BH:falls over Jeeze, school's a bitch... anyway, here's chapter 2 of Hellion. Enter Abe!
Rhane:rolls eyes C'mon, BH reads Dear freaking God...
William: sigh I should be yelling at you for that, but I'm too tired
BH: I love the way Abe and Faith interact, it's fun to write.
Hellion
Chapter 1
Where We Belong
And now we're ten years on
feels like we've just begun
never forget this is where we belong
Everytime that we talk about moving on
it turns into a song
Cause together we're strong
like the place we come from
This is where we belong
May 23, 2024
It took all of Abraham Sapien's self-restraint not to shout or attack the two cloaked figure that had suddenly burst through the golden doors of the late Trevor Broom's study. Yes, him, shouting. Just because he never blew up at anyone did not mean he didn't want to. And right now, he really wanted to. It had nothing to do with threats or danger; he had recognized the duo's minds long before they entered. No, he was simply stunned and more than a little angry. After all, it had been more than a year since he had last seen or heard from them, a year of tense waiting and worry.
Just over a year ago twelve B.P.R.D. agents left to Africa in search of a demon attacking the natives. Two weeks later, contact was mysteriously lost for over a year. In that time all but two agents were killed, a thirteen year old boy named Cale Manning and a fifteen year old demon girl known simply as Hellion to all but her closest friends.
"Hi Abe," Cale muttered, pushing down the hood of his cloak. His golden blonde hair, the source of his codename, had grown out of control and was now rather sloppily tied at the back of his skull, "it's been a while."
"A while?" Abe repeated calmly, setting down the books he had been picking out, and fell onto his favorite couch, "A while? We've all been worried sick about you. What happened?"
"You don't want to know," Cale muttered. As he said it, Hellion crossed the room and sat down next to Abe. Without removing her cloak she curled her legs underneath her and rested her head against the fish-man's shoulder. "She took a spear in the shoulder for me, and carried me away from the battlefield like that. She took care of me and nursed me back to health and single-handedly got us home. I'm not surprised she's exhausted."
Abe looked down at the cloaked girl, a little surprised to see her already fast asleep. With a small, loving smile Abe gently pulled Hellion onto his lap, letting her head rest against his chest, and began to gently stroke her head through the dirty fabric of her cloak. So what if she was getting too old for such treatment? "You need rest as much as she does, Cale," he admonished, "go get some sleep. I'll take care of her."
Cale smiled and nodded. He knew Abe well enough to trust him with his best friend more than any human doctor or teacher. The exhausted demon girl would not stir until at least noon... two days later. He gave a small bow and left without another word.
"Welcome home," Abe whispered, kissing the top of his charge's head, "my dear Faith."
November 1, 2014
Clutching John's hand tightly, Faith followed him through the huge gold doors. It was a study, she realized, one full of books and old relics. She looked around in awe, mouth hanging open. There was a statue of the archangel Michael (it had to be Michael, all the paintings and statues like that were of Michael) banishing a demon (probably supposed to be Lucifer) down into Hell. Bookshelves took up most of the walls, full to exploding with books on who knows what. Taking up part of one wall was something that had to be that weird "New Age" art the nuns told her to stay away from. It looked like nothing but a jumble of color, and looking at it for too long made her dizzy. She turned in the opposite direction and found herself staring, not at a wall, but what appeared to be a huge fish tank taking up the entire wall. Her legs were suddenly very weak.
But, instead of being empty like in her dreams, there was someone in there, a someone with blue-grey skin, blue and black stripe-marks all over, webbed fingers, toes, and underarms, and gills. Faith gave a small squeak and tried to hide behind Myers when it swam up to the glass and said, in no manner of rudeness, "Hello, Faith."
John chuckled and gently pushed Faith forward, "It's okay, he doesn't bite. Faith, this is Abe Sapien, one of the more unique members of our weird little family. Abe, this is Faith."
"Hi," Faith muttered, looking at the ground uncertainly, "um..." she finally looked up at him, eyes going steely in a way only a child can manage, "what the hell are you?"
John made a small choking noise. Abe blinked at her for a moment before dissolving into laughter, leaving Faith wondering why she wasn't getting reprimanded. Such a question would have gotten her struck with a ruler in the orphanage. Finally, Abe manage to stop laughing and placed one webbed hand on the glass, "I'm a fish-man, as to how I ended up like that, I have no clue."
Faith blinked. She had been about to ask that very question. Her eyes fell on a framed scrap of paper under the glass, "Ik-thee-o Sape-ee-en," she sounded the words out carefully, trying to translate them in her mind as she did so, "Icthyo, that's part of a dinosaur's name, a fish-thing, I think. Sapien's human, or something like that. So, yeah, fish-man," she grinned, "and that date; that's when Lincoln got shot. It's in one of the history books at the orphanage." She suddenly made a face and looked up at Abe, "So your name's kinda just a bad pun?" Abe nodded and Faith smiled, "I like it."
