They made it up through the market back to the surface with no more interruptions, although they all still remained on the watch. Once they were back in the meat locker Red decided it was time for some answers.
"Do you have anything you want to say?" Red looked to the Princess.
"To wage his war my brother needs this." Naula held up a gold piece from her belt. "The final piece the crown of Bethmora." Then she gestured to the tube Abe was holding. "And this map to the location of the Golden Army chambers."
"The Golden Army." Johann said in shock. "The harbingers of death. The unstoppable tide."
"Howdy Doody." Red said sharing a look with her sister as they recalled that Christmas eve.
"Your Highness, if you hand the crown piece over to us ..." Johann started.
"No. Where it goes, I go." The Princess said as she placed it back into her belt. "My father died to uphold the truce with your world. We must honor his noble intention."
"The lady's in dire danger." Abe said looking to Johann.
"I take it you are vouching for her, agent Sapien." Johann looked to the fish man.
"Most emphatically." Abe said looking back to the Princess, causing Ariel's ear to twitch at his choice of vocabulary and the gaze he was casting upon Nuala. "Yes, I am."
"Even so ...I am sorry, but we simply cannot assume such responsibility on our own." Johann said as he started to walk away.
"Lady has just lost his father. What more do you want?" Red spoke up.
"You may not care, but there are procedures, rules... and little handbooks, that ..." Johann snapped, but Red just blew smoke at him cutting him off.
"She's coming with us. You got that, Gas-Pack?" Red replied.
"What did you call me?" Johann snapped.
You ..." Their gaze snapped to the Prince Nuada who stood in the doorway to the market place. "You will pay for what happened to my friend down there."
"Yeah, right." Red threw down his cigar bit then drew his gun. "You take checks?"
"Demon, born from a womb of shadows, sent to destroy their world and you still believe you belong?" Nuada scoffed as his eyes moved over to Ariel. "And a Faeles, a rare beauty like yourself should not lower yourself to mingling with such lowly creatures.
"Are we gonna talk all night, because I am really sleepy?" Red asked sarcastically.
"And a bit creeped out." Ariel muttered as she eyes Nuada, her hands on her swords. Abe came up behind Ariel, his apparatus bubbling violently as he glared at Nuada. The Prince merely smirked as he held up a golden egg that when opened revealed a large green bean.
"No, brother. No!" Nuala begged, but Nuada did not listen and took the bean into his hand raising it up near his lips.
"Kill him." He threw the bean past them and it started to bounce along the grate.
"It's just a jumping bean." Red pointed out as it hopped along.
"It's going for water. Hurry!" Nuala pushed Abe forward and he stumbled as he tried to catch it, but it was too late, it fell through the grating into the water.
There was a pulse through the ground then everything started to shake causing cars to come to sudden stops. Glancing behind them Ariel and Red took note that Nuada was gone before they started out to the street, the agents keeping people back. The ground cracked as thick twisting vines curled up into the air sending debris everywhere, raining down on the people as they ran away. The vines took on the form of a large plant humanoid that let out strange noises.
"Princess, what is that?" Ariel asked as she griped her swords.
"It is an elemental. A giver of life and the destroyer." Nuala informed them.
"What?" Red asked.
"A forest god." She replied.
"A forest god, eh?" Red eyed it. "I'm gonna get me big baby."
Red went over to the trucks and got out a giant gun with the depiction of a cigar smoking infant on the side. He took out some large shotgun shells loading the gun up. Ariel herself was reloading her guns that she had recovered before they left the market with special high impact expanding corrosive bullets guaranteed to dissolve anything they hit with a self-reproducing acidic liquid. He glanced up hearing a woman calling out for help and saw her not to far away beating against the door to her car with contained a crying infant.
"How can I help you, ma'am?" He walked over to her followed by the others. The woman looked at him wide eyed in fear as he gazed back at her.
"The baby is still inside." Ariel said looking through the window.
"Come this way lady, please, there's nothing to worry about." Johann took hold of the woman along with Abe and guided her away with Liz following hoping to keep her calm. "We've got everything under control."
Red turned to the door and ripped it off with ease before climbing into the car.
"Hey, little guy." Red smiled as he picked him up.
"Red, it's coming." Ariel said as she took some shots, but caused minimal damage, the liquid having little to no effect. "And those bullets you made me aren't doing anything."
"You're probably not shooting them right." He replied.
"Do you know another way to shoot other than point and click?!" Ariel snapped.
The forest god roared as it picked up the car crushing it in his tentacle arm causing Red and Ariel to flinch back. It threw the car at a helicopter causing it to explode and crash onto a building. Red and Ariel ran through the cars as the forest creature bared down on them throwing cars aside.
"Hang on, kid." Red said to the baby.
"Come on!" Ariel called out as they jumped up onto some cars, hoping from one to the next before running from roof to roof of each car. Red stopped on the trunk of a car while Ariel jumped down to the ground taking a few more shots at the creature.
