Hellboy's Blog: November 2011

The other day, Venice said to me "Someone really needs to write how our characters met." And I took it as a challenge. Instantly, I started coming up with ideas for explosions and unicorns and what the hell a Huffelpuff really is, and put it into writing. A mere *counts* week, two weeks later, I have produced a very, very short story.

While this was a good idea, it's taken up a lot of my time, which bothers me. I really want to write up some more ones like how Israel met Kal and Octa, and Lizzy and Kenny and, and...

...See, those were just the people I had on my mind at that moment. There are so many more that I'd like to write about, but frankly don't have the time. Sure, eventually I'll get round to some people. But there'll always be people asking how their character met mine, and why can't I write a story about them...

Truth is, I'm remembering my brother Louis not too long ago, and his own personal challenge- to illustrate each and every OC on the blogs. As you can guess, it didn't turn out that well. He ended up only illustrating about five OC's and releasing them (I think there's one drawing of Mary Hiashi that we have hidden away somewhere but was never touched up on the comp or anything...) to the outside world. People weren't very happy, he felt pressured by me, and I had to end it.

So, this might not be a thing I'll be continuing. But now, onto the story...

Three years prior to Ven's fan-fic.

Venice Rain smiled as the last patron left the library she was reading in, and when the glass double doors closed softly she stretched her arms and relaxed. Finally, peace and quiet. She selected a book from one of the many towering bookshelves, and then settled down at one of the wooden tables with wooden chairs to read it. Even the library's owner had ducked out to get a coffee, as Venice was a regular and trusted patron.
She had just settled into a comfortable position and opened her book when the opaque glass double doors burst open, revealing a midnight black sky for a second before they closed again. A rather lost looking man stood inside now, a brown leather trench coat reaching his knees. Venice saw him and instantly started to sink lower and lower behind her book, hoping like hell that he wouldn't come over towards her table...
But despite her hopes, he spotted her and made a beeline directly for the table she was at. His boots clunked loudly on the wooden floorboards until he got to where Venice was concentrating on the ink smudges on the book in front of her. Probably just some crazy homeless person, she thought.
Scratched and worn hands pressed firmly onto the table and in her field of vision, placed there to get her to look up. When she didn't, the man sighed.
"Miss, I'm going to have to ask you to leave this building."
She frowned at her page. Yep, definitely crazy. "Excuse me?" she replied lazily, turning the page. The man knew when he was being ignored and slammed his palms back down onto the table, making her jump.
"Now," he said, and she heard a distant noise, repeating itself and getting louder. She didn't care about this hobo. For all she cared, he could go f-
He grabbed the book and held the book under his arm, and she looked up now. There was real fear in his eyes.
"We need to get out of here, NOW!"
The noise started to define itself as it got louder and louder; a huge thumping noise that seemed to shake the floorboards beneath them.
Suddenly with a rush of air she was behind him. The chair she had been sitting on tumbled backwards and he snapped his head back to see her smile at him. Then the book was in her hand, a blur moved past him and she was twenty feet away, reopening her book.
"Ah," the man said, nodding at her. The thumping had stopped. "You're another Mage. In that case, don't leave- I'm going to need all the help I can get. Israel Elysium." He held out his hand, and in a blur she was there to shake it.
"Venice Rain," she said, wary. She noticed the absence of the thumping noise and looked around, worried. Her eyes went back to Israel and saw that his own were closed, and twitched weirdly. He opened them suddenly and grabbed her arm, shouting "Move!" and leading her between the bookshelves. He crouched and she protested, thwacking his hand away. He shook his head and just raised a finger to his lips, then carefully pulled a book out and used the gap to peer at the library entrance.
"Ridiculous," she muttered, following it up with a well-placed cuss or two. She went to open her book once more and finally get back to reading, when there was a sharp cracking noise, like that of a great oak falling in a forest, and then the entire front wall of the library collapsed.
Israel saw it all through the gap in the bookshelf. He blinked hard and sat back on his haunches when the dust arrived, spilling though the gap. Venice was making her own makeshift peeping hole next to him, eyes wide and wondering what she'd gotten herself into now. She swore when she saw it.
The monolithic beast that stood where the wall had been was easily sixty feet tall and snarled at the inside of the library with a gaping maw of narrow teeth. Spiralling red markings traced its shoulders and ran down to its feet. It roared, and a book or so toppled out from a shelf close to them.
"What the hell is that?" Venice hissed at Israel, who was still staring through the gap. "And who are you, really? How did it get here? Did you lead it here? Where are the Cleavers?"
"That, Venice, is what we call a monster. It is huge, often has claws or fangs, and appears pissed off at everything around it." He shook his head. "And I'm just too lazy to answer all your other questions..."
She smacked the back of his head with her hand. "Tell me, dammit!" She was being left in the dark. She hated the dark.
"No can do," he said, rubbing his head where she hit him. "Shh now. I'd rather not get eaten by a monster today."
The beast had stopped roaring and now started sniffing around, poking its head inside the library. Venice backed up against the shelf behind her and her hand touched the book she had been reading earlier. She looked down and her mouth spread into a huge grin at the title, The World Encyclopaedia of Large and Terrifying Beasts. "Jackpot," she whispered, and started to flick through the pages.
The beast, satisfied with its sniffing, reached its front arms down to the ground and lowered itself so it was almost touching it. Then from atop the beast's head climbed down a smallish man, suited up and carrying a heavy bag over his shoulder. He stopped when he had reached the library floor and closed his eyes, breathing in and then out. He smiled and Israel nudged Venice without looking back.
"Now, that's something I can tell you about. That man's name is Sinclair Esoteric. He's wanted in nine different countries by their magical communities for library-related affairs. Guess he forgot about this little one in his own hometown..."
Venice wasn't listening. She was scanning the pages as fast as she could to try and find something, anything to help them defeat it. Israel noticed her not answering and frowned, turning around. None of them were watching Sinclair, who promptly dropped his heavy bag onto the ground and unzipped it, pressing a few buttons and zipping it once more.
"What are you doing?" Israel hissed at Venice. "Pay attention- and that means no reading! We might need to run at any moment!"
"You can run," she replied smoothly, ripping a page out of the book in her hands. "But I'm staying. That thing has to be taken down."
She unceremoniously threw the book behind her, and froze when she had realized her mistake. It sailed through the air and hit the bookshelf, knocking out two other books to the floor.
Sinclair stopped as he was just climbing to the top of his monster; he had heard the noise. A frown crossed his face and he cupped his hands around his mouth.
