Author's Note : Ever write a story then have to pause and argue with the characters because they want to do things that will probably kill them? That's why AYBABTU is on hold, both Kakashi and Hermione are being suicidal little idiots trying to get into things well over their current ability to deal with. So instead I worked on this story even though I had wanted to keep both more or less at similar chapter lengths. Alas…
Edited (4/24/2017) - General corrections
Edited (3/17/2018) - Final formatting and minor corrections.
Edited (9/2/2018) - Minor corrections.
Russian Roulette : Reloaded
XXXI-XL
XXXI (Saturday the 21st of January, 1961. Mafia Land.)
Much to Sonya's delight, and Tatiana's not-silent-enough despair, there was a bookstore in Mafia Land's central shopping complex.
The shop looked to be a frequent traveler's store for paper items from all the port cities that serviced the island, holding everything from newspapers shipped in from around the world to popular fiction or nonfiction novels one might want to read on vacation. Given it was also a store run by former or current members of the mafia, it even had what looked to be gun manuals near the back next to cookbooks and a couple chemistry texts.
"We're going to a clothing store after this, you little bookworm." The older preteen warned her foster sister as she followed her into the brightly lit store. "Besides, where are you even going to put more books? We have weight limits on our luggage, and you're running out of room at home."
"Cherep will help, and these books I can't get at home." She ignored the question, valid as that concern was. Some of her books were now residing under her foster brother's bed, because Tatiana wouldn't hold them in her room unless they were useful enough for her to use every now and again.
The shop also had a couple mechanical handbooks on tanks, jeeps, and motorcycles, and she snagged one blindly to give to Cherep when they went back for the night… or when they went to drop off their shopping when it got too heavy.
She took some time looking through the cookbooks, because she found one that detailed a way to use basic kitchen supplies in everything from smoke bombs to a crude tear gas. It gained a snort from the feisty redhead, who decided that there was a book she'd rather like to have and took it from her.
The real target Sonya was after turned out to be a mafia child's storybook that looked to have been written a century ago. It was also in French, apparently just because the author wanted it to be.
There was no foreword to tell her where the story took place or was recorded from, nor what region of the world she might investigate for more stories or different versions.
Skimming through it, stripped of all the flowery terms and obvious pro-mafia propaganda, it left her with a very basic grasp on the various Flame elements and what made them up. The Classic or Hard types anyways, not the Inverted or Soft ones, but she might be able to puzzle that out herself.
She was also pretty sure there were more than the usual seven types, but damn if she could recall them. Something, something, Earth Flames at least...
Her quick look-through also reconfirmed her original thoughts, that she wasn't a Sky, Mist, or Rain. Harmony, Illusions, and Tranquility did not fit into the only example she knew of what she could do… but it was still an iffy thing given her physical youth and inexperience. Probably not her main type, if she had a secondary type to fuss with too. Which left her with Classic Lightning, Sun, Cloud, and Storm, and possibly five out of the seven Inverted as well, which the story book had cardboard cutout characters molded after.
Very flat characters. A nice and caring Sky that Harmonized, enthusiastic Sun with Activation, calm Rain with Tranquility, fixated Storm with Disintegration, deceptive Mist with Illusions, reckless Lightning with Hardening, and an aloof Cloud with Propagation.
Which was all only one facet of any Dying Will Flame user in the most obvious and overt ways, and most of which she already knew.
While nice to get solid and written confirmation on that, Sonya would have to take a longer in-depth look to see what would explain the unnatural strength she had. For while trying to learn to shatter wooden and metal poles on command was interesting in its own way, the sprained wrists and shrapnel that resulted on occasion were tedious to try and avoid and it was always rather painful to suffer through.
There had to be a less destructive way to figure it out, because she hadn't seen a hint of oddly colored fire yet that would let her guess and pure strength wasn't a specific trait of any one Flame type.
