Cartoon Zone (Red)

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

The Cartoon Zone is epitomized by just that: Saturday morning cartoons. This area is full of variety, but one rule is common to everything: cartoon physics.

Holes in the ground can be picked up and moved, mysterious train tracks dead-end into brick walls, and iconic cartoon characters abound. Crates from ACME Supply, Inc. litter the landscape, as well as jars of paint and paintbrushes. Use your imagination!

The Roadrunner (MEEP MEEP!) is carrying the Cartoon Zone flag. He must be immobilized or trapped in some manner in order to acquire the flag. This catalog may be of use.

[Tobias Smith]

In Tobias' opinion, life is officially not just a bitch, but a sadistic, inbred, manic, evil, murderous, psychotic kid with the world's first nuclear magnifying glass with him as the only ant...a rather large ant with a big old target painted on him.

One: He's stuck with Psychobitch.
Two: He's stuck with Sparky.
Three: He's stuck with Psychobitch AND Sparky in...the fucking cartoon zone.

Amazed as he is about being chosen, when he appears in the cartoony holographic mayhem that he had lightly touched as a child. Physics is now a thing of the past, as everything has a face, dimensions are now his playthings, (not much of a change there), and he's stuck with Psychobitch...the almighty leader.

Tobias looks a bit out of place amid the extremely happy-go-lucky area, as he is not in the leather (simply because he does not have a uniform, but would probably still wear his coat over it if he did,) but it is clear that Goths have no place in this place...especially not in a place where a bird on crack runs around.

As he looks to Toni to speak, and probably complain, time stops, but not of his doing. Beneath him, subtitles appear that say: "Clockwork: Cronus gothicus." Time immediately starts again, Tobias looks down at where the subtitles had just been, and scowls. As he does so, clouds gather over his head, thunder claps, and small lightning bolts shoot out. That, is when he loses it.

"That's it, I haven't even been in here for a minute, and I'm sick of it. If you need me, I'm going to take down either the Green or Yellow places...anything beats this hellhole..." He then starts to murmur several expletives about this zone, and clearly loathing it despite probably being the most useful here, as conveniently there is a paint bucket at his feet, which he immediately uses to paint a door in mid-air to the door to the Neutral Zone. He already has no idea how physics allowed that, but doesn't give a damn. He wants to get out now.

[Toni Craft]

It wasn't quite what Toni had been expecting. She'd been thinking that maybe she'd end up with something crystal-like -- maybe her own Fortress of Solitude. That would have been nice, and appropriately named.

But this....

"Meep Meep!" Toni blinks rapidly as the legendary Road Runner (in glorious cartoon 3D, no less) comes to a sudden stop in front of her. He looks at her with his oversized eyes, then makes the characteristic thwip thwip sound as he sticks his tongue out at her before zipping off. A thin trail of dust followed him as he dashed between ACME boxes, trap doors, and odd black circles on the floor. Where his long colourful tail should have been, was a simple red flag fashioned to a pole, which was, in turn, attached to the Runner’s backside.

“You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me.” Toni mutters, completely dead pan. Apparently her sentiments were shared equally.

"That's it, I haven't even been in here for a minute, and I'm sick of it. If you need me, I'm going to take down either the Green or Yellow places...anything beats this hellhole..."

“I’m with you, Toby. Johnny?” Toni asks sweetly, turning toward her fire-loving teammate. “Be a doll and protect that fuckin’ bird, okay? Don’t be needin’ Josh rubbin’ his victory in our positively adorable faces.” Then, without waiting to see what John’s take on the situation would be, Toni plants a kiss on his cheek, gives him a quick wink and a “Thanks doll.” and then she’s following Tobias out the recently painted door.

I will not think about the physics of this. I will not think about the physics of this. She thinks firmly, stepping out into the proclaimed Neutral Zone.

[Pyro]

Whatever Hank’s on (and there has to be something; brains un-addled by psychotropic… whatever simply don’t think like this), John wants some. Okay, this is definitely fucked up beyond reason, and prior to, well, right now, there’s no way in hell he’d have wanted to be stuck in happy-clappy technicolour cartoon land… But… shit, it’s so gloriously weird.

