The sun rose over the horizon and shone down on the moutains of Russia and onto the two boys. It was bright enough to wake up Nova who was relieved to find he had not died during the night, "Dammit, it really wasn't just a bad dream." He muttered before starting to stand up. Before he managed to stand up he felt something weighing him down so he couldn't get up, he looked over to see what it was and that was when he realised 3 things: He still had his arms around Ryan, Ryan was still hugging him, and Ryan was still sleeping. Nova wasn't in the mood to make Ryan mad, that and well since they were stuck together they may as well try to get along as best they can, so he stayed sat down to wait for Ryan to wake up.

On the bright side, Ryan clinging on to him like he was did help him stay warm, and it would give him a break from dealing with his naturally irritating behaviour, and when Ryan was sleeping he was pretty cute- wait, what? no thats not right, Nova didn't think Ryan was cute! He was his rival! Well they weren't arch enemies anymore, in fact they were friends if anything but thinking he was cute? No, never! Not in a million years! Right? Pffft, Ryan being cute, wasn't that a laugh, Nova wouldn't ever find Ryan cute! Thats just ridiculous...

Nova then realised how long he'd been dwelling on the idea of Ryan being cute so he decided he'd been along with his thoughts for long enough, he grabbed Ryan's tea from inside his jacket and held it up to his face, Ryan twitched a little bit before waking up and snatching the thermos of tea and drinking it, "MORNING! Wait... oh yeah I forgot." Ryan let go of Nova and stood up.

When Ryan let go, Nova felt a little hurt, he was really enjoying cuddling with Ryan- WOAH! OKAY WHERE DID THAT THOUGHT COME FROM!? FIRST THE CUTE THING AND NOW THIS!? Being so close to the RFBI HQ and away from home for so long must've been getting to him! Yeah, that must be it! Nova slapped himself across the face to try to dispell those thoughts. "Uh y-yeah, I was really hoping it was just a bad dream." Nova said as he stood up and cleared his throat.

"Still no sign of the portal, still nothing from Unicorn Mann or anyone, and STILL COLD AS HECK!" Ryan complained, "Yep..." Nova replied sheepishly, still really confused about those thoughts he was having, god, why was he still thinking about those? "Maybe we should look for the portal instead of waiting for someone to find us? Or we could do like LITERALLY ANYTHING OTHER THAN JUST SIT HERE!" Ryan yelled, "We can't! What if the RFBI sees us!?" Nova replies in a stressed tone, "Lets at least wait a little longer."

"Can you get the fire going again by the way? It died out during the night." Nova asked Ryan who just started staring blankly at the extinguished camp fire, much to Nova's confusion. "...Ryan are you gonna-" before Nova could finish that sentence a strike of lightning shot down from the sky and struck the campfire, causing it to erupt in flames. Nova looked at Ryan with a shocked and almost scared looking expression, and Ryan just smiled innocently back at him. The main reason Nova was scared was because he realised Ryan probably could've done that to him back on the crane, but he didn't. Maybe Ryan was actually a nicer person than Nova thought...

"Well... that is one way to do it I guess, and I also guess you don't know how you can do that?" Nova asked when his expression returned to normal, "Not a single gosh darn clue in the slightest!" Ryan replied while still smiling, Nova crossed his arms sighed due to Ryan's reply, "Lucky guess."

Nova went and sat by the fire and went into a state of deep thought, all he wanted was something new to happen but this really wasn't what he had in mind, was he gonna die here? Or worse, what if he was found and recaptured by the RFBI? Nova completely zoned out from everything else that was happening.

There was one thing in particular he failed to notice, something that was the last thing he needed: An RFBI agent had been sent to investigate a peculiar lightning strike, as lightning in broad daylight definitely wasn't natural. And to make matters worse, this agent was armed.

The agent slowly approached where the lightning striked and spotted Nova sitting by the fire with his back facing the agent, the agent then quickly and quietly called up the HQ with his handheld transceiver, "Command you may not believe this, but I have a visual on Nikolai Katotzky! What course of action should I take?" the agent asked, "Hmm, how strange, what would Nikolai be here for? No matter, we no longer require that subject, we recommend you shoot on sight! Repeat, shoot on sight!" the other agant replied from inside the HQ, "Yes sir!"

The agant put the handheld transceiver away and looked back at Nova, he started to line up his gun with Nova who still had no idea he was there! The agent pulled the trigger and... "NOVA! LOOK OUT!" Ryan shouted when he saw what was happening, Nova quickly got up and turned around but it was too late, he didn't have time to get out of the way! Right before Nova got hit, Ryan used the tea Nova gave him earlier to run right in the bullet's path and got hit by it instead of Nova.

When the bullet hit Ryan he tripped and aggressivly tumbled across the rocky grounds, once he stopped he layed completely still in the snow and Nova gasped in shock and felt the anger start to build up inside him. "RYAN! NO!"