Jumping aboard, Caelica sat down near Ragna to watch the train come to life one more time, like a wrecked ship acending from the bottom of the ocean.
It did make a lot of noise, but they were pretty much the only people around in this city... so who cared, right.
"So how does it feel to be a railway man...?" She asked him with a smile, crossing her legs while she watched the train move into the darkness.

Bullet had hopped aboard as well, sitting down in the first row behind the drivers seat and took out a Fanta from the bag of sodas, tossing it over to Makoto.
"I`d be suprised if that still tastes like it should, but who knows. Its cold, so it must be good."
Or so she thought, stuffing the rest of the bottles into her backpack and her sports bag, then taking a sip from her cola.
She was fully prepared to be disappointed, but aside from a bit of flatness, it was okay, oddly enough.
"Huh. I guess thats a 'good enough' for the cola taste."

Ragna plops himself down besides Caelica, rubbing his forehead. "Like I've given up a life of action and adventure to become a button-pusher on a traincar." he answers, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I don't ever want a nine-to-five job. I really think I'm not molded for them." He sighs. "Fuck, I dunno what I'm gonna do after all this Librarium shit is over. Presuming I survive. Meh."

He shrugs and leans back against the cushioned seat. "One thing at a time, right?"

~*~

The door to the second traincar opens, abruptly. A tall, gangly man in an ill-fit black suit, with tangled and matching hair, stares dispassionately out at Bullet and Makoto, ahead of him. "That was annoyingly close." he admits, and finishes hauling the door to the side. A fucking enormous hound, the size of a small elephant, snarls behind him, all sinew and bone and gristled skin; the back end of the traincar they occupy is just missing, torn off and left behind. Staccato clicks echo from the roof and walls of the car as the hound pushes past him, peeling back the divider door between the cars. "Thanks for moving away from the civvies, though."

As Ragna utters those words, Caelica falls silent and looks away, staring ahead into the vast empty darkness, with the dim lights in the tunnel racing by like stars in a spaceship. After a few moments of silence, her tears finally drop down to the dashboard with a light sound, the drops falling on a thin metal plate, where the pearl off and down to the floor.

The eyes of the mercenary widen, and in a second, she`s on her feet and pulls up her sleeve to reveal her Armagus in full.
Its bursting with energy, being submitted to extreme seithr levels this whole time.
"Where the hell did you come from?! And on top of that, how the hell did you even live long enough to get here?!"

Ragna blinks and glances over, then blanches as Caelica begins crying silently. He turns out of his seat and kneels in front of her, hands fidgeting awkwardly. "Oh, damn it, Caelica, what'd I say wrong?" he asks, finally settling on placing his hands over hers. "I know I'm a bit of a dipshit, so help me out here. I don't want you hurting like this if I can help it."

In the back car, Makoto bristles, the gauntlets of her weapon snapping out into place. "I hate dogs." She bites out, stretching for a moment before throwing a couple of razor-sharp jabs. "Bring it on, bitch."

The besuited man blinks. "Been trying to catch up. Customs is a bitch. And I have pets that take care of that for me. For instance." He gestures and the elephant hound lunges forward, its maw opening to encompass the entirety of the compartment, teeth scraping the floor and walls.

"No... its.. its nothing..." Caelica brings out, shutting her eyes forcibly to try and stop the tears from coming.
"You didn´t do anything wrong, you can`t know it... you... he... he said the same thing to me back then... three days before he was devoured by the beast to save Jubei´s life." Her hand was clentching around his as she desperately tried to get out of her memories. "I... i had the map again, and like always we got lost in the woods... it was getting dark so we quickly set up a camp to try and find the others by dawn... When we talked about our future plans, he said the same careless things to me and we laughed about it back then."
She bit her lip to keep the rest from coming. Ragna didn´t need to know the rest... likely, he didn`t want to know it either.

Much like Makoto, Bullet rolled up her sleeves to bust out her Armagus in full, then waited a couple of seconds for the dog`s mouth to come close enough-
In just the right moment, her right slammed down towards the ground as the maw of the beast was beneath her- if the hit would connect, it would probably pierce its tongue and nail it to the bottom of the train car.
"Fuck this. I hate fighting non-human enemies." She growled, already regreting to wait that long as the saliva of the beast coverd her.