Admittedly most of the *glorious* comes from the many levels of *weird* inflicting themselves on Tobias, which is hi-fuckin’-larious, and not on him for once. He barely stifles a snicker at the subtitles, and all control dissolves into a full giggle at the storm cloud and accompanying hissy-fit before… okay what?

Seriously, what the fuck? He’s got to babysit the fucking over-caffeinated buzzard? How does that work? Surely Tobias’d be a better choice – his histrionics be damned, this strategy sucks – but both he and their exalted-and-moonbrained Captain are gone before John can protest, vanished through a door which wasn’t there a second ago and really shouldn’t be there now as it’s just hanging in the air.

”Fuck that.” - sure, this place is cool and all, but if they’re all going off exploring… being left behind was never going to sit well. So he tries to follow only the scene through the door fades out almost as he crosses through the frame leaving him in the cartoon landscape, and when he turns round the door’s not there any more. Shit…

Okay, no panic. Tobias painted the door, right? Any fool can do that. John grabs the brush, daubs a quick arch in the air (don’t ask what’s supporting the paint. Don’t ask. Just do) and… nothing. No new room materialises on the other side. Fuck…

No, no problem… Door’s not open. He adds a blob as a handle, yanks triumphantly on it and prepares to step forward through the door…

Only he’s fairly sure The Neutral Zone isn’t pitch black, or punctuated by a high, shrill whistle. And where did the tracks come fr…?

Shit! Slamming the door shut just in time as the big red engine bears down, and leaning back against it, heart pounding, braced to keep the thing shut, John’s amusement level is rapidly waning. And it continues to diminish as this door too dissolves and he falls back, flailing at the sudden lack of support and landing sprawled on his back in the dust and fucking hating all cartoons ever for their stupid logic and… grr.

”Fine. Fine. You fuckers bugger off. I’ll stay here and watch the goddam bird.” John pulls himself to his feet, and is somehow unsurprised, if not exactly amused, to see the stupid speedster watching him, head tilted sidelong, tongue lolling in clear amusement. He returns a loving this, aren’t you? scowl as he brushes himself down and takes a step towards Road Runner, unsure what exactly his plan is beyond keeping an eye it, but ”How hard can it b…”

”Meep meep!” Thwip!

”…fuck”

[Pyro]

A deafening crash echoes across the lurid cartoon canyon Roadrunner calls home as the Acme Jet Propelled Pogo Stick joins the Roller Skis and Rocket Propelled Skates in a pile of misshaped rubble at the base of one of the cliffs, cornering way too sharply behind the streak of black which, one assumes, is the stupid speedster his/her/itself and which has no problems navigating at such brain-melting speed… and no matter how many times he’s splatted to 2d and returns in moments to 3d John cannot and will not get used to it, because it’s just fucking wrong. This whole zone is. The fun’s totally evaporated now, and cartoon physics is just… sickening and headspinning and fucked up, and he wants out. Period.

It doesn’t help that the Danger Room has been voicing eliminations, testifying that there is action going on elsewhere (unless like everything else in this stupid zone that’s just there to mess with his head). Not that John has any great desire to get stuck in and win the competition or anything but… shit, anything’s got to be better than sitting around here, or trying to keep up with that damn bird. It can look after itself for a while, because aside from Tobi who could hope to capture it?

Now, it’s just a matter of getting out…

… doors haven’t worked…

… what does that box say? Acme Portal Generator?

--[Dropping out of Red Zone and into Yellow Zone]—-

[Warren Worthington III]

(( Fast-forwarding a little just to keep this moving along… I hope nobody minds. We can keep playing out the Green Zone scene as well, if we want, but this picks up after that.))

In retrospect, invading the Death Star itself was a bit of an anticlimax. Between Rasputin turning the Imperial troops against each other and Storm turning every cross-corridor they passed into a raging wind-swept deathtrap, they didn’t encounter much in the way of resistance on the way in… and once the Emperor was taken care of (and really, who in their right mind uses Force Lightning against Storm?) and the “flag” retrieved, there wasn’t even that much on the way out; everyone was disoriented or running away.