Activation might be it, if Sun flames could enable one to use more of the muscle than the percentage normal humans used at any one time. Propagation could do it, if she was using Cloud Flames to boost either her muscle mass or the force behind her swings. Lighting and Storm were possibilities, if she was doing anything to the staffs she had been using without being able to see herself do it by either Hardening the staff or Disintegrating whatever encountered it… if she was willing to stretch her disbelief a bit.
If she really wanted to, she could even make a case for using Mist flames in a non-typical way to convince everyone and herself that she did destroy everything she had. She really hoped not, but it was a possibility.
Staring at the book probably wasn't the best idea ever too, given that Arseniy didn't seem to want her to spread her little talent with breaking things around outside of their group. Instead of spending the time to puzzle over it in the store, she added the book to the pile of them she already had going.
There were a couple more in different languages, aimed more for teens and younger adults, so those were added in almost as an afterthought.
"Find anything good?"
"A couple things to read on our way back, maybe." Answered the no-longer-as tiny thief absently, still looking for anything else that might help her. There had to be something better than children stories, even if they were mafia ones, that she might be able to make a comparison with.
"Anything that reminds you of that… friend of ours?"
That was an odd enough question it pulled her attention to her older foster sister, who had an irritated expression on her face at odds with the light tone of voice.
"One thing so far." The younger informed her elder sister with a shrug, using the distraction to see what had the other girl's back up.
Oh.
They were being discreetly spied on by the clerk, possibly because they were mafia brats and shoplifting wasn't a particularly rare crime for them.
Another possibility, much to her paranoid imagination, anyone picking up books on Dying Will Flames were watched for if they were in possession of the Flames or not. Which would be a nice convenient way to look for users, and it was possible the information would sell for a bit if everything that pointed to Flame users being currently rare was as correct as she suspected.
Any further information she was looking for probably had to be asked for, which may or may not work and would probably put her on someone's watch list.
To risk it or not?
She considered the few books that might have the answers she was looking for, then back to the bookcase she had been pursuing.
If she needed more information after checking what she already had, it would probably be better to ask Arseniy for it. He could decide what to do, because she didn't know what was safe to risk or not. The vor had a better grasp on the underworld's movements and would probably continue to have it until after she finally made a stupid mistake to learn otherwise.
Mistakes in the underworld typically ended in one's death.
She didn't intend to make any mistakes that could be prevented with a dash of caution, she had a fair bit to do before she would be content to die again. However, that was intent-based.
Mistakes were… well, mistakes.
"How hard do you think teaching Cherep French will be?"
Tatiana's eyebrow rose in silent question, prompting Sonya to show her the storybook she pulled out first.
It was as good as any cover story, if questioned.
"…good luck with that. I'll give you the fact he's decent with mathematics, but his grammar on the other hand…"
"That's not his fault, it's his Czech accent that makes him sound funny to us."
She hummed noncommittally, which was ruined by the slow creeping smirk crawling up the redhead's face.
"Oh, shut up. Where did you want to go after this?"
Her smirk grew a touch evil looking.
The clerk that had been trying to covertly keep an eye on what they were poking at and overhear their conversation eventually hurried them out, just so he didn't have to hear everything the older girl knew of current European fashions.
Given Sonya didn't really want to know either, as it was the early 60's when the hippy-bohemian look had yet to become popular and afros were fast becoming a thing everyone wanted to have, she tuned Tatiana out as well.
XXXII (Saturday the 21st of January, 1961 continued. The Zolotov Condo, Mafia Land.)
"Do you know how to swim?" Sonya asked Cherep even as she handed a book to him and dumped the rest of the bags she had on her bed.
He looked highly amused to be automatically handed a stack of wire bound paper the moment his foster sisters returned from checking out what shopping they could visit in range of their hotel. "Yeah, why?"
"Cause there's a beach here, silly." Tatiana dropped all six of her shopping bags on the twin bed the girls were sharing, whirling around to grin at her younger roommates. "It's mostly used by families with younger children really, but still a beach. I don't know how to swim, and Sonya ever so thoughtfully volunteered herself to teach me how."
