely. Existence almost became pleasant."

"Not while I'm around." The two walked with the sun casting their shadows behind them.

"I would never impose that it would." The corn continued into another field of corn, masking the smell of corn growing in the corn fields on the other side of that massive corn processing plant.

The hairs within Elaine's nose became enlightened to a smell rising in the area. Her brow folded downward to assist in preparation for thought. "Is that town on fire or did one of their sports teams just achieve something?"

"Maybe they knew you were coming and saved you the trouble."

"That's really thoughtful and stupid of them." Nothing good came from fire, except human civilization, but that could be attested. And, since nothing good came from fire, Elaine assumed fire must serve some higher evil, but her line of reasoning got lost in a corn maze.

"Even so, perhaps we do something, like, I don't know, anything."

"I'm going to enlighten them."

"Good luck in Nebraska."

Elaine stepped foot on an oddly colored road of some sorts. It felt different than the dried out dirt path. "Maybe I'll have better luck in Kansas, because this is Kansas."

"Corn, no science, a strong determination to preserve the Confederate flag even though neither state seceded; one happens to be north of the other."

"Kansas isn't North Nebraska. North Nebraska is North Nebraska." Her boots now kicked against a hard yellow road, her feet trying to avoid the inclination of stepping into the folds between the bricks.

"Wrong, wrong, and who taught you- oh yeah it's you."

"Last person who said it like that didn't like what happened next."

"Oh, did you introduce yourself to him?"

"It was a her, you misogynist patriarch. And, I introduced her to 'quiet' and 'meditation'."

"Is there irony anywhere in your vocabulary? Also, why are we on a yellow brick road?"

Elaine spun around in a circle before dropping her head to look down to her four legged companion. "We're probably not in Kansas anymore."

"Good! Fuck Kansas." Yeah! Fuck em right in the North Nebraska!

"I bet this place matches up with Pink Floyd." Elaine adjusted her pistols to a more readied position before taking another step.

"Well, we're not going to try that because Pink Floyd sucks."

"Yeah, Pink Floyd does suck."

Yes, Pink Floyd sucks. And before complaining about how visionary they are, make sure you can list a song other than Comfortably Numb, Money, and Wish You Were Here.

"Why is it every up and coming villain or whatever you want to call them attacks the White House? That's not even profitable. And this one didn't even kill the president when they had the chance! It seems it was just to send a message." Daniel said, relaxing on a rather nice leather chair located in the Sanctuaries inner sanctum. News of the attack had traveled fast, and for some reason the whole following was abuzz with chatter of it. Even Lucius' own lieutenants were talking about it.

"Hey, it was pretty impressive considering the other attempts. The success rate of something like that nowadays is incredibly low." Chase noted as he made a shot on a pool table that was also in this room, sinking the 8 ball before Leo even had a chance to take his turn.

"Are you fucking kidding me? And here i thought super aiming was a lame superpower." Leo said, obviously irritated as he never won this game, at least when Chase played.

"Told you it was pretty nifty, now go get me a beer." Chase said with a smirk as he placed his pool stick back on a nearby rack. Leo looked scandalized by the order, no way was he doing that.

"Um, nYou mean yes? Come on, i won, get me a drink peewee." Leo just scoffed at that, but he admitted it was fair and walked off, presumably to go get this beer. Lucius stood in the middle of the room repeatedly watching footage Hector recovered of the event, he was very interested in the fact no one stopped the vandal. Heck, the supposedly highly trained agents seemed to forget how to use their weapons when this witch like person showed up.  Though to Lucius it didn't seem like mind control of any kind, this went deeper. He couldn't quite put his finger on what exactly was going on in the footage, but one thing was for certain, it managed to easily get this person into the most heavily defended building in the world. A few bribes also lead to him getting some useful info on the subject, the witches only objective seemed to be to leave a message, one that made about 0 sense. Why go through all that trouble just for that?

Hector had been hard at work, looking over anything and everything he could to try to get a lead on where this person was. It took hours, but he finally got a beat. They seemed to be in a small town in Kansas, or at least near it. That or Hector had got some bad info, but the AI was quite confident that was unlikely.

"I have found the potential location of the person from the video, pulling up the coordinates now." The AI's voice rang through the room, garnering the attention of the lieutenants.

