New Problems
Chapter Three: Field Work

Disclaimer: Don't own nothing but Cat and the plot. Understand?

Shout-outs:

Underwater Owl: I'm glad you like it! I think it's fun, too.

dragoneyes171986: Sorry I made you wait so long. (sheepish grin.) It's just life got ahead of me...Well, I hope to post another chappie today, so you'll forgive me?

steakums13: I'm happy you like Cat! She is too, actually. Cat is one of those people with one those personalities that makes you wonder, 'What on earth is wrong with this person?', closely followed by 'For someone with so many problems, she's surprisingly nice...'. Or at least in my mind.

aiko alima: Here is a new chappie! Sorry for the wait... (another sheepish grin.)

SawCyn-WroteSin: Feel free to do so. My plot hardly counts as "original" so I won't go hauling off and sue/hate/flame you if you use it. Especially not if you continue to leave nice reviews!

lioness78: And it shall happen. In the next chapter. Actually, it may be a bit two-sided...expect insanity. Fun insanity, though...

mattb3671: She is a tough chicky. And thank YOU!

epalladino: Has to be originally plant. Seeds work, so does paper, chairs, charcoal, canned pears, petrified wood, vegetable oil...those all work. But not metal, airplane food, glass, small mammals, etc. No size restrictions, however. She can do the same with a pinch of cinnamon as a redwood.

Now for the actual chapter!:

Cat went down to breakfast that morning still yawning. She hadn't managed that uninterrupted night of sleep she so desperately needed, and was being painfully reminded of it. Many times over.

She got herself some food, dragged herself to a table and sat down across from an equally tired-looking Liz, just as a blaring alarm went off.

"That's our signal," said the pyrokinetic, grabbing a piece of toast and getting up with a sigh, followed by Cat. They walked down the bustling hallways to a small(ish) room, where they were given a briefing on the 'situation' they needed to handle.

"It's a bunch of harpies," they were told. "So far there hasn't been any fatalities, just annoyances and a few close calls. Basically it's pest control on a major scale."

At this point Hellboy was looking extremely annoyed; he was not particularly interested in so-called 'pest control'. Abe looked as impassive as ever, Cat looked sleepy and Liz was almost dozing.

The briefing over they quickly went to a large not-quite-garbage truck and sat in it, settling down for a bit of a drive. Most of them settled down for a nap; Cat was asleep before they even left, curled up on a bit of the floor with a pillow she had grown from a piece of moss she had had in her pocket.

Several hours later they juddered to a stop outside of a forest; it was young-looking, thin and scraggly, the trees bent and unhealthy, choked too closely together. It was dusk, the light failing fast, the first wisps of mist emerging from the ground. A crescent moon gleamed dimly overhead. The harsh caws of crows and higher screams, more humanthough with avian over-tones,came from over the a small hill, one with a house perched on the top.

Cat, Liz, Abe and Hellboy started forward up the long, winding driveway to the house, moving as quietly as possible. Hellboy was in the lead, Cat last, and Liz, looking back, noticed she was walking with her eyes closed.

"You okay?" she asked the younger girl, concerned.

"Yeah," replied Cat. "In the dark I see better if I use the roots of the plants around me, and the rest of them as well, to see, well, more to sense, my surroundings. It helps if I block off other sensory perceptions while I do, and…Oh my god! There's a dead body to the left of us, in the trees!"

"Hb!" Called Liz. "Cat says there's a dead body in the woods."

"One of the agents'll go get it," he growled back. "I think I see the harpies around the house."

"Yup, that's them," put in Cat, eyes closed once more. "There's maybe a quarter of a hundred, give or take a few; most are sleeping."

"How can you tell?" asked Abe diffidently.

"The wood surrounding them. Organic material, animal or not, is a lot more aware than people give it credit for."

"Do you know where they are?" asked Abe, curious.

"No. Wood thinks as part of a whole. The idea of distance is alien, it is just part of everything else with no separation. So there are harpies near part of it, it knows that, but it cannot tell me which part of it."

"Ah."

The group proceeded in silence for a little ways more, eventually reaching the large house. It was huge, obviously quite expensive; it towered above them, dwarfing them all.

"Stupid place to put a mansion," remarked Cat. "Even stupider place to put harpies. Why not Greece? Or even England. Or Ireland. Somewhere with a history. Not in some ridiculously rich person's house in the middle of nowhere on North America."

"I suppose we're just lucky it's not in the middle of New York," put in Liz with a sigh. "At least here we're not in the middle of everywhere. There's less people to panic."

"Good point."

Abe put a hand to the door, concentrating for a moment. "Their in the top-most floor. Let's head up."

The group entered the grim building, bunching together slightly more. Cat opened her eyes, revealing them back to startling green through and through, and they almost shone in the darkness, like cats' eyes. Around them, the walls started to shed their paint, growing branches and leaves once more, turning the house into a rustling maze of greenery.

"What are you doing, Cat?" asked Liz with a troubled look at the girl.

"I don't know," she said. "I can't…seem to…control it… But it is making it easier to see everything and waitaminute, there's a harpy!"

With a motion of her hand the girl caused the half-bird half-woman to be covered in a wave of greenery, the branches literally growing through it as it uttered a final piercing shriek. The only sounds to be heard in the room was the rustle of green things growing against each other and the dripping of harpy blood onto the floor.

"Heh…" said Cat weakly. "Lost control there…lord that startled me…" She looked a bit more green than normal.

"Damn," Muttered Hellboy. All that was left of the creature was a small, pitiful heap of flesh and cracked bone; the branches had gone through it as easy as thought. He had seen a lot, but that qualified as some of the worst he had seen.

Liz walked over toCat and gave her a supporting hug; she knew what it could be like to lose control. She had done it too often, herself.

"Let's move on," said Abe. "The harpies are up this way." Pointing up a curved flight of stairs disappearing into the murk that had fallen with the setting of the sun. Hellboy, on the basis that he was the one least likely to have trouble with damage, went first up them. The others followed, hearing the straining of the stairs under him as he went.

The room was dark and filled with the rustling of feathers. Cat could feel the eyes staring down at her out of the darkness, but she couldn't see anything until one of them suddenly burst into fire, illuminating the room. Across the room a few were seized and choked by branches, and then a few more enveloped by the rafters they were sitting on, swallowed into the wood. Hellboy pulled out his Samaritan and shot a few, while Abe stood back.

Eventually they were all dead, close to dead or in multiple bleeding pieces. The four began to leave the room, now a little bit the worse for wear. It had been, as advertised, pretty close to supernatural pest control. Except for that body…

Deep in the darkness, a figure stirred. Ancient ligaments stretched over aged-ivory bones; lapis lazuli eyes glinted through a cover of dust while silky muscles stretched together. And something that was not alive…lived.