A/N: …Corruption of the Mind will be updated after this, I swear. Really.

Props to TyraaRane for letting me borrow Cassini. (Read Cassini's Rainbow on her livejournal. Sasha/Milla fic. [/pimpage

The Rising of the Storm

Chapter One: Rising Winds

The Psychonauts were not the only psychic organization in the world; they were merely the most overt and the most honorable. There were several other psychic agencies—within the government and without--that had their attention focused on less idealistic goals. Vladimir Galachio represented one such organization, and in the past, they had triumphed over the Psychonauts in the interest of their own goals and occasionally as mercenaries for rival governments, discrediting their leaders or crippling them as was necessary.

Recently, that has not been the case. The failed kidnapping of Truman Zanotto was proof of that.

The Psychonauts were gaining strength, and they were gaining it fast; if left unchecked, they would upset the delicate balance of power in the psychic world. But they were still weak in certain areas—areas he intended to exploit. If he was to succeed where his father failed, then he needed to strike those areas soon.

This is what brought him to America and, specifically, towards his current objective in what could best be described as the most depressing and unsafe building he had ever seen. The discolored orange wallpaper was covered in mold and peeling away from the walls, the wooden floor was uneven and creaked under the weight of his footsteps, and there were a number of stains along both that resembled dried bloodstains. Tenants argued with one another in the hall, yelling and screaming over a variety of subjects—rent, food, clothes, the bastard that ratted out their neighbor's dealings with the drug industry—occasionally yelling at Vladimir himself as he and the two men he had brought with him walked down the hall.

He ignored them, pondering the latest development in the game as Charlie and Gustav, distant cousins to the Galachio family and useful only as pawns, stormed down the hall, searching for the particular apartment. Andrea had betrayed them. In all honesty, it wasn't surprising; she had always been weak and her loyalty was never assured. He was just surprised she had turned against them so soon. She had betrayed the family and gone to the Psychonauts with information that they couldn't afford to have revealed. If the Psychonauts really knew what happened the night Ford Cruller's mind was shattered…

He needed to silence Andrea and distract the Psychonauts. Most importantly, he needed to send them a message—one that reminded them of their proper place.

He needed a man like Jack Dougal.

"Room 306. This is it, boss." Charlie said, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his leather jacket, fidgeting restlessly. It was a quirk of his that Vladimir found annoying at the best of times and infuriating at the worst; the man could never sit still. His eyes were always moving above flaring nostrils, giving one the impression of a cornered, rabid rat. "Right, Gus?"

Gustav rumbled, cracking his knuckles eagerly. Towering over most men at six and a half feet tall with thick muscle covering every inch, Gustav had never been one for scholarly pursuits. Vladimir suspected the man was barely capable of dressing himself without someone telling him to do so every morning.

At his nod, Gustav kicked the door open, breaking the doorknob and lock in the process and sending them clattering across the floor inside the apartment. The door slammed open and shook the flimsy walls of the apartment, causing a chunk of plaster to fall from the ceiling and land with a hollow thump next to the doorknob.

A calm voice came from inside, "You realize they're going to take that out of my security deposit."

The voice came from the center of the room where a man of average build lounged across a broken, moth eaten couch. He was staring up at the ceiling when the door first flew open and turned to look at his visitors, sitting up carefully and slowly. The man idly flipped open a lighter in his hand and grinned at his visitors. Their sudden entrance apparently had no effect on him. Vlad stood in the doorway while Charlie and Gustav stood over the man, ready to persuade him in other ways should Vladimir's speech fail to earn his loyalty.

Vladimir looked him up and down, making no effort to hide his scrutiny. The man's hair was a dark brown with hints of red along the roots and kept at the level of his ears. His eyes were a strange color, a mixture of green and blue resulting in a dark shade of grey. A strangely still man, Jack would have easily blended in with the majority of the population were it not for three things. The first and most obvious would be the two scars that ran parallel to one another across his face, as if someone had taken a rake from his forehead to his chin, leaving twin trails of angry red scar tissue in its wake. Less obvious was the way he carried himself. Everything about him suggested the strength and grace of a large feline and every movement he made was the calculated step of a dangerous predator. Any hint of weakness would be noticed and exploited in his favor. It was the last thing that set Jack apart from the rest of humanity that disturbed most. His eyes. There was a far off glimmer within them that hinted at a cruel nature barely kept in check.

Vladimir himself wasn't an imposing figure; just under six feet tall and almost dangerously thin, he wouldn't last long in a fight. A physical one, that is. "Jack Dougal." He said carefully, his Romanian accent slipping in around the vowels. "I would have a word with you."

"Vlad." Jack replied warmly, as though he was greeting an old friend. Vladimir bristled both at the informal use of his name and the warm tone that somehow came across as mocking, "I was expecting you. In fact, I'm a bit surprised at how long it's taken you to find me… Can I get you a drink?"

Vlad raised his hand and shook his head. "No, thank you. And it was quite easy to find you."

His one try at civility thwarted, Jack shrugged. "Then you're better than the some of the Psychonauts' finest, Vlad. I've kept them on the run for years--"

"With help." Vlad interrupted gently, "Had I not intervened on your behalf, Agent Vodello would have caught you long ago."

Jack's eyes narrowed and his voice took on a slightly colder tone. "Yes. With help. I had thought that particular debt was paid off when I killed that retrocognitive in Germany for you."

