So there I was.

I wish this was a movie, so the montage music would start. The camera would pan and the audience would get a look at the chaos unfolding as the foresters fought and zombies swarmed the train. The music would swell as the camera pans back to me, and though uncertain, I would nod to the (not always) invisible fourth wall, and suddenly become much more actrobatic and flippy, suddenly able to fight men twice my size and weight with ease and in time with the music.

Instead I was being hefted like a bag of potatoes over Rock Lee's shoulder, feeling his slightly boney shoulder bone dig into my non-musclar stomach. I have abs, they are just shy.

The Foresters were angry, and arguing amongst themselves.

The zombie's were...doing whatever zombies do. Man, I really hope I don't catch that. Would the power of Dead Coil repel the zombie virus? Would it repel it twice? Accounting was certainly hot stuff, but even I had to admit it had its limits.

"Can you make it up the train?" James asked me, quietly, as the Foresters started slowly advancing toward us.

"Are you done needing help talking?"

He set me down, carefully. The train rail was wider than on earth, but it still made me feel uncertain, like I could fall at any moment.

"No...you said...um...everything that was needed to be said...did you really mean to call them diaper wearing adult infants?"

"I am talented." I said, modestly. I will be honest, I don't remember exactly everything that was said. If it was an equation, I would be all over it. But...look, I wasn't very good at insults to begin with. I could stun people, but mostly because people were expecting more refined insults to come from a mature, learned college freshman like myself. I sometimes made sixth graders look more composed. "You wanted them mad, now they are. You...can beat them, right?"

Rock gulped, but nodded. "Get to the train. I don't want to fight with that star rod."

"It's a bomb, isn't it. It will explode or something."

"As long as the steam around it is calm. Very very calm."

"Great." Well, I now had a new idea for a hand-grenade. But...I also wanted to fix the train, so hopefully everything would work itself out.

The Foresters took on speed at us.

"Go!" Rock said.

So I ran.

I wish I could say I took confident strides, my feet sure and swift across the rail.

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But it was more so I was less afraid of falling than getting involved with a ninja battle. So yes, I did run across a balance beam of iron suspended over the forest floor below, only because it felt the safer option. There was railing in front of the train, like in the Polar Express, and I climbed up it like a ladder. The engine was huge, and the battle was raging, but I was happy to be one step closer to civilization again.

I leaned against the black front, not caring that my poor robe was undoubtedly getting sooty and ashy. I took a breathe and looked through the glass to the inside compartment...

A rabbid face hissed and smashed its head against the glass on the other side.

Jump scare complete, I lurched back against the rail as I regain my composure. The zombie was trapped in the compartment, and I realized that it couldn't get to me. Whatever they used for glass in this steam punk world was tough.

Time to go. Hopefully we could restart the train outside the front compartment.

"Miss!" said a slightly familiar voice.

I looked up and saw that Lt. guy from a couple of chapters ago. He was standing on top of the train, squatting and leaning over the top. What was his name again? Burnsbee? If it was math, I would have known it.

"You for me or against me?" I asked. I couldn't trust that everyone was as trustworthy as Chris Pratt and Rock Lee.

"Um...I'm for getting the train started. You have the piece?" He said, sounding confused. "Just come up here regardless. We have them confined for now, but..."

"Good enough start for me."

I found a couple more things to climb up, various railings and pipes, and I climbed them with the speed and surety of a dying squirrel. I glanced back at Rock Lee for a moment, then turned my attention toward the train again. It was looking too similar to an anime fight, where the different villains were saying their lines before launching their attacks. Rock Lee alone was silent as he fought, which might have looked tough expect I knew he was more afraid of talking than taking a punch. How did such a powerful person end up so shy?

Lt Bumdrum helped me over the rather sharp railing on the top, and I was finally back atop the train. Apparently the train maker people designed it to have roof access for the engine. It looked different than when I left before. There were some signs that some fighting had taken place up here, a couple of bloody stains and a metal plate that was so badly dented it looked like someone had used it as a shield in an old cartoon, were an enemy runs into it and leaves a face print.

But beyond that, it looked like Jesseme had done a lot of repair work. There was entire sections of complicated tubings and pipes were exposed as their hoods were open. I wish my engineering major friends were here, so they could tell me what I was looking at.

Sitting perched with her legs danging inside one of the largest open compartments, Jesseme looked...so happy. Like a duck to water was Jesseme to the grease and oil and confusing structures of the pipes. Some pieces that I remember being bent and broken were repaired or patched rather miraculously.

Her peace went away when I took a step towards her. "Stop!" she said.

I stopped.

She adjusted some dials on her weird glove and moved some other knobs. "You...got the parts."

"Yes." I felt so proud.

"Keep very still. Lt. Burnbree...carefully take her bag away."

Was I being robbed?

Or was this more like the bombsquad trying to help? Since I knew nothing, I did as they asked.

I got to appreciate the new guy. He was tall, but much leaner than Hawthorne. He was also younger. Maybe twenty-two or twenty-three years old. Twenty-five the latest. He looked like the kind of guy who would enjoy roughing it outside for a month, only to also enjoy proper manners and fancy tea the very next day. I pegged him as the third son of some kind of business owner or lawyer, raised in the finer things but with no promise of finer things in the future.

He took the bag from me, and he swallowed hard. "You are braver than you look."

"I am too dumb to know better."