Disclaimer: Hellboy characters do not belong to me, but all unrecognized characters do.

FlyingFish15: thank you so much for the first comment, truth be told it gave me the confidence to write more. I hope I can keep my story up to standards.

whitefang4ever: thank you and I will try.

amyltrer: thank you, the doctor is rather frustrating to write realistically (for me at least),

To the readers: thank you again for reading. knowing that someone out there is viewing this and not sending me hate mail in response brings me much happiness. now, what direction would you guys like this story to go? I would be interested in suggestions. thanks!

Chapter 2:

Peter was humiliated and for a man like Peter humiliation could be deadly. That woman was going to pay.

It wasn't like he had a problem with women, even with females in authority. But the fact that she had beaten him, had socially emasculated him; that was what had him boiling till his blood seemed frothy.

Then to add insult to injury, as if making him a lesson for the whole crew wasn't enough, as soon as they had dug up the mutant she had been reassigned.

Now she was babysitting the butchered up corpse and the team was doing underground camp jobs. Sure, some of the men had been relieved to finally find saner jobs but Peter had counted on the danger to win back his manhood.

Now he had to do it the old fashioned way.

With a .9mm shoved through the back of his jeans he approached one of the private medical tents.

He entered and saw Stahl talking with two other people next to the breathing cadaver. He would have to make this fast. His arm bent around his back to draw his pistol. He swung the gun around.

BANG!

Peter was confused, he hadn't pulled the trigger yet, he was sure. Fortunately his confusion didn't last long, mere milliseconds actually. Because before he could even ponder his dilemma he fell over quite dead on the stone floor.

"Sorry about that" said Ashton loudly as all their ears rang from the muzzle blast. She lowered her revolved and replaced it back into its holster.

After staring at the corpse in front of her with large eyes, Ihssan glanced over at Ashton. "Exactly what caliber was that?" she asked.

".22"

At Ihssan's continued look Ashton explained.

"It doesn't normally matter how big the bullet is, its how you aim"

The other standing occupant, a man of middling years, cocked an eyebrow.

"I shot him in the eye." She added.

Kroenen watched the whole exchange from the medical table. He wasn't impressed by any means but obviously the woman knew how to handle herself. Why, he hadn't even realized that she was armed.

The blond walked over to the body and relieved it of the pistol, hiding the gun somewhere under her white coat.

"We had better find someone to clean this up."

Before they departed, the Aryan-like woman taking the rear, she glanced over at him and seeing his mask turned toward her, she nodded at him. And then she was gone.

The assassin immediately began to work on his restraints. Vaguely he wondered why the woman was letting him continue releasing himself. She knew of his impending escape. As if anything they devised could hold him! Yet she never sounded an alarm.

Seeing that he could not find the answer within himself he let the question drop from his mind to be stored for later introspection. For now he had a date with a heavy canvas strap.

She prodded the wound with a scalpel, not being overly careful to be gentle. The man shifted under the knife. Kroenen had succeeded in freeing his arms completely. Yet he had not yet disappeared. Perhaps he was as curious about her as she was of him.

Self-flatter, she told herself internally.

The body beneath her had changed since its confinement. Stitches had disintegrated leaving only scars behind. Some muscle too had faded, but what was left held great promise.

Ashton knew she should have been afraid of the man lying before her, and indeed she was, but it was a distant thing. Like seeing a snake about to strike and only feeling calm detachment. Her scalpel blade pressed too hard on the tender skin, drawing liquid. A shudder ran through the man.

"So what are your plans for the future?" she asked as she applied alcohol to the small cut. He didn't answer her and she hadn't really expected him to.

She turned around to pick up some gauze and felt cool, sharp steel at her throat and a hand wrap hard fingers around her wrist.

She stiffened and froze, but was not really surprised. Apparently he hadn't been as contained as she had thought he still was. She swallowed and the blade's edge scraped her skin.

"The scalpel?"

"Of course," was his reply. He swung his legs off the table and stood up, urging her forward for room. Ashton heard the sheet fall to the floor. The man behind her nudged her forward again with a knee and a 'pardon me."

"I'm sorry for all this, but you must understand; it's completely necessary." Ashton wasn't in a position to argue.

They found Ashton unconscious on the ground and the Nazi assassin absent. An alarm was sounded but all but fools realized that the man was long gone. Her superiors blamed her naturally, so they gave her the impossible task of tracking him down.

As she bagged her few belongings she wondered how she was going to do just that. She wasn't foolish enough not to realize that he could kill her easily. In fact she was confused as to why he hadn't finished her when he escaped.

"Perhaps I should have gone ahead and gotten my doctorate."