Ragna exhales and brings a hand up to Caelica's face, thumb brushing away the tears. "Gotta be honest, sounds like something I do. But then . . . well. I guess he is sort of me in a way."

He grimaces, and moves back up beside Caelica again, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and drawing her into a hug. "I have to laugh about it." he murmurs. "I mean, what if I don't? Then I just spent my last day being a miserable little prick. That ain't no way to go. I'm sorry you lost your Ragna, because I didn't know him, but he sounds like an upright guy."

The Reaper shakes his head, fingers drifting across Caelica's face absently as he stares out the windows at nothing. "I don't want to be trite, but I don't really know all the right things to say - because I don't really know you all that well, either, or who this other Ragna really was." He says ruefully. "So forgive me for being a dumbass, again. I'll figure out the right way someday."

~*~

The punch slams into one of the hound's fangs and halts its bite in place, the beast flinching as the tooth chips - and then Makoto leaps right into its open mouth and hooks an uppercut up into the animal's sinuses, blasting a gory hole through the soft tissue. It shrieks in agony and flops back, falling onto the floor of the traincar, but its throes bat Makoto in a wall. The back of her head slams into a glass window and shatters it. She staggers.

The suited man hops over the dying hound and nods at Bullet. "Not bad." he says, and drops a grenade, which he kicks over to Bullet's feet.

Caelica slowly smiles again, a grimace of sorts, fighting the tears with a smile.
"Oh, i`m sure he wasn´t miserable that night." She simply commented, closing her eyes again. "It just hurts. I told him i´d stay with him, travel with him to see the world after it would all be over... and he didn`t respond to it. I told him i love him... and he told he i`d regret that some day."
Clawing into the dashboard of the train, she tries to get a hold of herself again, her hand taking his arm off of her.
"I`m sorry you had to see me burst out in emotions like that. Its the past, it happened, it cannot be undone, time travel or otherwise. You`re not him, you`ll never be him... "
She smiled to him as if she knew of his "heroic" deeds.
"...you`ll be greater."

Grunting in disappointment, Bullet kicked the grenade out of the nearest window- a small explosion unleashing a smokescreen the moment it existed the window.
A brief puff made it inside the train car, but the broken window sucked it out in less than a minute, the cold air being drawn in.
"A smokescreen, huh?" The mercenary grabbed her backpack and pulled one of her own grenades out, with a red label on the top and the bottom.
"Try some of this instead." Pulling the pin and tossing it away, Bullet held the grenade firmly in hand before tossing it into the maw of the dying hound, hoping for a better fragmentation effect and a less destructive force if the blast had to overcome the meat of the creature first.

Ragna grimaces. "Well to be fair I wouldn't know how to respond to it either, though that's a kinda obvious statement considering who he was. Kinda used to traveling on my own. I guess he just figured he'd experience it for himself before he made any comments about it, rather than running his mouth." He frowns. "Though . . . well. He's kind of a dick for not responding to the second bit."

The Reaper bites his lip and then sighs, determining to not repeat his alter ego's mistake. "Love is - a pretty big deal." he says quietly. "And even if he didn't feel it for you, he should have at least said something. Because it hurts to put yourself out in the open like that. You're a brave woman, Caelica. And a good one."

~*~

The other man doesn't wait. As Bullet punts the grenade out the window and draws her own, he darts over and grabs ahold of Makoto's shoulder. She starts to turn and swing at him, still woozy, when he jerks hard. The joint comes clean out of the socket with the vicious pull, and Makoto's eyes widen as she sucks in a breath, her punch faltering.

Suit man doesn't wait. He kicks her leg out from beneath her then shoves her almost completely through the wall of the car by her throat. Only her good arm catching onto the edge prevents her from soaring out onto the rushing-by tracks, and the man's grip on her throat is rapidly stealing oxygen.

Caelica chuckled a bit, leaning back into the seat.
"Its not like he didn`t return the feeling, Ragna. He probably just didn´t know what to say at that point. Trust me, i know he meant it..."
She started to smile a little, fidgeting with her hands.
"You know what happens when two young people in desperate times, unsure of their future are out in the wilderness, alone and in love and..."
Her cheeks flushed a bit.
"You get the idea. I think his last days were pleasent ones."

