"Yeosang, I'm at the base. Go ahead." Seonghwa slid down the last part of the snowy hill and down onto a broad rock he could stand on. His heavy boots dug deep into snow and ice as he looked out over the camp beneath. It was secluded between the snowy mountains that rose around him like jagged teeth, and a high fence surrounded the whole thing. Seonghwa took out his binoculars to oversee the situation.

 "I was right, it was a secret Soviet project from the fifties called "Carbonek". The laboratory was studying ancient artefacts, but some mysterious disaster brought the KGB down and they erased it all from history... almost." Yeosang flipped through some papers in his hands while explaining.

Seonghwa meanwhile zoomed in on some men who ran around between the buildings like busy ants. They were shooting at other people; people, who looked suspiciously like the mercenaries Hongjoong had had with him in Bolivia. They were wearing the same kind of gear and used the same techniques as it seemed.

Seonghwa exhaled slowly.

"There seems to be trouble below. Party full of people."

"You got there right on time," San commented worriedly while Seonghwa zoomed in onto another building further hidden behind another gate in front of which most fights went down.

"Or a little late. Kim's men attacking the Kazakhs."

Which could mean only one thing. Hongjoong himself was not far. How had the man known when Seonghwa would be here? Seonghwa cursed his luck inwardly. Dodging him might get difficult.

"The lab is somehow connected to that military base, but we don't know how. If you find the command centre, we might get a better idea. Now, after the firefight dies down, you should try-"

Seonghwa interrupted him while he put the binoculars away and smoothed out his soft cuddly rose-pink winter jacket. The soft white fur lining it brushed against his neck as he pulled his weapon without waiting another second.

"Oh, come on, San. Waiting is for the patient. Which I am not. I gotta hurry and outrun him." With that, he jumped down the rock and continued sliding hazardously over the frozen hills. He opened fire even before he arrived on the ground, shooting the first of Kim's men down immediately. The Kazakhs recognised him as a friendly force and grouped up with him without one word being exchanged.

They managed to battle back the enemy group without further problems. They had heavy machine guns and grenades anyway, meaning that Hongjoong had used his men mostly as a distraction, not as a means to win.

After they had beat that group of men, Seonghwa stepped up to one of the soldiers while putting his weapon away. He nodded at the man and got a salute in return before the man took his helmet down. With icy blue eyes, he scrutinised Seonghwa.

"Where is your commando centre?"

The man looked him up and down once, his eyes narrowed. He seemed to want to tell off Seonghwa when Yongguk suddenly stepped up to them and rested a gloved hand on Seonghwa's shoulder. The man had arrived on the less dangerous route and via the actual road leading here and thus had missed all the fun.

Yongguk didn't look as soft today. Today, he wore his hair slicked back and a dark coat, exuding authority.

"We are not here to make trouble and we will leave soon. We are after the person who attacked you," he assured the man in perfect Russian while his face and voice remained calm. Seonghwa waited with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

At this, the man seemed satisfied. He put his helmet underneath his arm and nodded at Yongguk shortly.

"I'll take you."

They followed the man through the gate after he punched the code into the frozen keyboard. He led them up a snowy road to the last building, motioning them to get in. Inside, it wasn't much warmer than outside, but at least not everything was covered in a thin layer of ice.

San hummed appreciatively at the sight of a lot of monitors in front. They took up most of the wall on the west and the control panel in front looked impressive, too.

Their new friend was nice enough to turn them on for them so Seonghwa could step up and get whatever he needed. Of course, everything was in Russian and despite him being able to speak a bit, he sure as hell couldn't read it.

"There, that over there means Map. The third word from the bottom," San supplied excitedly through the headset.

Seonghwa clicked it, pulling up a large map that spread over the monitors. He frowned at the many kilometres distance. Hongjoong probably had already taken his chopper and would arrive far sooner. How was it that Seonghwa never managed to outrun that man?

"Oof. That's a hike," Yeosang commented worriedly as he saw it, too. Unbothered, Seonghwa moved back from the monitors with his hands formed to determined fists.

"I'm not walking. There's a military transport train that runs past the lab." Seonghwa turned to Yongguk inquisitively, seeing the man already smirking at him. Seonghwa noticed how he was for once as tall as the other man with his heavy boots.

"I'm gonna disable the train. You're taking your bike and hunt that boy down," Yongguk easily suggested.

Seonghwa felt himself copy the man's grin.

"Good to know that I have a professional train-disabling person here."

Yongguk smiled broadly before turning to their man again. He was still waiting next to them, stiff as a board while he followed their conversation.

"Take us to the train, please."

"You'll need to hurry. They hijacked it earlier."

They exchanged another glance then.

"To my bike, then. We're gonna catch up."

Yongguk gave a short nod and then both of them took off, jogging back down the road Yongguk had taken here. Seonghwa had put snow chains on the vehicle earlier so he wouldn't slip while driving, and now they came in handier than expected.