"Liar" said Ihssan from the opposite side of the tent. "You are enjoying this too much."

Ashton grinned in agreement. Her pack was almost full.

"Why do you think he spared me?" she asked her friend quietly. Ihssan watched her pack her few belongings; some books, her weapons including a sniper rifle, and some other odds and ends.

"Who knows, maybe it wasn't worth the effort. Maybe he doesn't randomly kill absolutely everything he comes into contact with. Heck, maybe you confused him. You certainly have half the camp on its toes when you walk by." This said with a wicked expression.

"I'm going to miss you Ihssan" said Ashton as she embraced the smaller woman, "if I survive I'll write." This said only half jokingly. And then she left and the Persian woman was alone in the tent wondering if she would ever see Ashton alive again.

Such things were beyond her control of course, so she shrugged dark shoulders and walked back to her post.

Kroenen sat on a roof several miles from the graveyard, confident that none would spot him in the scant light. He was as still as a gargoyle and a barn cat jumped on the roof beside him and seemed unaware of his presence.

It was all gone. His gods would not answer his calls and he had not the power to call Rasputin back. So with all that he had worked to build in the world beyond reach, what was he to do?

His logically trained mind pondered the issue; turning is over in his head. Some ideas seemed too simple, some past comprehension, even to one such as him. At last he couldn't think of anything more fitting. The thought had traveled through his mind many times in his internment, yet now that he was free it seemed unfitting. But there it was.

Revenge.

But against who? He had no idea if those who had defeated him were even still alive and he wasn't one to attack ignorant descendents. There was no point to it. There was always the BPRD. The least he could do was to stop by and pay them a visit.

He sighed behind his mask and dropped his chin into his hand. The cat jumped into the air with a yowl and scrambled off the roof.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to regain my power first. I will not be unprepared.

If he had been capable of the action he would have smiled in satisfaction. There was time for revenge soon enough. He had a power structure to rebuild.

He glanced at one arm, seeming to see the scared flesh even though it was covered in the worn cloth of his suit. He also had some 'repairs' to do as well.

The beggar's body cooled rapidly in the air of the abandoned barn. Not Kroenen's ideal lab but at the moment it would have to do. The homeless drunkard hadn't lasted long and perhaps that was for the best, flailers tended to become annoying fast.

With a long suffering sigh he put down his scalpel and put his hands on his hips. His apron was covered in blood and other bodily fluids. That had been pointless. Of all the wretches that he could have pulled out of the gutter he had the fortune to have one with hemophilia.

"How did you ever survive this long?" he asked the dead man, his voice odd from having no lips to control the inflections. He felt muscles move in his face, the ghosts of expressions. With no lips or eyebrows though, they were doomed to silence.

No use wasting a perfectly good body. After all, there were some things you could only do with a corpse. He picked his scalpel back up.

Ashton sighed happily and put down her duffel bag. Home sweet home. She wondered where her roommates were. No matter, she would see them soon enough. Before she left again at least.

The clatter of china was heard in the kitchen and she walked around the wall that made the kitchen a separate 'room' from the rest of the house. She saw Bre and Ann happily eating ice-cream.

Bre was the first to see her, or more correctly, a dark clothed person walk seemingly out of thin air and into the kitchen. She drew a butcher knife from the drawer with all the ferocity of a Viking. Then she noticed who she was threatening and relaxed.

"I thought you were afraid of knives Bre."

"I am" she answered Ashton, "when anyone else is holding one."

Ashton threw back her head and laughed, finally able to relax since her whole ordeal had started. Who would ever have believed that this had begun only six months ago?

"So how did your trip go?" interjected Ann as she scooped another spoon of mint chocolate into her mouth.

"It's still going," she said dryly and begun to give them a much edited version of the event since she had left.

"…so that's when he apparently knocked me out and ran." The two other girls sat quietly as she concluded.

"So they blamed you" said Ann

"And are sending you out to get him, because they aren't willing to do it themselves." added Bre.

"That's the jest of it ladies. Though that isn't what is bothering me so much." The two lovers looked at her expectantly.

"I want to know why, I mean not so much about his current actions, but what…well to explain, he was a …masochist of sort and he…enjoyed cutting himself." The girls nodded, self mutilation was not so rare nowadays.

"I just don't understand why he did it. The closest thing I can think of by comparison is when I periodically peeled all of the skin off my hands when I was little. But that's different, it usually didn't hurt." She put her chin in her hands in a huff, frustrated with her questions, not even noticing the surprised expressions on her friend's faces.

"Some people are just different Ash," said Bre gently, "you don't know what is going on inside their minds."

Ashton nodded her agreement. "But why, what does he see?"

"What was the reason?"