"Come out now, whoever you are! Come out now and I won't let my friend Jasper here eat you," he shouted, guestering to the monster.
Behind the bookshelf, Israel frantically rummaged through his pocket. He came up with a square of paper and an orange texta, and scribbled down the letters ASS on it. Venice rolled her eyes at what he had written, and decided it would be funnier if she didn't tell him. He motioned for Venice to stay behind the bookshelf, straightened his jacket, and stepped out of cover.
"Stop right there!" He called out to Sinclair. He showed the piece of paper to the criminal, adding "A-S-S, let me see your hands."
Sinclair burst out laughing. "Well, I guess you are a bit of an A-S-S. Let me guess, from your disgusting accent; Australian Secret Service?"
Israel frowned, looked at the paper and put his head to his hand. He scrunched it up and threw it away. "Regardless of my terrible foresight in making up fake organizations, I'm still going to see some hands. You're a wanted criminal for the weirdest crime I have ever seen. Damn, do you need a hobby."
Sinclair smiled, gesturing his hands to the library. "You tell me to give up, and yet I only see one of you, alone, and me, not so alone." He patted Jasper's head as he sat atop it.
"That's where you're wrong," Israel said, grabbing Venice's arm and dragging her out into the open. "This here is, um...What was it? Rome? Yeah, that's it, Rome Hail."
Venice yanked her arm away. "And this dumbass' name is Egypt Heaven."
Israel glared at her. "Israel Elysium," he hissed.
"Venice Rain," she replied smoothly.
"Do you think I care what your names are?" Sinclair said, bringing their attention back on him. "Jasper, we're leaving."
The beast growled in response, and with heavy footsteps started to turn around. Israel closed his eyes once more, and Venice was about to ask what he was doing, but he opened them and yelled "Run!" before she could. The beast was already outside the library and moving away at a sluggish pace. They reached the broken wall and had just stepped outside when Venice looked up and saw the detonator in Sinclair's hand. She knew what was going to happen. That doesn't mean that it didn't hurt like hell.
Inside, the heavy bag received a signal and the bomb exploded, obliterating everything around it. Israel and Venice were caught in the shockwave and were all of a sudden flying head over heels, up and down switching places constantly. Then there was just down, and cement and pain and steps...so many steps.
Venice felt herself stop tumbling but didn't see it. She had closed her eyes when she hit the ground, and kept them shut, wishing it all away. But she knew pain just didn't leave. It had to be beaten into retreat.
She opened her eyes and groaned as she firmly placed her hands on the ground and pushed herself up. Far away her mind registered the slick pavement and sent dull spikes of horror through her as she realized it was blood. She got to her knees as her hearing returned, then looked around for Israel. He was a metre away, face down in his own pool of blood. Her magic had protected her mostly from the fall, and she didn't seem to be bleeding. She groggily crawled over and shook him, her thoughts not clear enough to turn him over. There was a sputtering noise and he coughed violently, moving his arms forward and raising his head out of the blood. He murmured something about Pokémon and a bucket of Firewhisky and then seemed to realize where he was.
"Venice," he croaked. "You ok?"
She looked down. There weren't any obvious wounds. "Yeah, I'm ok." She went to help him up but he stumbled and collapsed, crying out. He removed his hands from his leg and revealed the seven inch wooden splinter impaled just above his kneecap. Blood poured from it and Venice's head suddenly had the fog lifted from it. She shoved his hands away, spared a quick glance at the wound, and yanked the splinter free.
Israel howled.
"Keep pressure here," she instructed, looking for something to tie the wound with. Israel gritted his teeth and pulled a hip flask from within his jacket and drank half of it in one gulp, then poured the rest over his leg. He pulled a knife from his pocket and flicked it out, passing it to Venice. She found material to use and put the blade to it.
"No!" Israel barked at her. "Not my jacket! Are you crazy?! Use my jeans leg material, under the wound. Jesus, what the hell is wrong with you, going for the jacket..."
She sighed and dismissed it as the ramblings of a man in shock, but listened to his request nevertheless. She roughly cut off the jean leg under the kneecap on his right leg and tied it as best as she could to make a bandage.
Israel nodded his thanks and laid flat on his back. After a moment of him not moving, she wondered if he had passed out. It was all just too anti-climatic for her.
She turned and looked at the burning wreckage of the library behind them, at the top of the stairs. All that remained were a few of the support beams that were near to collapsing, and what looked to be one book that had specialized in fire-retardant spells. Obviously, the author had thought of casting them on the book to test it.
What was left of the other books drifted slowly down from the sky- burning pages that she had to sidestep every now and then when they got close.
Slowly, Venice became aware of the slow and sarcastic sound of one man clapping, sitting atop a monster and at the bottom of the stairs. Contrary to his hand's joyful actions, he did not look amused.
"Oh, bravo, bravo," Sinclair sneered, bringing his clapping to a halt. "You managed to escape the ball of fire that I've turned the library into, albeit with one of you injured."
"Nice work at noting the blatantly obvious. In fact, I'd quit your day job to continue it."
Sinclair raised his eyebrows. "Really? You think I have potential? I wonder if I could get a job for it somewhere, y'know, like narrating a play or someth-"
"No, I mean it, quit your day job.’Cos you don't want to be a mass murderer of books anywhere near me right now."
Sinclair glared at her. And the glare of a Frenchman on a beast capable of ripping away an entire building's wall is a terribly frightening thing.
"Ven," Israel said, kicking her shoe. He propped himself into a sitting position, revealing something she hadn't seen before- a double-barrel shotgun, sawn off at the barrels. "That page you had before, tell me how to kill this thing."
Venice dug her hand into her pocket and withdrew the page, straightening the crumpled edges so she could read it. Behind her at the bottom of the stairs, she heard Jasper taking slow and heavy steps towards them.
"Alright, um," she began, scanning the page. "Carnivore, easily controlled by a single person but extremely loyal, razor sharp teeth, can crush a bus..."
"Hurrying to the 'How to kill it' part would be nice," Israel grunted, getting to his knees. He drew the shotgun he had strapped to his leg and hit the release switch, flicking both barrels forward with his wrist.
"Here we go," Venice said, reaching the 'Weaknesses' paragraph. "Um, it's kinda ripped. But it basically says that it has an area of about a foot in diameter on its chest that'll hurt it pretty good, but if you want to kill it there's only one spot- a light brown coloured spot on the back of its skull, right where Sinclair is standing."
Israel did the math. Considering the spread of the buckshot from his gun, and the rapidly shortening distance between the monster and him... If he timed it just right and aimed perfectly, he could take the shot.
He stood up, then, using Venice's arm to steady himself. He raised his shotgun and took aim at Jasper as he lumbered up the stairs towards Israel. But just as he was about to fire he swore that he heard a voice inside his head saying "Use the Force..."
He nodded to himself grimly and closed his eyes.

