All Noodle could do was groan weakly in response to the foul smelling smoke gathering at her feet. The pirate had beaten her badly, and the only thing keeping her head up was the rope that bound her neck to the chair.
The smoke that had been pooling on the floor suddenly burst upwards like a mushroom cloud, and seconds later, a cloaked figure towered over the shaking girl.
"I don't think I've formally greeted you yet, and after all these years," the Boogeyman tutted, "Long time no see."
Noodle tried to make an angry face, but all she could muster was a pained wince. "What…do you want…from me?" she sputtered through the blood running down her face.
The Boogeyman let out a choked laugh and put an icy cold hand on her shoulder, making Noodle flinch at the contact. He leaned over and put his masked face and long nose close to hers. "It's not about what I want from you...,"he whispered, "but what I wanted from your bandmate"
"Murdoc…" Noodle groaned.
"He cheated me," said the Boogeyman, withdrawing his face from Noodle's and beginning to pace about the room.
"How did he…" Noodle trailed off.
"He and I, we had a deal," the shrouded monster began, "I do all his dirty work while he goes off and does whatever his crooked heart desires, and in return I get something I've wanted for my entire existence."
He lifted up the sleeve of his cloak to reveal, to Noodle's astonishment, a tattoo of the red Gorillaz logo on his arm. "My greatest desire has always been to join Gorillaz."
Noodle stared at the Boogeyman bemusedly for a moment, then burst into a fit of silent laughter. She looked slightly insane, her teeth stained red with blood and her shoulders shaking soundlessly.
The demonic, self-confessed Gorillaz fan either didn't notice or ignored her. "After Murdoc Niccals denied me entry into the band," continued the Boogeyman, "I sought vengeance. But he was far too elusive with all of his hideouts and other...shady dealings. So I rounded up this great lot of swashbuckling buccaneers to find and assassinate him. As their leader, I dubbed the group of pirates The Black Clouds, and trained them in both aerial and aquatic warfare. With Murdoc murdered, Gorillaz would be finished. But again, your deal-breaking bandmate seemed to be untouchable. So I decided to move on to…smaller prey,"
The shrouded specter suddenly stopped pacing and swung his head around to face Noodle. "The Black Clouds effortlessly shot down your windmill, sending you plummeting towards me. Even though you escaped my abyss the first time, by whatever means you used, you're in my grasp now. Gorillaz in my grasp now!" he exclaimed, clenching his hands into bony fists.
Noodle, still wearing a slightly twisted smile, disregarded the Boogeyman's proud recounting. "Gorillaz fan, are you?" said Noodle with a bloody grin, "Do you want my autograph?
Several pirates around her snickered, stopping when the Boogeyman held up his spindly hand. "Mock Death, will you?" he said threateningly, "But no, I don't think a memento of your tragically brief life would be of any use to me."
The black spectre then leaned in close to the tied up guitarist. "I'm going to kill you, Noodle," he said disturbingly softly, "And when I do, Gorillaz will die with you."
Several things happened at once. With all the energy she could muster, Noodle lunged forward onto her bound feet, bent over with the chair still tied to her back. Using the chair as a weapon, she swung her body towards the Boogeyman, who dissipated in a cloud of smoke and reappeared above her. Before the Boogeyman swept down with claws outstretched, the whole bunker gave a violent lurch as something slammed into the outside walls.
The Boogeyman dissapeared into smoke again as several pirates stumbled, turning their heads toward the source of the impact they felt. An enormous, convex dent bulged out of the inner walls of the bunker. Noodle and the pirates froze as they stared at the colossal indentation in terrified silence.
The silence was broken by the unmistakable cry of a whale.
Before anybody even had the chance to panic, the sperm whale's automobile-sized head burst through to the inside of the bunker in an explosion of steel plating and bolts. Water blasted into the bunker from the areas where the whale's head didn't completely plug the wall.
Noodle shrieked, then shrieked even louder when she noticed a tuft of blue hair sticking out of the whale's mouth. If she didn't still have her arms and a chair tied around her back, she would have attemted to pry open the animal's enormous jaws. The whale would have beaten her to it anyway.
"PATOOIE!"
Artie the whale had (very vocally) spit the blue haired man on to the metal floor, covered in whale slobber and gasping for air.
2D stood up slowly, wobbling slightly as if he had died from being orally transported in the whale's mouth and became a zombie. His eyes lit up as much as a pair of black, fractured eyes could when he caught sight of Noodle.
Noodle gasped in elated shock, as the Black Cloud pirates stood gobsmacked.
"ALL ABOARD, LASS!" Artie suddenly boomed, "The quicker ye get in my mouth, the quicker triple helpin's o' giant squid get in my mouth!
Before Noodle was cut free and disdainfully climbed into the whale's gaping mouth, she shot an exasperated look at 2D. "Giant squid?" she muttered, "You better go through with that. I don't think we can afford to break any more deals."