Chapter Three

Thunk! Clang! Thunk! Clang!

Murdoc let out a soft, raspy groan and lifted a hand to his forehead, his brow giving a few twitches at the strange, muffled noises that were forcing him in to consciousness. Thunking and clanging, one heavy object to another solid one, and soft, barely understandable muttering was reaching his ears, causing his irritation to rise just as his mind did through haze that was surrounding it. He thought 2D was at it again with some strange aquatic creature in the kitchen again, and it was very quickly causing Murdoc agitation. He just wanted to sleep, even though he'd been having the strangest dream about a train and something about the United States.

"Go'ammi'," Murdoc muttered softly, his words barely understandable in his semi coherent state, "Face ache, kno'i'off a'fore I kno'yer hea' off,"

He stretched a hand out to find his cluttered nightstand and a discarded pack of cigarettes, more than likely already half smoked, and only found a cold metal bar greeting his fingers. The banging continued in the background as his half-conscious brain suddenly realized that the 'bed' he was laying on didn't feel like his. Instead it felt like something much harder and more uncomfortable, with a slight glass texture to part of it, and even more disturbing was the fact that he actually felt like he was partially upright on this weird surface. There was also a nasty stinging sensation on his left arm that traveled the length of the back of his hand to just below his elbow.

Did I pass ou' in a bar an' ge' thrown ou' again?

"Baka. Open, open damn you. Kuso! ..ow," a tiny, strained female voice switching in and out of English and some other language finally reached his ears, giving another inch to the pull of his mind in to some semblance of coherency.

Noodle? …bullocks. The train. That wasn't…

With a loud enough groan to wake the dead, Murdoc slowly lifted his upper body in to a somewhat sitting position and blinked his bleary, tilting vision back in to clearness. His dream was no dream after all; he was really sitting odd-angled in a partially destroyed MAX cab that was tilted slightly on its side and completely thrashed on the inside. He was laying on one of the many large windows in the upper area of what was left of the train, and had been draped sideways over the back of seat next to him. Looking down, he located the source of the stinging, sharp pain; a long, though luckily not incredibly deep, jagged gash had been torn in to his arm. Attempting to flex the fingers of that hand only caused more discomfort to the injured extremity.

Sighing, he found himself muttering about the 'third worst day ever', and looked over to see what all the commotion was that had roused him in to consciousness. Somewhere beneath some seats close to him, Russel gave a rumbling mutter of his own as he, too, was being roused in to consciousness.

Noodle was a few feet down from Murdoc, looking terribly disheveled as she balanced herself on a single seat and held a small fire extinguisher and was attempting to dislodge the handle on the conductor's cab door. The handle had come loose, but not enough to disengage the lock on it. Amongst all the noise and the multi-lingual cursing from her, Murdoc could occasionally hear sniffling, indicating that the girl was more than likely crying. Making a face, more in confusion as to why she was attempting to do such a thing, the older man rose carefully from his strange position and managed to crawl across the window to where Noodle was, saying her name twice, though rather softly because he hadn't quite had his voice return yet. She never responded, too intent on getting the door open to hear him approach.

"Noodle!" Murdoc finally cried out, his voice dryer than usual but finally able to get some volume behind it. That coupled with his hand snagging her shoulder caused the girl to let out a rather shrill cry of terror and spin around, some how managing to stay on her precarious perch even as she raised the fire extinguisher above her head, ready to strike down whatever it was that was trying to grab her even though her tiny frame was visibly trembling. Her eyes, though still mostly hidden, were bloodshot red and puffy, tears making pinkish splotches as they went down her incredibly pale cheeks. One pigtail had come partially out of the bow that was holding it and was hanging down halfway on her head, and the oversized shirt she'd been wearing sported a few blotches a blood as well as a tear on the right side. Her right hand was bloody and a few small cuts laced the skin in various places around it, and a small rivulet of the crimson substance also snaked down from her thick hair.

"Murdoc-san…" she mumbled in surprise, lowering the extinguisher to chest level.