"There's also all the women that want a nice tan to show off when they go back to wherever." She chipped in absently, searching through the redhead's new piles of clothing to find the swimsuits they had picked out. "And, if Cherep doesn't want to swim, there's always the boardwalk to explore or the amusement park… but I'd suggest we go as a group for that one."
He gave her an unimpressed glare, and she had to suppress the desire to smirk.
Wet-cat had nothing on that expression.
"You can't stay cooped up here all three days. You'll drive yourself up a wall or two and take the rest of us with you."
"Watch me." Even as he said it, Cherep's face twisted into a distracted frown. "It'd be nice to go swimming again…"
"Sonya learned in Saratov, in the river. I can't imagine how cold that had to be."
"It wasn't bad, just… smelly." The industrial revolution might have tapered off, and the start of the environmental concerns might be making a small dent into the amount of pollution being produced, but her biological birthplace was still a port city.
Sonya didn't really want to think what might have been in the water that one time she took a dip in it when her biological father decided to ensure she wouldn't ever drown by teaching her even if she already knew. It wasn't like she could've told the man she already knew how, explaining the whys of that would've been difficult.
"Come on, you can laugh at all the seawater Tatiana's about to gulp down and we'll go find something greasy and fast to eat afterwards. We'll be back before dusk, when all the really interesting things are supposed to start."
"She means before all the really immoral and fun things start to happen." Tatiana mock-whispered, swiping the swimming suit she had picked out from the other thief's fingers. "Alas."
The younger girl rolled her grey eyes, shoving a pair of swim shorts at Cherep. "She's mad I said no to her bar hopping idea."
"It's a good idea!"
"It's not."
The redhead flounced to the door connecting their rather lavish bedroom to a bathroom, tossing a sniff over her shoulder at them. "We're legally allowed to drink here, so why-"
"We're not legal here, there just aren't any laws here." She interrupted her pointedly. "Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I'm sure if we ask nicely, Lisa or Arseniy will let us drink at home. At least that way we can be home and hungover rather than try to navigate a new place drunk off our asses while hoping everything goes okay."
Cherep blinked at her blankly a few times, even as their sister came to a sudden halt before reaching the bathroom's threshold. "Really?"
Sonya gave the purple haired and eyed boy a disgusted look in return for the utterly disproving expression aimed at her before turning to their elder. "I'm pretty sure of it, since Lisa told us to ask them if we ever wanted to experiment with things like that."
"When was this?"
"Couple years ago, a few months after I met Cherep."
Tatiana opened her mouth, shut it slowly after a moment of hard thought, and then shook her head before she started speaking. "How… why… why do you recall that? I'm pretty sure I remember something along those lines, but… I forgot about it like a day later."
"Because you have the attention span of a gnat when you're interested in something. That was a little after they started us on safecracking, remember? You loved it and spent most if not all of your free time cracking practice safes when not forced to do something else."
"It's one of the rare few things I'm better at than you." She informed her haughtily, hand on her hip and a smirk on her lips. "I was fascinated with the novelty of such an event."
"I think I might have liked it better when we were ignoring each other."
"Don't listen to her." Cherep spoke up suddenly, softly smacking Sonya upside the head. Which she let happen, as she didn't understand the sudden tension in the room and hoped he had some idea. "She's just cranky you were going to have the last word."
Tatiana's smirk, which had dropped a little, returned full force as she spun around and finally entered the bathroom to change. "You're a doll, Cherep."
"The hell was that for?"
"Rude much?" He rolled his eyes at her when she glared at him. "Stop that, you are disturbing when you pout."
Sonya smoothed out any expression from her face. "I'm not pouting, I'm miffed."
"Same difference. Small hint for you, Sonya. Don't bring up that ignoring thing, Tatiana's a little embarrassed over that."
