Untitled Hellboy Fanfiction

Chapter Two - The Director

The flight from Rome to the east coast was nine long hours of bad in-flight movies and a view of the Atlantic that quickly became boring. Lili had spent most of the flight napping, though her sleep was constantly interrupted by Mal's squirming and adjusting. The seats weren't comfortable for a lady as tall as she, and the turbelence was a nightmare for her stomach. As always, Holly sat with a mostly neutral expression, glancing out of the window and groaning with annoyance when Mal had bumped into her.

"Would you sit still?" the mother sighed, turning to glance at her daughter over her shoulder. "Honestly, you don't see your baby sister acting like this."

Mal's movements suddenly came to a stop and she struggled to keep herself as comfortable and as still as possible. "Yeah, well Lili's just a perfect little angel, isn't she? It's not like she's going to be having issues tomorrow night, what with that giant silver pizza in the sky making a guest appearance. Your body would be sore too."

Holly shook her head and leaned back in the chair. "Yes, well, be that as it may, my body has been through some rather unpleasant times itself and somehow my tolerance for pain and discomfort is pretty high. Hopefully you'll inherit that someday, at least then you'll stop squirming so much."

Mal knew a losing battle when she heard it. Granted, her troubled time was drawing near with every passing hour, but it was hard to compare her inconvinience to a woman who gave birth twice and then spent an entire evening piecing herself back together on the basement floor when an experiment went wrong. After seeing that monstrousity, Mal knew that she had very little room to complain. Still... these damned airplane seats were murdering her back and hips...

"Besides..." Holly said, glancing back at the window. "I see the coast. We should be landing soon..."

The airport was crawling with many different people. The sights and smells of this new continent was entirely unique, unlike anything the small family of three had experienced before. Holly led her daughters towards their luggage, Lilianna rubbing the sleep from her eyes and Mal's strong hands massaging her sore lower back. It took at least ten minutes to find all of their luggage at the sort, and no sooner had they collected them all, Holly felt Mal's hand on her shoulder.

"Mom," she whispered, then pointed across the room. "...That our man?"

Holly and Lili both turned to see a man in a black suit. He was in his middle ages, perhaps eight or ten years older than Holly, bald, and looking quite lost. In his hand was a large white sign with the name "ANGELA" written on it. Holly nodded and picked up one of her suitcases.

"Yes, that would be him..." she replied, then looked down at Lili. "You have your things?"

Her youngest daughter nodded, picking up two of her bags and looking ready to go. Mal carried two rather large bags under one arm and carried a large suitcase in one hand. When Holly had lifted her belongings into her arms, the three continued towards the man. The moment the three women had approached him, he suddenly looked taken back. Neither of them were sure why. Perhaps it was because Lilianna, despite being sixteen, looked several years younger. Perhaps it was because the bags Mal was carrying clearly would have been heavy for anyone else, yet she was holding them as if they were nothing. Or maybe he didn't expect Holly to be as old as he was, and therefore probably in his date-range. Maybe the man was beginning to regret his decision of hiring them. Either way, the gaping took longer than either of them wanted it to be.

"I know we're strong but these bags aren't light." Holly said, causing the man to snap back to his senses.

"Ah, yes... here..." he turned and made a gesture with his hand. Several other men in suits had approached the group and offered out their hands to the women. Holly nodded, saying a quick "thank you" as she handed her luggage over to the men. Lili did the same, followed by Mal, who returned to massaging her sore back. Holly then offered her hand to the man with the sign.

"You are Tom Manning, then?" she asked as he took her hand and shook it.

"Y-Yes, Tom Manning. Director for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense," his voice sounded nervous, though Holly had a feeling that it naturally sounded that way and therefore had nothing to do with she and her daughters. "And you're Holly... erm... Mrs. Angela?"

"Ms." Holly corrected, leaning in close and lowering her voice. "Husband has been dead for eight years."

Neither the mother nor the director of the bureau noticed Mal rolling her eyes. Clearly she found it ridiculous that Holly would need to whisper such information as if her daughters didn't know about it. Tom seemed somewhat taken aback by the information and removed his hand, seemingly out of guilt.

"O-Oh... s-sorry to hear that... uh..." he looked the three over, and then cleared his throat. "Well, uhm, Ms. Angela, if you and your girls will just follow us, we'll get you settled in at the Bureau..."

Holly responded by giving him a bit of an amused smile, then nodded. "Why thank you."

The woman followed after the men in the suits, and her daughters followed behind her. Mal glanced down at Lilianna and basically had to squat down in order to whisper in her ear. "What do you make of all these suits?"

Lili glanced at her sister for a moment, then seemed to have gone into a very deep thought. After a moment, she spoke up. "...A little too early to tell... but I think Mom is making them nervous..."

This prompted a snort from the older sister as she straightened herself up. "Sad part is, I think she likes it that way..."

When they exited the airport, three black cars were parked infront. The men in the suits had loaded the luggage into the car in the middle, then branched off into the cars in the front and back. Manning opened the doors for Holly and her daughters, and when they were inside, he moved into the passenger's seat. The traffic leaving the airport was unpleasant, but nowhere near as uncomfortable as the nine hour flight. Manning of course took this opportunity to look over their files.

"So... Ms. Angela..." he said, looking back.

"Which one?" Lilianna chirped. Manning seemed taken aback.

"...Wh-what?" he stammered. Lili chuckled.