The explosion tore the beast into chunks of meat, and blood covered Bullet`s entire body in the backblast- she should`ve gotten into hiding.
Seeing him threaten her friend however, her survival instincts kick in and she grabs a hold of his head, pulling it back roughly- her left hand grabbed a glass shard from the broken window and held its point against the back of his neck, precisely between two pieces of his spine, ready to be rammed inside and severing his spinal cord.
"Let her go this second or you`ll experience your next without your body." She growled lowly in his ear, her murderous intent made clear.

Ragna blinks. He hadn't thought they were that close. "Oh. Awesome." Instantly cursing his mouth for letting that slip through, he attempts to change the subject. "Anyways, I just, uh, realized how awkward this whole thing would have been for you. I'm really frigging sorry about that. Shoulda asked up front."

He turns back to face the oncoming station, as the train begins to slow. "I've been pretty insistent that me and - well - me have been two different people. And I still think that - but I kinda want to explain myself a bit." Ragna scratches the back of his head. "I haven't done anything to earn your admiration and - all of that other stuff, Caelica. Bloodedge was a great guy and you loved him. That would be stupid of me to cheapen all that would have meant to you."

~*~

Suit Man blinks lazily. "Sure." he says, and lets go.

Makoto falls off the train, eyes glazed and distant from bloodloss and oxygen deprivation.

Caelica nearly bursted into laughter when he said it this bluntly. Instead she bit her lip and just snorted, her comfort levels rising instantly.
"Its fine, Ragna. I`m over it now... thanks to your brilliant understanding of the situation." A smile was brought on her face as she slowly raised her body from the seat. "You´re no less of a great guy, Ragna. You`re just not quite as crippled. Really, i don`t know what people told you about him, but he was nobody special... He was just a guy with a sword and without a history. The only difference was that he had the courage and determination to stand up and do something about the beast, rather than being paralyzed by its terrifying power." The smile turned into a grin. "Something tells me you would do the same thing in his position. I`m not saying you and him are the same person- you definitely aren't, but what i`m trying to say is, you`re just as much of a great guy as him."

Bullet widened her eyes in a shock, then cursed and simply kicked the man in the back, bringing him out along with her.
"Makoto!" She yelled, then saw no other choice but to follow suit. Leaping out, she quickly found herself landing in a roll as the train had arrived at a station- that way at least it would be easier to find Makoto.
Without hesitating for a second, she ran down the narrow concrete road between the lethal electric traintracks and the wall, looking for a piece of furr in the darkness that loomed ahead of her.
"Makoto! Where are you, damnit?! Give me an answer!"

Ragna's mouth sets into a line and he nods, not quite sure how to feel about that. There isn't a name for what he's feeling at the moment, but the closest thing would be - reassurance. That he's still who he is. It's a bizarre concept and it starts to hurt his head to think about it, so he doesn't. "Alright." he says roughly. "Thanks."

He pulls Caelica into a rough hug, and then starts to fidget with the train controls, as if he'd had anything to do with the transit so far besides starting the subway. "We should be there soon. Go back and check on the other two, make sure they haven't started a nudist colony or anything."

~*~

Suit Man soars out the broken side of the train and bounces off the wall of the tunnel with a cough. With a click of his fingers, another enormous hound that had been seated atop the train leaps off and bounds to his side. He mounts it and rides off, choosing to retreat for the moment.

Another racking cough sounds from nearby, and Makoto waves a limp hand from where she'd snagged the door of the traincar by the simple expedient of putting her fist through it and clenching. Her fingers are a bloody mess and her arm looks purple and unhealthy from the forces involved in stopping her descent, but she's smiling weakly. "Hey." she says. "Sorry. Not really pulling my weight here."

The beastkin girl grimaces and extracts her hand from the traincar wall, and then grimaces at their retreating foe. "Couldn't stand to take his own beatings, eh."

Caelica nodded, moving over to check on Makoto and Bullet... and froze as she saw the carnage.
The amount of destruction and gore contradicted the view of the train she had in her memory, and the lack of her two friends also served to frighten her immensely.
"Ragna... why is the train painted in blood and why are there holes in the train car?!" She whispered, then squealed at the top of her lungs, her eyes widening with every second.

Bullet rushed over to Makoto and pulled her out of the door, resting the beaten arm on her shoulder while she held her tight at her hips.
Quickly, but carefully moving back into the train, she made sure not to touch the rails under any circumstances.
"Its fine. He got the jump on you." She responded, smiling weakly. "Its not your fault. Come on, we gotta get you treated..."