"Excellent." Lucius said, motioning for Daniel to come to him. The male then disappeared from his chair and was standing next to Lucius in an instant.

"Ew, Kansas." He said, which got no response from Lucius as he turned to a section of the wall nearby and pressed his hand against it, which unsealed it with a hiss of air. It opened and Lucius grabbed a few things, replacing equipment and such while also putting a new mask on.

"We'll keep this one small. After all, it won't be hard to get reinforcements there if we need them. I feel discretion is needed here." Lucius said half in his normal voice and half filtered once the mask was fully clasped on. Daniel just nodded, there was no point in arguing, even if he did disagree with the whole solo act thing Lucius seemed to get into sometimes. Leo eventually returned with Chase's beer and handed it to him, oh, and he opened it. Not thinking, Chase took a swig, and found......it was piss.

"Pffffffft- what the? You little punk!" Chase yelled, he looked very angry, but that soon turned to a laugh. He seemed to have an odd sense of humor, though Leo was lucky he hadn't gotten a Q ball to the head.

"You did it again, didn't you?" Lucius said with a sigh from across the room, which only got a wide smile from Leo in response. Lucius just shook his head and prepared to teleport. In a moment, him and Daniel appeared just outside the barrier around the town.

"Oh boy, the barrier around the town gimmick. I wonder just what this one has in store for us." Lucius said as he walked through it without skipping a beat. Daniel wondered how the guy could make such rash decisions on the fly, but he did follow along. Once inside they noticed the yellow brick road, and they both sighed at the sight of it. Why did all these villains need a theme to go by? Like, seriously......was it a requirement now?

Time had passed since the incident involving LA, while it may have not been gone from the memory of the people, Ryan had found no official blame being cast upon him. So that may have been how he didn't get himself booted from Prodigy, simply because of a lie. Not that Ryan would complain about that, considering that Prodigy was sort of the reason he even had a house over his head to begin with. His destination was somewhere in Kansas, a town of some kind though something had been mentioned about the President too. Not that he really paid much attention to that, just something about a town and a barrier around it.

How they would get into it was the big question and one that was easily answered. Silus seemed to be able to get them into the barrier through some kind of magic….it was magic right? Ryan didn't quite know at this point, so he just sort of assumed it was magic and went on with his life. That made things much easier than trying to explain whatever it really was, because he expected a convoluted explanation should he actually ask. There were likely other ways he could get into the barrier, and that was something that Ryan had actually thought of.

This was composed of him doing that little water porting trick, so that was what he did. How he actually found a small body of water didn't matter but within a matter of seconds he appeared at the start of what looked like a yellow brick road. ”Wait….this looks awfully familiar for some reason.” He muttered tapping a foot against the yellow brick. Well this was going to be interesting anyway.

Out of all the chaos Dante had experience he couldn't help but think that this was some form of drug induced hallucination. Like the illusion the Pink Floyd was actually good music. Dante didn't know where that thought came from, but he felt like the only reason Ulysses listened to that trash was because he liked getting high. Not Dante though, he was a respectable young man who knew the difference between right and wrong. He would never listen to Pink Floyd, even when he was high. All jokes aside, Dante was a boring mofo who liked his country music and classic rock, Pink Floyd wasn't in the mix at all. He's the best hero ever too, especially since the entire time a town of small people was burning and he ran off to help while the narrator of his adventures latched on to another narrator's comment on Pink Floyd.

Dante wasn't the fastest guy in the world, but he managed to get himself into the town quick enough, Of course once he got there he found himself rather discouraged to see fire blazing all over this place. Looking down, Dante couldn't help but notice the road beneath his feet was a rather unusual color. Dante couldn't help but scoff as he realized that the road was yellow and made entirely of brick. It went right through this little town to a massive green structure that looked almost glassy and jagged along the edges. So...they were fighting the Wicked Witch? That better be what happened. Dante didn't get hauled away from his ever-eventful life of zits and girl problems just to be bothered by some Wicked Bitch and her army of assorted circus freaks.

