"Would you please clean up the achieves?"

That day had begun strangely. There was no reason why Doc should have ordered to the top agent, not to mention the only werewolf of the battalion, to clean achieves which had been ignored in the last fifty years.

Anyway Captain Hans Gunsche was not going to question that command, nor any other. If he had to do a janitor's job, then there had to be a reason.

oOOo

So he had been working in there for at least three hours, between the dust of the ages, when something got his attention.

It was an old photo album, with consumed edges and yellowed pages, which seemed to crumble under every touch. The date on it was 1943/44.

The last months in Germany. Those months.

He pondered whether it was a good idea to look in it, to bring back those memories. The escape, the fights, all that was bad, sure, but....

That couldn't hurt him. It was another memory he didn't want to remember.

But after all, it was so many years before. It couldn't cause him any more pain...

Slowly, considering every single move, he opened that forsaken memory; he started from the last pages, where at least he knew there was nothing so.... terrible.

The last picture was of Doc boarding the plane which had brought them in Brazil; he was raspberry-ing, below it was written "this is for you, Alucard".

Hans turned a few pages, returning to the previous events... here was the Major shaking hands with a certain priest, here their headquarters being abandoned.... and here it was him, Hans, on that train which brought them out of Berlin, with Rip at his side.... she was wearing Hans' hat and sleeping with her head on his shoulder.....

Yes. But that was the wrong period. Surely there was an album of the year before..... but did he really want to find it?

Yes. He had decided to face once again what had happened, no turning back now. And it had begun in 1942, when Millennium had started to recruit its soldiers. Hans opened that year's album and immediately found that picture, that image which had been printed in his memory for all the years to come. His memory returned to the time pictured in that sepia image.

oOOo

He had already spent almost a year in the battalion, a year of continuous experiments performed on him by the mad doctor. That man didn't seem to even understand the meaning of suffering; his three-lensed glasses covered an expression which didn't change no matter if he was cutting a steak or the skin of a living man. His endless admiration for the Major was the only feeling which could alter his impassiveness. The only thing the werewolf liked about him was the cat he always carried with himself, a black, cute animal called Schrödinger.

Anyway, that evening of so many years before, Major Max Montana announced they had gathered some fresh recruits to be trained as invincible soldiers. Until then, Millennium had been devoted only to scientific experiments and it had few members, mainly scientist and lab-rats. Seeing some new faces was a pleasure for most of them.

Some of these recruits came directly from the SS or the Gestapo, the classical best-in-class soldiers with no experience out of their academy, but others were more interesting. As the Major affirmed, they had been chosen based on their sadism and to lack of morality, and probably, Hans though looking at them, also on some twisted aesthetic sense.

oOOo

Or at least he thought so until he met that gaze. Even in that old, crumbling picture, he couldn't help but recognizing the moment that would've haunted him for the years to come.

oOOo

Her looks weren't very different after all, even though she was much younger. Sure, maybe she was a little softer, and her face didn't have that stubborn and proud expression, but still....

Soldier Zorin Blitz. Blitz means flash.... and it was like a flash seeing her, like some memory long forgotten but now clear, as if something he had to know was written in those letters that covered half of her face.

Right then, she seemed discomforted, out of place, a look she'd never wear again for a long time after joining Millennium, it made her look less like a monster and more like a child.

All the others weren't very calm as well- and it couldn't be otherwise, with the Major ranting about war and destruction. Luckily he seemed about to finish.

"...and this is why, in this glorious day for our battalion, we openly greet all of you! You will have a chance to die in glory, and even though your scattered remains might lie on a battlefield, tormented by ravens and chewed by rabid dogs, the war that pushes our hearts..."

False alarm. He wasn't finishing at all.

Hans lain back on the chair, not even trying to listen. He looked around, pretending to himself he wasn't interested to anything in particular.

But he felt some special bond with her, something he had acquired in a second, unnatural yet beautiful.

The doctors around him were discussing who would take which recruit.... it wasn't the first time it happened, but the werewolf felt now there was something wrong in considering them like livestock, even though he had been considered like that....

Maybe even less, to them he was just an interesting item.... but did those poor guys deserve it?

Did she?

Max Montana reached somehow a end to his speech, to the relief of everyone. Some of the scientist went fetching their pick, again treating them like livestock. Hans saw his own Doc, Napyeer, going too, followed by the ever-present kitten.

I hope he won't take her. I'd wish nobody to be at Doc's disposal....

Inside himself he couldn't suffocate the wish of getting to know her... even if that meant to deliver her to that madman.

Maybe it was a coincidence.

Maybe not.

Maybe Doc chose her because he thought she could be useful, or maybe he had noticed Hans' reaction.

All of these hypothesis agitated in the werewolf's head while he followed Doc to his lab, with Zorin at his side.

"We have a great deal to do, my dear companions" Doc started to speak while he petted the cat "and now that we have a new agent.... I think we might move on to more interesting tasks." He laughed, before continuing "I don't know what level of training is our soldier.... Blitz, isn't it? But I think a mission on the field could be a good test. Besides, I can't wait to see.... her."

Her? Who is he speaking about?

"Yes, indeed, we might be off tomorrow.... Take tonight to prepare, fledglings." He pointed at Hans' room, before disappearing in his lab with Schrödinger on his shoulders.

Hans and Zorin stared at each other for a few seconds. Then she offered to shake hands.
"My name is Zorin... and you are?"

Hans pointed at his mouth nodding no, hoping she'd understand.

"Oh, you're mute? It means I'll have to do conversation for both then."

He felt relieved... it had been a long time since anyone tried to speak with him.

"So, you've been here for a while, didn't you? I haven't precisely volunteered to join this battalion... actually they threatened me to join or die."

?

"Yeah, well, I had some... problems with the law. But I'd rather not speak of it."

Then why would you mention it?

"So I joined this... battalion... thing... anyway that mad scientist is your boss, isn't he?"

Yes.

"He seems creepy... and that cat... that's really strange."

While she spoke, Hans tried to read her tattoos. She noticed.

"Ah, right, that's.... a thing I can't live without. It's all the things I believe in... or the phrases I like... or just words. Sooner or later I'll complete it."

Complete?

"Yeah, now it's only on the face, but when it's done it will be half of my whole body. Although... I hope your superiors will let me."

I hope you live long enough to.

"So, is your room this way? Am I supposed to sleep there too?"

Come with me.

"Seeing the way they treat us here, I'd not be surprised if it was a dog's house!"

You have no idea....