It was always hard for Israel to explain to others what happened when he used his power. His power enough was hard to explain... He had the power of foresight, but not like a Seer. Instead of seeing snippets of the future at times unwanted, he has honed his skill to let him see all of the trillions of paths of action he could take, and choose the best one to execute.
While he was in this dream-state, he no longer could see, hear, smell or taste anything. He had his touch though. And while he could only see darkness around him, he seemed to feel... Blue lines, reaching out to every direction. They were the paths, he knew.
He would let his unreal hands drift over them, more or less like a piano all around him, and with every press of a path he would instantly see a vision in detail. He had trained his mind to narrow down the trillions of paths into less than a thousand, grouping together paths that were the same except for one tiny detail. And of these thousand were the keys around him, the paths that led into the future.
At this time, all of the paths around him were close to the same. Some cut off unexpectedly when he 'played' them, where he obviously was killed by either the monster or...
Israel tried to frown in the dream-state, unsuccessfully. He had seen some stupid deaths in his life, but none of them added up to the myriad of endings he had seen using his power. The current one that could still possibly kill him right now would be the burning page that was floating lazily though the air above him that was going to land on the back of his jacket and set him alight if he watch out. While Venice would be laughing at his flaming back, he'd die, and then the vision cut out.
The best thing about his power was that he could view thousands and thousands of paths and visions, and yet it would only take less than a second for everyone in the world. He'd appear to close his eyes and think for a moment, then open them and have a plan.
The worst part about his power was that he only could see five minutes into the future. He had tried to expand the timeframe several times, and it had only ended in a bloody nose and a migraine.
The other thing was that he couldn't use it constantly. That just ended up in more headaches, and the visions would frequently get messed up, putting the strangest things into them like purple dinosaurs and raining cell phones.
Israel chose the path best suited to his survival and opened his eyes.

