The storm was fierce, in his more lucid moments Hades wondered, more than once, if it would have been better to face the FSB, but then reality sank in. He would not be in any condition to escape again. At least he took comfort in the fact that they did not know who he really was. If they even suspected he was The Hades, well he would have been locked in solitary confinement in the super max wing and interrogated until they eventually bled him dry. No attempting the crossing was the right choice, the timing however, well that had been forced.

For the past few months Hades had been hunting and trekking his way across Siberia, taking a route that the Indians of old had taken, all the while evading the FSB and soldiers. He had made it all they was to the Bering Straight and managed to procure a sealskin kayak. It was then that the soldiers had caught up with him and he had barely gotten away. He had taken three gun shots to the chest and one of his lungs was slowly deflating. Still he had somehow managed to launch and get away, only to run into one of the fierce storms that are so common in that part of the sea. To make things worse the serum that kept his power suppressed seemed to be malfunctioning. He would go to pick up the ore and would have to try two or three times as his hand would randomly phase through the ore instead of picking it up. Still he supposed that he had the storm to thank as with the rain and waves he seemed to have lost the pursuit boats.

The storm rages on with no signs of abating, yet Hades could feel even his great endurance and strength being sapped by his wounds and from simple exhaustion from battling the elements. There, he caught sight of the shore line. He was so close. He gritted his teeth, and dug deep. Through sheer force of will and stubborn determination he put on a burst of strength and managed to make it.

He was ashore and alive, barely. He managed to have the presence of mind to push the boat out to sea and watch it get carried away before stumbling under the cover of a rocky outcrop and blacking out.

Hades came to, the storm had stopped, the world was blurry. He heard a sound, turned and reached for his knife, leaving the bow where it lay beside him. The hand holding the knife chose then to phase and the knife fell. He caught it in his other hand and flipped it in one smooth motion holding the knife underhand.

"Who goes there?" he managed to croak before blacking out again. The last thing he remembered feeling was a blurry shadow moving into his fiend of view, then he knew no more.

Amber wasn't sure how long she had been living in the woods.  A long time.  Months, certainly, maybe longer.  She had begun her self-imposed exile when her pack had disappeared, abandoned her for another life, maybe, or someone they found to be more useful than herself. With them gone, there was nothing holding her to the human human world except pain and loneliness and so she left it behind.  She was something all together different than human, all together.  Half dead and half dinosaur, creature of the wild, what need did she have of it?

She knew she'd been making her way steadily north and west, hunting for prey as a deinonychus.  There was no final destination, no real purpose to the direction save to get as far away as she could of the city that had caused so much grief.  Staying as far away from human civilization as she could, she mostly subsisted upon wild animals like deer, wild dogs, raccoons and other creatures.  Occasionally she would raid a campsite for food but mostly she relied upon her own proficiency as a hunter and everything about the body she wore spoke of being born to hunt.  Fast and agile with superb senses, nothing in this era had ever encountered something like her.

As she moved north, the weather got steadily colder, even with her resistance to cold.  At night, she'd fashion herself a den to keep warm and during the day she'd keep moving.  Sometimes she'd stay in a given area for a day, sometimes for a couple of weeks.  There was nothing to dictate her actions except her own whims and desires.  If not for the crushing loneliness, it was a life she might be able to live indefinitely.  What need did she have of others, anyway, when she could achieve all her basic needs herself.

On that particular day, a terrible storm ravaged the area and she emerged from the relative warmth and safety of her den later than usual.  She was hungry and needed to find something to hunt and eat.  This far north, it was becoming more difficult to find prey; it was, perhaps, time to start moving south again.  The cold was also becoming ever more problematic.

"Who goes there?"

And then there was a man lying prone and possibly dying in the snow.  She approached cautiously, letting out a trilling chirp.  Sniffing at the man lying before her, she could tell by his body heat and the sound of his breathing that he was still alive, although obviously in bad shape.  What she was supposed to do with a dying man in the snow in the middle of nowhere she had no idea.  Its not like she had medical knowledge or any supplies with her at all, not even so much as a blanket to keep him warm.

The first step was to construct some sort of den or makeshift shelter to keep warm in and this, at least, she had experience with.  Utilizing her different forms to the best of their abilities, she made a sort of make-shift igloo around the man's body, padding it with any grasses and leaves she was able to gather and making it large enough for both of them to fit inside.  Next she went hunting and managed to find herself an arctic hare.  Of course, she had no knowledge of how to start a fire in order to cook the creature and knew that humans typically did not eat raw meat, but at least it was a start.  

