Chapter 1: Awkward Introductions

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from either the Hellboy comics or movies; I only own Cat.

The car door slammed and an inconspicuous girl got out. She was utterly unremarkable looking, with brown hair, medium-tan olive skin, brown eyes shot with muddy olive green. Her slightly weathered brown shirt and not-quite-new blue jeans only added to the effect. She was the type of person you forgot about as you as you saw them.

This girl is standing in a courtyard outside a building. A waste-disposal building, to be exact. She's accompanied by a man, an employee, and her name is Catherine, Cat for short. A wind blows over her and she shivers. Her and the man move inside.

The building is more than you would expect. In fact, it's the building housing the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. This girl is a new employee, a member of a top-secret task force. Even Cat has only the barest idea what she's going to be doing here.

...

(half an hour later, Cat's point of view)

I'm exhausted. It's all so new! I have no idea what I'm doing here. I haven't even met the people I'm going to be working with—apparently they're out or something. All I know is that there's three of them. It doesn't help the nervousness.

I mean, what do they want with ME? I'm just an average 17-year-old girl, really. I have a tendency to giggle too much on occasion and a passion for chocolate and I read too much! I'm just not save-the-world-hero material. Even my powers aren't glamorous. I'm just an over-grown garden witch. I mean, I can grow things. That's about it. I can grow things really fast sometimes, but it's still just growing them. And I don't think like other people sometimes, but I think that's the chlorophyll shutting down my mental processes.

Oh well, might as well try and get some sleep. I'm rambling. Probably the exhaustion and the cough drops getting to me. What with my sore throat, I've been living off the small, artificially cherry things for a week now, and I'm on the verge of hallucinating. Okay, think positive thoughts and SLEEP...

...

(next morning)

Cat woke up just as tired as she had been the night before. Though there was less cough drop in her blood, so she was slightly more lucid. She was awakened by a knock on her door. After throwing on a new shirt (this one a slightly different shade of brown) she answered it, to find a man.

"I'm going to lead you down to breakfast now. At breakfast you'll meet one of your new teammates. You'll meet the second immediately after breakfast, the third sometime after lunch. You ready?"

"Uhhmm... just a second." Cat ducked into her room, grabbing her belt, a wide strip of green cloth hung with all sorts of useful objects. Tying it about her waist, not bothering to thread it through her belt loops, she followed after the man now walking down the hall. Belatedly she realized she hadn't brushed her hair yet; fortunately it was fairly well-mannered and looked halfway decent even before she brushed it. Unfortunately it hung halfway down her thighs and was a dreadful nuisance. She was going to spend the morning having to continually push it out of her eyes, behind her ears and out of her food. She could tell it was going to be one of THOSE days...

...

(dining hall, ten minutes later)

"Do you like to eat anything in particular?" her warden asked.

"Lots of fruit and bread," said Cat. "Cheese. Vegetables and herb tea. Oh, and chocolate. Definitely chocolate. Though not generally for breakfast. Even I have my limits."

"What sort of tea?"

"I make my own. If there's a cup of hot water I could have I'll be fine."

"Just a second. I'll get you one."

"Thank you."

After going through the line to get her breakfast, Cat and her guide sat down. She busied herself with the water, adding a tea bag then leaving it to steep.

"What's in it?"

"Lots of things. Lemon balm, lemon thyme, citrus mint, rose hips and lemon peel. Those and belladonna, foxglove and wormwood."

"But those are poisonous!"

"I'm immune to all known poisonous plants. Though I have a mild allergic reaction to sage brush. It makes me swell up and get all drippy. I have no idea why. Even stinging nettles don't bother me."

"Interesting. So, I guess I won't ask to try your tea."

"Yes, that probably is for the best."

A mildly awkward silence falls. It's broken by someone else sitting down. She's fairly petite, blonde hair, a far cry from Cat's very definitely Eastern European features. Cat's dark where this woman is pale.

"Hold on a second, you have a leaf or something in your hair," she says leaning over and pulling it out. She's left perplexedly holding a shoot of a plant, roots and all, dripping a pale sap. Cat's breath hisses out in pain, eyes widening, before she ducks her head and grabs at her scalp with her arms, almost silently chanting owowowowowowow over and over and over. After a few minutes of this she looks back up. The woman is still holding the plant and both of her companions are staring at her. 'Uh oh,' thinks Cat. 'Bet the pains triggered my features again...'

"Umm...I'm sorry?" says the woman. "I'm Liz. You're Catherine? Excuse me saying so, but you seem to have grown fangs. And green stripes."

"I'm really sorry," says Cat. "the plants just grow in my hair, and their rather sensitive. It reeeallllyy hurts when they get pulled out, and pain reverts my features to this. Which is a bit of a bother. The fangs make it difficult to speak." Sure enough, her voice is slightly awkward and muffled. Her wild look is accentuated by the emerald slashes on each cheek bone, jagged edged and following the line of her face. Her eyes are the same color through and through, except for a deep brown pupil, slit-shaped. No whites.

"Uhh...What are those fangs for?"

"Biting. They excrete poison."

"Really?"

...

(later that morning, next to Abe's tank)

Refracted light from the water hit Catherine's face, accentuating her changed features. They were just starting to fade. She and Abe were getting on decently well, despite the slightly awkward introduction. Apparently Cat wrote poetry and had agreed to show Abe some of it on the condition that he "at least pretended to like it."

Catherine was turning out to have quite a sense of humor. Admittedly it was rather sarcastic and dry, but she was fairly good at using it. Actually, she was good at using it with people she felt comfortable with. So far, this only included Abe.

And that was that for the rest of the day. She was not introduced to her third teammate, for reasons unexplained. Cat was slightly curious as to why, but didn't press the issue. She was mentally and physically exhausted as it was, and though it was only three in the afternoon, she went to bed. And immediately fell asleep.

...

Twelve hours later she woke up. The building held the dead-quiet hush you get only when everyone is asleep. Cat loved this time of night. The time of night you could write. She crept down the stairs, (A/N: this is starting to sound unfortunately like "the night before Christmas"...gone wrong. Not that that's a bad thing, or anything... anyways, I digress.) and into the kitchen, which she had been shown on her tour of the establishment. She put on the tea kettle in as close to the dark as she could manage and still see, then settled down with her pencil and a pad of paper. Pausing only to pour herself some tea, she continued writing.

Forty-five minutes and several pages later, Cat looked up and stretched, yawning, much like her nickname-sake. Just as she was glancing away from the page, the door swung open. She sprang upright, instantly alert, and found herself face to face with a very large, very red, somebody.

"Who the hell are you!?" yelled Hellboy.

A/N: Oooh, cliffhanger! (sorta) Anyways, please review for me. Please please please? I'm really new...and nervous...do you like it? Do you not like it? Do you sorta like it? I won't know unless you click that special button!