multiversallogs | closed :: here comes a candle to light you to bed

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closed :: here comes a candle to light you to bed

Who: Hellboy and ???
What: The final stop on a scenic tour of Baedal's sewer system.
Where: Baedal Below
When: Sukkardi Evening
Warnings:Nothing yet? Mild horror and biomedical ick.

Deep under Baedal, far away from the 'civilized' Undercity, past the wild mushroom farms and their curious minders, lies mile after mile of tunnels. Layers of construction from previous iterations of the city, catacombs, abandoned (and probably never used) metro stations, natural and unnatural caves and corridors. Should one go searching through these tunnels, perhaps tracking shoggoths at the behest of Hellsing, one will eventually find a rather large and reinforced door in the tunnel wall. It looks much newer than the actual tunnel, and one may surmise that it's a later installation.

Certainly, it's large enough for a shoggoth to squeeze through and right now, it's open and appears undamaged. Dim artificial light spills out through the opening. There is a buzz of malfunctioning electricity and the dripping of liquid. Something sounds like it's groaning in there.

Beyond the door is a huge room. Whoever designed it went to great lengths to minimize the sound pollution, as there is almost no echo in here. At one point it must have been brightly lit but now the chief illumination comes from a lone worklight over a desk and a fusebox that's giving off sparks. It smells strongly of chemicals and blood. The lumpy forms of two dead people lie off to the side. One man, one woman. Both human. They appear to have been electrocuted, though the man was stabbed some time before that. There are at least two other doors in here.

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Somewhere in the distance, back down one of the tunnel branches leading to the door, the sounds of deep-voiced shouting and high-pitched screeching filter down from the next level up. The shouting and screeching get louder, until finally there's a crunchy, meaty thud as whatever is making the noises falls through a hole between the levels and lands. The screeching abruptly stops, and the shouting pauses as well, but is replaced by a groan and a gravelly voice grumbling, "Ow. Crap. Stupid monkeys."

The source of the voice -- a large, red, obviously demonic-looking man, carrying a golden but bloodied sword -- picks himself up and rounds the corner, his footfalls initially staggering but becoming steadier as he goes. He swipes with his huge stone right hand down his long tan canvas duster, making note of all the rips in it while getting off all the bits of wetsuited monkey as he could manage. His sword gets a quick wipe-down with a hand towel he fishes out of his coat -- the embroidery suggests it originally was from the Valhalla Inn -- before being sheathed in the scabbard on his back.

Hellboy pulls up short at the sign of the incongruous open door. Monkey screeching echoes down and back the way he came from, fading away as the ones he hadn't taken down with him decide to go back to their nest. Or whatever one would call a shelter made from the corpse of a giant armadillo. A knot of tension he didn't even consciously realize he had unwinds, and he starts looking around the tunnel in earnest. His examination pauses as he spots a smear of glistening, gooey residue on the ceiling. From one of the pouches on his belt, he pulls out some amulets on thin chains. He winds the chains around his left hand, then arranges the amulets on his palm, three Elder Signs around a golden triangular amulet with an eye in the center. He raises the hand, palm open and up, toward the residue.

«Na diss graf. Bagrom agga, shoggo nung eta. Ba abbal anu.»

As he finishes the chant, the air between his hand and the residue shivers for a moment. The muscles of his arm tense slightly, as though a heavy weight had just been dropped into his hand. With a squelching sound, the residue flattens out against the ceiling, little wisps of smoke coming out as it starts drying out. Satisfied, Hellboy lowers his hand and puts the amulets away. "Yup. Shoggoth. Guess this is the place."

The sounds and smells as he approaches the door suggest that the place has been abandoned for a while, but the groaning causes him to draw his recently-returned cannon from its holster all the same. It's somewhat unusual to not have to hunker down at least a little while walking through a door, but given the size of the shoggoth he'd fought, he has to admit that it makes sense in hindsight. His brief impulse to issue some sort of wisecrack about being from Avon or the like dies in his throat when he sees the corpses and other destruction in the room.

"Geez. What the hell happened here?!"

Inside the lab, there are a variety of things that Hellboy can examine:

One corner is devoted to a collection of large coffin-looking things, connected to all sorts of equipment and piping. Most of them are empty, some are full of foul-smelling goo. One is full of those eels from months ago. A few are feebly alive but won't be a bother.

One large metallic container that looks similar to a smelting vat, but should Hellboy find a ladder and attempt look inside, he won't be able to see beyond a very organic, mostly rotten seal. Breaking the plug of mucus is possible, but probably inadvisable.

A lot of cages. Most of them are empty. There are a few dead monkeys and a dead dog. It looks like they were shot recently.

Work benches covered in tools and clutter. Paper notes full of chemical (and alchemical) formulas and notes written in someone's bizarre shorthand. There are a few datapads that refuse to yield anything useful.

One survivor has crawled away from the corpses. She is barely alive.

