Me? Taking a break? lmao AS IF
Enjoy!
i. prologue
Before she boarded M. Harriet, Noodle didn't have the time to keep up with her band mates, that she admits. She learned of what she missed in the first few days confined in a cruiser with no way of leaving or getting to her destination at a faster pace. After some much needed catching up, she chose to give the benefit of the doubt to certain things she learned and waited for a confirmation she could see with her own eyes once she arrived in Murdoc Niccals's new abode.
This was not whatever Noodle had been expecting to find once they arrived in Plastic Beach. It had never crossed her mind that she'd indeed have a cyborg replica of herself (that is currently leaking oil and getting out of control) could've been truly real, or that she'd run into a battlefield in the middle of the ocean. There are planes and ships attacking the pile of trash that Murdoc has dubbed as home, where he holds 2D against his will as far as she knows.
Staring down at the robot from between a gigantic Russel's teeth, she wants to feel anything, at it, at Murdoc, at anyone. Anger, sadness, anything. All the guitarist does is lock away her feelings, calculate her options and try to figure out what to do. There is a weird, dark being somewhere around the island and it needs to be found as soon as possible. There are too many enemies shooting bullets at the people present and, despite the creepy image it is down below, the cyborg seems to be fighting to defend them, probably under Murdoc's orders. The bassist is nowhere to be seen right now and 2D is most likely in the underwater room Russel mentioned earlier as they were drawing closer.
Logically, it's best to get rid of the most number of pirates before she decides to confront her replica and her creator, but there are too many of them. Too many armed men with only one person – thing – with enough experience in wielding guns to fight them. Noodle can hold her ground in a fight, but against this many opponents and without a plan, she won't last for too long and everyone else will go down with her sooner or later. She glances up at the darkening sky, smoke blending with the blue hues above, her bruised eye stinging for a moment. If the cyborg were in better conditions and were willing to listen and team up with her, the both of them could take them down. Not as easily as she would like to believe, but it would be better than nothing. But alas, the oil leak and the sparks sprouting from the juncture of its neck and the bullet hole in its head won't allow that to be possible.
Therefore, she only has an option, one she'd been hoping she wouldn't have to rely on. Noodle touches the waterproof case beneath her dress, pressing it to her sternum, and yanks it from her neck as she yells for Russel. The drummer's enormous hand approaches his mouth and she jumps on it, feeling the wind brush against the uncovered half of her face as she is brought up to his eye-level. Below on the island, the cyborg watches on with glowing, flickering eyes, unmoving even as something explodes a distance behind it.
The guitarist opens the case and takes out a little hard cover notepad from within, flipping through the wrinkled pages in haste, looking for a specific topic. The enormous man is frowning down at her and squints his white eyes when she lifts the book so he can see it better, his frown deepening to a scowl as he read over the tiny handwritten letters, eyes opening wide once he realizes what she is implying.
"Do it." Is the only thing she says to him in an almost pleading, yet hard, tone, and he nods after a moment's hesitation.
As much as he is reluctant to follow with her plan, Russel has to admit that their chances of getting out of this unscathed and together are slim if they don't follow through with this. He reads the words over again and repeats them in his head as she shoves the notepad into the case, closes it, and watches as he tucks it away safely inside a pocket. Noodle rearranges the mask over her face and looks up at him, waiting for it.
Russel swallows past a lump in his throat and exhales in resolution, parting his lips to pronounce the words she has just revealed to him. He watches in stunned silence as her form grows rigid, only the slightest twitch of a finger as an indication that the command is working. He had never thought he would be the one to awake this side of her that has laid dormant for so long, but here he is now. Watching as his baby girl, the little innocent Japanese girl that arrived to them in a crate, begins to turn into the killing machine she had been shaped to be by the government of her home country leaves him with a sour taste in his mouth.
Being the one that said the command, he is the one that has some control over her. "Protect the band and the collaborators, Noodle." The drummer says, orders when he finds his voice and notices her watching him with blank, calculating eyes. She nods at his words, looking over his hesitancy, and is off in the next second in a blur of white fabric.
Noodle has leaped from his hand, landing nimbly on her feet on the pile of trash and lifting her head to study those around her. Cyborg is now part of the band, so she runs past its troubleshooting form and towards the first group of pirates in her path. It is like second nature the way she jumps, hurls a man twice her size twenty feet away and punches a man's face until his nose breaks with a sickening pop and a spurt of blood. Her speed is never this fast when she is aware of her movements and actions, but it's not as if she notices the difference in this state anyway. To her, it's as if time has slowed down to allow her to predict movements and see ahead of the situation. With her senses heightened and adrenaline rushing in her bloodstream, it's easy for her to distinguish the sound of a bullet from among all the chaos and evade it with grace and ease.