Venice helped Israel to his feet and let him steady himself on her shoulder while he got ready to battle the creature. She readied herself too, pulling out a curved knife from her boot and flipping the handle around restlessly.
She saw Israel close his eyes. When he opened them a second later, there was a sort of gleam in his eyes, and he slowly started to smile. He took aim again, and fired the shot, hitting the monster perfectly in its weak spot on the chest. The creature bellowed and swung its arms to the left and right in rage, smashing several telephone poles down. It continued to roar in pain and Israel continued to smile. He rested the shotgun over his shoulder and spoke.
"That's right," he said, pulling the trigger and letting lose the other shot over his shoulder without looking. It hit an ominous piece of flaming paper that had slowly been drifting towards his back. "Shit just got real."
Venice facepalmed. "Really? Shit just got real? That's you're one-liner before you face a sixty foot monster that's going to tear you to shreds?"
"...Yes."
The monster Sinclair called Jasper smashed down its claw into the pavement at their feet and sent them flying backwards. Venice was back on her feet in an instant, and rolled her eyes when Israel once again needed help getting up.
"We have to do this smartly," Venice said to Israel. "You shoot, I'll climb."
Israel grinned. "I'm good at shooting. But climbing? What're you climbing?"
"Ultimately- that," she replied, pointing to Jasper. Then she turned away from him and ran to a building on the side of the street. Israel quickly reloaded and then shot Jasper twice more in the chest, firing without really aiming properly this time. He reloaded and turned tail as the beast swung its claws once more, lumbering after him.
Venice reached the front of the best building she could find- a lot of footholds and one that matched her clothes at least a little bit. She tested the first foothold slowly, making sure the ledge above the door frame wouldn't let her down. The next spot she tested a little faster, and faster still when she got to the next. All the way until she was racing up the side of the building, reaching the top in only thirty odd seconds. She surveyed the scene below and realized Israel didn't seem to understand the rules of battle. His way of fighting Jasper was to run flat out in circles, firing pot-shots over his shoulder that almost all missed the large target.
She sighed. Her eyes focused on the reptilian creature beneath her and she backed up from the edge of the roof slowly. Then she sprinted forward and leaped, and for a split second she was flying, laughing her glee to the world, and then the monster's back came rushing up towards her and she flung her arms out to grab at it's scales, spikes, anything that would stop her from hitting the ground.
Venice's hands found a spine and she held on to it, the sudden jolt straining her arms. She saw another spine a bit further up and worked with the movement of Jasper's lumbering to swing upwards to it. She kept moving up like this until she was standing upright on its back, Sinclair in front of her but not facing her way. She crept along, but Sinclair turned at the last moment and saw her.
He smiled, and opened his mouth to speak. She smiled and sliced her dagger vertically across his chest.
He cried out and she pushed him behind her, no longer worrying about him. Then she was moving forward once more, standing on the head and kicking away the seat Sinclair had set up, staring at Jasper's weak-spot and hefting her knife above her head in a two handed grasp.
She plunged the knife into the lightly coloured brown spot and braced as the monster roared in pain. It blindly reached a clawed arm over its head to swat at her, but she held on grimly to the knife and ducked under its blows.
But it wouldn't die. The knife hadn't reached its brain, let alone the skull, and it couldn't do any more damage than it already had. She stood and saw Israel on the ground, reloading his shotgun and backing away from the raging beast at the same time.
"Israel!" she called, as Jasper tried to throw her off again. He looked up and waved, grinning. "Shotgun!" she yelled down to him.
He frowned and called back, casually sidestepping a swing from the beast. "What pun are we talking about here?"
She glared and he cocked his head to one side.
"Hey, what are you doing up there, anyway? Have you even tried to kill it yet? Never mind, take my shotgun and finish it!"
He threw the shotgun like a discus and it sailed towards her. She grabbed it from the air with her right hand and pressed both barrels into the light brown spot on Jasper's head.
"Go to hell, Ugly," she said, and sent two shells worth of buckshot into its head.
The beast roared one final time and reared its back, throwing Venice off and sending her to the ground. It stumbled and made a sad sound, then fell dead on the ground before her. She stood up and walked slowly past the smaller corpse of Sinclair, crushed underneath Jasper's huge arm. She approached its head in the following silence, moving as quietly as she could. It did not move when she neared, and its eyes remained closed.
"For the record," Israel whispered, suddenly beside her. "Your one-liner was no better than mine."