The corpses (and survivor) can't have been here than a few days, and none of them look like they would know what to make with a lab.

Hellboy waits for a few moments, taking in the room as a whole. When nothing jumps out and attacks him, he holsters his gun and takes out his CiD instead. He walks further into the room, snapping photos of everything for later reference.

Anything that looks like it might once have contained live specimens gets a wide berth, because he just knows that something will jump out at him if he gets too close. The ambiance of the room as a whole screams laboratory to him, which makes it unsurprising that a shoggoth and a mimic acting like a shoggoth might have come from here.

Not having any particular interest in the specimens themselves, the only thing he finds truly informative are the notes on the desk. Hellboy starts shuffling through them, and then hears the groan again. He freezes, then looks over and sees the collapsed survivor.

"Geez!" he exclaims, and pockets the notes and his CiD as he makes his way over to her. "Hey! Hey, can you hear me?"

He knows it's usually a bad idea to move someone who's injured without the right equipment to stabilize them. Under the circumstances -- uncertain injuries, uncertain location way down in the hind end of the city's underground -- he's not really sure how much longer she'll last anyway, so he takes a chance and turns her onto her back. He pulls his canteen out of its holder on the back of his belt, gives it a shake to confirm it's still half-full, and opens it up, offering her some water if she'll drink it.

The woman doesn't react to the words but the touch has her feebly struggling for consciousness. She's cold and her breathing shallow, uneven. There's some bruising where her skin has been pressing against the floor for what must have been the better part of the day. She makes a noise, focusing uncomprehending on the canteen before her gaze drift up to Hellboy.

For a moment nothing happens, then something clicks in her head. The noise she was making returns and builds to a dry keening sob as she makes jerky uncoordinated motions that ultimately take her nowhere.

Meanwhile, in the main body of the lab, something clicks and static whispers through the air.

"Hey, no, come on now..." Whatever she's doing now, he's pretty sure it can't be good for her continued chances of staying alive. He tries to get her to hold still, but it's not going so well...

...and then that click sounds from the lab itself, and he hears his CiD and the others nearby spin up with the transmission. He doesn't even really need to listen to it to know that what just happened was not good.

"Aw, crap. Okay, gotta go!" He quickly shoves the canteen back into its holder, then scoops the woman up. Holding someone in the midst of a seizure isn't the best of ideas, but his options are limited and time is short, so out they go back into the tunnels.

There's a moment of consternation as he realizes that he got down here by falling down a hole from above, but a quick look around and his reasonably good memory of how the tunnels had been laid out up to then point him in the right direction to start making his way up. He doesn't stop to check if anything's chasing him unless it becomes obvious that he has to deal with it; any further looks back at the lab can be done with a full team sometime when someone's life isn't hanging in the balance.

The creatures don't come out at once. They wait, cautious; pitch black fur blending with the shadows so well as to make them invisible but for glinting teeth. It's not until the intruder runs that they start to give chase, snarling and hissing. They could be dogs or wolves, but they don't look right. For one, they have no eyes and their jaws are massive. One of them starts to tear into its fellows but the rest set off after Hellboy, pursuing him and his rescued burden through Baedal Below.

Elsewhere, further up the tunnel a different pack is on the move. It's a rapid response team of Militia agents; they are fast and well-armed. Their goal is to get to the lab, and as they have access to maps and technology that the common citizen can only dream of, their journey should be considerably shorter than Hellboy's original descent. About half way there, they run into company. Snarling creatures gamely chasing a citizen.

"Get down, target the quads!" The command is followed instantly, two of the creatures yelp and fall back as the Militia opens fire. It isn't enough to stop the rest of the hunters, though now at least they have additional targets.

Hellboy keeps running without so much as a glance behind. He has ears, and what they hear tells him that his pursuers are nasty, but he has enough of a lead not to worry yet. Once he hops up the stairs to the next level up from the lab, he gains the further advantage of knowing where he's going, retracing his path back up to the surface.

There's some concern when he sees the armed figures in the distance, but the way they set themselves and shoot around him at the monsters gives him an inkling of who they are. The idea of being grateful that the Militia is here is unexpected, but one takes what one can get in uncertain times.

"Comin' through!" he exclaims as he tucks the woman in close and turns his run into a long-jump, leaping feet first over the three troopers in front who, per their leader's order, had gone down on one knee to steady their aim. Now behind the line, he turns to the leader and asks, "There a medic on-hand? The lady's hurt bad."

Two more creatures get tagged and fall back, clacking teeth and chittering. One makes it up to the line, still intent on chasing down Hellboy and it is rewarded with sharp zap of crackling energy before it hits the ground smoking.

The Militia's leader is the only one in the group standing. That and how she holds her hands up like a surgeon after prepping are the only things to set her apart as important. No handy insignias or uniform marks here, and this lapse in anonymity probably wouldn't have happened if they were facing an enemy more likely to get tactical.