"Why?"
Cherep gave her the flattest stare she had ever seen from him. "You know that social incompetence she likes to tease you over? I don't think it was a joke."
"…I'm going to drown you."
"No, you're not. I'm going to sit in here and read while you teach Tatiana to swim, and maybe tomorrow I'll go with you to the beach if nothing happens to either of you."
XXXIII (Sunday the 22nd of January, 1961. Mafia Land.)
Lisa woke them all up just before dawn the next day, flicking the lights on without care for what eyes she might burn with them. "Up, all of you. Yes you, Cherep. You need to come with us this time."
A few months of living with them under his belt enabled him to at least wait until their foster mother was out of the room to ask, "Why?"
"Lisa told us last night, but you were already asleep by then." Tatiana informed him groggily, rubbing a fist against her eye as she rolled out of her side of the bed. "We're supposed to get medical checkups and vaccinations boosters this morning. Oh joy."
"Normally Lisa does this at home, but since we're here I guess we are doing this now." Agreed Sonya, dragging herself over to her luggage only to stub her toe on one of the redhead's purchases from the previous day. "The hell is in this, rocks?"
"Shoes."
"My toes don't see the difference, Tatiana."
"At least they aren't books."
Their brother muffled a snort, grabbing a change of clothing and shuffling over to the bathroom in order not to follow in the physically youngest thief's footsteps in stubbing something. "Ladies, let's not force Lisa to come back and hurry us up. Please."
She grudgingly decided he had a point, since the older woman was never nice about it if she had to wake them or encourage them to get moving more than once. Dropping the only half-formed complaint she had been about to fire back, she instead stripped and dressed herself in the more comfortable of what clothing she had with. "Think we're doing vaccinations now or when we get back?"
"I hope back, if only to ensure the boat ride home will be merely miserable because I hate boats and not because we're all sick." Blinking at the closed doors separating them from their only recently acquired foster brother, Tatiana lightly nudged her shoulder blade to gain her attention. "Has Cherep ever gotten his vaccinations done?"
"Err… I hope he has, or he's going to be miserable for a good week." Given his history, she rather thought not.
Depending on how much time he had to himself before she ever spotted his oddly purple hair, it was likely he had gone without medical aid for a couple years. Add that all to the fact she thought very little of his parents, who had gotten scared of their good fortune to have a child that was unkillable when their incompetence had resulted in his initial death in the first place, meant she was rather sure he had gone five or six years without actual doctors looking over his health.
Normally, the Zolotov thieves had their medical records fudged by a registered nurse that came around every couple of months.
The man fabricated incidents that would explain away the usual and frequent training injuries they incurred, a broken wrist from a botched job turned into a fall off a playground jungle gym and the broken glass scars from smashing an inconvenient window turned into a fall into broken bottles instead. The point being all the fostered Mafiya brats she knew of had actual medical records… even if most of the background information in it was pure bullshit.
However, Cherep likely didn't have any medical records either. Or at least, no where that they could hope to make use of them.
Thankfully they were in Mafia Land, which had a fully functioning hospital. Most of the Zolotov used vaccines were taken from them, and they likely supplied most of the underworld with them and other medical services as well. In a hospital like that, hopefully being asked to fake a record for one orphaned boy wasn't going to be too odd.
"Erm… so…"
Sonya turned back to look at her foster sister shifting in place uneasily. "What?"
Tatiana threw up her hands in exasperation, then snagged her tiny purse with the money the girls had pooled to afford the things they wanted to purchase here. "Never mind. Let's go see what Lisa has in mind for breakfast."
XXXIV (Sunday the 22nd of January, 1961 continued. Saint Julian's Hospital, Mafia Land.)
Even with the head start, it still took them several hours to clear out of the mafia run hospital.