"These bullets are crap!" Ariel roared.
"Hey, don't blame the equipment; blame the loose nut using it." Red defended his bullets.
"When this is over I'm going to hide all of your Babyruth bars." Ariel ground out.
"You wouldn't dare." Hellboy shot her a look.
"Agent Hellboy, leave the child…" Johann ordered. "Shoot the weapon!"
"Red! Look out!" Ariel called out, but it was too late, one hit from the creature on the hood of the car sent him and the baby catapulting through the air. He managed to grab onto a wire which swung him up onto a hotel sign. He grabbed the child with his tail as he climbed up the sign avoiding more hits from the forest deity until he reached the H at the top.
"Shoot it in his energy ...!" Johann called out.
"What?" Red questioned as he looked down at them.
"The energy…" Johann screamed.
"What?" Red still didn't understand.
"The head! Shoot it in the head!" Ariel yelled bluntly at the top of her lungs.
The creature turned from HB to Johann and Ariel sending some cars their way, Ariel grabbing Johann and pulling him out of the way. While it was distracted Red took the kid from his tell cradling him in his stone arm, then realized that the creature was focused on him again.
"Oh, crap!" Red said wide eyed as it attacked forcing him to jump in the air and land on the unsteady H. "You gotta trust me, little buddy, ok?" Red threw the baby up into the air as he wound up his gun causing it to play a lullaby before he snapped it closed then stuck out his stone arm catching the baby who started to cry. "You woke up the baby!"
Hellboy fired two rounds hitting it in the shoulder and stomach causing it to fall back, it's green blood falling to the ground and plants growing where ever it touched.
"Agent Hellboy! Take the shot. Right now. Take it. That's an order." Johann yelled out over and over again. "Take the shot. That's an order, agent Hellboy!" HB had paused looking at the wounded creature, vines growing from it connecting it to the building behind it. "Shoot it. Shoot it now."
"Demon!" Nuada appeared at the top of the building just above Red. "What are you waiting for? This is what you want, isn't it? Look at it. The last of its kind. Like you and I. You destroy it, the world will never see it's like again. You have more in common with us, than with them. You could be a king!"
"Shoot it! It's getting loose!" Johann yelled up at him as the creature tore loose form the building.
"If you cannot command than you must obey." Nuada said.
"Damn!" HB said in annoyance before he took the shot hitting it right in the head killing it. Blood flowed from it like a water fall causing green vegetation to spring up all around it, the like New York City had not seen in that place in a very long time. Liz and Ariel stepped onto the grass marveling at all of the green around them then looked up at the creature whose head opened up like a blooming flower releasing spores into the air.
"It is ... beautiful." Abe said in wonder as he gazed around them, his eyes pausing on Ariel who had plucked a white flower holding it up to her nose, her eyes closing as she inhaled its perfume, but when she opened her eyes looking over to him he saw that his attention had wondered over to the Princess who was looking at one of the spores.
"Give us the baby back!" An angry crowd had gathered around them, the police holding them back. Ariel's tail was switching back and forth nervously as she glanced from Nuala to Abe who was standing quite close to the princess, Johann and Liz standing with them. She perked up when her brother made his way through the crowd and ran over to him.
"What have you done to my baby?" The woman snapped holding her baby close.
"Baby is fine." HB said as she rushed away from him, flinching back as Ariel walked past her shooting her a sharp look. "The baby's fine."
"Are you ok?" Ariel looked him over in concern then gave him a brief hug.
"I'm fine sis." Red said with a smile.
"You did great." Ariel praised him making him smirk a bit as they started forward only for the police to raised their guns at them.
"Don't move! Hands in the air! Freeze!" The officer ordered, Red and Ariel doing so in shock having not expected this from the people they had just saved.
"He's got a weapon in his hand!" Another officer called out, some of the officers cocking their guns.
"That is his hand!" Liz snapped as she went over to them standing next to HB with Ariel on his other side.
"Miss, stay away from him." The officer said. "For your own safety!"
"He was trying to help, don't you see?" Liz called out trying to get them to see. "He was just trying to help!" The crowd just got angrier causing some rather unpleasant memories of Ariel's to return, of the nights running from angry mobs baying for her blood simply because she was different. She flinched back as the shouts grew along with the fury of the crowd, Red wrapping his arm around her holding her to his side giving her comfort knowing what she had been through. "That is all we do! That's all we've done all the years! We just try to help you! You!"
"You're just a freak! We don't need your help!" They yelled and someone through a rock hitting HB in the face cutting his cheek. Liz looked to the crowd as her anger showed itself through the flames that now covered her body while she glared them all down, her own memories of where she had received the scar on her head resurfacing.
"Liz ..." HB placed hi stone hand on her shoulder calming her down a bit. "Let's go home."