Ragna turns around then doubletakes at the sheer destruction laid out behind him. "What the fuck did I just miss, a NOL raid or a frat party?" He flips the tram engine off then kicks out a window and hops out, turning only to catch a last glimpse of their enemy riding away. "And who the fuck was that?"

He growls and punches the train, denting a side panel heavily, before he turns and strides back to the other two fighters. "That looks like a hell of a rumble." The Reaper comments. "Sorry I missed out. I was, eh, pretty distracted."

Makoto leers at him. "I bet -" she breaks off in a fit of coughing, her abused throat complaining. "Eh, I'll save that one for later. Caelica, can I get some of those magic fingers of yours?"

Still shocked with her mouth wide agape, Caelica nodded furiously and moved over to the beastkin as Bullet let her down to lie on a pair of seats.
"I...i..i`ll get... right on it..."
Easier said than done, her shivering hands went to the squrriels body and as soon as they touched her, the pain eased and the wounds started to close.
"Relax... you... you`ll be fine..."

In the meantime, Bullet brought a bottle of mineral water from the bag she raided earlier and opened it, then dumped the contents on her face to wash off the blood with a tissue paper. Her hair had been mostly spared, but her face was crimson red- a bit pink after the cleanup procedure.
However, her clothes had gotten the full package of animal blood- her jeans turned black while her tank top, now sticking tightly to her skin like bodypaint, was in a deep shade of red, still glistering wet.
Gasping after the cold washup, she tossed the bottle away and scowled.
"I don`t mind red and black, but only the front?" With this she peeked behind her, where the blood hadn`t gotten to- her jeans were still blue halfway across the sewing point and beyond.

Ragna blinks at Bullet. She's covered in blood, soaking wet, and still scorched in places from having stood in front of a grenade going off. "Goddamn." he mutters weakly, trying to keep his knees from shaking as he discovers in that moment exactly what his type is: competent women. "Hold on, I'll help. But, uh, this'll probably feel weird."

With a mental stretch, the Grimoire he wears as an arm draws in the soul remnants of the hound, drinking its blood and life with equal, macabre glee. It's been semi-sentient as long as he can remember, though it rarely expresses anything when not in a fight. The blood grudgingly slides out of Bullet's clothes and fabrics in freefloating globules that then accelerate and smack into his arm. It ripples black with each impact as it absorbs the treats.

"You won't believe how often that's come in handy." Ragna comments idly.

"Yeah." Makoto deadpans. "Not creepy at all. Oh, that's the spot, Caelica." The beastkin stretches in unfeigned pleasure once the mage starts in on her shoulder. "I trust you. Do that as long as you want. No complaints."

Caelica stared at the Beastkin, now more more uncomfortable than ever.
"Makoto, that sounded incredibly... uh... outgoing, if thats the right word for it... "
Regardless of the consequences, she kept healing, trying to ignore the implications. She was just feeling good because the pain went away.
Yeah. Thats it.
Don´t touch her anywhere else.

Bullet blinked in suprise as she found herself being cleaned off by a vacuum called the Azure Grimiore.
Now, she was just soaking wet, but out there in the wasteland, that would dry off in a matter of minutes.
"Uh, thanks. But next time, do that before i dump water all over my face."
Her hair still dripping, she ran a hand through it to stroke it out of her face, avoding to get possibly irradiated mineral water into her eyes.
"..Well, i`m all ready now. And Kokonoe better pays me back for this job." The merc responded, the second part with a certain bitterness.

"I could do worse." Makoto replies, eyes closed as Caelica works her magic. "But I think I'll save it for when I have not just fallen off a train. Thanks, Cae. Seriously."

Ragna blinks at Bullet. "Well it's not like I had a chance to do anything before you went and decided to have a wet T-shirt contest." Ragna defends. "And look at it this way: we brought bags and we're about to invade an old abandoned science complex. The question is, how much can you carry out, and how valuable will it be?"

He lifts his shoulders as if to imply a lack of knowledge, then turns to Makoto and crouches to poke the beastkin in the forehead. "You doing alright there, squirrelbutt?"

"Not as great as you, sugarplum." Makoto answers, a cheeky grin lifting one corner of her mouth.

" . . . You win." Ragna concedes.

