Valley of the Birds
by MarqueeMoonGirl
part ONE : The Wasteland
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She was almost unrecognizable.
Her hair was tangled, cropped close to her head in uneven patches, like it had had been torn out in chunks. When he had spotted her, her clothing had been in shreds, barely keeping her covered. She had grown terribly thin, her already skinny arms and legs looking almost skeletal despite a substantial growth spurt. Her lean body had dozens of bloody gashes and dark purple bruises all over, staining what was left of her clothes. At the moment, she was struggling against a small demon trying to gnaw at her bare toes. Normally she'd be able to fight something as small as the little red demon with ease, but she looked so weary…
And she looked more like a feral animal then the young guitarist who had been stolen away underneath his own nose.
But her eyes were still the same bright green as they'd always been, and her skin had the healthy flush of the living and not the pallid grey of the condemned souls around her. It was obvious she didn't belong here.
One of the demon's hooked claws lanced through her skin. Noodle's cry of pain wasn't loud, but he still heard her voice over the screaming of the damned.
With a snarl, Murdoc clamored over the shiny volcanic rock and yanked the demon away from Noodle by the scruff of its neck. The small demon then found itself sailing through the air. It began to shriek before being swallowed with a hiss by a swelling pool of red-hot magma.
Noodle curled against the rock behind her, her face turned away from him. Her chest heaved up and down quickly, and she clawed at the glossy black stone futilely in an attempt to get away.
He didn't have the time to be delicate. This had to be a quick in-and-out maneuver, otherwise both of them would be trapped here forever.
Yanking one of her thin arms, he spun her around to face him. She whimpered and turned her head away again, struggling weakly against his grip. Much weaker then he'd even seen her before. "Noodle!" he shouted sharply. "For the love of Satan, knock that off!"
For a moment, she still attempted to feebly free herself. Then her head snapped back towards him, and wide green eyes stared up at him. "Murdoc?" Her voice sounded faint, as if she didn't believe that he was in front of her.
""ey, love." He quickly loosened the skull clasp on his cape, throwing the cloak over her bare shoulders. "Hope you don't mind a hasty exit."
Pulling on the purple velvet, she shook her head.
"Good." He started to run, half dragging Noodle behind him.
For a few moments, Murdoc thought that this had gone far smoother then he'd expected it would. Then the rock underneath his feet began to rumble and splinter. With a tremendous crack, suddenly there was nothing at all beneath them except magma several stories below them. They began to fall together, tumbling closer to the bubbling lake of magma. Digging her head into his chest, Noodle sobbed quietly. He embraced her protectively.
People faced with the prospect of impending death often say that they saw their life flash before their eyes if they were fortunate enough to survive. For Murdoc, it wasn't quite like that.
'What is there to mind about? It's a dream come true. I've got three big brothers - one who smells like butterscotch, one who smells like box-fresh trainers, and the other one that smells like halitosis on toast.'
'Listen, no one looks up to a man who's down. I know it's cool to be depressed and all that but please don't share it with the rest of the class. Bottle it up.'
'I wouldn't sing with Murdoc because he never brushes his teeth and makes the microphone all smelly!'
'There's no point walking around with a face like a smacked arse. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you're on your own, you miserable little bugger. So even if you're a sensitive little tosser, make out you're happy because no one gives a shit.'
He was brought back to his imminent death by Noodle's grip on his chest tightening. For a fleeting moment, he saw her look up at him, her hair flying up, away from her face, her green eyes half closed. Then she kissed him, brushing lightly against his dry lips.
And almost as quickly as he realized Noodle was kissing him, something tore her frail body away from him, something large and scaly and an angry dark red color. It flew off with Noodle clutched in its front talons.
Murdoc's face was sideswiped by the demon's curving tail, and his world was a burst of pain for a moment. In his stupor, he still managed to latch onto it despite the demon's sharp scales digging into his face and arms.
He snarled in frustration. Attached to his belt was a small silver knife, but he had no way of getting to it without letting go. He began to claw at the scales with his fingernails, and they began to flake off like a snake's skin. He was lucky; this demon was close to molting its old skin. Underneath the shedding, its red skin was textured like pebbles, with no sharp scales. Baring his teeth, Murdoc bit into the skin as hard as he could.
The fifty-foot demon roared and convulsed in the air. The tail flailed around like mad, whipping Murdoc around like a toy top. He barely managed to keep his grip on the demon, thinking perhaps that hadn't been the smartest idea he'd ever had.
Slowly, he began to inch his way up the length of the tail. The scales bit against the skin of his palms, but he ignored it and the trickle of blood trailing down his arm. Once he'd reached the base of the tail, he climbed onto the demon's body, hanging on with one hand should the demon decide to do a barrel-roll again while the other drew the knife from his belt.
In the burning red inferno of Hell, the polished blade of the knife somehow managed to shine brilliant silver, like a beam of moonlight on a clear night. Inscribed on the knife were several twisting symbols he couldn't understand. The historian who'd shown it to Murdoc before he'd stolen it had only said it was supposedly a holy relic left over from some ancient battle.
'It was said that it would only aid a solider that fought against pure evil itself. Otherwise it would just be an ordinary knife.'