Russel turns from the sight and reaches for a plane, throwing it away until it falls to the cold waters of the ocean. He has to help her in any way he can, seeing as the cyborg is now short-circuiting, its weapons laying on the ground uselessly. Besides, it hurts him to see Noodle acting this way, erasing little by little the image of the girl skipping happily down the hallways of Kong.
The guitarist finishes off the first five men she battled and darts to another portion of the island, her analytical gaze identifying a hurdle of armed, but inexperienced people as the collaborators and recognizing them as part of her mission. She takes a gun from the trembling hands of an older black man in the group and turns her sights to an approaching opponent, shooting bullets at him until he is lying on the ground with blood oozing from his motionless body. The air slowly grows heavy with the smell of copper and smoke mingled with the natural stench of Plastic Beach.
Together by the entrance of the newest Gorillaz headquarters, the collaborators turn to enter the mansion built upon the mass of trash, pushing past a shocked bassist that watches on in horror. The girl he first saw as a little kid has turned into a more violent and deadlier version of the robot he had created to fill in her place during her absence. Her white outfit is clean of any specks of blood as she lays rampage around the island, taking men down one by one using her bare hands, firearms or any blades, rusted or not, she finds lying about. Anything she can find in the trash can be used as a weapon. Russel is dealing with enemies coming from above, slamming one airplane into the other, resulting in an explosion that illuminates the entire place and bathes Noodle in an eerie orange glow. Finally, Murdoc catches sight of his cyborg, now on its knees, eyes dark. It has deactivated, its system shut off at some point and, as opposed as to what he had thought, Noodle has not laid a hand on it.
Murdoc watches from afar as Noodle rises to her feet slowly, rolling her neck to release the tension in her muscles before turning around towards him, her hands releasing the still body of an opponent and allowing it to fall limply on the ground. She is finished with the pirates that had been on the island, more bodies than expected lying about the expanse of his home. He holds his breath. The guitarist takes a step in his direction, and another and another, until she breaks out in a sprint and he has to duck to the side to evade her. For a moment, he believes she is coming for his life, but instead she looks around and completely ignores him as she finds a way to go below ground by jumping down the elevator shaft, her mask falling off her head along the way. The clang as she lands on metal reverberates around Plastic Beach and everything seems to grow deathly still.
Noodle is almost finished with her mission. That dark being must have left, though. If she had found it, it would be dead by now, along with its henchmen or whatever these pirates used to be. The collaborators are unharmed and so is part of the band. There is only one person left that needs to be found and her mission will be complete.
Tearing the metal door off its hinges is not an easy feat for someone small like her, but she manages. It falls down loudly and startles the person cowering in the corner, causing the man to press himself as close as possible to the walls and grab his hair in fear. She lingers by the door for a moment, waiting for him to lift his head so she can be sure this is the right person, but he doesn't move much aside from the trembling of his muscles. Her steps don't echo in the room as she nears him, his cries for help and mercy getting louder the closer she gets to him.
She crouches before him, her vacant face capable of unsettling anyone. Her fingers curl around his blue hair and the man sobs loudly, mumbling words she cannot understand, nor does she bother to listen. Noodle lifts his head, taking in his tears and runny, red-blotched nose, narrowing her eyes as she accesses the status of the task given to her by her master.
The man risks an eye open, only to have both of them opening as wide as they will go at the sight of her. One part of her face is injured and there is cut on her opposite cheek, and her gaze is as dull as it is hard, but he looks past that as he mouths her name until it tumbles out his chapped lips in a whisper.
"N-Noodle?"
Noodle tilts her head as she examines him. This man knows her, and although she recognizes him, Noodle cannot remember who he is.
This is the last person missing. The collaborators and the band are safe, as her master had ordered.
Her mission is complete.
SO the concert? AMAZING. I got somewhat close to Damon and I've been crying since. The trip to the beach? A beautiful place, but I wouldn't go back tbh. It did serve it's purpose and inspired me to pick this back up, and I'm too anxious to wait to post this sooo yep. Also, I joined the 2nu alliance and it certainly pushed me to post this much, much earlier hehehe
Here, I'll explore a headcanon of mine that will come around in two chapters? The fanfics I've read so far all depict Noodle as truly trapped in hell between phases 2-3, and honestly, I have my doubts, hence this. I hope this intro gives some insight to the title, and you can draw your theories and shoot them at me, I'd love to know where you think this will go (tho I'll never tell if you're right cause spoilers)
Guess we'll see each other again in about fifteen days. Take care!