And the Neutral Zone had been its usual deathtrap-saturated self, but otherwise empty of challengers, and Warren has started taking that sort of thing in stride lately, which of course is really the point of all this simulation in the first place. So he and his team are hardly slowed down by any of it, and find themselves in CartoonLand pretty quickly.

Well, at least the speed-uber-Alles strategy is playing out reasonab – he’s startled by the sudden “freeze-frame” effect of the space, and the caption “Angel: Avius Tooslowicus” that appears underneath him. Huh? He vaguely remembers the Roadrunner cartoons from his childhood, but he doesn’t get the joke. Well, whatever. Anyway, one flag down, two to go… or three? It suddenly occurs to Warren that he should have taken Excalibur with him when he left the Blue Zone, rather than leave it behind to be snatched by one of the other teams… a moving target is always harder to catch.

Which is a somewhat problematic realization when he remembers his target is a speedster. His attention is captured by a faint “Meep-meep!” in the distance, and he can see the dust-cloud raised by the speeding bird along one of what seems like an infinite network of roads pointlessly crisscrossing this cartoon version of an Arizona landscape.

"OK… if I remember the genre conventions, chasing our little avian friend is pretty much guaranteed to fail, and clever plans will blow up implausibly in our faces, even if the laws of physics have to be wholesale rewritten to achieve it. So maybe it’s time to try something a little different. Rasputin, try getting in mental communication with our speedster friend over there and asking him to join our team, will you? No manipulation, no attack, just ask. Far as I know, the coyote never tried that, right?" It occurs to Warren that Rasputin probably has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about, unless Looney Tunes has a more international following than he’d suspected, but for the moment it doesn’t really matter.

(( OOC: Personally, I’d expect the Roadrunner to turn them down once it’s clear that they’d be going somewhere else. Because of course he can’t leave the road – he’s a roadrunner! But the idea of negotiating with the Roadrunner amuses me. ))

[Ororo Munroe]

Ororo follows Warren and Rasputin through into the Cartoon Zone.

She reflects on their progress so far. Getting the first flag - the Death Star plans - had been pretty straightforward. Warren had apparently taken care of Darth Vader while she was busy with Josh and Bobby, and Nikkolas had done well in the battle as well. She smirks slightly. Getting pinned by Josh’s telekinesis in battle had annoyed her initially, but it had left her impressed at his concentration to manage it in the middle of a snow- and lightning-storm.

> Rasputin, try getting in mental communication with our speedster friend over there and asking him to join our team, will you? No manipulation, no attack, just ask. Far as I know, the coyote never tried that, right?

“Not bad, Warren. Maybe he’ll even give us the flag? After all, he lives to be chased. If we don’t chase him… well, maybe this is Hank’s UN Ambassadorial side coming out...”

Ororo looks to Nikkolas, waiting for the younger boy to try diplomacy. In the meantime, she takes a few steps around the immediate vicinity, trying to familiarize herself with the battleground. She reaches out with her powers to take control of this area's weather patterns in preparation for possible conflict.

The sun shines brightly onto all of them, and their black uniforms make it worse. "How about a little shade?" Storm's eyes glow briefly, and then large, puffy cumulus clouds materialize between them and the sun.

[Warren Worthington III]

> " How about a little shade?"

Warren looks up a little nervously as the clouds gather… he appreciates the shade, but distrusts this entire Zone, and isn’t entirely sure the clouds won’t suddenly fall on their heads or something. He doesn’t say anything, though… he’s probably just being paranoid. After all, Hank has been sticking pretty closely to his source material so far, and while cartoon physics is capricious, the genre does have consistent narrative rules, one of which is that all injury is the direct result of aggression. So as long as his team doesn’t try anything hostile, they should be safe.