"I assure you, that debt is fully paid. I only wished to remind you of your friends." His voice was soothing, but the message was clear. Vladimir knew Jack to be a proud man, and he disliked having to rely on others. He hated to be treated as an inferior even more. "Which is why I dropped in. I need to ask you for a favor—as a friend, of course."

The other man was silent, then sighed and leaned back against his half destroyed couch, toying with the flame from his lighter. "I'm afraid I have to refuse, Vlad. Politics don't interest me in the least, and there is nothing you can blackmail me with." He grinned again with a lack of sincerity that Vlad now knew to be mocking. "I am perfectly aware of my vices."

Vladimir regarded him silently for a few moments. Without Jack, it was possible for him to succeed, but the losses on his side would be unforgivable, and he was less likely to succeed in his current mission. With Jack's expertise, they stood an honest to God chance—and if things fell apart, the man would make an excellent scapegoat. But blackmail was out of the question; he was not easily scared into obedience, and would fight every inch of the way to gain his freedom if forced to do something against his will. Charlie and Gustav would undoubtedly convince him to their cause, but his continued loyalty would be questionable at best and Vladimir was not fond of keeping track of Jack as an enemy.

He quickly thought back through all he knew of Jack, trying to find a way to pique his interest or coerce his decision, watching the man closely. His eyes paused on the scars across the Jack's face. That he hadn't gone to the trouble to hide such recognizable features suggested a certain amount of pride in the way he had earned them. Quirking an eyebrow, he spoke again. "Not even if I promised you the agent that caused those scars?"

Jack froze, his eyes focusing on something beyond Vladimir as he raised his hand to the lightly touch the scars across his face. After a few moments he lowered his hand to scratch his chin and watched Vlad warily. "You can do that?"

"Of course, you would have to swear your loyalty to me and do exactly as I say." Vladimir replied evenly, his tone casual as he idly kicked a piece of plaster across the floor. "I understand that the two of you have a…rich history."

Jack's grin was enough to make Vladimir feel uneasy, but he stood by his decision. One did not make a deal with a monster like Jack Dougal without paying in blood.

Vladimir was only too happy to offer up the blood of another. And what was one life in the grand scheme of things anyway?


Sasha wasn't sure when the dreams began, but he knew that they always ended the same. Sometimes, he would dream of normal things--work, his father, and occasionally Milla--but no matter how they started, the end was always the same.

He was standing amongst the ruins of a burning building. Flames crackled and snapped, creating a steady orange glow that cast unreal shadows across the scene as they grew in strength. He could hear the distant rumble of thunder and lightning occasionally illuminated the dreary setting, revealing the dried, twisted corpses of people, contorted and screaming silently in pain through cracked and blistered lips, unseeing eyes staring up at him in a silent plea for help that would never be answered. He shuddered, shying away from the bodies and bumped into a young woman, whose face was constantly in shadow. She held a manila folder to her chest, arms wrapped around it tightly. He stared at her in confusion, suddenly feeling nauseated.

"Don't worry," she said, voice wavering slightly. "They promised not to kill you."

"Who? Who's 'they'?" She only smiled sadly in response, clinging to that manila folder. He snapped at her, his voice sounding oddly desperate. "Answer me!"

She looked up at him suddenly with an expression so despairing it bordered on pathetic. "Please forgive me."

The flames engulfed him before he had a chance to respond, searing his skin with such intensity that he could only scream in pain.

He woke up with a hoarse cry, twisted up in his bed sheets, sweating profusely. He was only aware of the rain pelting his window and his sudden, violent urge to vomit. Groaning, he rolled out of bed and clumsily sprinted for the bathroom, halfway dragging one of his blankets down the hall. Once he recovered, he staggered back to his bed, glancing towards his window as a thunderclap shook the panes of glass. The storm must be getting close, he thought sleepily.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he leaned down to rest his elbows on his knees and began to massage his temples. He was dizzy from nausea and the effort it had taken to race to the bathroom, and his head was pounding in time with the sound of the rain outside. Worst of all, the urgency from the dream gnawed at him, leaving him filled with a need to express a message that he wasn't fully aware of to someone unknown party who desperately needed it. A staple of precognitive dreams. One of his mentors, Cassini, described it as "having to shit in specific toilet in city full of them." Cassini had been drunk at the time, but the description always stuck with him.

He considered calling Milla. She was always the better at figuring out precognitive dreams; he was too analytical and often focused on details that were ultimately unimportant when compared to the 'message' of the dream. He had almost finished dialing her number when he realized two things, the first being that she had just recently returned from an extended stay with her family and was most likely struggling to overcome severe jet lag.

The second was the dream woman herself. Fire was destructive in dreams, and female figures almost always represented some sort of mother figure if one put any stock in Freud. This could just be a simple nightmare--latent guilt over his mother's death, perhaps. Logically, he knew he had no part in his mother's death, but what one knew to be fact and what one felt were often quite different.

Yet he still felt the urge to call her, to hear her voice, thick with sleep and more than likely annoyed at the interruption of her rest. Her accent always came through a bit more when she was tired, a quirk he found endearing. He was almost convinced that hearing her speak would be enough to calm him down.

He'd found himself wanting such things with alarming frequency lately, and he wondered if it he wasn't becoming a bit more attached to her than he had any right to. For many long years, work had provided all the gratification he needed in his life. It was a lonely existence, but it always seemed natural for a man who preferred solitude over company.

In the end, he set the phone down and decided to go to work early.