"There's three Ms. Angela's in here. Which one were you talking to?" had anyone else said it, they would have taken it as an insult. Lili's tone, however, was very sweet. Manning still looked as though he couldn't believe that she was sixteen.

"Ah... ah, right you are..." he laughed nervously, then began to flip through the pages of the files. "Well... I suppose I should start with, Holly..." he looked relunctant to address her in this way, though Holly's look gave him her consent. "It says here... that you ran your own small paranormal-investigating company. And you've provided records of your research and experimentation on paranormal beings... am I right?"

"Every word." Holly said with a smile. "My girls and I had our own business that was passed on from my mother's family. They had began their research after a few strange incidents during the second world war and had to work incognito, so the Germans didn't catch onto our work. This is why our operation was very obscure. We've been carrying on their work, since the monsters are always constantly changing with the times." she then glanced at the file. "What else does it say about little ol' me in there?"

"Well..." Manning gave a nervous chuckle and looked back down."It says that you... well, that you liked to experiment, but that one day, one went very.... bad..."

Holly titled her head to the side and shrugged a bit. "I suppose, but not entirely bad." she chuckled, then waved at him. "Still in one piece, aren't I?"

Manning noticed that at that comment, both of Holly's daughters had shuddered. Clearly this was a very bad memory, if not an entirely disgusting one. He looked back at the file, cleared his throat again, and continued. "...Indeed. You say that your experimentation resulted in a very advanced stage of regeneration." he looked her over several times. "....I'm guessing this is true."

Holly chuckled. "If you need further proof, have one of your boys break my arm. Or my neck... or you can amputate them if you're really daring."

Everyone in the car had gone silent at that comment. At first it looked like Manning wanted to laugh. Holly's face, though highly amused, certainly didn't look deceitful. In a hurry, he flipped through some more pages before stopping on Mal's file.

"Ah, and here we have...Mag....Mag....dah....ley.....na...." his pronounciation was so wrong it wasn't even funny to hear.

"Mal." the girl corrected him. "...For short..."

"Right..." he nodded to her, then looked at her file. "You say you have experience in the field of lycanthropic research?"

Mal crossed her arms and leaned back. "Yeah, unfortunately."

Manning's eyes widened at that. "Unfortun..... wait..." he looked directly at her, panic showing on his face. "...what do you mean by that?"

Magdalena's sensitivity about this subject seemed to be making itself very visible on her face. She didn't look happy at all with where this was going. Her first response was to call the man out on his stupid questions, but thought better of it. They had just moved across the ocean to work for this guy. Mom wouldn't be happy if her daughter ruined it for her, now would she?

"Let's just say that there had better be some kind of iscolated room that I can sleep in for tomorrow night. After all, there's going to be a full moon." was her very spiteful response. Manning naturally didn't seem comfortable with this, and Holly took it upon herself to explain things.

"What she means is," she explained, "...that she is very experienced in the field, and her research in lycanthropy is because of this. If you are tracking someone or something down, her instincts are much sharper than mine and Lili's, and she can find whoever it is you are looking for. And because of her current state, her muscles and stamina is well above that of a human's. I believe she can be a great help to your organization, though I do hope that you agreed to the accommodations we have listed upon sending in our profiles."

Manning still looked entirely unsure of all of this. His eyes fell back down to the report and then he listed off the accommodations: "... Moderate sized cell, no windows, doors sealed at all times during the full moon cycle, 20 pounds of raw meat served per day, preferably deer or rabbit." he listed, then looked right at Mal. "....This is for you?"

"....Mostly for you, actually." she replied, keeping herself as civil as she could be. "I black out during that time... so I can do pretty nasty things without realizing it. Wouldn't want to make a mess of things. Just lock me up when you need to, and I'll be good every other time."

Manning nodded hugely. It was evident that he disliked the idea of having a werewolf in the same car as he, and Mal was beginning to question whether she had been right about the Bureau not reading the profiles after all. He forced another fake smile on his face, and then looked to Lili.

"And that leaves you..." he said with another nervous chuckle. "It says here... you applied to be a medic?" his eyes went big and he looked back to Lilianna. She was smiling and nodding at him. "....But.... surely... you couldn't possibly have earned your M.D. at your age..."

Lili shook her head. "No I didn't. But..." Manning watched as the girl proceeded to remove a glove from one of her delicate hands. Then her small fingers reached over and touched his shoulder. At first he had jumped in a panic, unsure of what Lili was doing. Then all of a sudden, the stress and nervousness seemed to drift away. His body relaxed, his muscles seemed to be at ease, and his pounding heart seemed to slow down to a normal pulse. Lili gave him a smile and moved her hand back.

"I'm not a scientist or a field agent, so I couldn't help there. But... I can fix people." was her reply, as she slipped on her glove. "Sick people... people who are hurt... I can't make them grow back their limbs or remove weapons, but I can heal open wounds and cure minor illnesses, and take away a person's stress... so..."

Tom was gaping at her the whole time, then looked down at the file. "But it says.... it says that you can't do that to yourself."

Lilianna thought about it. "Well... I suppose I can't do it to myself as quickly as I can to others.... depending on how badly I'm hurt, it can take to a few weeks for myself, maybe a month... for anyone else, a half hour to a day."

The director eyed the three women before him. It dawned on him that these three would be the ones to replace the agents he had lost. And although he knew he should have been comfortable with this decision, this recent discussion was begining to give him doubts.

Time would tell...