Although the adults merely needed a checkup each, the children they were nominally in charge of only had basic incident reports and one had absolutely nothing in the way of medical reports. Height, weight, teeth oddly, a few x-rays, reflex testing, hearing checks, eye exams, tailoring several years of medical reports into a full medical file on each of them, and then recording various other bits and bobs took a bit of time each.
Sonya felt a bit like a horse after it was over.
However, mostly, it was Cherep's fault it took so long.
In between the blood testing to check what antibodies he had already and after the x-rays to check his bone structure, the doctor he was assigned to then found the long-healed cracks in his vertebra from when he broke his neck years ago. Then the fact he seemed to have broken his left arm and several fingers only a few years prior, a couple ribs showing suspiciously old damage like they had caved in, and some very odd results in his blood test needed some open-minded consideration of surviving what should've been beyond fatal poisoning attempts.
She got to return the favor of a bruise in the shape of a hand, clutching her foster brother's arm hard enough so the brat didn't bolt like a guilty person. While Arseniy confirmed he knew of the neck incident and that was one of the reasons why the purple haired boy was with them now and not where he once was.
Mafia people weren't nice people, but when they had standards like the doctor that looked perfectly willing to murder the much larger Russian vor if he had been the cause of the boy's old injuries… things tended to get ugly real fast unless you had a very good excuse or could point them in another direction.
Lisa's pinched features kept Tatiana from asking questions while they were waiting for a medical history to be tailored to their foster brother's old healed injuries so any civilian doctor who investigated or read it wouldn't have a stroke, but Sonya wasn't stupid enough to hope no questions would be eventually asked.
When they were finally done at the hospital, the undead Cloud now possessing a new medical history that was only half bullshit and the rest of them updating theirs with Lisa collecting a box of vaccinations and booster shots that would need to be taken as soon as they got home, Arseniy gave her a look that basically asked if she thought he was an idiot.
She really could only indicate the boy himself, who was stiffly moving and paper-white. He was also not looking at anyone else in his stupid procrastination protest/fear of their reaction thing she had yet to figure out a reliable way to address without spooking him. Then she shrugged, to inform him she probably didn't know much more than he now did.
Which was pretty much the truth, since he hadn't informed her much beyond the whole first death incident and the basics of how he got to Moscow in the first place.
Noticeably, Cherep had left out exactly why he knew full well his death-defying ability would continue regardless of any 'special skill' he had been eventually stolen for… or why his parents knew that fact, or how many shady doctor types learned, or how long and how bad his kidnapping incident had been before getting himself free.
Which probably meant he had been killed a couple more times after that first time, but if Sonya ever learned who did it she would probably either tell Arseniy or that doctor the full truth as far as she had put together… or hunt the assholes down herself.
Probably one death from the incident that resulted in his previously broken ribs, a couple more times from the chemicals still lingering in his bloodstream, and any number of other methods that wouldn't show up if allowed to heal a month or more. Yet her best friend was alive, and not talking about it.
They had proof of that avoidance in Arseniy's hands.
The vor snorted, a sound which jolted the younger boy out of his head given his panicky look at him, then rolled his shoulders as if shaking off some thought. "You peredniki have until noon, then get back to the hotel."
"We'll be visiting the Thieves' Hall after lunch." Lisa tacked on rather blandly, padding off after him when the man abruptly split off from them at the hospital's front steps.
"Cherep… if you want to stay in the hotel room you should follow them." Sonya prompted after an awkward moment, because Tatiana looked as if she dearly wanted to ask and the blonde wasn't sure if he wanted to deal with that or not or if the redhead had enough tact to wait until they were home.
"Or we could go check out the boardwalk." The preteen safecracker proposed with a fake and bright grin. "You did promise."
"I didn't promise anything… just that I might think about it if you survived your own adventure." Cherep hastily corrected her tightly, slowly unbending his spine the longer they waited on him to decide instead of asking or pushing him into something he might not want to do. "But… that sounds good."
He was still a little too wide-eyed for her to believe he was anything approaching remotely comfortable, so she gestured to the direction they would have to go to find the beachfront stores. "Whenever you're ready."
