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Viktor's POV

Moscow, Russia - 48 hours later

I had to bring Max with me. I knew that Javier would disagree with me, but this was his fight too. After that heated meeting I had with Javier, I flew back to St. Petersburg to pick up Max the next day. He had recovered since, but not completely as of yet. I took him back to my house in Moscow, and explained the entire situation to him. The American government was not ready to cooperate with Russia... And if our political leaders would just realize that we are stronger together, then we can take down the Cevenda a lot faster and not worry about them anymore. This country was very strong, I will say that, however we needed international support to catch these guys. Russia is already in the water with a few western nations, and if we were to authorize a strike against a terror group in certain countries or waters, the end result would be war. There is no need for another war in this godforsaken world.

Max walked into my living room and proceeded to sit down.

"Feeling any better?" I asked.

"Yes I am, thanks for... everything... I don't know how to repay you" Max replied.

I shook my head. "You do not have to repay me, I'm just doing my job here."

"Well I do... After all, I brought you into this! I practically made you leave your family behind in Siberia so you can chase down the Cevenda" Max said.

"Max, I was already chasing them down. My government has been chasing them down for over a year now" I stated.

Max looked at me all confused. "But, you were at home with your family, you weren't working."

I shook my head again. "You see, we already had Zarith captured by then. It was William who was in control, which made him our next primary target. We tried to contact your government along with a few other western nations but they never believed it. It doesn't help when you try to ask for help or warn someone about something when they already hate you." I sighed, "we had nowhere else to go, William and the Cevenda were in the wind... Until you came along" I looked at Max.

His raised his head further back and stared at me, like I had just insulted him.

"What do you mean 'until I came along'?" Max questioned.

"Well you see Max, when your plane went down, you came to me because I was the closest one to you. The second I saw you at my doorstep I immediately had an idea. So I decided to show you Zarith" I explained.

Max was still confused.

"But, when the soldiers came to your house, they didn't treat you like a General. You have so much power in your country here how come you surrendered to the soldiers that searched your house?" Max asked.

I took a deep breath before speaking my answer, "my wife."

"...Your wife?" He puzzled.

"Yes... Alexandra! She doesn't know I still work for the Russian military. It was all an act. I couldn't risk having her know about me still being active. She doesn't want me to work for the military anymore. She fears the worst can happen to me... And she wants Boris to have a father" I told Max.

"So... Why are you still in uniform?" Max asked me.

"I made myself a promise shortly before Alexandra asked me to retire: Kill Zarith and takedown the Cevenda. I can't sleep at night... I just lay there... Thinking about it. Before I truly retire, I want these guys dealt with" I explained.

"Is this personal to you?" Max asked me.

I stopped to look at the ground. I rubbed my eyes as the haunting memories of my good comrades who were killed in combat came back to me.

I looked right up at Max. "I had four of my good friends die at the hands of Zarith. This brutal man showed no mercy to either one of them. You should know! He tried to cut out your heart!"

"He was only trying to save his son, because no other slave he had owned matched his son's blood type... But mine." Max said.

"Still, he tried to kill you. Cold-blooded!" I shot back.

Both of us sighed. I stared at the ground once again and rubbed my face.

"His son ended up dying." I then looked up at Max right in the eye and said "He never got the proper treatment... And now, he's going to want to take it out on you."

"Is that why I'm here?" Max asked.

I nodded. "This is also your fight. You deserve to feel the glory of fighting for what's yours. Your government already court-marshalled you, so I'm allowing you to fight by Russia's side while we take down the Cevenda together."

"What's going to happen to me after this?" Max questioned.

"That's a good question" I scratched the back of my neck. "You're going to have to find yourself a new identity... And a new place to live."

Max sighed. "Maybe your right." He nodded.

Neither of us were happy with his fate, but we had no other option. Well... We did, but they weren't as victorious as this one. I wanted Max to have a sense of pride in him, so he would go on and join the fight with us.

"Would you like breakfast before we begin our day?" I asked the dragon.

"Please" he tried to smile.

The both of us went into the kitchen and prepared what could possibly be our last meal together. It was bacon, eggs and hash browns. Nothing too complicated.

After breakfast it was time to get ready. Max and I cleaned up the kitchen, and headed for the door.

The Kremlin

"All rise for the entrance of the Army General!" Viktor called out. Everyone in the room immediately stood up and stood at attention. Even though I was not a Russian soldier, I did the same. After all, I owed it to Viktor for helping me out. For all that could have happened, he could have left me for no good or locked me in some prison, but he didn't, and I respected him for that.