"'scuse the rudeness, luv, bu' wut in bloody fuck are you doin'?" Murdoc asked gruffly. Somewhere near him, more than likely a seat behind the two of them, Russel let out another noise and a soft curse of his own.

Noodle stared numbly at Murdoc for a good thirty seconds before turning around and going back to slamming the dented end of the extinguisher end to the weakening door handle.

"Noodle!" Murdoc snapped in a rather irritated tone. When she didn't respond again, stood where he was and snagged her arm, pulling her light body easily off the chair with only a small stumble. She gave a flail in surprise more than protest as she was tugged down to where Murdoc stood, her hand trying to not lose the grip on the device she was holding. He grabbed the young girl's shoulders, though carefully and gently so as not to aggravate any unseen injuries she might have gained in the crash.

"I'll ask again. Wut are you doin'?"

Rather than respond, Noodle lifted the extinguisher to her chest and clutched it tightly, her shoulders quaking beneath Murdoc's hands. Before he could even think to start an apology for scaring her or whatever had caused her to start shaking so badly, she dropped down on her knees and curled in to a ball, tiny, whimpering sounds emitting from her. Blinking, Murdoc knelt down and tried to put a comforting hand on the Asian girl's shoulder, but she only smacked his hand away roughly with a high-pitched grunt.

"Wut the…I'm jus' tryin' t' help!"

"You promised…" Noodle said in a hushed voice as she continued to shake, tears falling on the metal siding where they were, "You promised that nothing would happen!" she repeated, her voice raising in volume. Somewhere further down the wreck 2D stirred, a quiet whine indicating his presence.

"Wut, no I didn'!" he protested. Noodle's head jerked up and she glared at him, though the look held very little malice amongst the sheer and obvious terror that was in them. Murdoc blinked and finally recalled the moment before they'd boarded the train when he'd half attentively muttered an agreement to 2D's promised, "…oh, back there…" he finally muttered rather dimly, wincing and rubbing his knuckles across the back his neck with his uninjured hand, "Look, Noods, none of us coulda seen this comin'," he explained softly, something in him strangely feeling guilty about the state his youngest band mate was in.

He didn't blame her; if he was a girl of fifteen in that situation, even he could admit that he'd be blubbering like an idiot in a corner somewhere, unable to do anything to survive. Noodle was at least willing to fight and persevere despite the fact that she was not only insanely frightened and injured but hurt as well about a promise of safety now broken.

"I warned you, baka," she said softly in response. Murdoc blinked and gave an even quieter 'Wut?' of confusion. Slowly Noodle brushed a few tears away, though more came to quickly take their place, "'Daikaiju', it means 'giant monster', Murdoc-san. There was a very large creature coming at the train," she explained as if it made absolutely perfect sense.

Murdoc sat back a little bit, staring at Noodle as if she'd grown another head within the past few seconds. Young as she was when she'd first arrived at Kong, Noodle had never, ever been one to indulge in childish fantasies of any kind. Rather, all of her creative and imaginative energy went in to thinking of innovative things for the band to succeed. She wasn't even afraid of the usual things kids were, such as the monster under the bed or the boogieman in the closet. Of course, growing up in a place like Kong, where the actual walking dead roamed the very property it sat on made it hard to be fearful of imaginary things.

So hearing the words 'giant monster' in any language come out of Noodle's mouth was almost dumbfounding, not to mention completely improbable in Murdoc's mind. She wouldn't make stuff up, yet the possibility of adding monsters to the already messed up circumstances just made Murdoc's head hurt trying to put it together.

"Monster?" Murdoc echoed a few seconds later, receiving a slow nod from Noodle. Sighing heavily, he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to get past the fact that the most level headed and intelligent person he'd ever met in his screwed up life had basically told him that a monster was responsible for tearing up a fifty-five ton light rail locomotive. Instead he went back to what she'd originally said, "You warned us in Japanese, luv, and sorry t' say none of us blokes have bothered t' learn your language fluently enough to understand what 'Die-dack-oo' means,"

That's amazing, Noodle found herself thinking, considering how many times I've called you that.