Squatting between the demon's large wings, Murdoc brought the knife down through the monster's heart, the blade scorching the demon's hide as the weapon sunk deeper and deeper, the blade coated with the demon's greasy dark blood.
'But against the right enemies, it would prove to be a very devastating weapon.'
The demon shrieked in agony, its wings going limp. Sinking like a stone, it flopped over onto an outcropping of volcanic rock. A small puff of smoke issued from the demon's mouth before its head lolled backwards as death claimed it.
Murdoc found himself pinned underneath the gigantic carcass, the holy knife embedded deep inside the demon's body. "Shit," he grunted, trying to wriggle out from under the weight of the body. Clawing his way through, he yanked the knife back out, stumbling around the body to look at its belly.
Noodle laid unconscious across the demon's talon, still wrapped in Murdoc's purple cape. Stuffing the knife back into the sheath, he darted to her, prying her out of the talons.
The cape had been shredded by the sharp talons of the demon. On first glance it looked like the demon hadn't inflicted any new wounds on Noodle, but her breathing was shallow and much too fast to be normal. There also seemed to be a faint green shine to her face he hadn't seen before.
Murdoc ran a fingernail down the black curved claw that had held Noodle. He scrapped off a thin coat of green venom that burned the tip of his finger. He quickly wiped it against the dead demon's muzzle. "Stupid fucking git." The demon had poisonous claws. Externally, it did nothing but seriously irritate the skin, but if it had entered Noodle's bloodstream through one of her wounds, she would be dead within the day.
Gathering the unconscious girl in his arms, he sprinted away from the dead demon, before the other demons of Hell could figure out what was going on.
He dashed over rocks, leapt over trickles of magma, barely keeping ahead of a herd of demons, until he was almost in front of towering iron gates. The Gates of Hell were supposed to let the damned in but keep them from getting out – a duty that traditionally had belonged to a nasty three-headed dog, but rumor had it Satan had relocated Cerberus directly outside his main office after one too many Greek heroes had put the guard dog to sleep with a song.
Sure enough, the rusted gates began to swing shut. Murdoc quickly pulled out the knife again, the mirrored blade shining like a beacon.
The gates halted, allowing Murdoc, Noodle and the holy knife to pass through the gates. The gates then slammed shut with a loud clang in front of the howling demons' muzzles.
A skeleton man, shrouded in a dark cloak, stood on the banks of the river Styx, a wooden boat bobbing up and down next to him in the dark water. In one hand he held a long wooden pole, the other was held out towards Murdoc.
Quickly, Murdoc put the knife away and felt into the pocket of his jeans. Pulling out two shiny silver coins, he placed them in the bones that made up the ferryman's hand and boarded the boat, carrying Noodle's limp body in his arms.
Charon silently climbed onto the helm of the boat, pushing off from the shore using the pole. The wooden skiff glided across the black water with surprising speed, heading back towards the land of the living.
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Everything is white.
Did I finally die? Am I dead?
No. No, wait. My arm's hurting something awful. That probably wouldn't hurt if I were dead.
And Murdoc-san was there. He was trying to rescue me. I kissed him when we were falling, and then something hit me, and then…I don't remember.
I just feel so…
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Murdoc dunked the knife into water, scrubbing at the blade with a scouring pad furiously. Behind him, Noodle was laid out on top of the kitchen table, his cloak pulled up to her chest. He was muttering to himself under his breath, mainly a string of imaginative swears and occasionally 'this better work'.
Pulling the knife out of the water, he carefully felt along the engraving on the blade. He held the knife above his open palm, collecting the drips of water that ran down along the blade's edge in his palm. Setting the knife down on the counter, he looked for a relatively fresh wound on Noodle, finding a scratch on her neck that still looked open. Slowly, so to not carelessly spill a drop, he rubbed the water into the bleeding cut.
She stirred slightly, the green cast gone from her face. That was enough to quiet most of Murdoc's fears. "Noods."
"….tired." she said quietly, opening her eyes a sliver. "Murdoc."
He grinned, his sharpened teeth visible for a moment. "Noodle."
She didn't seem to hear him. "I tried to escape. I couldn't. You left me down there so long," Noodle whispered hoarsely. "Didn't know if you would ever come. Hopeless. It hurt."
Murdoc felt himself wince. "It took longer then I expected to find the right weapons, find a way in that wouldn't get me stuck down there with you, love. Then 2D would have to try to spring us and we both know that wouldn't turn out too well. That dullard would probably offer Satan bus token in exchange for our souls or something."
Noodle smiled slightly. "I'm happy to see you, Mur…" she sighed, her words trailing off as she fell asleep.
Murdoc stood next to the table for several minutes, watching her sleep. "Me too, poppet."
END : part ONE
MarqueeMoonGirl SEZ: This has been floating around in my brain ever since Murdoc announced Noodle was in Hell and he was going to rescue her. So…roughly a year.
I was hesitant to write it down at first because I had finished 'Man Out of Time' a few months before and didn't want to dive right back into Gorillaz going to Hell. This story is NOT a prequel/sequel to 'Man Out Of Time', although I did drop a few references to the Hell in that story here.
Oh, and 'Instant Tunes' is on indefinite hiatus until I can think of something interesting to put next.