Ch.1~Auction Gala

"Ladies and gentlemen, it would seem that we are having a small power outage. Please remain calm. And now, for the first time at this auction, a crown piece of the clan of Bethmoora, coming to us from a long-lost culture."

"No." A voice came from the side of the room. From the shadows, a figure appeared. "Forgotten by you, perhaps, but very, very much alive." It was a man...sort of. He was so pale, like fresh milk, with even paler hair tipped with a slightly yellow hue. His clothes are odd, made of cloth never seen in the Aboveworld. On his back, he carried a heavy metal box, which he set down.

"Sir? Who are you? You can't just-"

"I am Prince Nuada Silverlance, Son of King Balor, and I have come to reclaim what is rightfully mine."

"Security? SECURITY!" The door at the entrance of the room exploded, two men flew through the air. A giant metal hand attached to a chain began to scuttle from the bodies, back into the socket of a grey creature carrying another box. "Please, just leave us alone, take anything you want. Just dont hurt us-" The pale man pulled something out of his pocket, it grotesquely unraveled then shot out and attached to the man's face.

"Be quiet." He turned away to pick up the crown piece. At this, everyone started panicking. "SIT. DOWN! Proud, empty , hollow creatures that you are. Let this remind you, why you once feared the dark." The prince reached down to the handle of the box, ready to open it. Within it, there was an emence fluttering sound.

"Stop this!" everyone stopped moving. At the back of the room, a woman stood up. She was about average height for a woman, her brown hair sat atop her head in a simple updo, body sheathed in a long, dark blue halter-style dress. She strode right up to the pale man, every step exposing her long legs and simple black heels. "I don't know who you think you are, mister, but what right do you have to come in here, hold all of us hostage, and talking all high-an-mighty, calling us pathetic? Sure some of the people in this room are less than dirt despite their title and standing, but that does not give you the right to-"

"Silence, insignificant harlot! You will sit down," he threatened in a low voice.

"HA! You think I'm scared of you? I'm not doing anything you tell me to. I'm not a whore, and I will not be ordered around like one. You have no authority here and-" her protests were cut off as a pale hand closed around her throat and lifted her from the ground.

"You would do well to know your place, human. It is your kind that have driven my people to the sewers beneath cities, living off less and less of what we had long before your kind came into this world." He shook her slightly, as she tried to pull at his hand, her face turning red. Suddenly, he put her down and spun her to face the others. In his hand, a knife appeared as if from thin air, holding it against her throat as she tried to gasp her breath back. Every time she coughed, the cold metal bit into her flesh. "Look. Look! See how they cower in fear, how they have not the honor to even attempt to rescue you. You are the same as them, yet they hold their lives above yours. Despite your brave words, human, you will die just like the rest of this scum."

Once again, he reached down to open the crate. "I don't think so." She brought her leg up in a precise motion, kicking the arch of her foot against his face, causing him to let go of her. She spun away as the boxes began leaking with small flying creatures that bit at her arms and legs. By the time Nuada had managed to right himself, she was gone, perhaps eaten by the creatures, her dying screams mixed with those of the others in the room.

~AD~

The Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense had an office, and in this office, twenty agents sat at their desks all day. Their job was to take the calls coming in from all over the world about paranormal occurences, and sort through to see which ones were real and which were priority. One such call came in from one of their own, a field agent who spent her days galavanting around buying up artifacts for the BPRD. The agent who picked up the phone immediately hit the alarm button for Red Team. No one ever doubted the word of the agent, especially since she was the highest up, right next to Hellboy and the rest of his team.

~AD~

Melina Macha hid in an alley while she waited for backup, seeing as she was too recognizable out in the open with the prince and his lacky running around. Despite all her training, she still wasn't thrilled at the thought of having to take that psycho on in a real fight when he was completely focused on her. The heels were killing her feet, and she had just thought that the team needed to hurry up, when a garbage truck rolled up to the alley she was hiding in. The back end opened up and a giant red man with filed-down horns stepped out.

"Why the hell'd we stop here?" Hellboy called back to the others.

Abe Sapien had a tracker in his fin. "This is where Melina's cell signal came from. Perhaps if we just fanned out to the surrounding blocks-"

"That won't be necessary, boys," Melina strode out from the shadows. "I certainly hope you brought me some extra clothes, because I really don't feel like doing field work in a loincloth." Her dress was torn nearly to shreds.

"Whoa, what happened to you?"

"Something with very sharp teeth, that's what happened. Where the fuck are my clothes?"

"I don't know, sweet cheeks. I think it's a nice look for you." Red started laughing when she chucked a shoe at his head, which it bounced off of harmlessly.

"I'll give you a sweet cheek if you don't get the hell ourtta my way so I can change." She pushed past the agents.

Liz poked her head around the edge of the truck. "I've got your stuff in here, Li."

"You are a lifesaver." Stepping up the ramp wth the help of Red, the door closed and Liz pulled a backpack out of the corner. "Remind me why I keep doing this?"

"Because we need to keep real artifacts out of the wrong hands, and your the only one with a recognizably weathly family whose name isn't smudged by oddities..."

"Oh, yeah." Melina had just unzipped her dress when she noticed several cameras in the corners of the truck. "Liz, how long have those been in here?"

The firestarter looked up, "I dunno...never really noticed them. Why?" The other woman got up on the bench and spun the camera to face the wall. "Ah, I forgot, you hate anything with eyes."

