For those of you who have this story on your New Chapter alerts I apologize. As you can see, this is not a new chapter. I realize that things are moving a bit too fast, and I need to slow everything down. Instead of adding the next chapter, I am going to revise the chapters I already have and repost them. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but hopefully my story will be better for it. Thank you all for reading my story, and I hope you will like the newer version.

~Zarakisgirl35~

The guys behind me made the first move. They both grabbed one of my arms and pulled me back, causing me to stumble and fall into them.

"Stop!" I cried out. "Let go of me!" The sun had already set hours ago, so the streets were pretty much deserted, meaning there was no hope of someone coming to my rescue. Meanwhile, the guy that had called me Sweet Cheeks was advancing toward me, a knife in his hands.

"No one's gonna help ya, Sweetie," he said maliciously, putting the knife to my throat.

I just spat at him. "I don't need someone to come save me," I snapped. "What do you want with me, Rat?" I asked.

The guy narrowed his eyes. "We're going to sell you at the Troll Market," he sneered. "And judging from your lack of surprise, you know exactly what I'm talking about."

I tried to school my face into a mask of indifference, as I thought of a way to get out of this. There were stories of humans who were taken to the Troll Market to be sold as slaves. But they were only stories. The BPRD had never found any real evidence to support the stories though.

"If you play nice," the rat with the knife said, "then I won't have to ruin that pretty little face of yours." The creep stepped close enough to me so that I could smell his rank breath. Holding back a gag I took advantage of the opportunity given to me.

Using the two rats holding on to my arms as support, I raised my feet to kick the guy in front of me with as much force as I could muster. Luckily for me, not only did I manage to knock the rat with the knife to the ground, but the two rats holding my arms loosened their hold enough for me to break free.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a glint of light on the ground. It wasn't that hard to figure out that it was the knife that had been at my throat only moments before. Quickly, before the demons could figure out what I was doing, I dropped to my knees and scooped up the knife.

I stood up and turned to face the four rats, but I came up short when I realized there was now a gun aimed straight at my head.

"Drop the knife!" The rat in red commanded. His hand was shaking pretty badly, but we were at a distance to where it would be kind of hard to miss me.

I dropped the knife like he ordered and held my hands up to show that I meant that I posed no threat. I was so focused on the gun in front of me that I didn't notice when someone else entered the alleyway.

"Let her go," the stranger said in a firm, commanding voice. It was vaguely familiar, but I couldn't remember where I had heard it before.

All four rats turned around to face the newcomer, but the rat who had been holding the knife was the one who spoke up. "What if we don't want to?" he asked.

The man shrugged one broad shoulder. "Then I guess I'll have to kill you." It was quick. To my human eyes, it had appeared that he had only shifted slightly to the left, but the rat fell to the ground in a puddle of his own blood. "Who's next?" the man asked and I could hear the smirk in his voice.

The other three rats that had been surrounding me took off running, not even bothering to pick up their fallen comrade.

I dusted myself off before looking up at my savior. He had moved further into the alleyway, so I could see him better, and I nearly growled at the sight of him. It was Prince Nuada.

"You!" I cried out, pointing a finger at him. "What are you doing here!"

"Now, is that any way to treat the man who just saved your life?" he asked raising one of his eyebrows, which, for whatever reason made me extremely jealous on top of angry (I am completely incapable of raising a single eyebrow at a time, so the fact that other people can do it makes me jealous).

"It is if the man in question also tried to kill me yesterday!" I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest in defiance. "What are you doing here anyway? Why did you save me?"

"As to your first question," Nuada said, "that is none of your business. And for your second question, I do not agree with slave trading." He gave me a once over and it was hard to miss the scorn in his golden eyes. "Even if it is only a pathetic human."

"You don't even know me," I hissed angrily. "And I didn't even need your help! I was doing perfectly fine all on my own!"

Prince Nuada scoffed and crossed his arms over his impressively broad chest. "You were clearly outnumbered and being held at gun point. How does any of that translate into being perfectly fine?"

I stuck my chin out stubbornly, sure that I looked like a petulant child. "I was doing perfectly fine," I reiterated.

Nuada sighed, turning around and walking back out onto the streets. Apparently he was done with this conversation.

"Hey!" I called after him, "wait up!"

"Why are you following me, human?" he asked when I caught up with him.

I shrugged again. "I don't have anything else to do, and I want to talk to you about yesterday." I shoved my hands into my jean pockets and tried to match my stride to his. Because of our height difference, (6'3" to 5'1") for every step he took, I had to take three. "Plus," I said, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer or some such nonsense."

Nuada sighed again, but didn't outright object. "Perhaps I shouldn't have saved you," he muttered darkly.

"Yeah," I said with a laugh. "That was bad on your part. I mean, who saves their enemy from certain death? You're like the worst villain in the history of villains!"

"Who says I'm the villain?" Nuada asked looking down at me. "From where I stand it is you who is the villain."

I thought about it. "I guess there really is no such thing as a villain," I said. "Because we both think that what we're doing is right." I looked at him. "What are you doing, anyway? I mean, you must have a reason for taking that crown piece."

Nuada looked like he was struggling with himself on whether or not to answer me, but apparently he came to a conclusion, because he asked, "What do you know about the Golden Army?"

My eyebrows rose. "You mean the Golden Army? The one that King Balor had commissioned to fight the humans?"

Nuada nodded. "Yes."

Understanding was dawning on me. Prince Nuada wanted the crown piece because he wanted to awaken the army. But what was he going to use the army on?

Before I could ask anything else, a small two-headed creature interrupted us. Nuada said something in a weird language and the creature answered back. I don't know exactly what was said, but Nuada did not look happy about it.

I waited until the creature left before I began questioning Nuada. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"A friend of mine was just murdered by a red man," Nuada said in a low voice. His fists were clenching and unclenching in uncontrolled anger.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to know who the red man was. "Oh, God," I said. "Red." Somehow Hellboy had managed to kill someone important to the Elvish Prince.

Nuada looked at me, anger clear in his golden eyes. "You know who did this?" he demanded.

I scowled, moving back a step. "Maybe," I hedged. If Hellboy was in fact the culprit, then he must have had a good reason for what he had done.

Nuada lashed out quickly, grabbing my upper arm in a vise-like grip. "Tell me who it was!"

"Let go of me," I said calmly through gritted teeth. His grip hurt like Hell, but I didn't want him to know that.

"Who. Was. It?" He asked.

"Hellboy," I said quietly.

Nuada's eyes hardened. "Come with me." Nuada began dragging me along behind him, moving at a quick pace.

"Ow!" I yelped as I nearly fell from how fast we were moving. The grip he had on my arm was almost unbearably hard. "You're hurting me!"

Nuada ignored me and continued on. About five minutes later, we were standing in what looked like a meat packing factory.

"What are we…," I trailed off as I noticed Hellboy, Abe, a guy in what looked like a scuba suit, and a blonde woman in a blue dress. "Red," I whispered.

"You!" Nuada called out, causing Hellboy and the others to turn our way. "You will pay for what happened to my friend down there," he said angrily. He still had a hold on my arm, but I was positioned mainly behind him.

"Do you take checks?" Hellboy asked, cocky as ever. From what I could tell he was now pointing his large gun at Prince Nuada.

Nuada chuckled and dragged me forward. "Not so fast, Demon," he said. "I have something that belongs to you."