Safe from the Danger Room, maybe, he corrects himself with a sudden realization, but not from the other players! "And stay alert, people… the bird should be harmless, but keep an eye out for the competition." Fortunately, in a setting as large and empty as this desert Warren is confident in his ability to spot other players, or hear them digging or whatever, long before they can spot him. Even Smith would probably run out of juice before closing the distance, although Warren isn’t pleased to be relying on “probably”s.

Fortunately, Rasputin seems to have piqued their target’s interest: a zooming sound followed by a cheerful “Meep, meep! ” announces its sudden arrival. (Warren notes idly that, unlike Tobias, the Roadrunner doesn’t actually seem to displace the air when it “travels” and wonders whether that’s a bug in the sim, or intended to represent teleportation rather than speed. Of course, in Cartoon Physics Land, it’s not at all clear the question means anything.) It bats its absurdly-lidded overly large cartoon eyes at warren and holds up a small sign that reads “Make me an offer!”

Warren pauses a second to keep himself from laughing… surely that wasn’t preprogrammed? Hank must be controlling this one on the fly… except, now that he thinks about it, maybe not. It wouldn’t take much to predict that Warren would try negotiating with the enemy before attacking it… in fact, that’s more or less how he ended up recruiting Rasputin, now that he thinks about it.

"Um… well, all right, um, Roadrunner…" he stumbles for just a moment searching for an honorific, and suppresses a giggle when he realizes he has no idea whether the Roadrunner is male or female… and more importantly, no idea whatsoever what a Roadrunner might find enticing. Does it enjoy being chased? Should I offer it a whole pack of coyotes in the Blue Zone? Would it rather be left alone? He vaguely remembers that the coyote used to bait traps with birdseed… the traps never worked, of course, but does that mean the Roadrunner likes birdseed?

Fortunately, he’s been through enough of these negotiations that he can run through the preliminaries on autopilot. “I appreciate you taking the time to meet with us… we’re very excited about the possibilities inherent in coordinating our resource bases…" He cuts off his usual spiel when the bird holds up a “Cut to the chase! You’re boring the kids!” sign, and suddenly has a brainstorm. Of course! Audience!

"Direct and to the point, I like that. Well, I represent a, um, competing Zone that specializes in realistic fantasy productions, such as the extremely successful Lord of the Rings franchise.
Of course you’re aware that the modern animation market is increasingly dominated by more realistic CGI animation, and the old-school cartoon style so ably represented by yourself and your friends is increasingly seen, unfortunate as this is, as a dated anachronism by today’s children. And although my employers are committed to bringing cutting-edge technological innovation into the animated fantasy entertainment field, they are also concerned that the brilliantly conceived characters like yourself who inspired us in our youth not be lost under the wheels of technological progress. Which is why I’m here, to offer you an opportunity to star in an unprecedented animated crossover event: Roadrunner in Mordor! " He tries not to wince at the lameness of his own title… it’s the best he can think of on such short notice.

The Roadrunner seems skeptical, which is an impressive feat given its relative featurelessness, and looks up into the cloudy sky with a “ho-hum” impression, tapping its toes – talons? – impatiently in mid-air. Thinking fast, Warren takes a deep breath – Hank, I am going to make you pay for this, make no mistake! – and continues with his bizarre spur-of-the-moment movie pitch.

"The production values would be far superior to what you’re accustomed to, of course – a fully three-dimensional shadow-mapped body, beautifully detailed background environments…" no response there, so Warren shifts gears smoothly "…and your Cartoon Q ratings will at least double, maybe even triple, which means merchandising deals and opportunities for corporate sponsorship, not to mention a very lucrative royalty arrangement…" still nothing, and Warren just barely manages to conceal his giggle underneath a discreet throat-clearing sound as the next hook occurs to him "…as well as the opportunity to explore more (ahem) adult plotlines, if you follow my meaning?" Ah! That got his – her – it’s attention!