"I do not hate them, I'm just wary of anything with which someone could watch me." After turning around all the other cameras, she put a cloth over them and went about changing. Her outfit was pretty much the same as Liz, only her shirt had long bell sleeves. "It's weird...like...someone can use it to see into my sould and then show it to the world." With Liz's help, she let her hair down, pulling out the bobby pins, then quickly pulling it back into a simply braid.

"I think your just paranoid. You've got a better chance of getting your sould sucked out by and earthworm than a camera. At least worms can be a glamour of sorts. Come on, Li, you of all people know that."

"Yeah...speaking of worms, have you seen my silkworm dust?" Her head was buried in a bag, trying to find the pouch.

"I haven't. Abe might know where it is." Opening the door again, she hollared out to the fish man. "Hey, Abe?"

"Yes?"

"You know where Li's silkworm dust is? She can't find it."

"Look in the weapons crate," his head popped around the side. "I believe that's where the agents put it."

"Why would they put it in there?!" Melina ran to the crate and yanked it open, revieling most of Red's guns, and a few holy items. "Don't those idiots konw that you can't just throw this stuff in with a bunch of random crap. UGH!" After a moment, she managed to extract it from the mess that was labled 'random crap.'

"It was Hellboy!" one of the agents pointed over his shoulder.

"Aw, thanks for the support, Morris."

"Reeeeed..." the demon's face suddenly looked like a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "How many times do I have to tell you? You do not put my personal items with the rest of his junk. It's delicate."

"How the hell is dust delicate? It's dust."

"Do you know how much time it took me to imbune all this stuff? When you mix it with mundane items, it messes with the magical properties, making me have to reimbune them, which makes me very cranky." Turning back to the weapons, Melina dug through the mess to see what other things had been thrown in carelessly.

"Mundane?" Abe said offensivly. "These are some of the most holy of objects, used to ward off evil since the beginning of time."

"Yeah, yeah, and it's all stuff that can be found just about anywhere. I mean, come on, white oak? Holy water? Go to the nearest church and get it. Now, silkworms, those are rather rare. Especially since most 'silk' nowadays is actually fake. Ask me how I know."

"I'd rather not."

"Good, I don't want to talk about it." They all just rolled their eyes at her. "Next time, just make sure that all my stuff goes in the special box."

"Special box?" Morris asked.

"Yes, special box. You know, the box made of silver and iron that I spent a month making and imbuning? The one that I specifically told everyone to put my stuff in when we went out on missions?" They jsut stared blankly at her. "Oh, for the love of...I put it on the corkboard above the coffee machine!"

At that there was a collective 'Ohhhh...' from everyone.

"Alright, everyone, enough chitchat. We got some Underworld stuff to contain."

"We? What 'we', Manning? All you do is stand in front of the press and get your fifteen minutes of fame." Melina flicked a chink of woodshaving at him that she had found in her silkworm pouch.

"Hey, we're all of the same team here," he stuttered trying to block the shavings that where coming at him. "Now, get out there and find out what happened."

Once inside, Melina gave them a quick rundown. "I didn't see what they were, but they were obviously small and they flew. Keep an eye out for the little buggers and any survivors."

A little while later, Agent Marble found one of the so-called Tooth Fairies, but then it attacked him and Red ended up popping it's head off. This unfortunately caused the rest of the Fairies to attack, and Lord have mercy were there a lot of them. They bit and burrowed and tried to drill through to the very center of their victim, of which Marble was one. Red and Karma kept having to pull the creatures off between shots, blood seeping down their arms and torsos.

"Karm, get behind the statue!" Red hauled her in the direction of the fertility goddess. They scrambled behind it and started to push. "Sorry, lady." With one last push, the statue was sent rolling. It crashed through the doorway, then stopped when it hit the next wall. In it's wake, the Tooth Fairies were crushed and injured. However, there were still many alive and capable of biting.

"Get to the safe, Abe!" Liz yelled, her body ignighting in flames, frying the tiny creatures when they came too close to her.

"Come on, go, go!" again, she was being pulled, this time up the stairs to the safe that once housed the artifacts for the auction.

On the way, Agent Steele got cut down by the Fairies, while the other two soldiered on to safety. Abe shoved Karma in first, then climbed in himself. They tried to pull the door closed, but the mass of the Fairies was too much, they had a hold of the wheel on the outside, pulling open again. There was a sudden blast of heat from downstairs, and an explosion, sending the agents sprawling backwards. Karma put herself on top, as Abe was a fish and could easily succumb to the heat, despite it being dulled by the thick walls. It took a moment before the heat dissapated enough for them to get up and push the door open. The sight that met them was one of carnage. All around them were the tiny bodies of the Tooth Fairies, some burned to a crisp, others...others were mutilated and hard to look at. Karma turned and retched, leaning against the wall to support herself. When her stomach had emptied itself sufficiently, she placed her forhead against the cool metal of one of the drawers.

A cool hand touched her back. "Breathe, Melina, deep breaths." He coached her.

"You'd think," she paused to wipe her mouth, "that after three years of going through all this every time I go out, I'd get used to the sight and smell."

"I don't think that one ever really gets over such things."

"Red seems to get along alright."

"Yes, well, Red is a demon."

"True, that." She summoned up her strength, she stepped out and went down the stairs to Liz. "Liz?" she knelt down beside the black-haired fire-starter. "You alright, sweetheart?"

"I'm fine," she brushed off the worry. "I just put out a bit more than I'm used to. Are you and Abe ok?"

"We're alive, so I guess that counts. Where's Hellboy?" there was a moment of silence as the two looked around to see a window with a roughly Hellboy-sized hole through it. "Shit.