"You're certainly smart for your age," Abe mused, a smile crossing his face, "only six years old and you're already learning Latin."
"Are you some kind of mind reader or something?" Faith asked uncertainly.
"In fact, I am."
"Cool."
May 25, 2024
"Please, sir, we cannot let you through."
"On whose orders?"
"Abe's, sir. He said no one in and no one out until Hellion wakes up, not even you."
"I don't care! She's slept two days already!" Tom Manning shoved past the two stunned guards and burst into what now served as Abe's study. "Hellion!"
"Tom!" was Abe's indignant reply. He was floating in his tank, glaring out at the FBI agent, "What on earth are you thinking? She needs to rest!"
"She's had enough rest," Tom snarled, casting around for the demon girl. He found her asleep on the same couch she and Abe had occupied two days before, curled up under the safety of her battered grey cloak.
"She is a sixteen year old girl, Tom," Abe whispered harshly, "one that has endured a great trial and much suffering in the last year. I will not stand to see you treating her as you treated Hellboy in the past, especially while she is still recovering."
Tom turned to shout at the more than agitation fish-man when another voice cut him off, "It's alright, Abe. I'll be fine." He spun around. The girl that had been sleeping a moment ago now stood before him, blazing yellow eyes boring into his own. When had she gotten so tall?
"Faith..."
"I'm fine," she repeated calmly. She pushed back the hood of her cloak and, despite years of experience both with monsters and the demon before him, Tom gave a small, startled gasp. Skin that had once been only a slightly unhealthy pale tone was now caked with dirt and dried blood and her horns, once barely visible in her ebony hair, had now grown out, wrapping around her head and meeting at the base of her skull. Two new, small horns had appeared just below her hairline. "It's been a while, Manning. Wha d'ya want?"
"I want to know what the hell happened in Africa! Ten of my best men are dead! I haven't seen my son in over a year!"
Faith's eyes narrowed, "Your men were fools, Manning. They disobeyed my orders and got themselves killed, not to mention left me and Cale running for our lives for the last year. What should have been a simple assignment ended up being botched by a couple humans to arrogant and stupid to take orders from a fourteen year old demon with more experience than they'll ever have."
Manning had turned several shades of angry red during Faith's mini-speech, and was now doing his best to puff himself up enough to gain even half and inch of height over her, "How do I know you didn't kill them all yourself?" Manning knew he'd gone too fan before he even finished the sentence. Abe winced in his tank.
With a furious roar Faith grabbed him by the front of his jacket and slammed him into Abe's aquarium hard enough to crack the glass, "I dare you to say that again, Manning! I have never raised my gun to one of my own allies and I never will; do I make myself clear you two-faced son of a bitch?" Manning nodded weakly. "Good, now get the hell out of here," and she turned and threw him out the open door.
"Faith, the glass."
Faith turned around, a guilty smile crossing her face, and looked at the large cracks in the aquarium glass, "Oops." She reached into the depths of her cloak and withdrew an old, worn out Zippo lighter. "I shouldn' ta blown up like that, but Manning's such an ass..."
"There is no doubt that Manning behaved unfairly, Faith," Abe admonished, watching with vague interest as Faith flipped open her lighter and, apparently, dumped the flame into the palm of her hand, "but you have to understand. You insisted on Cale going to Africa with you; then you all suddenly vanished without a trace. Cale is his son, Faith, his only child."
Faith pressed the small flame to the cracked glass and willed it to repair the damage, using all of her control to send small parts of the flame out to each tiny crack and fissure, melding them back together. "He's still an ass. I mean, he knows how I feel about shooting humans." The fire faded, leaving the glass perfectly repaired, "How the hell did you deal with him for twenty-five years?"
"An extraordinary amount of patience and luck," Abe replied, "Much like how we've dealt with raising you." Faith gave him a glare that could have stopped Hitler in his tracks then smiled. He was right, she had been going out of her way to cause trouble from the age of seven when she learned she could rip vault doors off their hinges and, if necessary, use them as methods of destruction and escape. The B.P.R.D. had gone through a lot of money trying to find a door that could handle Faith's immense strength. "Are you planning on telling me how you managed to end up in the Amazon?"