"Mmm, didn't you also want to check out the weapons on sale around here?" Gesturing behind them to where the road the hospital was on led further into the island, Tatiana painfully didn't bring attention to how long it was taking their brother to decide on what he was going to do. "We could always go take a look or browse a bit… but you know most of what's here is probably hitman supplies. Guns, bullets, knives, poisons, and those sorts of things."
"Probably yeah, but I just want something that won't break apart on me after a few hours work and that's specific enough I hope there's some kind of store already here with what I want."
Cherep muttered something along the lines of 'I'd rather see tacky tourist shops', seizing Sonya's wrist and starting off in the direction she had given him. Their older foster sister followed them with a more natural sounding giggle.
XXXV (Sunday the 22nd of January, 1961 continued. Mafia Land.)
They returned to the hotel with little time to spare, Cherep clutching a massive black teddy bear almost the same size as him Sonya bought just because it was something for him to maul without leaving her with more bruises… or her punching him for the repeated manhandling.
They also had a massive assortment of candy that she was planning on not being around for when they finally ate it.
Said over-sized teddy bear ended up occupying a chair of its own during their Asian inspired lunch, guarding all the sugar they had acquired. Arseniy having left again for whatever business he was here for allowing them to put the stuffed doll in his spot much to Lisa's visible amusement.
The woman was much more settled than she had been by the end of their trip to the hospital, making the blonde cautiously guess the vor filled her in a little with what he knew of the boy's situation. Otherwise the brunette would be a breath away from glaring at her, for the imagined crime of keeping pertinent information from them.
Which she was still doing because while she might know Cherep was probably a Dying Will Flame user himself with their generation's strongest, if Soft/Inverted/whatever meant opposite than 'normal', Cloud nature… she had no way to prove it just yet.
She'd rather like to keep going on with that too. If she had no proof, she wasn't technically keeping things from them and therefore possibly able to get in trouble for it.
If her foster brother was going to be that Skull de Mort in a few years, the Zolotovs might really want him to be firmly under their thumbs before he could skate by on mere technicalities of only be 'aligned' with the Russian Mafiya. Even the weakest of the Arcobaleno would be a very important chess piece to control, they wouldn't be called the 'World's Strongest' without validation, especially since two or three of them would end up in Vongola hands before long and another was spoken for by the Triads.
The thought was probably entirely treasonous in a way and probably not what good Mafiya girls did, she didn't care.
Again, Cherep was hers first. Everyone else could go screw themselves, even if everyone else included the Mafiya syndicate that prevented her from finding out what a childhood of slavery was like.
She already almost compulsively stole for them. That would have to be enough to show her loyalty to the Zolotovs.
After they finished lunch Lisa gave Cherep the option of going with them, but he refused rather neatly claiming he needed a nap and instead stalking up to the suite of rooms they were using dragging the massive stuffed animal and the rest of the girls' shopping after him. Their foster mother didn't seem to mind too much, beckoning both younger thieves after her as she left the path leading to their hotel.
Sonya wasn't sure what she was expecting from something called 'The Thieves' Hall', and she wasn't sure if she found what she had been expecting or not.
It looked like a regular office building… but given that normal looking façade in a place called Mafia Land obviously something was off about either it or her worldview.
They were show in by the doorman, who probably doubled as a guard/bouncer, Lisa exchanged a greeting and a bit of gossip with what looked to be a secretary that sounded just odd enough to make her assume it was code or insider habit.
Whatever the older Russian did, it made the lady manning the desk show them into a ground-level meeting room. Lisa got a stack of files pressed into her hands, and she cheerfully let them smack onto the table that took up the bulk of the room.
"These are mostly low-level requests from our neck of the woods, but along the type of things this agency is typically responsible for. Take a look, the both of you."
"Any particular reason why?" Tatiana asked after both girls gave the manila files a dubious look each.