Dante found himself loathing and fearing the fire a little bit before letting out a little whine as he watched the buildings burn. The smell of boiling flesh was in the air as little midget corpses burned and bubbled in the quite literally blistering heat. There was nothing Dante could do for the dead, so he turned his eyes to try and get everyone away that he could, no matter how bad the thought of dead midgets being cooked alive scarred his mind. He continued to corral them away from the fire, each time the fire roared or cracked he jumped, fearing for his own life. It didn't even seem that odd to him, he didn't even know that he was being so paranoid, so scared and overall...cowardly. "E-everybody get back! Back there's nothing we can do for them they're already charred!" He tried to explain as he tried to stand between them and the fires. Many people turned and reluctantly left, but one midget thought it's be cute to punch Dante in the balls, dropping the boy to his knees with a groan and a bit of a whine.

Eventful day in midget land a county of Oz.

The glow of the green castle looked wonderful in the glow of the burning village. The smell started to get a little on the uneasy side. "How many villages in this place are on fire?"

"One." Two small legs plopped down to prop up the squat body.

"There was the one we first saw, dummy."

"I took that into consideration. There is one village on fire."

"I gotcha." Elaine put her hands against her hips and leaned back in the glow of the fire. "Like seventy percent of this village is on fire, so that first one probably was thirty percent on fire. I will need to survey the town records for a census and then count the dead."

"That is way easier than getting what I'm saying." Four legs began to step forward along the road towards the village Elaine began to investigate.

Flames rising from the wall of fire detoured Elaine from making her immediate movement into a large building. Support beams crashed down, sending charred debris into the sky. A cry for help shot out from one of the rooms in a home behind her. With a quick shadow jump, Elaine reappeared inside a house to find two small bodied people huddle together while the house crumbled. Elaine let her lasso fall to her side, keeping the choke in her palm. Two circles gave it enough momentum to grab the two bodies and pull them behind.

The image of a giant out in the courtyard towered over the terrified citizens running. No doubt this creature bore the burden of this massacre. Only one solution. Elaine shadow jumped out of the house, the two dwarves appearing safely behind her, as it came down behind her. Smoke and cinder clouded the area, but Elaine made a get away before it could stain anything in her apparel. "Fee Fi Fo Fum. I'm gonna break your nose." Her stature dominated over the smaller forms, breaking Elaine's focus from her adversary. "Wait, how did you turn me into a giant?"

"These people are the corgi of human."

"Aw, that's adorable. Can only I see them?"

A silence hung for a minute. "Yes."

"Alright giant dickbag, why are you terrorizing these people with fire? You couldn't just let them have their little village with little doors and little tables with little chairs? You had to burn it all down and tell people not to save them? I'm going to stomp your face in with these awesome ruby red boots I have!"

Ok, i agree, Pink Floyd does suck. Now that we got that out of the way, i'll get to this post. Upon walking through the barrier Lucius noticed a few things. One being the yellow brick road, another being the sight of fire in the distance, along with the smell of death. Yeah, burning bodies had their own distinct smell, one you would likely never forget once you smelled it. The final thing was the glass-like structure even further in the distance, yeah, this was just too familiar.

"Um, do you recognize this?" Daniel asked, an amused smile on his face.

"Yes......can't say I've seen the movie though." Lucius responded, thinking on where to start in his pursuit of this person. He didn't know exactly what he would do when he found them. He was just curious in the end, he wanted to know how this witch person did it, and why. Maybe he would acquire something useful, maybe not, but it didn't hurt to try.

"You've never seen the Wizard of Oz?" Daniel asked quizzically.

"Do i look like i partake in Disney movies?" Lucius asked in response.

"....Good point. So, eh, where to next?" Daniel said. It was a good question, though it was pretty obvious. They would go to the burning village up ahead and then perhaps to the fortress beyond that.

"Port us to the blaze." Lucius ordered, not really answering Daniel but then again it wasn't needed. Daniel did as he was told, grabbing Lucius by the shoulder before porting them both to the center of town. What they found was quite shocking, short people, midgets on fire. Some were getting away, but it sounded like the majority were still in the buildings, letting out shrieks very unpleasant to the ears.

"Looks as if either someone forgot to turn off their stove, or someone purposefully set this place ablaze." Lucius noted. He considered actually doing something about the whole people getting burnt to a crisp thing, but then again, he didn't care. He wasn't here to save midgets. The whole situation was suspicious and quite unclear as to what had happened. Heck, the fact their was a midget town randomly in the middle of Kansas state was ridiculous, but Lucius had learned to expect weird shit like this. He and Daniel inspected the area, not really finding anything of interest. Looks like they were headed to that fortress now.