Once food and shelter was taken care of, she returned the the makeshift shelter and returned to human form, sitting near the entrance.  Inside, it was warm enough that her lack of clothing didn't bother her, although most humans would still find it very cold.  Outside was a different matter and even with her resistance, it was better to remain inside the shelter.  If the stranger, if he ever awoke, had any problem with her being naked, that would be his problem to deal with; it wasn't as if she had anything with her to solve that problem.

Hades slowly came too. His body ached, and he felt mostly spend, but strangely warm. He was either suffering from hypothermia or the temperature had gotten warmer for some reason. He did not move, his breathing pattern did not change but he did a check of himself. His breathing was heavy but not fully impaired. One of his lungs was probably nicked. As long as he could stay away from really vigorous activity like getting shot at or getting beaten to a pulp he should pull through OK. The salt water had been good for his wounds. Preventing infection and the cold had helped them clot. He would have to clean them and ensure that they were not infected as well as check that the bullets had not logged inside. He thought that all the shots were through and through but that was in the heat of the battle, where the main objective was to escape and stay alive by any means necessary.

Slowly he opened his eyes and blinked in the light. As far as he could tell he lay where he fell and yet there was a makeshift shelter over him. It was... crude but undeniably effective. Living off the land and hunting over a 5-6 month period had honed Hades senses. He knew how to listen. He noticed that there was someone inside the...Igloo? with him. As he slowly brought himself fully awake without moving he began to notice more details. There were claw marks in the shelter. Some beast had built it, more than one judging by the difference in sizes, spacing and length of claw marks. Slowly he turned his head to see who was with him.

He beheld an.... interesting sight. She, it was a she, was sitting with her back to him, watching the entrance. She was naked, that fact bothered Hades not in the slightest. Over the course of his bi-millennial life, Hades has seen much, a naked woman did not phase him in the slightest. He remembered a past mission where he had to carry out an assassination in a nudist colony, smuggling weapons in had been interesting. The next thing that struck him was that her hair was completely white, as he noted that fact more details came into focus, the pail almost sickly skin tone, the resemblance to a mummified corpse, the very visible vibrant blue veins, the fact that she sat close to the entrance but not in the light. Some sort of aversion to light perhaps?

Turning his head slowly and wincing at the stab of pain, he probably had a mild concussion, he noticed the dead hare. Slowly he propped himself up. He located his water skin, which still miraculously had some water in it, took a small sip and managed to summon enough breath to say one word. "Wood".  That was enough to exhaust him. Once he had wood he could build a fire, both to cook and smoke the meat and to sterilize the knife for any cauterizing work that might need doing once he started to clean his wounds.

He set about slowly taking of his clothes so he could examine his chest. The light shone upon his scars. He had accumulated many over the years, each one a memory. He still had some smoked meat left so he nibbled on that , just a little at a time. He held some out to the woman, to tired to say much.

It was irony that Amber had spent months living on her own in the wild and yet didn't really know the first thing about surviving in the wild as a human.  She knew basic shelter making, at least in so far as a dinosaur could make and might need a shelter.  She was a damn good hunter because she had all the natural advantages that no normal human possessed.  She knew some things about how to find water, although she'd mostly lived in temperate arboreal environments and finding water wasn't especially difficult in those circumstances.  Beyond that, though?  Not a lot.  Certainly not a lot about making and maintaining a fire, especially given that the cold rarely bothered her.  Nor did she know much about healing wounds, given that what counted as a severe wound for most humans wasn't exactly that for her.  This stranger would have been much better off had he stumbled upon someone more equipped to help than she.

She wasn't sure how long the stranger remained unconscious although it was definitely at least a few hours.  What little she knew about health reassured her that he at least seemed to be breathing evenly and his heartbeat was strong and steady so he probably wasn't dying.  She could scent blood on him when she inhabited one of her non-human bodies but he didn't appear to have any seriously bleeding wounds.  Mostly, the blood smelt stale.  It was impossible to tell how much of the stale blood was his and how much belonged to others, if any at all.

"Wood"

She heard when the man started to come to wakefulness and nodded at the request before exiting the shelter.  Cold though their current environment might be, it was also filled with trees, almost completely untouched by human hands.  Finding a handful of larger limbs on the ground as well as a couple armfuls of smaller branches, she made several trips in order to gather what was needed.  Hopefully he had some knowledge on how to start a fire because she was unlikely to be much help in that regard.  