"Not quite sure," Faith admitted, "we stowed away on a shipping barge in Egypt, ended up in the Vatican City for a few months, that place was fun. The priests were scared to death of me till they found out I worked at the Bureau. The demon from Africa found us again; we stowed away on a train to Russia, but I ended up fighting him again. We caught another boat and ended up in Antarctica freezing our asses off, thank God for Zippo lighters, fought Jericho again. Yeah, his name's Jericho. Is it some kinda trend to give demons Biblical names or something? Anyway, we escaped the freezing-ass-cold South Pole, spent a week surfing in Australia, discovered my new horns... got attacked again... Somehow we ended up on another ship and found ourselves floating down the Amazon on a raft full of live cargo in crates. That was around the time our cell phones started working again. We never did manage to escape Jericho, though. Seemed more like he was just trying to get us moving again..." She shrugged and smiled, "I'm just happy to be home."
"Sounds like quite the adventure," Abe chuckled and pressed one of his hands to the glass.
"I don't wanna do it again," Faith replied, "it's way too much to deal with." She brought her hand out from under her cloak again; dirt and blood caked like her face, and placed it on the glass over Abe's hand, "No more grand adventures, at least until my birthday. I can't believe I'm saying this, Abe, but for a little while I don't wanna be Hellion anymore. I don't wanna chase demons and perform exorcisms and fight psycho mermaids or giant frogs, I just..."
"Want to be Faith for a little while?" Abe finished helpfully. Faith nodded. "You can't just stop being Hellion, Faith, it's your job now, your responsibility to fill the role Hellboy left when he died. But I will tell you this: in here, when it's just us, Hellion doesn't exist, and neither does the Faith that you have to play in the outside world. In here, you're nothing but yourself." It was something Abe had been telling her since the day she'd chosen, at seven years old, to join the B.P.R.D. and again when Manning had decided that she looked human enough to be sent to a public school in Newark. "That's the way it's always been, Faith, and it will always stay that way."
"Thanks, Blue," Faith whispered, closing her eyes, "I woulda' gone crazy without you."
Not long after that, Abe banished Faith to her room to get cleaned up and convince the kitchen staff to get her something to eat with the strict orders not to return until she's done both, and preferably finished her report on what happened in Africa. ("I know I'm asking for a miracle, but please try. Manning will nag you until you do.")
On the other side of the base, Cale was getting lectured by his increasingly furious (red faced) and hysterical father. He'd heard other teens complaining about what a pain it was to work for your parents, but really, what were they complaining about? Compared to working under Thomas Manning, son or not, what they had was nothing.
"Why didn't you trying to contact us!" Manning roared, slamming his fist down on the table for what had to be the twentieth time, "A whole year, Cale!"
"I tried," Cale repeated calmly for what also had to be the twentieth time, "we tried. We sent letters, tried to call you, nothing ever made it through. We even tried going indirectly through the Vatican, but we could never get any word through to you. Finally our cell phones just started working again."
"That's pretty damn hard to believe!"
"Believe it, Father. Do you think we enjoyed our little romp? That we went on a pleasure cruise? We were running for our lives." Cale sat back and waited for the final outburst. It was the normal routine, wherever Faith was involved. Tom would yell and rant and scream for a few minutes, explode, then something, usually another alarm, would allow Cale to run back to the job, and the partner, that his father had been ranting about moments before. He constantly threatened to remove his son from the Bureau ("You're too younger for this!" "She's dangerous!" etc.), but Cale knew he would never go through with it.
"She could have killed you and we never would have known!"
"She would never hurt me, Father." Cale bit down a glare.
"You may think that now, but soon enough she'll lose her temper with you, same as everyone else! She nearly put be through the fish-man's tank earlier!"
Cale rolled his eyes heavenward, "You accused her of killing the other agents, didn't you?" He gave a long-suffering sigh and leaned forward in his chair, "Dad, you know she would never shoot one of her own men. White may not like humans, and she may hate working with them, but she always does everything she can to avoid having to kill them during missions."
"She's a monster, Cale!"
For the second time that day, Manning had crossed the line. "She's my sister!" Cale shouted as he jumped to his feet, knocking his chair to the ground and nearly upending the table as he did so, "She's my sister and my best friend and she should have left me behind in Africa because all I did was slow her down the entire time we were trying to get away! I'm not going to sit here and let you insult her!"
"Don't raise your voice to me!"
"Raise this," Cale snarled, holding up his middle finger as he stormed out the door just in time for the all-too-familiar "Code Red" alarm began going off. With another sigh, Cale turned in the direction of a string of colorful curses that could only come from the demon girl that served as his best friend.
They met in hall outside of Abe's study. Faith was trying (and failing miserably) to tie her still wet hair back and had forgotten her cloak, leaving Cale wondering when her unhealthily pale skin had turned pure white. "No rest for the wicked, I guess," she grumbled through the black band clenched between her teeth. Cale could only manage a weak smile. He'd just noticed how well her favorite Harley Davidson t-shirt suddenly fit. "Well," she grinned, finally managing to wrestle her hair into a semi-decent plait, and pushed the study doors open to find Abe waiting for them, "let's go kick some monster ass."