"Hellsing operative." It's more acknowledgement than anything, and yet it communicates 'a moment, please'. When she's confident the monster situation is in check she turns her face to Hellboy, pulling down her mask revealing blue skin. It's meant to be a diplomatic gesture - something to take the edge of her implied advantage. "There is." She touches her throat, attention between her troops and guest. "Echo. Injured baseline for pick-up, my location. Citizen. Yes. Copy. Forty-five seconds." The last two words are for Hellboy's benefit and she moves her hand again.

"Standing field agent designation Echo. You're Hellboy. Tell me what happened."

Now that he's... well, only really not being chased insofar as he's stopped running and is behind cover of a sort, Hellboy wishes that he could help with the fight. His blood is up and he's ready for action... but he still has the injured woman in his arms, so that's not an option. He'd like for the lead Militia agent to answer him about a medic... but she's kind of busy directing her troops to his obvious benefit. It's a bit frustrating, but he swallows it down anyway rather than be an asshole about it.

Once the monsters are down and Echo has made it clear through her comm chatter that help is imminent, he relaxes a bit. Hopefully the woman can hold on that much longer. He's not surprised that the Militia knows who he is; even if it wasn't a certainty that they watch Hellsing like hawks and have dossiers on all employees, he's been getting used to people just recognizing him from his distinctive appearance and frequent appearance at trouble spots. (Just like old times, really, that.) For all the uncertainty in relations between their two groups, Echo's being pretty courteous, and she just saved his ass, so he doesn't mind cooperating.

"I've been doing follow-up on a couple of cases. The trails led me to an abandoned lab, all wrecked up with two dead bodies and this woman barely alive near them. When I tried to help her, she started thrashing around and I guess we triggered some sort of broadcast left behind. You can probably get it from the Network; I haven't listened to it yet beyond taking it as my cue to grab the woman and run."

The injured baseline is still breathing though she has gone limp in Hellboy's grip. She's covered in subterranean filth and human misery but there's no blood on her. Whatever her damage is, it's not immediately obvious.

Meanwhile, the creatures with their glittering teeth and eyeless faces are no longer attempting frontal assault. They haven't gone away; they are just hiding. The Militia is regrouping, staying vigilant, and prepping for the next move. Their teamleader is watching Hellboy. She's attentive, focused. Tense for action. Not hostile, though not necessarily friendly either.

Hellboy is a recognizable figure, and of course there are dossiers. Not much of a police state without dossiers. If the Militia is courteous to Hellsing those are probably the marching orders. Then again, given the context, it's also the most pragmatic approach to the situation. Echo offers little in the way of expression give away her own position. She nods, a curt precise motion. It may not occur to her that someone who's clearly competent would opt to refuse cooperation. Not when everyone is being so reasonable.

"Very well," she says just as the medevac team arrives and she flags them over. Other things that don't overtly occur to her is that Hellsing may want to hold on to a potential witness, assuming the witness lives. "What can you tell me about these cases?"

Very reasonable. Hellboy's dealt with enough brisk officials in his day that it doesn't ruffle him, as long as they're briskly reasonable. He's sure that he and his bosses would indeed like to hold on to the witness, but that assumes she gets the medical care she needs to stay alive, and he can't really be choosy about how the Militia provides it.

He lets the medevac team take her to do their job; he's got a photo of her on his CiD from earlier, and the boss ladies can oversee the political fight to get access to the witness and/or anything she might have to say. He takes a moment to consider both what he feels comfortable discussing about what are technically still open cases, and how to quickly summarize it.

"One involved a Shoggoth, the other something not quite like same. Two different areas of the city, but around the same time, which seemed suspicious. So I started back-tracking, as time permitted between other cases. That was..." He blinks, startled at himself now that he thinks about it. "Eight months ago, geez."

Oh she'll live. At the very least, she'll be interrogated. It's not widely advertised but the Militia does have access to all sorts of resources. For now she's getting strapped into what looks as much as a coffin as it does a stretcher.

Team leader Echo shows no interest in the potential witness now that it's been secured, her attention stays on Hellboy. She does her nod again and rolls her shoulders, less tense. Things are moving along. She's quiet for a moment, thinking things over or listening to filtered communications. When next she speaks her tone is fractionally more personable. "We are going to take these stalkers out and secure what's left of the lab. If you want to come with, we can see about clearing that with your people."

There's a mild pang of sadness as he watches the medics getting her ready to go. He realizes it's unlikely he'll ever see her again, and he never learned her name or really anything else about her.

Echo's offer, as a result, is like a breath of fresh air, with the promise of something else to think about and the chance to finally hit something. He gives her his most ~~hideous~~charming smile and says, "I'd like that very much. You may have noticed, I don't like leaving my business unfinished."

What with having spent eight months (not all at once, but still) tracing the paths of monsters that had already been killed and all.

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closed :: here comes a candle to light you to bed

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