She returned from her last journey outside and returned to find that the stranger had taken off some of his clothes in order to examine his injuries.  It was an impressive array of scars he had accumulated.  She sat back down and accepted the jerky with a nod of thanks.  "I've gathered some wood.  I'm sorry I don't know much about starting a fire.  I've never needed to learn."  It had been months since she'd spoken human words and the felt awkward on her lips.

The woman heard his request and promptly left. She was an odd one, although Hades would never be so naive as to classify himself ans anything remotely normal. Having spent so long tracking and living off the land, Hades had immediately surmised that she was a mutant. Chances were that she was either a shape-shifter or one who could resurrect creatures of centuries past. Regardless she seemed more of an ally than a threat so far.

He finished removing his shirt, all the while carefully checking for additional injuries.
He found bruises and perhaps a cracked rib but nothing life threatening. He still had three gunshot wounds but they appeared to have stopped bleeding and until he had a fire going and had some water he was not going to touch them. Lastly he still needed to see a healer to get rind of whatever was suppressing his mutation.

Hades rose slowly, wincing at the pain and stiffness. There was a stream nearby which he used to fill his water skins. By the time he returned, the woman had returned with wood.

> "I've gathered some wood. I'm sorry I don't know much about starting a fire. I've never needed to learn."

Hades nodded gratefully and spared her a small smile. Her words spoke of a mutant who relied heavily on their powers. That in itself was not a bad thing. Although Hades tended to ensure that he was just as lethal and functional with or without his mutations, but then again that could be part and parcel of being an assassin. From the way she spoke it was almost as if she had fallen out of the habit of using the English language. A loner perhaps.

"Thank you for the wood and meat. I will get a fire going. I am Hades."

He said as he worked calmly but efficiently. His actions were slower, hampered by his injuries. But the smooth and efficient way he set about his tasks belied the extensive practice he had.

Soon he had a small almost smokeless fire going. One of the branches the Woman had brought was mostly hollow so Hades fashioned a cup with which to boil water with. He also expertly skinned the hare. He scrapped the skin to be used for later, saved the guts for string and set about making a stew with the last of the herbs that he had with him. He would have to gather more tomorrow. He fashioned one more bowl and offered her some stew, then sat by the fire enjoying the food and enjoying the peace and quiet. Once the meal was over he would set to the messy and painful yet necessary task of tending to his wounds properly.

Amber felt oddly helpless and that was not a usual situation for her.  Having spent months in the woods alone and, before that, having worked with Aura on numerous missions, she'd never realized her profound lack of knowledge in some arenas.  At was an awakening, of sorts, that perhaps she had far too much reliance upon her powers and should, perhaps, begin to learn survival skills in case she didn't have access to her non-human forms.  It was an unexpected realization that, for all her proficients hunting, gathering and otherwise thriving in the wild, without access to her powers she would have been dead.  

"You're welcome.  My name is Amber."  How long would it take for words be begin feeling natural on her tongue again?  A long time, as she recalled from the last time she'd been lost in the woods.  Of course, that time was different.  That time she had lost herself completely to the dinosaur she had become, forgetting all shreds of her human self and becoming the prehistoric hunter in mind as well as body.  It was one of the most traumatic experiences she had ever been through and not one she cared to repeat.  This time, at least, to leave had been her own choice and throughout it all she remembered herself.  

She wondered at the stranger's story, how he had come to be here and how he had come to be so injured. She wondered at his relative comfort with her, a walking corpse in the middle of frigid Alaska.  Even in present circumstances, she was all too aware that most would not react so kindly towards her.  Those were his stories to tell if he chose too, however, and she didn't ask.

As Hades worked, Amber watched his actions carefully and if asked, was prepared to silently assist in any way that was needed.  Now aware of where she lacked certain skills, she wasn't about to allow those skills to remain lacking for long.  Always a quick learner, she vowed to acquire such skills as might one day be needed.

>"You're welcome. My name is Amber."