That is, until they heard some yells in the distance. They didn't sound like the high pitched dwarf voices either, it sounded like a young males and then a woman's. Might as well check it out, right? Lucius walked toward the sound, Daniel following closely behind until they came around a corner, seeing a hunched over teenage boy who had obviously just been hit in the nards and a female going on about red boots or something, also, there were a few midgets around. Lucius didn't really know how to approach this situation or if he even should, so he just stayed where he was, not saying anything. It looked kind of creepy probably, dude in armored futuristic robes watching you with glowing red optics.

Ahead of him Ryan took notice of something on fire, which didn't seem quite right. Typically things weren't supposed to be on fire, so he would have to fix that. Probably by putting the fires out with water, yeah that usually worked. Who had set the fire was the huge question because he had no clue who did that. Probably a midget with a flamethrower, because those were a thing. However upon arriving most of the town seemed to be burning, so that meant something needed to be done. So that was what Ryan would do, try and put out the fire by drawing water from any available sources and throw it over the flames. It should have gone alright, but then again things did not always go as planned. Someone looked like they were in pain but then again that might have just been his imagination, and there was this strange girl doing...stuff. All in all this was perhaps the strangest day of his life, or maybe just the second, the jury was still out on that one.

Okay so now things were getting freaky around here. You see the first person that Dante say was an asian cowgirl walking up to him and freaking out at him for burning midgets. In the middle of her rant he couldn't help but realized that her clothing seemed to warp and the illusion of her wearing a white and sky blue checkered dress with white stockings and ruby shoes settled on. Her hair didn't change and she still wore that stupid looking cowboy hat, but other than that she looked oddly familiar, if Dante had ever seen the movie he would have realzed that she was apparently Dorthy. Dante didn't have the chance to see his own transformation, but in almost an instant he grew a long tail as little cat ears poked out from his hair and lowered as his upper lip began to sprout long thin whisters as little triangular canine fangs popped out and his pupils took an almond shape as his neck filled with dark black scruff.

So here we are with what looked like a gender-confused housewife and her companion who looked like he belonged at a furry convention with his human like face but cat tail and cat like features. Don't worry though, he's not a wolf, so no body will salivate or rape him in this topic. Well, no one the narrator controls at any rate. Then you had to consider the fact that Lucius would come to appear as a tin man, with an aluminum gas funnel upside down on his head and everything. Ryan ended up with a straw hat with his brownish hair poking out form the sides. He wore peasants shirt and pants with rope for a belt and straw poking out at random intervals of his attire. No matter what anyone did, chameleon chip or even pulling stray out, they were entirely trapped like that as long as they were in here. Daniel looked normal at least....

"I-I didn't burn them! NNNYAH!" Dante said a natural mewing noise turning into an almost skeletor styled of noise as he backed up, hair standing up on the back of his neck as his tail flicked about. "I-I just got here! I'm tryin' to find the lady who did this!" Dante said, recalling the figure with the strange knife that Samhain wanted for some reason or other. He looked about, hoping for someone to save him, anyone that could attest or cut in. "It was the lady in black, she started the fire!" The kid said to his defense before looking about to Ryan, startled that this person said nothing, while Lucius appeared. The second Dante saw the water he hissed and scurried aside a moment before realizing what he was doing, quivering and shaking like a fool.

"S-stupid fire. Thanks for putting the water out." Dante said with a little mew before looking back at the crazed Cowboy Dorthy, waiting for her to roundhouse him back to Kansas with a Kan of whoop ass.

"Just because she was wearing black doesn't mean she started a fire. She could have come back from a funeral or going to a Nine Inch Nails concert. Why are my boots shoes now? This dress is dumb." Elaine felt the fabric of her dress fall just above her knees with two red ribbons pulling the ends of knee high socks just below her knees. Her slippers glimmered in the light of the fires, making the inferno a beautiful sight.

"Someone with some degree of skill has a Wizard of Oz delusion."

"Well they got it wrong. My shoes are ruby." Elaine continued to balance on one foot as she lifted her other foot for display. "Dorothy wore silver shoes. Why would my shoes represent a move for the US to have a ruby standard? It makes no sense."

"Blame it on color film."

"I blame lots of stuff on black people and you always say I'm not helping."

"I hope a flying monkey drops you to your death."