As mentioned earlier, this was going to be an extremly short fanfic, and proved itself to be. See, it didn't even have a proper eneding :P
In the end, Israel gave Venice a card with China's address on it as an apology for getting the library Venice had been reading at blown up earlier. Three years later, after spending way too much time at the library, Venice met Niall Montblanc. And the rest, you can read from her fanfic, here.
The point of this very, very small fanfic one shot was to try and fill in the massive gaps in the SP Blogger Timeline-thingy. It is a wonderful idea, and in turn I think Venice should now right a short story about how her character met another person. And so on, and so on, because to be honest we couldn't of all just met up in Ireland with Skulduggery and suddenly we're all friends. That would be far too silly.

I hope you enjoyed it! My World War Two fanfic will be resuming as soon as I complete the latest part. It might take a while, but you're just going to have to be good little followers/stalkers and wait.

Cya all soon! And Happy Halloween!

BUT WAIT- WHAT'S THIS? IT'S A VIDEO WITH BRIAN HOLDEN (Proffessor Lupin in AVPS, Junior in Starship) AS ONE OF THE CHARACTERS!

Yes, I know it's a short vid. I'm just busy, is all.

Hellboy's Blog

Friday, November 18, 2011

To the Fallen

Monday, November 14, 2011

:)

Friday, November 4, 2011

Venice Rain One Shot Fanfiction...thing...