Seonghwa jumped right onto his treasured bike, Yongguk slipping on behind him. The man held onto his shoulders rather than his waist, yet Seonghwa felt hit by a bitter stab of deja-vu at the familiar position.

Damn Hongjoong. Maybe Seonghwa should still shoot him on sight, after all.

Seonghwa found the rails through San's navigation skills and indeed, they were soon driving through the snowy fields next to the rushing train. Seonghwa could also see some cars and bikers following the same route, probably making sure to keep him from following.

After Seonghwa had let Yongguk jump off onto the train to mess with it, Seonghwa went hunting those men down.

Just like in Peru the whole thing resulted in a wild exchange of bullets on the road. After kicking the first enemy down his bike, Seonghwa had to stop for a second to take his weapons with him, so he could shoot while driving, but after that, there was no stopping him.

Seonghwa was angry. Angry and frustrated with his nemesis. All of the adrenalin that fueled him into surviving the bullets hailing down on him went into fighting back. He dangerously curved around rocks and trees that were partly hidden by the snow, and the white flocks still falling sometimes obscured his sight. He was terribly careless, yet he couldn't bring himself to care. San knew it was his job to be quiet during those times, so he was, even if he probably could barely watch Seonghwa nearly die every five minutes thanks to the anxious nerves.

Impatiently, Seonghwa shot one of the tires on the jeep in front of him and dodged it as it crashed against a tree, shaking the surrounding ground considerably.

Seonghwa killed everybody in sight and only then followed through the tunnel the train had disappeared in. It was only him, his harsh breaths in the cold air, and the darkness then.

For a second, the eerie tranquillity felt as if the world as frozen, like a glitch. Then, the back part of the train came into sight again. It had derailed and slid into the dark ditch on the other side of the tunnel. Seonghwa passed it and the other train wagons that looked like a confused caterpillar without much interest. As it seemed, this tunnel connected directly to the lab and that was the only care he had right now.

In the end, he entered a hall that had once been a train station, but the gates in front had been closed. Thus, the train had crashed in the icy room, and the two wagons in the front were even laying on their sides. Yongguk was there when Seonghwa pulled up, and he smirked wryly at Seonghwa from the box he was sitting on.

As usual, he looked impeccable, as if he hadn't just crashed a whole train that smelled like fire in some worrisome way.

"I'm afraid, you gotta crawl through the vent. I'm gonna secure your escape route, and park this somewhere you can find it later. Let's split up from thereon. You can search your artefact while I check out the stuff Tesla left here." Yongguk jumped from the crate and exchanged places with Seonghwa on his bike.

"Alright. Good luck with that. I guess I got most of them on the way, but there might still be some inside. Watch out for those."

"I will. Happy digging."

With that, Seonghwa jogged off to go jump up the walls. Yongguk cruised off again, and only when the bike was out of sight, San dared to breathe again. His sigh sounded disappointed, but he didn't comment on it. Not as if it would have helped, anyway.

Seonghwa could comfortably walk through the tall vents. On the way, he found a dead body lying in some corner. The corpse was all white and blue, meaning he had died of painful hypothermia. Yeosang murmured a little 'oh God' at the sight, so Seongwha hurried to look elsewhere and continued on his path.

"I guess they locked all of the doors after their experiment failed. He probably got stuck while trying to escape," Seonghwa murmured quietly as he jumped down into another room and spontaneously went left.

The direction proved to be a good one. Soon, he came into what looked like some meeting room. Its white and clean interior was a nice change to the metal corridors that were crossed by pipes running all over the walls.

And in that meeting room, he found a shield that looked entirely out of place. It was laying on the big white table next to another body, and when Seonghwa picked it up, his fingers nearly froze off from its coldness despite him wearing leather gloves.

"It's a shield, tenth or eleventh century... probably recovered with the piece we're looking for. It resembles Lancelot's crest, doesn't it? How did it get here?" Seonghwa critically looked the thing down. It was red and white, just how the crusader's had been in old history books.

"It would if the bugger had existed," Yeosang giggled amusedly, but even he seemed intrigued. It sure wasn't new, so it had to be related somehow. Whether it had been Lancelot or not, this shield clearly belonged to England.

Seonghwa checked out the back. The leather straps holding it had long since disappeared, but he found something else. There were lines engraved into the grey metal that seemed far more wilfully crafted than just scratches.

"Oh, what's this now? It looks like a map. Have a good look and see what you can make of it. You got it?" Seonghwa angled the shield so they could see better and take a good picture to investigate.

"Yep, thanks. What do you think it's for?" San sounded confused while in the background, Yeosang was already hectically flipping through his books again.

"Maybe our knight needed help finding his way home. Or perhaps this piece wasn't all he had. If it is indeed a map, it might tell us our next location, so try and decipher it quickly." Seonghwa looked around. He wanted to hide the shield somewhere in hopes Hongjoong wouldn't find it.

In the end, he shoved it into a cupboard and slammed the doors shut. It surely wasn't the safest of all places, but he didn't have the time to deal with it further. For now, this had to suffice.

After that, he set out on his hunt again.