General Evvi entered the room, he didn't look too pleased to see me standing there, but he didn't kick me out either. He didn't do anything to me in fact, I just stayed standing there.

"At ease!" Evvi ordered in Russian.

Everyone sat down.

We were in a briefing room, at the front of the room was a giant white board with a projector hanging from the ceiling facing it. There were four chairs in a row on each side of the room, separated by a gap down the middle. Each side had six rows, which meant that there were 24 chairs on each side, with a total of 48 chairs in the room facing the projector.

We all took our seats except for General Evvi, who stood at the front.

Viktor sat beside me to my right. He leaned towards me and whispered "I will do any required translating for you."

I smiled and nodded in response.

[Russian Dialogue]

"We've been chasing these guys for over a year now!... And we haven't been any closer to catching them... Until now." He glared towards everyone in the room, clearly he was focused on putting an end to this organization.

I was puzzled as of to why the rest of the world hadn't been involved in trying to take down this terror organization. Especially the United States, if Zarith had problems with the US, then why did he start his organization off in Chechnya? Was it easier? Were there friends of his there? I was sincerely confused.

More importantly, I was trying to wrap my head around the reconnaissance mission I did before I crashed. They never told me the details of the mission, other than capture photographs of some compound in China. My biggest question was: how did I end up in Russia if I was supposed to be flying over China? Also, China's airspace is amongst the tightest airspace in the world, I will never understand how I managed to sneak in.

"Since the recent attacks in Israel, the West starting to get involved. Only problem is, they think we're the trouble makers. China is the only other nation who understands who the real threat here is" Evvi continued. "We need to get our paws on the Red October Submarine before the Cevenda attacks a major city! And it's only a matter of time before the West blames it on us!"

Viktor translated everything for me as Javier spoke.

After processing everything in my head, I thought it might be a good idea to try and tell my friends back at home that Russia was not behind all this, sure we have our differences, but that shouldn't let us get the best of each other. The only problem was; they might think I'm a traitor trying to lie to them, and I would only be imprisoned once more. I'm better off waiting until the evidence has proven that I'm innocent and that Russia has nothing do to with this.

Maybe I'll be pardoned and return to the Navy. I love my job and I would do anything for a second chance to get it back.

"Intel has recently found that Captain Nicholai Cherveendav, a traitor, has gone dark along with William Ryerson and other ex-members and officers of militaries from across the globe." Evvi explained. "However," he clicked his clicker in his paw which made filled the screen in front of us all light up with a map of the Southern Atlantic Ocean. A marker appeared off the coast of Brazil. "This is where they currently are, one of the many things that they don't know about us is that we still keep tabs on all of our Cold War material."

He pointed to the marker on the screen, indicating where they were.

"This is the Red October, and it's no myth. But we plan on keeping it a secret, which is why we need to infiltrate it before they start launching missiles on target locations, revealing their location and thus jeopardizing one of Russia's greatest Cold War secrets." Javier briefed.

"What about stealth? It should have amongst the best stealth capabilities in the world, even for its age." An officer asked.

"The only flaw with its stealth capabilities is the fact that it can only remain stealthy for so long, and its fuel consumption rate is ridiculous when stealth mode is activated when the ship is in motion." Evvi replied. "We have the ultimate element of surprise here, let us not fuck it up!"

Viktor translated everything for me so I wasn't in the dark about all this, but I had to promise that I was not going to tell a soul.

For the next few minutes, Javier went over our plan of attack. First, team Alpha will approach the ship and board it, carefully. Then, team Bravo, which had me, Viktor and a few others, will stay on a nearby vessel and make sure nobody gets anywhere near the submarine. There was already an active Russian destroyer at sea, which was where team Bravo will be stationed.

"That is all ladies and gentlemen, we leave in 24 hours so waste no time getting ready. Dismissed!" General Evvi ordered.

We all stood up and headed for the door. I don't know if I was truly ready for something like this, especially if my reputation was on the line.

[English Dialogue]

"We will be going to the armory to get ready, Max. I'll be giving you a few things to defend yourself with but if you use any of the weapons improperly, no one on that ship, not even me, will hesitate to shoot you, understand?" Viktor explained.

"I understand completely" I nodded.

"Good," he smiled. "I really like you, so don't make me kill you."