The yellow road clacked as Elaine returned her foot to the ground. She turned back to the trio arriving at the formerly burning village that now merely smoldered. "Hey assortment of morons, steampunk losers, and furries, I am now your queen and as your queen, I want to know how to go home."

"Click your heels together and say 'there is no place like home.' Also, when you do that you return to Kansas, so lateral move."

"That's meta knowledge. You can't do that. I'm going to find a way home the best way. I just don't know what that is yet." Elaine pulled her guns out and did a quick ammo check before returning them to her holster. "Band of assorted losers. Let's find a way out of this place. Any ideas?"

Well, this just got really, really odd. Lucius found himself at the opposite end of a powerful illusion, one he couldn't adjust his mind too like most others. It was likely a different form of illusion or not one at all. It was rather annoying....and there didn't seem to be a point to it. Lucius just sighed as he looked down at himself, all his tech was still there and active, yet he looked like a tin can.

"Oh, look, you're the tin man." Daniel said with a loud chuckle.

"Shut up or I'll cram a bomb down your throat." Lucius said, not rudely, just in a 'that's whats gonna happen' type tone that was kinda frightening when one thought of it.

"Ok ok, jeez." Daniel said, trying to wipe the smile from his face but doing a terrible job. Lucius heard the boy who had just turned into a slightly more lionish boy say something about the woman in black. Great, people other then him were here after the woman. Lucius had to remember he wasn't the only one that could find these things out. He had to figure out a course of action.

Whoever was projecting this illusion was having a lot of fun, and it seemed him and the others were chosen to be the 'protagonists' of this story. But did that mean he should stick with them, or get as far away from them as possible as to not play into someones hands? Lucius didn't know, but he knew each and every one of the people here was likely after the woman, except for maybe the cowgirl chick, see just seemed to be partially insane. Using the fact he no longer looked like an obvious bad guy to his advantage, Lucius would speak about the situation.

"I'm also trying to find her. And if that isn't enough incentive for us to try to do so together....well, our change of attire definitely is." Lucius said. Really he had no idea where to start, he hadn't even seen the damn movie, so these others could likely help him out.

Ryan noted that he was dressed far differently than he was when he first got here, not in the usual leather jacket and whatever combo but something else entirely. It seemed everyone there was looking strange, especially a weird cat looking type. There were not things around, so there was no trouble there. Ryan poked his ratty hat, but didn't go as far as to try and remove it. Putting out the fire was something he could do, but now the question was who had started the fires. Something about them was weird, but it might have the strange sound they made at the end of their sentence. Ryan was overall confused by what was going on but he sort of shrugged it off as just the person being quirky. One of them said something about their change of attire and that seemed like the work of the lady in black too.

”I guess we should find this...lady in black.” Ryan suggested before realizing that his feet betrayed him and he nearly tripped over himself. ”Well...thats not supposed to happen.”

"W-owza what?" Dante asked, slightly lost and confused by the woman proclaiming themselves a queen. She called people names, but the only thing Dante knew was Steampunk. Steampunk was pretty cool, though he needed to get to work on some of those inventions back home. He wondered what was the meaning of the other words though. "I-I don't get it. What's a furry?" Dante asked, his tail twitching around and violently hitting a midget, sending them back onto their disproportioned butt. "N-nyeh, sorry. I-I don't know how to work this thing. It just hangs there or moves on it's own." He tried to say but he ended up just meekly grabbing his own tail and holding it with a firm grip. It was a rather sensitive thing, now he knew why they yowled the way they did when you stepped on it. Even trying to grip it was weird and made him tingly.

The one man, the Tin man spoke and he seemed to have a rather nice way of talking. He sounded like one of those rich bastards. This guy was probably an utter dick, in fact he sounded like the kind of guy who murdered the parents of homeless kids and gave birth to pompous entitled douchebags that tore apart villages. It's a good thing he wasn't anything like he sounded, because that would Make Dante a sad panda. Cat. Panda-Cat. Panda and cat crossbreed. The thought alone sent a shiver up his spine. "U-uhm. Well should we follow the yellow-GHAY!!! NYAH NAYH!" Dante began before he was cut off by a yellow brick literally crashing into the back of his head. The cat boy went down and held the back of his head in his hands and let out pained noises.

