"Ah. Crap."
Hellboy crashed through the cash wrap of Deland's Quick Whatever. The counter folded in like a mattress as it absorbed the shock of the blow, cradling the demon in a newly warped heap of laminate and plywood.
Counter displays slid down into the crevice, each knocking him on the head to the tune of "Ouch. Ouch. Ouch."
He groaned.
With a sweep of his arm he tossed aside the gum and Rolaids and clambered up out of the counter.
"Alright Tiny, you wanna dance?" He rolled his shoulder, a 35 cent Winterfresh slid off the duster and into the collection at his feet. "Let's dance." With a sickening crack he punched the less-than-tiny man square in the jaw - which, up until this point, had been pretty square itself.
"Do you mind keeping it down a little?" Abe softly spoke up from the cellar study.
"I'll see what I can do," Hellboy replied, punctuating the period at the end with another punch.
The other man recoiled to the stone fist, his nose crooked and bloody. It wasn't much to deter the grin on the his face though, which pissed Hellboy off more than anything else. So he threw another punch and greatly underestimated the fight he had picked when "Tiny" caught it in the palm of his own left hand.
His fingers curled over the red stone, his knuckles tattooed one letter at a time U.L.E.S. Which probably meant something greatly significant to "Tiny" himself, as it meant absolutely nothing to Hellboy.
With an upward motion, he tossed Hellboy straight into a rack of the loudest potato chips ever.
Abe sighed amongst the pile of paperwork, which could probably be considered the eighth wonder of the world given the sheer capacity of it all. Above him the fight continued emphasized in bold, twenty point font comic book sound effects as each "man" took turns throwing the other into something Sebastian was probably going to have to replace.
"Boys will be boys," he sang to himself with a shake of the head.
The paperwork hadn't changed at all between Sebastian going and Abe coming, which didn't really change much at all about the papers. It was still just as unorganized and still just as confusing. {This I say having viewed the collection myself and understanding only key phrases such as "The" and "And". Abe Sapien, on the other hand, boasts a profound capacity of mental cognizance and was able to discern most of the late Professor's handwritten notes in a total of thirteen minutes. Which would have taken much less time, were Hellboy not making a ruckus one floor above him.}
"This is interesting," he mused to himself, gently lifting an age stained file to the halo of light.
"Yeah?" Hellboy grunted as Tiny's arms wrapped about his torso, crushing him in a vicious bear hug, "What's so-" he struggled, "-interesting about a bunch of papers?"
"There's files here from the war," Abe said to the floor above, "from when Professor Broom found you." He cocked his head to the side, blinked curiously, and repeated the word out loud, "Curious."
"Yeah," Hellboy replied on a knowing tone as he threw his head back and split Tiny's lip.
Tiny released him. Hellboy spun about, taking three good steps back before laying into the man again. "Doesn't seem too strange. Professor What's-his-name was one of my father's friends from the war."
"A friend he never talks about?"
"He talks about him," he took another spill through a stack of two liters, "just, you know," he flapped his arms downward in sticky irritation, "Not all the time."
"Hmm."
"Mostly when the alarms go off for this place."
"Is that right?"
"Yeah, he says: 'Go check out What's-his-face's store.' UGH. Great! Now my boots are going to be all sticky," he exclaimed within the puddle of fizzing soda, "And then," he exhaled frustrated, "here we are."
Abe rolled his eyes to the ceiling, or at least mimicked the upward turn of his chin and taxed sigh of his human-like counterparts. "And it's not odd to you why we do this?"
"Not really the strangest thing we've done."
Tiny leapt into him, their bodies crashing into the cooler doors. The glass shattered to Hellboy's back, the lights all along the casing flickered out, and several Red Bulls spluttered and sprayed all over the two of them.
"I suppose you do have a point," carefully, Abe began to collect the papers, in order, which to anyone else was honestly quite amazing.
Hellboy, on the other hand, continued to get his ass beat {or to beat Tiny's ass, depending on the perspective of the one throwing the punches}.
"Screw this," he drew the Good Samaritan from its holster and didn't bother to level the sites. He knew the shot and it really wasn't all that hard to hit a 300 pound man two feet away {or so should be the case in most situations. Agent John Myers being the current and only outlier}.
His aim was true and the bullet struck Tiny with a flash. What Hellboy hadn't noticed as the 300 pound tank of a man fell with the exact sound a 300 pound tank of a man should - was that the bullet had glanced off his shoulder, right where the tattoo of a Lion's paw began. The very same spot another bullet had missed with acute precision.
Which was a very odd thing to say.
But.
Those were the facts, as strange as they were, and Hellboy didn't notice, nor care to play coroner. Therefore, he holstered his gun with a trademarked cocky pride.
He adjusted his coat, noting with a scowl and a small sound of irritation that Tiny had put a good sized tear in the sleeve. Glass fell from the folds and hit the ground with a soft 'clink' as he made his way to the basement door. He peered down into the old study, watching as Abe put together a book previously and completely out of order.
"Any clue about our friend up here?" he asked with a nod of his head to Tiny, "Why would he come bust down a convenience store? Ah, maybe he was hungry?" he joked.
"I don't think that's why he's here," Abe replied on that same practiced softness.
"Hmph," Hellboy descended the stairwell, ducking down to avoid knocking the stumps of his horns off the overhang as he did, "So what, he came here for some quiet time to read?" he prodded with equal, if not greater sarcasm.
"Perhaps," Abe said, "It's hard to tell."
"What?"
"The particles in the air," he said as he tilted his head just a bit to the side, "I am having trouble reading the history of this place."
"That ever happen before?"
"No," he said with great interest, "it's as if whatever was here - just vanished, past included."
"How's that possible?"
"I think these," Abe said as he swept a free hand through the air, gesturing widely and with a river's grace to the papers still littered about the room, "will explain it. It's all of Professor Deland's research. It's actually quite fascinating-"
"Uh-huh"
"-he talks in great detail about the application of a ring singularity as it is applied to a person -"
"Uh-huh," Hellboy thumbed idly through some papers.
"- meaning that whatever person existed as this singularity could essentially bend space - "
"Uh-huh," he pulled up a Polaroid bookmark.
"Which, if they existed, would account for the particle displacement. There's nothing to read, because it no longer exists."
"Cute kid," Hellboy said and held the photograph up to Abe.
"Ah…yes" he looked up, "that is Professor Deland's daughter. I believe her name is Sebastian."
The photograph was that of a dark skinned young girl sitting on a swing with untied shoes and a smile absent two teeth. A crest of sunlight caught around her in the momentum of an upswing, the flare of the lens bent awkwardly and unnaturally in the white bordered Polaroid frame.
Waterlogged maybe.
"She the … what'd you call it, single girl?"
"Singularity," Abe gingerly took the photograph from Hellboy and examined it, "Hard to say, most of what Professor Deland wrote is in hypotheticals."
"Maybe Tiny was here for her, huh?"
Abe continued to look at the photograph.
"Hm," Hellboy agreed with himself for him, "I'll go ask."
He turned to the stairs.
"Crap."
{It was within that moment that Agent Hellboy realized Tiny had disappeared. Not like a ghost, but like a human, on sticky and bloody footprints from shards of broken glass and empty sodas. An attempt at pursuit was made, however, turned up no further leads to the whereabouts of the assailant dubbed "Tiny."}