"Daikaiju," she corrected, "and how does that excuse it? One would think, Murdoc-san, that screaming anything in a panicked state would have gotten your attention."

"Wutever!" Murdoc cried out, throwing his uninjured hand in the air, "Poin' is, shorty, warning or no', there was shit all we could do abou' it. We weren' drivin' this insane death drap."

Noodle let out her own ragged, heavy sigh of her own, amazed that for once she'd actually lost an argument against Murdoc, or that he'd some how managed to not resort to gibbering curses and insults to do so. Rather than respond verbally, though, she simply gave a short nod to what he'd said.

"Righ', so, barring any meteors plummetin' in t' us, I promise from 'ere on ou' we will do everythin' in our power to protect you an' fin' a way outta 'ere," he finished, "Now wut was it you were tryin' t' do?"

Noodle pointed back at the door and the halfway broken handle. Below them Russel had managed to crawl up near where they sat, positioning himself on the window with his knees drawn to his chest and his head on them. He was muttering to himself, clearly in a state of mild shock. From his position it was hard to tell if he'd sustained any injures, but his pants were torn in a few places.

"Conductor's area," she explained, gesturing to his injured arm, "They are required to carry some sort of first aid, and we all need it."

"Ah," Murdoc muttered, looking down at the injury himself. Though it hardly hurt enough to really register now that he was fully awake, he assumed Noodle was right, that they all needed tending to a certain extent. He looked back at her and held out his other hand. Though she frowned, she gave the extinguisher with little protest and slid away from the chair. Murdoc crawled up on to it and balanced himself the way she had before, lifting the extinguisher high above his head and slamming it down hard on the handle. There was a crack and the soft click of the lock disengaging as the handle dislodged from its holding. A satisfied smile passed briefly over Murdoc's features before he hopped back down and helped Noodle to her feet.

The girl got back on the chair and crawled catlike through the opening that had been provided. She vanished inside the front area for several minutes before her head popped back out and a large plastic first aid box and spill kit dropped in to Murdoc's hands.

"Thanks, luv," Murdoc said, putting the kit under one arm and helping her crawl back down.

"Muds, man, what the hell happened?" Russel finally spoke his voice just as dry and cracked as Murdoc's. He was still sitting on the window, though he'd managed to lift his head up. His white eyes were huge in his head, and his expression was a mix of disbelief and a strange sort of wonder.

"If I knew, mate, you'd be th' first one t' know," Murdoc answered, dropping down in to a crouch in front of him, "Hurt at all?"

Giving a soft grunt, Russel moved his legs out and showed that he'd been holding a hand over a rather nasty gash in his stomach. Several rivulets of blood had snaked over his fingers and had stained his hand red. Below where he sat the lower half of the seat had been torn sharply from the poles that held it up and crimson tipped the jagged end still attached to the floor, indicating where Russel had managed to injure himself. Murdoc grimaced and looked up at Noodle.

"I don-"

Noodle interrupted by taking the first aid box from him and lowering herself to her knees on the other side of Russel.

"I know first aid. Go check on 2D-san and his friend. I will get your arm when I am done with Russel-san," she explained softly, opening the container and digging through its contents until she found a package of extra large gauze pads. Murdoc made a sour face but didn't complain outwardly about being charged with taking care of the dullard. He rose and carefully made his way over the seats, dropping down to the sidewall once he reached the end of the upper platform.

Meanwhile Noodle softly instructed Russel to lift his shirt and move his hand, revealing a score about an inch and a half long and nearly an inch deep. Luckily for him most of the bleeding had stopped, and it didn't appear to be near any major blood ways that could complicate the wound. Noodle found herself sighing again anyway, shaking her head slowly as she tore the package open with her teeth and took out a thick bunch of gauze, pressing it tightly to the cut. Russel hissed at the jolt of pain that worked through his abdomen, but made no protests otherwise.