Hades nodded and responded with a small smile. No more words were required. The voice was pleasant but Hades had the distinct impression that the mouth that uttered those words found them... slightly foreign. It was almost as if the naked woman in front of him was something like a shape shifter (which would explain the claw marks on the shelter they were currently sharing) and had spent too much time in non-human form. She could equally be a mutant who communicates to animals and or raises them (also explaining the marks on the shelter and had spent too much time communing with said constructs/animals. It did not matter, communication was unhindered and if she chose to share more about herself Hades would welcome that but he would not push or pry. He respected her privacy and she seemed to respect his. He actually liked it that she did not speak much or flood him with questions. He had just spend over half a year in solitude with only the trees, the mountains and nature as his company, he would have found a voluble companion extremely irritating.

He noted her watching his actions as if she wanted to learn. If she wanted to he would explain. He would happily share knowledge that he had. This person may well have saved his life. In Hades world that was a deed soon forgotten. Hades stirred. The time for relaxing was over. Now came the time for the painful part. He rinsed out his makeshift bowl and using some water and the but of his knife he mashed some herbs to form a paste. The salve would help prevent infection and speed healing. Again it was an old Navajoes Indian recipe.

Hades took a deep breath then turned to Amber.

"Amber I need to ask a favor of you. I need you to check my back. I was shot three times, two of them are through and through, as far as I can tell. I need you to confirm that and see if the wounds are inflamed. Finally I need you to check if there is a third exit wound on my back."

To his relief, she once again complied with a minimum of words.

According to Amber, two of his wounds were healing nicely and there was not third exit wound. Hades heart sank a little. He could not afford to leave the bullet in there, especially not so close to his lung. He took a moment to gather his thoughts then spoke. He hated asking so much of one whom he had just met and knew so little of but there was no one else. Once the deed had been done he would explain the situation to her. If he survived. If he did not, well there was no point. Time was also of the essence. The people who perused Hades could not be too far behind. Hades would have to move tomorrow one way or another. He would understand if she chose to travel with him or leave. The choice was hers and Hades would respect it.

"I apologize for this but I must ask for your help. This needs to be done in sequence and a mistake could kill me. I dislike asking so much but there is no one else. In this wound.." He pointed to the wound on his upper right of his chest. "..Is a bullet that is very close to my lung and needs to be removed. I plan to sterilize the blade in fire and then I need to ask you to dig it out without nicking my lung. Once that is done I need you to hold me down and keep me from moving while I cauterize the wound. Can you do this?"

"Take as much time as you need to prepare yourself." There could be no room for error, no mistakes. This was going to hurt, it was going to be a challenge not to pass out. He could not afford that. If he did not cauterize the wound fast enough he would bleed out in minutes or less. He grabbed a smoothed shot stick and placed it in his mouth to bite down on and took a small stone in each hand to clench around then nodded to Amber. When ever she was ready.

As she watched Hades' actions, she rarely spoke but did make her interest known in other ways.  She circled as he worked, striving to get the best vantage point to see what he was doing and commit it to memory.  Every so often she'd vocalize a question, actively absorbing any knowledge he chose to import to her.  To be speaking to another human being again felt awkward and foreign, but as the hours slowly moved forwards, it became more comfortable.  She was a mutant of two worlds and two minds, one of which would forever belong to the world of nature and hunters and dinosaurs and other which belonged to the world of humans and mutants.  That second world had been deeply neglected as of late.

Then came the time for his wounds to be tended to.  As requested, she examined his back and reported seeing two exit wounds that appeared to be healing well but no third exit wound.  She'd never actually been shot herself but it wasn't the kind of thing one needed to experience in order to have some idea of how horrible it must be.   It wasn't always for lack of trying as she and Aura had gotten into a few incidences where being shot had been a very real possibility.  While she mostly lacked much information on anatomy, she could well imagine that one didn't want a bullet to remain inside their body.

"I have never done something like this before."  It was better to be honest even when the answers probably weren't the one's he wanted to hear.  "But I am willing to do this and I have a steady hand."  It also probably didn't hurt that she had no squeamishness when it came to blood.  As a hunter, every time she killed there was blood.  As a visible mutant, more than once she'd been forced to defend herself and in defending, caused her assailants to bleed.  Blood was a part of life.

"Whenever you're ready for this, so am I."  She didn't let her nervousness over making a mistake and ending his life enter her expression and did her best to push it out of her mind.  It was one thing to kill for food, it was quite another to cause a death through dumb incompetence and especially to cause a death of someone who had been kind to her.  There would be no mistakes.

>"I have never done something like this before. But I am willing to do this and I have a steady hand."