"NO! NO! We JUST had out homes burned down, we are NOT singing THAT STUPID SONG!!!" A bright red midget screamed in rage. He had a little goatee and everything, and in his red little suit Dante couldn't help but noticed how he resembled a very pissed off fire hydrant that came back for revenge on all the dogs and furry animals that had marked him as theirs. He apparently did not like the idea of anybody saying the words "The yellow brick road" in that order. "SAY IT! I DARE YOU! SAYIT SO I CAN BRING THE PAIN TRAIN ON YOUR EMERALD CITY ASSES!" Woah, Dante couldn't help but be entirely and utterly shocked as the little midget grabbed his suit jacket, tore the entire jacket and undershirt off of his chest before ripping off a part of the red jacket and tying it as a banana around his head. Don't think that's a typo. I know what I put.

"T-This doesn't make any sense! T-that's such a mean little elf! I'm not even from Seattle!" Dante mewed. The angry midget took a step forward, snarling as if he could walk through anything or tear apart anything in his way to get at the thing that just called him an elf. Dante quickly scampered and found himself on the other side of Ryan, peeking over his shoulder as the midget stopped.

"You kinky freaks ain't worth my time. Take your creepy cat feitsh and get it OUT of my town. GO!!!" The midget yelled as he pointed towards a rather large city in the distance, jagged green emeralds spiking out of the ground and shimmering in the light.

"I-I o-okay..." Dante said before pointing in the opposite direction seeming to slouch off.

"No! You can't! You have to go THAT WAY!" The midget yelled again. Dante looked to Ryan and cocked his head to the side before looking to the Tin man and Miss Trailer-park of 2021 with her overly expensive shoes.

"But if we came in here and this was all like this...we could totally just turn around and leave and everything will be good. Right?" Dante asked Ryan, looking for affirmation.

"No! You can't! You have to go the way the quest indicates you furry freak!"

"Quest, what quest? Wh-what!? I'm sooo confused, I'm never confused. This scares me..." He said, still hiding behind Ryan as the little midget scoffed, face palmed and slid his hand down his face. He turned to Red, and then Elaine.

"Hey, Junkyard you better get that cat out of here, before the yellow ninja cooks him." He said, threatening everyone so it would seem. Unfortunately, this world sucks and this midget is immortal, so (after finding this out) the only logical thing to do would be to get a move on and get as far away from the angry little fire hydrant as possible.

Things got better and a few things got worse. What a crazy time we live in. Elaine still went about what she knew she would ultimately do, and that involved treating a lion the same way a dentist would treat- well- a lion. "You heard the man." Elaine narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on her pistol as she stared down the lion. "Get to gettin'. I'm coming with you because I'm going in the same direction, but don't any mistake. I'm kickin' you out of this city, you reckin'? I'm wreckin'." Her pistols never came out from the holster, but the intention made its way into the heart of danger. Danger blinked. And then checked out Elaine's ass. Damn. "I don't know why I'm dressed like a gay pride parade, but I plan on figuring this thing out. If we can't fix this then I may have to wear these dumb shoes- ha, you're Todo!"

"Shut up. This is your fault. Shut up."

"Well I'm going to-"

"Shut the fuck up."

"I'm going-"

"Shut the fuck up."

"Going-"

"Shut the fuck up!"

"Now I know why that one witch hung herself in the background."

"Hanged you idiot. She wasn't curtains you moron."

"Anyways. I think we should go on this-"

"Shut the fuck up!"

Elaine walked out into the distance of the yellow brick road. "I'm off to see a guy who can perform magic. He's probably wonderful in this place."

Um, ok. Could this get any more weird? Probably. At this point i wouldn't put it past that crazy narrator to throw left shark in here and maybe even nyan cat or something like that. But we're getting off track now. Anyway, tin-red was called a junkyard by an angry fire hydrant and there seemed to be, as expected, a pre-defined quest they were supposed to follow. Oh bother. Who does this kind of thing? And they call Lucius a horrible person. This was just sadistic really. There was no use in actually responding to the freaky little thing, so Lucius just sighed and started walking in the direction that was specified, Daniel on the other hand seemed like he wanted to be headbutted once again by another pissed off short guy.

"Look at you, you're so cute, all grumpy. I think i like the world like this, reminds me of the time i took LSD." Daniel said as he knelt down to the midgets level, attempting to pat the little thing on the head for some reason. At this point Lucius knew something was going to happen, might as well let Daniel learn on his own not to pet pissed off short dudes.