"Gomen nasai," Noodle said politely as she continued worked with her other hand to retrieve medical tape and scissors from the kit, "You will need stitches once we find…" she trailed off, uncertain of what to say. What would they be looking for, anyway? They didn't even know what they were going to do once they'd found a way outside of the train, "once we get back to the hotel," she finally finished, her voice sounding painfully hallow and unhopeful.

Russel frowned and watched her work for a few seconds before suddenly snatching her hand in mid air as she went back for more gauze. She paused, looking up at him in confusion.

"I'm sorry, little sistah," he said softly, his eyebrows creasing together in a baleful expression, "I heard what you were tellin' Muds. I know we messed up,"

Noodle's lips pursed and she simply shook her head, taking her hand back and returning to patching Russel up.

"Just get through this," she said after a moment, her tone suddenly thicker than before. Another tear fell from her eyes, though she kept her gaze down to avoid him seeing, "Just get through this and I will not care about stupid broken promises."

Russel frowned, wishing he could be of some comfort but unable to find anything to say. Eventually he gave a simple nod and let her finish what she was doing.

During this, Murdoc had a tiny bit of difficulty locating where 2D and the red haired girl had fallen. Given that most of the train had been completely destroyed, he didn't see how it could be so hard to find two people amongst the wreckage, but he hadn't been searching very hard, either. He wasn't in any hurry to hear brain ache complaining about how much pain he was in.

Eventually a soft coughing brought his attention to the partition that separated the center facing seats from the front facing seats. Glancing over he saw one knobby, yellow-nailed hand draped over the edge, fingers giving a few twitches as the coughing continued. Pulling himself up in that direction using the standing bars that were still intact, Murdoc eventually managed to get himself to the very last row of seats that hadn't been torn to hell in the crash, which just so happened to be right above where 2D and Kara had some how managed to come to rest. He crouched down on the back of the seat at a slightly backward angle, leering down at 2D as the blue haired man slowly opened his eyes.

The two stared at one another in a strange silence for a long time. The two laying there had clearly made out the worst injury wise due to their close proximity of what had torn through the train. Kara was still completely unconscious and the whole right side of her face was covered in partially dried blood, not to mention that her pant legs were shredded to the middle of her calf and knee on either side respectively, her legs laced with light burns and lacerations from how close she'd come to the tattered end of the car. Her right shoulder was bruised a nasty purple and a good majority of her Dickie's jacket was torn.

2D himself had about two more lumps to add to the one he'd received earlier, though they weren't terribly visible beneath his mussed blue hair. His right cheek was bruised, though not as badly as Kara's shoulder, and his left pantleg had been completely ripped off just below the knee, a long cut going across his knee. Amazingly he hadn't spoken a single word in the entire time Murdoc had stared at him, which was quite unusual for him. Murdoc supposed he was in just as much shock as Russel was.

"The bird alive?" Murdoc finally asked, gesturing with a fick of two fingers to Kara. 2D blinked and sat up slowly, wincing painfully as he turned to examine Kara carefully, putting two fingers to her neck to check for a pulse. It was there, but a little fainter than 2D would have liked. He then put his hand over her mouth and felt soft breath coming from her lips.

"Yeah, she is," he answered wearily, grunting as he pushed his sore body in to a better position and put his back against the angled floor for support, "Bad shape, though," he added.

"Wut about you?" Murdoc queried, though there was very little actual concern in his tone. He seemed to be asking simply out of obligation, which, even as dense as he could be, 2D noticed. Casting him a rather unconvinced look, the younger of the two gave a simple shrug.

"I'll live," he replied, giving much the same answer as he'd given to Noodle before. He had no doubts that his injuries weren't life threatening, but he was getting rather irritated at the sheer amount he was chalking up over the day.

Murdoc let a grunt slip past his lips as he rose to a standing position on the chair. For the first time since 2D could recall the older man refrained from insulting him or making any overall nasty comments, and though it came as a slight surprise, he simply figured that it was because they'd all been in an accident this time, and even Murdoc had enough tact to know that it wasn't the time to be doing it. He also didn't expect the pseudo-kindness to last very long, either.

