Part One
Whenever you call me, I’ll be there
Whenever you want me, I’ll be there
Whenever you need me, I’ll be there
I’ll be around
In certain regenerations, Neas would acquire one that had the gift of song.
Such was the case of her nineteenth regeneration, who she named “Si.”
Physically a young woman of seventeen years of age, she sang with an angelic, soulful voice that harmonized throughout her T.A.R.D.I.S.
Gizmo, her pet Mogwai, was her only audience; perched on her shoulder, he chirped along to the acoustic melody she played on her guitar in her rendition of the Spinners’ “I’ll Be Around.”
The comforting session lasted for a short time before it was disrupted.
Rock music blared from further within the ship.
“Sounds like our recent ‘guest’ just woke up,” Si groaned, setting aside both her guitar and Gizmo on the console platform seat next to her. “Keep the tunes goin’ for me, Giz. I’ll be right back.”
The little Mogwai followed her lead, plucking at the guitar strings.
Si smiled, recognizing the melody he played as the one his previous owner, Billy Peltzer, once taught him.
She ultimately left the console room and went to one of the many bedrooms reserved for herself and her guests. There, she walked upon a space cluttered by trash, an array of electronics, and cats – among other things. It reeked with the scent of dry-roasted peanuts and cigar smoke.
At the center of it all was the cause of it all, her companion: the one and (thankfully) only, Hellboy.
The well-meaning half-demon was shirtless and weight-lifting at the moment.
“What’s happenin’, kid?” he said with a lit cigar in his mouth.
Si could barely hear him through the loud rock music.
There were at least a dozen stereos in his room, any one of them being where the music blasted from.
Rather than guess, Si simply used her sonic screwdriver to shut all of them off.
“You twisted my sisters,” Hellboy griped.
“That was Van Halen.”
“Really? Damn. These 80s rock bands sound all alike, after a while.”
“You know, I was in the middle of a session in the console room before your music loudly interrupted mine.”
“How can ya even hear me all the way from there?”
“Because that is how loud your music is!”
“Whatever happened to the big Italian lady? She was my kinda woman and a way better hostess than you.”
Si felt a headache coming on – one as big as Hellboy’s biceps.
“We’ve been through this several times, H.B.,” she said. “Rickert got hurt real bad, and she had to regenerate…into me. And, as her successor, I take serious offense in how you talk about her like she’s not me. I’m standing right in front of you!”
Now Hellboy felt a headache coming on.
“Yeah, I still miss the big Italian lady,” he professed.
Si moaned with aggravation; it was like talking to a big kid.
Technically, Hellboy was one.
Like Si herself, he did not physically look his age; he was sixty years old but barely out of his twenties.
Their spat was suddenly intruded by the violent lurching of the T.A.R.D.I.S.
The ringing of the cloister bell soon followed.
“What’s goin’ on?!” Hellboy exclaimed.
“I dunno,” Si remarked. “Let’s go find out.”
Together, they rushed back into the console room, finding a dazed Gizmo lying atop of Si’s slightly dented guitar on the floor. “You O.K., fuzz-ball?” Hellboy asked him, afterwards receiving a contented chirp in response from the tough little Mogwai.
“We’ve materialized out of the infinite dimensional corridor,” Si noted through the console readout. “But I wasn’t anywhere near the controls.”
“You think the fuzz-ball might’ve done it?” Hellboy presumed.
Si questionably frowned at the presumption. “He was sitting six feet away.”
Before Hellboy could have come up with any other asinine theories, Si brought up their new, unexpected destination on the view screen. They discovered that they arrived in a dark dimension devoid of human life, with ash-like spores floating in the air.
“O…kay,” Hellboy uncomfortably muttered. “That doesn’t look good.”
“No,” Si acknowledged. “But I’m going out in it anyway.”
“You nuts?!” Hellboy said. “It looks like death out there!”
“So you’re coming with then?”
“Bet your sweet butt I am, kid.”
Hellboy armed himself with his usual assortment of items: his utility belt, his jacket, holy relics, horseshoes, various herbs, hand grenades, and his trusty, oversized revolver, which he called the “Good Samaritan.”
Si only required her sonic screwdriver, smarts, and a change of clothes.
The Time Lord and the half-demon trekked through the eerie atmosphere, seeing how it strongly resembled a small Midwestern town, one whose name they learned to be Hawkins, Indiana from the “Welcome” sign.
It was deathly quiet – not a single living soul to be found other than themselves.
Or so they thought until they detected movement within a nearby police station.
Hellboy readied the Good Samaritan while Si illuminated their path with her sonic screwdriver, both preparing themselves for whatever might’ve been scurrying around in the station.
As it soon turned out, what they cornered was a 12-year-old girl with shaven hair, wearing a hospital gown.
Si immediately had Hellboy lower his oversized revolver.
“It’s a kid,” the half-demon identified.
The girl was incredibly terrified, quivering as she looked on them.
“I think my handsome mug scares her,” Hellboy surmised. “I have that effect.”
Si didn’t want to admit that he might have been right in the assumption, noticing the girl’s gaze fixated more on Hellboy than her. Because of this, she soothingly told the frightened child, “It’s alright, sweetie. We’re not gonna hurt—”
A loud, ear-splitting shriek emitted out of nowhere inside the station.
Turning away from the girl, Si and Hellboy spotted a tall, thin humanoid creature with a head absent of any facial features, opening like a flower to reveal nothing but teeth.
“Ah, crap,” Hellboy cursed. “I knew it!”
“I’ll get the girl out of here,” Si notified. “You deal with…whatever that is!”
She didn’t have to pull Hellboy’s Right Hand of Doom to get him to concede; he went right away with combating the predatory creature, while Si got the girl to her T.A.R.D.I.S. for safety.
Hellboy eventually caught up, marginally battered from his fight.
“Let’s get the hell outta here,” he ordered Si.
She tried escaping back into the infinite dimensional corridor but experienced difficulty in doing so. “There’s high interference we’re getting from this dimension,” she isolated the issue.
“That freakin’ wallflower-head’s gonna catch up with us,” Hellboy alarmed. “And when it does, it’s gonna—!”
He and Si both froze as soon as the girl they found approached the control console.
She placed her right hand on the console and, all of a sudden, the Type-Z dematerialized back into the infinite D.C.
By this circumstance, it became clear to the travelers that the girl possessed special powers – ones that could influence even a T.A.R.D.I.S.