"Because there really are only a few ways to get noticed and respected in our line of business." Lisa informed them pointedly, ticking off the options they had off one hand. "Develop a well-connected and incredibly loyal network of contacts that can advertise what you do and who you did it to without them stabbing you in the back, do over the top jobs that will get you noticed and hunted by the civilian authorities and possibly risk breaking Omertà, or take jobs through a guildhall like this and let them deal with advertising and networking. While this may not be a problem you'll need an agency to help you make those contacts, Tatiana, every little bit helps when you finally strike out on your own. Sonya…"
"I'm screwed on that contact thing, I take it?"
"I can substitute for most things, and I'm sure Tatiana will be willing to help." Giving her a surprisingly awkward seeming shrug, the older Mafiya woman took a seat and gestured the other two to find their own. "You might even want to think about getting Cherep to be a point of contact for you, sending things to me for fencing them off instead of trying to find anyone local and not inclined to stab you in the back either during the transaction or after. But… lone thieves don't typically do well, sweetie. Safety in numbers is a phrase that especially includes us. At first, we thought you'd be a very fine petty thief who wouldn't need a supporting network outside of the clan… but you were surprisingly skilled with that lone jewelry heist."
To be honest, Sonya had never intended to be more than any normal petty thief at first. Petty thieves weren't ones an even mildly affluent Mafiya syndicate like the Zolotovs worried about, and there was safety in being only one of many. Had things gotten unsustainably bad or troubling, it had been likely she could've ducked out without too much difficulty so long as she made sure to leave no links behind.
Then she met Cherep and her desire to do something notable with her life won out over her desire to keep her head down and not make waves.
Lisa was right, their society was rather isolated from other pockets of the underworld. Not only due to sheer distance from each other, but because one Mafioso from Italy would stick out like a sore thumb in the USSR and be easy pickings for the vory. That also made information and news hard to come by, and if she really wanted to make a serious go at becoming anything like the 'World's Greatest Thief' she'd either have to act out and draw dangerous levels of attention on herself or do something incredibly stupid like get herself noticed by the police.
An agency for thieves was probably her best bet to make that lofty goal without risking her neck… or Cherep's.
She wondered how well her foster brother would take to the suggestion of being a thief's agent.
…probably not well.
XXXVI (Sunday the 22nd of January, 1961 continued. Thieves' Guild Hall, Mafia Land.)
"Well?" Sonya glanced up to Tatiana's expectant look, who had only poked a few files out of sheer curiosity. "Did you find anything interesting?"
The physically younger blonde looked at the file in her hands again, but given she had spent more than five minutes reading it though it wasn't likely either were put off by her stalling. "Maybe. How does a museum heist sound to you?"
"Oh, not good. Damned hard to fence, those things." Lisa interrupted before the older girl could comment, giving the file in her hands a scornful look. "Museums have ways to track the items in their exhibits, and if they can trace it back to you…"
"It's just for a few specific pieces, not a request to loot it to the bedrock." Spreading out the thoughtfully included pictures in the file, she showed them the goals for the requested heist. "I don't think I'd have to go into the museum at all if it wasn't for this one bit, as I'm pretty sure I could rob a wealthy home or two to find the others."
Most of the other requests had things like stealing from people Sonya already knew were shady and a possible killing or two, both of which were things she wanted to avoid for as long as she could. The one in her hands was less violent in request and less suicidal in intent, so she had bothered to read more than just the so called 'shopping list'.
The main objective someone was apparently willing to spend an obscene amount of money to get was one of the state seals from Russia's earlier years as a nation. Thief she might be, but she didn't understand why as it was almost useless as anything but an expensive and illegal paperweight one would have to hide if one entertained more law-abiding individuals.
Maybe a very patriotic Russian wanted it?
Unfortunately, or fortunately if you wanted to look at it that way, there was no name identifying who was asking nor who would be accepting the contract. Only a series of numbers she would have to give to 'turn in' the job and get paid for it if she did do this.