Her answer did nothing to reassure him but it needed to be done and Hades could not do it. Hades heated the blade in the fire. It was one of the two knives that he had stolen from the prison. They were excellent knives. Once the knife had cooled, Hades bit down on a piece of tanned hide and nodded to her.

He closed his eyes and exerted every ounce of self control that he had accumulated in him from his two millennia plus existence. He heard her move then pain lanced through him. He fought to keep the muscles in his chest from tightening, they would only make the pain, and bleeding worse. Over and over pain ripped through him. Hades shook with the effort but did not tense his chest muscles. He shook with the effort, sweat dripped off him. It felt like Amber was excavating a cave in his chest or was she just poking around trying to find the bullet. He heard a noise then saw a small blood covered lump fall to the floor. He almost passed out with the pain, but he gritted his teeth and mentally slapped himself awake.

Amber handed him the knife and came round behind him. bracing herself against him. Time was off the essence. Hades quickly rinsed the knife and heated it to sterilize it. Then before he could have second thoughts he applied the hot blade to his wounds. He shook, and jerked and spasmed as the smell of singed flesh seemed to fill the air. It was done, the bleeding had been stopped. Then he passed out.

He awoke later to find that Amber had indeed listened and been attentive to him. He awoke to find that his wounds had been wrapped as best possible and salve applied to them. The cool of the salve was a welcome feeling. Hades slowly levered himself up so he was slumped against the wall but at least in a semi upright position.

Once he could speak his first words were "Thank you, you may well have saved my life."
He drank, cool refreshing water, nibbled on some smoked meat, gathered his strength and then began.

It was right for her to know. For her to be able to choose. If she chose to leave him alone he would understand and not think any less of her for it.

"Many months ago I was part of a covert operation" She did not need to know whom he had been working for. "As we were flying over Russia, our plane was shot down and we were taken prisoner." Hades remembered the sounds, the explosion. It was only by phasing that he had survived impact. Many did not. "We were tortured for information." That explained some of the scars on Hades body, not all. Even the infamous Russian prisons could not claim to have inflicted all the scars that Hades had accumulated over the years. Hades examined himself. He was lean, fit, wiry. He moved with a fluid deadly grace, like the predator that he was. He observed that Amber seemed to move with a similar grace, yet at the same time as if she was not used to her human body. "Some of us broke free and fled, scattering in all directions. the cities were watched so I walked to the shore and kayaked across." Walked, that was a word that contained so much. He had hiked hundreds of miles, lived off the land, hunted and trapped to survive, all the while waging a gorilla war against those out to hunt him. He had cost them many many lives. "I fear they still hunt me, eager for the secrets that believe I hold." Hades did not mention what secrets or indeed if he had them or not. "They will follow, I stayed to regain strength and heal, but I should move on tomorrow." He estimated the time it would take for them to regroup and then find the right weather to cross. It was night. Four maybe five hours till dawn. By then he should be moving. To delay any longer would be folly. "To be found with me would be dangerous." Hades did not say more. The question and choice was implicit.

He waited for her reply while he checked himself over. He discovered that if he held his bow parallel to the ground he could still fire it with a minimum of pain. That would allow him short range shots. To try to draw the bow fully would not work and would likely reopen his wounds. So long range shots were out. He would have to evade. He was confident that he would be fully functional in 4-5 days. Not fully healed but able to fully draw his bow without re-injuring himself. So till then if he was on his own he would have to escape and evade.

He turned to the naked woman who had so recently saved his life.

There was something about being responsible for the life of a person, where one mistake could be the difference between survival and death.  She'd killed before, of course.  Mostly animals but at least one human had died by her teeth and her claws.  This was different.  This was the preservation of life rather than the ending of it and the distinction was important.  Could she ever be something that helped preserve life rather than destroy it?  Perhaps this would answer that question.

The blade was heated, allowed to cool and then  passed to her.  With a deep and steadying breath, she began cutting.  The self control that Hades showed in remaining still as the hot knife slowly cut the bullet out was nothing short of amazing and, perhaps, almost supernatural.  With all her own experiences with the pain that exploded through her every time she changed shapes, Amber wasn't certain that she'd have been able to remain so still.  Slowly, every so slowly, she made progress until finally the tiny blood stained bullet fell to the ground.

Her her part done, she watched as Hades took the heated blade to his own wound, cauterizing the flesh and stopping the bleeding. When he passed out, it was of no surprise and she took the time to apply a salve to his wounds and wrap them.  If the wrapping wasn't as clean as his own might have been, it was competently done.  Even if she was inexperienced, she was a quick study.