Overhearing their conversation and deciding it was more worksafe than imagineing doing... things with Makoto, Caelica turned to Ragna with a worrying look.
"Yes, about that, Ragna... aside the fact she`s my neice and she`s a lot like my big sister, i don`t know anything about Kokonoe... the only thing i know is that she has some fearsome technology if she can just bring me back from the past whenever she likes."
A little sigh escaped her.
"Is she... trustworthy enough to recieve that log...?"

As if on cue, Makoto`s cellphone began to ring as Kokonoe had noticed the sudden drop in the squrriel`s vital signs, but didn`t want to butt in during a fight.

Bullet nudged Ragna with her fist, smirking a bit. "So you -like- that kind of stuff, going by your discription of it, huh?"
However, before he could really answer, a groan escaped her as Makoto`s coat began to ring.
"Queen bitch, i presume."

Makoto reaches in her pocket and extracts the phone with her good arm, nestling the device between her shoulder and head. "What's up, Kokonoe?" she asks. "We just ran into a bit of resistance. Some ass with giant dogs that was on the subway here. I guess he's here to track us, but he has some serious strength. Wore a bad suit, looked really ugly. You know anything about him?"

Ragna reaches down to place a hand on Caelica's shoulder. "I'm getting it for you first." he says firmly. "After we know that what's in it can't blow up the world, then we'll talk about giving it to Kokonoe." Then he flushes a little bit. "And Bullet, it doesn't matter what I like right now, because you've got enough of everything on display right now to fill any taste I'd have."

Bullet chuckled, considering to invite him, but chose to delay that for some other time.
"So long as you look, no one's insulted, Rags. But any more than looking and the other girls might get jealous."

Caelica took a deep breath and leaned against Ragna`s hand.
"I can pretty much guess what Kokonoe wants. Father made a habit of writing down everything he worked on... but as i said, i just want to see what he was like during his last days, i didn´t see him for years."
She was hesitant to tell too much, espeically when Kokonoe was practically listening in. Ragna was going to find out soon enough, anyway...

Kokonoe huffed, but gave her a negative response.
"If he didn`t have green hair and an annoying attitude, i can`t help you. Most likely some mutant that somehow adapted to his surroundings... i can´t even send Tager over to you guys because his flesh would be torn from his endoskeleton from the radiation. However..."
She breathed out deeply, audiably annoyed.
"...i finished the maintenance work on Neon, so i`ll be sending him over to you guys. The radiation might have some affect on his systems, but seithr exposure and the ususal alpha radiation shouldn`t harm him too much. Besides, its probably safer to have some backup after that, right?"

Ragna huffs a breath. "Makoto swings both ways, so I wouldn't be the only one in trouble, Bullet."

Makoto rolls her eyes but doesn't bother to respond. "Send him over, Kokonoe. If nothing else, having someone on hand who doesn't depend on Cae's magic to not die is worth it." She lowers the phone and gives Ragna a gimlet eye. "That was mean of you."

Ragna studiously avoids the beastkin's gaze. "Thanks for the help, Kokonoe. Can you stand, Makoto, or . . ."

"Alright- he`ll be over in a jiffy. Watch out for the skies." Kokonoe says, than hangs up without another word.

Caelica sighs in return and pats Ragna on the back, reassuring him with a smile.
"I wouldn´t be jealous. ...maybe a little, but i´d still be proud of you. Ragna, the Bloodedge, finally becoming a man~"

Bullet widened her eyes, then desperately tried to hold her laughter.
"Dude! Duuuude! Low blow! Low fucking blow, Caelica!" She managed to bring out, trying to swallow the comedic outburst with ancient cola.

Feeling a bit guilty, but amused nonetheless, Caelica heads for the train station with a backpack in hand. "Uhhm, we should head to the surface, right...? I mean, we can`t wait for backup down here~"

Ragna flushes much more fully now, turning a brilliant shade of red. "Duly noted." he bites off. "Makoto?"

She waves him off, laughing. "No, no, I think I'm not the one that needs help here." The beastkin eyes him teasingly, sticking out her bottom lip in a hint of a pout, working her arm a bit as she tests its renewed strength. "But Bullet's not the only one that could help you with your little problem . . ."

Ragna stares at her. Then he stomps off. Makoto bursts out laughing so hard she has to lean against Caelica's knee for support. "Oh man." she gasps. "That was mean but it felt so good." She starts off in a new storm of laughter as Ragna bounds up onto the boarding floor and starts up the stairs to the surface.