He takes a quick breath and continues. "Of course, you’d have significant creative input into storyline and choice of (ahem) co-stars…" he cuts off suddenly, something in the roadrunner’s expression giving him a very bad feeling, which simply gets worse as little pink cartoon hearts start to spin around the bird’s head. Before Warren can decide on a new tactic he feels his head grabbed by disturbingly rubbery wings as the Roadrunner leans in for a huge cartoon-style lip-stretching kiss. Lips?, he thinks irrelevantly, Since when do birds have – oh, never mind. Going to kill Hank. Slowly. "Er… right. So, I take it you’re interested? Excellent. I have one more stop to make, to discuss a, um, possible horror-franchise crossover, but that oughtn’t take long… perhaps we can schedule an appointment for you to meet with my employer, the, um, King of the Blue Zone in about ten minutes? He’s very interested in -- "

Warren doesn’t even get to finish the sentence before the Roadrunner pulls a paintbrush out of nowhere, paints a photorealistic forest scene on Warren’s chest, and dives into it with a disturbingly excited “Meep! Meep!”… leaving sudden silence in its wake.

"Um." Warren pinches the bridge of his nose, rubbing away what feels like an oncoming headache. "I, uh… I guess that worked?”

[Warren Worthington III]

The cartoon desert seems somehow empty without the annoying avian beeping to enliven it… for a moment, at least. Then a cloud of dust kicks up from around a nearby sand-dune as an oddly anthropomorphic furry creature with floppy ears and a pained expression comes charging at Warren in an awkward flurry of implausible legs.

It doesn’t seem hostile so much as emotionally overwhelmed, so Warren can’t tell whether it intends to attack him or hug him or what, but he relies on the basic only-harm-aggressors logic of the cartoon universe. "Hold fire, team… let’s see what this is about first."

From about ten feet away, the eager-looking Coyote dives into the air, front paws together like an Olympic swimmer, then freezes in mid-air as a tag appears underneath it: “Coyote: Appetitus Disturbicus.” He unfreezes a moment later and dives into Warren’s chest, flattening out harmlessly before falling dazed to the ground. Ah… right. The classic disappearing portal trick. I should have expected that.

Speaking of portals… as the Coyote sidles off, crying inconsolably, Warren notices an odd humming noise which turns out to be coming from a box labeled “Acme Portal Generator.” As he approaches he can make out a hazy shimmering field and hear a faint voice coming through it.

> "…special child, dark powers, bla bla. Usual ancient shit. You get the drift… So, which one of you is the one known as the… um… the Flag Bearer?"

Ah. I guess this is a shortcut, then? All right. He dives through the shimmering field, remembering only a little too late that shortcuts in cartoon-land are never actually practical…

(( Following John into Yellow Zone… ))

[Ororo Munroe]

Ororo watches with vast amusement at Warren’s negotiation with the cartoon bird. She can’t help but feel it’s some kind of trap, seeing that Hank designed the entire simulation. Things tended to be wheels within wheels when Hank was in charge.

Fortunately, though, Warren is able to convince the Roadrunner to meet them in the Fantasy Zone. I’m impressed… I thought it would take much longer than that. Warren has a gift for spur-of-the-moment decision-making. The bird disappears through a gate into the Fantasy Zone, and Ororo follows Warren over to the portal generator.

"Nice job, Warren. Two out of four secured - three, if you count Excalibur. With any luck, we’ll be able to flag down the Roadrunner after we get back to base.” She gives him a smile, and turns back to Rasputin.

“Nikkolas, are you coming?” The younger boy is making his way between props scattered across the desert landscape. She glances back at Warren, who’s stepped through the portal. Ororo takes a few steps towards it when a train rushes across the landscape and crushes the generator, making the portal dissipate.

“What the…?” As it rushes past her, a coyote in a conductor’s hat blows a raspberry in her direction. An annoyed look crosses her face, and her gaze briefly tracks the train across the desert. Not worth the effort. It’s a cartoon, Ororo! “Nick, perhaps we should make our way back to the central zone?” She begins picking her way across the desert with him. The exit is barely visible across the desert, which seems to have grown precipitously. She lets out a breath.

I hope Hank is having fun, because I'm certainly not.