Once wrapped, it was her turn to get some sleep.  First, she changed into a deinonychus, both because the feathers provided some insulation and because its senses would far better alert of of potential danger even if she was asleep.  She curled up by the door and napped.  Even if she hadn't been the one injured, the stresses of the situation were exhausting and rest was needed.

"Thank you, you may well have saved my life."

His movements woke her and it only took her a moment to resume her human form.  Hopefully the pretense of a dinosaur hadn't been too startling.  "I am happy you survived."  

As Hades described some of the events that had brought him there and explained that he was dangerous to be around, she mostly remained silent and attentive to his words.  What his secrets might be she didn't much care and didn't think to ask.  If he felt the need to speak of them he would, otherwise she was content with his silence.  There was a time, when she still lived among humans, that they might have mattered.  That time, however, seemed like ages ago. 

"I'm not afraid.  You aren't going to make it on your own, at least not yet.  Let me come with you.  I can fight, I can hunt and I can kill, if need be.  What would be the point of saving your life just to have you die out there, in the ice and snow?  If you have the tools to function some kind of makeshift saddle, at least until we get closer to civilization, I can change shape and you and ride me.  We'd move faster than walking on foot."  Aura had ridden her as a styracosaurus before and she figured she had to be at least as fast as a horse in that form.

How had it come to this? Hades mentally asked himself. It was night, he was crouched on a rocky ledge above the floor of a cave, in the dark, wounds bleeding, body aching, strength almost spent, clutching two knives listening as a heavy foot fall crept towards him. He was evaluating his chances of coming out of this encounter with the last bear of a Russian and he was not liking his odds. With his mutation currently suppressed, the likelihood of dying, permanently and irrevocably was sobering to say the least.

It had started out so well. Hades had woken from the impromptu operation to find his wounds bandaged and a sleeping dinosaur guarding the entrance to the shelter. The feathery creature promptly morphed back into Amber, answering a number of questions that Hades had harbored since the beginning of his encounter with the enigmatic lady of the wild.

He listened, slightly ruefully as she pointed out, correctly, that in his current state he would not get far. Essentially giving Hades the, "I can very well take care of my self" speech, plus the "I didn't save you so you could go and die" speech and rounding it off with the unique "Let me give you a piggy back ride" involving a dinosaur.

Hades did indeed have part of a bear skin left that he fashioned into a makeshift saddle. This was not the first time that he had fashioned a saddle for riding, however he had never had to fashion any sort of riding aid for a 2.7 tonne 6 foot tall prehistoric "rhinoceros" complete with 22 inch long horns and a heavily armored skull. Once the "saddle" (if it could be called that, more like padded strap) was constructed, Hades spent a little time gathering what herbs he could find and prepared a poison that was a hallucinogenic and a mild paralytic, explaining as he went. There was no time to boil up anything stronger. He coated his daggers and arrow heads with it and offered the rest for Amber to coat her horns with if she so choose. Then they were off.

Another thing Hades learned, apparently (and Hades could vouch for with personal experience) when a Styracosaurus decides to get going, it um gets going. Early on Hades learned to shelter behind the body plate of "Amber's" head, it was the only way to avoid getting thwacked by tree branches at up to 20 miles an hour.

They made good time that day, and by nightfall one tired dinosaur and one slightly stiff Hades made camp by a cave. However Hades had tarried by the coast too long. The enemy attacked by night. The sounds of the night went silent, then Amber slipped off while morphing into something that Hades could not identify. He was about to draw his bow when a sniper round passing close to his face put to flight that idea and to Hades. He dived into the cave.

The first attacker was dealt with swiftly and efficiently. A precise buy deadly technique causing Commotio Cordis literally stopped the heart of the first attacker. The second was a little more difficult and a shot knife fight ensued, ending only when Hades managed to nick his assailant's brachial artery. His attacker bled out within minutes. But the two fights had cost Hades. He was nearing exhaustion, bleeding from numerous cuts, bruised and unsteady on his feet.

He wondered how Amber was doing, how many were outside. He mentally banished the thoughts. His world was the here and now, all who entered the cave must be killed or Hades would be. So he crouched, barely, swaying with his two poison smeared daggers in his hands, hoping to end the fight with a single decisive blow. Idly a part of his mind wondered if the hallucinogenic would merely send the Russian into a fit of rage and lead to him being beaten to a pulp.