Rudra pinched the bridge of his nose so hard it looked like he was trying to erase his own face.
"Why are you here… Serenkhand?" he asked, slow and tired, like a man who already knew the answer would give him a migraine.
She held up the bundle of herbs. "You two went somewhere without telling anyone, and Vodka had… digestive problems."
Riley nodded in immediate sympathy. "Ohhh. Poor bastard's got the Mongolian Mudslide."
"Don't call it that," Rudra muttered, but his eyes drifted down to the herbs in her hands.
His stomach dropped.
Those aren't local.Those don't grow anywhere near here.Those don't even grow in this part of the continent.
Where the hell did she get them?
"Ummm… Red?" Serenkhand asked, noticing the way his face hardened.
"No. Nothing," Rudra said too quickly, too sharply, eyes narrowing—not at her, but at the implications.
Something was off.
Very off.
"You should go back to the village," he said firmly, stepping in front of her without realizing it. "It's dangerous out here. Like… serious business."
Serenkhand frowned at his tone. "I can take care of myse—"
"Nope," Riley cut in, guiding her gently back the way she came. "He means it. Dangerous stuff. Ice witches. stuff likr that."
Rudra didn't laugh.
He just kept staring at the non-native herbs in her hands, a cold chill crawling up his spine.
Nicole Romanov wandered through the dead-quiet stretch of frostbitten grass, boots cracking through the thin ice she unconsciously spread with every step. Her breath came out in soft, steady plumes—calm, focused, unaware of how catastrophically her night had already gone off-script.
Two missions.
Two simple missions.
Hunt the Dark Young—the little abomination of Shub-Niggurath that had wandered too close to Soviet borders.
And inspect the arrival of two hunters from Handpump:
Richard Lee Murphy.
Easy. Predictable. Stage two. Annoying but mortal.
And the second—
Just Rudra.
No surname. No designation. No origin file.
A blank space where a human should be.
She chewed her cheek in irritation. "No last name… either he is bastard… or Handpump hides him from everyone."
Her heel clicked against frozen dirt again as she scanned the plains.
The Dark Young should've been close.
She should've heard it.
The ground usually screamed when one of those things fed.
Nicole exhaled. "Where is that damn tentacled baby goat…"
And then—
A voice.
Loud. Disrespectful. Sunburned with pure audacity.
"Oi, Victoria's Secret!"
Nicole froze.
Not from her power.
From insult.
Very slow, very deliberate, she turned her head over her shoulder.
Her eye twitched.
Her jaw clenched.
And there, standing with a rifle slung over his shoulder and the smuggest grin nature had ever inflicted upon a human being, was Riley.
His hat crooked. His shirt dusty. His accent thick.
And his expression saying I will absolutely die talking shit and I accept that fate.
Nicole blinked once.
Very slowly.
"…you"
Nicole's attention snapped past Riley—past the rifle, past the smirk, past the insult that should have triggered a national incident.
Her gaze landed on Rudra.
And something broke.
Her pupils dilated. Her breath caught. Her lips parted in a soundless gasp.
The cold around her warped—not freezing, not attacking, just… trembling.
"…Chandra…" she whispered.
Rudra stiffened.
Her voice cracked. "Chandra… Karamsot…"
Rudra's blood ran cold.
That name did not belong here.
That name did NOT exist anymore.
His great-grandfather. A hero of the Great War. A ghost from photographs older than color film.
Dead in 1918.
Dead before Nicole's grandparents should be logically even conceived.
Rudra's breath stuttered in his chest. "What… what did you just say?" Nicole's hand flew to her mouth as if she could shove the name back in. Her eyes wide, shining, rapidly reddening. She was crying. Actual tears. Not from cold, not from fury. From memory. From recognition.
Nicole's tears hadn't even finished sliding down her cheeks when something shifted behind her eyes.
Recognition dissolved. Warmth froze. Whatever ghost had surfaced in her when she saw Rudra… it drowned under orders, under instinct, under the cold machinery of her mission.
"No," she whispered, voice turning sharp, brittle, soldier‑like. "You are not him. You're just… his blood."
The softness shattered.
Her spine straightened.
Her expression hollowed.
Her fingers curled—and an ice dagger bloomed instantly in her grip, clear as glass and sharper than razors.
"I was sent to deal with you two."
The grin returned—feral, cruel, too wide for her face—
But her arm never finished the motion.
There was a soundless tremor in the air.
A distortion.
A blink.
And then—
SHHK.
Her hand fell to the snow.
Cleanly severed, no visible cut, no visible blade—just gone, sliced by something that didn't exist to the naked eye.
Nicole blinked once, twice, almost confused—
Before her wrist immediately crystallized, regrew, flesh knitting itself together as frost blossomed over the new skin.
Rudra didn't even flinch. He just stared at her with that cold, burning focus of his, right eye twitching, finger tightening on the revolver.
"Invisible slash," Riley muttered, impressed and terrified. "He didn't even blink."
Rudra's voice was low, clinical, all emotion buried under the instinct of a veteran.
"Ice manipulation. Accelerated regeneration. Combat instinct override."
He cocked the revolver.
His aura burned hotter.
"Alright, Riley," Rudra said without looking back. "Find a weak spot. Now."
Riley threw his hands up. "How am I supposed to do that? You're the strategy guy!"
Rudra didn't look away from Nicole, teeth gritted, aura beginning to rise like heatwaves. "Just don't stay close to her for too long. She's cold. And I don't mean it metaphorically—your balls will freeze up like grapes in Alaska."
"Alaska doesn't have grapes, though—"
"And you won't have balls if you don't shut up an—"
The sentence died in his throat.
Because a gunshot cracked the air.
A bullet—silver-tipped, frost-coated—was already inches away from Riley's temple.
Riley only had time to widen his eyes.
Rudra didn't even think.
"CHRONOS DESIST!!"
The world snapped into stillness.
Snowflakes froze mid-fall. Nicole's smirk hung like a painting. The bullet floated, humming with icy malice.
Rudra's right eye burned—too much—but he forced his body through the frozen second, grabbed the bullet between his fingers, and ripped it off its trajectory.
Time slammed back like a whip crack.
Riley stumbled. "Jesus—Red—!!"
"Y'know," Nicole said, brushing back a strand of white hair, her voice lilting with amusement, "you two argue a lot. Not that I'm complaining."
Rudra looked down at the bullet in his hand—
It pulsed.
Clicked.
BOOM—FSSHHHHH—
It exploded into a cloud of instant frost.
Rudra didn't even scream. The entire right half of his body—shoulder, ribs, arm, part of his jaw—froze solid in an instant, encased in white, glacial ice.
Riley's face drained of color.
"RED—!!!"