Notes: Thanks to narutofanhinatafan and melissaadams22 for reviewing, sorry this was supposed to be longer but my wrist is killing me so I'm gonna stop there and work on part 2 tomorrow, don't like it? Tough. Hope you like it btw :)


Nikola wandered cautiously down the corridor until he laid eyes on one of Adam's albino minions, it started to snarl as it saw him but he was faster and fired the stunner at the creature, watching mutely as it tumbled to the ground. He remained frozen for a minute, listening for any indication he'd alerted the others but there was nothing which meant he had about half an hour max before the others noticed it was down. He quickly toyed with the idea of killing it but decided not to risk the noise of a gunshot, instead he reached out his hand and slammed it into the wall where he recalled there being the hidden access button.

His memory was rewarded by a shimmer in the rock face as the door obediently opened for him, with one last glance behind he hurried inside the building before the door closed immediately behind him. He was faced with semi-familiar site of Adam's hideout, not incredibly different from outside save the bland looking walls instead of rock. He wasted no time and meandered through the corridors, listening intently for any sign of the albinos but like before the place seemed deserted.

He reached his destination and sure enough John was still there, held down by thick metallic restraints and unhelpfully still appeared unconscious. The only difference from before was now he was shirtless with electric nodes on his chest, they didn't connect to anything but he noted a machine that he had seen beside John yesterday was no longer present.

"I d... Hel... it was... so many... tuesday... it was..."

Nikola nearly jumped at John's delirious babbling and frowned ready to complained at him before he realized John wasn't awake, his eyes were still closed and his breathing seemed unusually ragged and shallow. He tenuously reached out and pressed his hand to John's clammy neck to check his pulse which was thready, clearly Adam had done something to him. He scanned around for something that looked like it released the restraints and saw a few buttons on the steel pillar holding up the seat, he selected a few at random and he was rewarded by the restraints snapped away.

Feeling pleased with himself he glanced back at John and noticed curiously a recent scar on his chest, above his heart in the exact location that he'd been stabbed with the sword. Nikola frowned curiously at the scar, he had killed John and yet he lived, clearly the technology of Hollow Earth was still living up to its impressive if cryptic name.

Noting how he still had plenty of time before the albino was discovered, Nikola decided to poke around a bit more and to come back for John later as he wasn't far from the exit. As he turned to leave something lashed out and seized his wrist in a vice like grip, shocked Nikola blinked and saw it was John who had grabbed him, who was staring at him wide eyed.

"Nikola, Nikola," he gasped digging his nails into Nikola's arm, "please, you must... you must..."

As abruptly as it had happened it was over and John fell backwards as his grip became slackened, Nikola blinked a few times for a second believing he was dead until he noticed John was still breathing and beads of sweat were forming on his brow. He checked his pulse anyway and found it still there, but still thready.

"John?" he questioned but gleaned no reply.

He waited a minute to see if John would regain consciousness but he didn't, shaking his head Nikola decided to press on quickly and hurried into the next room.