"Noods go' a first aid kit. I'll send 'er up dis way when she's done with Russ," he said, his voice surprisingly soft as he spoke and his eyes glancing out of the tilted window on the other side of the train, more than likely at the strangely bright but foggy skyline that was visible beyond their strange and precarious perch inside the front of the building they'd hit.

2D gave a slow nod, his own gaze on Kara's unconscious and bloodied face. Murdoc stared at him for a long moment before silently jumping off the chair and crawling his way back down to the back end of the train.

A thick, disturbing quiet filled the train as Noodle finished patching Russ in relative silence, her face a mask of stoic concentration that hid how truly terrified she really was. After that she moved on to Murdoc's wounded arm, which was a relatively easy fix due to the shallow nature of the cut. The end result was a tight bandage that wound up his arm, making him look as though he'd just come out of a pyramid in Egypt and was taking his sweet time removing the mummy's wraps that may have shrouded his body. Once Noodle was done he rose and went to crawling about the wreckage, looking for a way out seeing as the ripped open half had actually gone so far in to the building there was nothing but rubble at the end, effectively blocking the one logical way of escape.

Eventually Noodle made her way up to 2D and Kara, slowly climbing up the seats and poles with the first aid kit clutched between her teeth by the handle. Once there she quickly looked over the two of them and then instructed 2D to carefully move the girl with her help to a flatter section of the train, which happened to be one of the windows that hadn't been blown out by the front portion being ripped off.

The young girl worked quickly, bandaging up what she could and repairing what the inadequate kit could manage. She worked on both of them, as quiet as ever, seeming unwilling to speak because it might reveal just how horribly frightened she still was. Once she finished with 2D, she closed the kit up and started to move away. 2D grabbed her arm and took the kit from her loosely clutched fingers, her eyes watching him with a look of distant curiosity.

"2D-san?" she finally questioned when he opened it and began rummaging through. He pulled out the last of the gauze package and gestured for her to sit next to him.

"Yer hurt too, luv," he said quietly, glancing up with his hand still in the kit, his eyebrows knotted together as if he'd been surprised that she didn't seem aware of it. Slowly Noodle lifted up two fingers and touched her head where the blood had dried in three small rivers down her cheek. She pulled her hand away and also noticed the small lacerations and bruises across the back of her hand and fingers.

"Oh…" she muttered, her voice wavering a bit. 2D could see that she was trying her hardest to fight back the tears that threatened to come and he found his heart wrenching in emotional turmoil at seeing her so upset. Sighing heavily he took her injured hand and began wrapping gauze around it, shaking his head slightly.

"'m worried 'bout you, Noods. Never seen you like dis," he admitted softly. Noodle closed her eyes, a barely heard hiccup causing her body to give a slight jerk. She put her free hand over her face, her shoulders slumping.

"I'm scared, 2D-san," she admitted, her voice sounding so tiny, so pathetic and unlike her that 2D's heart gave another twist. He sighed again, something that was becoming a bit of a habit over the course of the day, and tied the gauze on her hand, keeping a hold of it for another minute as he looked up in to her watery eyes.

"Me too," he said, "'m terrified even. We all are, even if some won' admit i'. I's no' like dis is normal, even by wut we do. Bu'…we'll ge' through, some 'ow. We're still alive, after all."

Noodle sniffled quietly, her free hand falling to her lap as she looked away from him.

"Do not make promises you cannot keep,"

"I's no' a promise,"

Noodle's eyebrows scrunched together and she let her gaze return to his face, a frown creasing her lips.

"It sounds like one," she countered, causing 2D to shake his head and let a very tiny but rather emotionless smile creep on to his features.

"I's a feelin'," he assured her.

Before Noodle had a chance to argue with him, Murdoc came crawling back up to them on the other side. Hanging from one of the bars with one hand, he gestured with his bandaged to something behind him.

"Load yer selves up, kiddies. We're ou' of this death trap,"