The seal wasn't the only thing the client wanted, but the rest of it probably wouldn't be so risky to hunt down.
The coin he, she, and/or it wanted was, hilariously enough, one of the old ruble coins she already had from the jewelry store robbery. That wouldn't be too tricky seeing as she had it at home.
Thankfully there was nothing else overly large or unwieldy needing to be stolen, just a couple fragile glass pieces she could probably find in any respectably old and venerated family estate. If there were any old and venerated family estates left in Soviet Russia.
Which would draw the problems of personal home security in a level she wasn't really looking forward to, but probably something she would have to tackle before long anyways.
Tatiana scooped up the scattered files, stacking them together in a very noisy way. "Then I think we may be done here, right?"
"Almost." Lisa interrupted her pointed shuffling of paperwork. "If Sonya is going to start working for the Hall, she needs to be formally contracted for it. It's a bit of an involved process, though I can expedite most of it."
"Formally?" Sonya echoed slowly, a bit bewildered that there would be more of a process to this than just picking up a job.
Would it be anything like the dues the Zolotovs were entitled to for her Mafiya education?
"It includes an employee pass to the island and accommodation when you need it. Hotel rooms and such." The older woman tempted, in an obvious manner. Equally as obviously she didn't think she really needed to, but she was sure their foster mother was pulling Tatiana's fiery red braid a bit. "You'll be in and out a bit if you keep up taking jobs here. It's supposed to help defray costs, so you'll keep coming back and taking contracts."
"But not travel expenses?"
"The island moves too much to guarantee that, but you get a schedule of all the ports that will supply this place for a couple months in advance."
"The island moves?" The preteen safecracker interjected incredulously before the younger pickpocket could ask for more information, looking up from her second look at the files to see if she was tempted enough to sign herself up alongside her own foster sister.
"It is completely man made, and we're currently in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean." She pointed out blandly, either ignoring the disbelief on both girls' face or not caring enough to sound less patronizing. "The only saving grace Mafia Land has, aside cutting-edge mafia developed technology and Omertà keeping this place a mostly guarded secret, is that it's in international waters and stays there. Even if the governments around the world learned about it and then wanted to shut this place down, they can't without putting their own warships at risk or starting another war with a lot of paranoid countries thinking they will go after them next."
Sonya blinked at the older woman as she processed that.
Well… that explained quite a few things, to be honest.
XXXVII (Sunday the 22nd of January, 1961 continued. Thieves' Guild Hall, Mafia Land.)
'Expedite' apparently was Lisa's way to inform both girls that she had once been one of Mafia Land's contracted thieves once upon a time. She got a sign-on bonus for both herself and Sonya, so she decided she really didn't care much beyond that.
At least the Thieves' Guild Hall didn't require dues like her Mafiya clan, they merely got twenty percent of the payment as a referral fee on every job she did for them. The commission fee would drop to fifteen if she kept up with the work enough for a couple years, and it might even end up being merely ten percent if ever requested by the serial number the clients were given to identify the various thieves working for them. Had her foster mother not recommended her the initial starting fee would've been twenty-five, and only drop to as low as fifteen no matter how good she was.
It was very clinical, hands off, and strictly regulated to ensure no one inconveniently disposed of the thief that stole for them before anyone got paid. She could see why such a market was open and used, and why the Thieves' Hall was just across the street from the hitmen version of an independent employment agency.
While not impossible to identify and kill certain thieves after the jobs they did, it was certainly hard enough only the really pissed off or asshole-ish would bother trying. According to her new and rather brutally specific contract, while keeping herself anonymous was her job the guild would avenge any of their thieves that were killed due to their work for them by matching the gross pay from their last job and the job they got killed for then placing a hit on the one that ordered their death or the one that killed them with the resulting amount.
Which could get stupidly expensive very quickly if someone was resorting to an independent outside guild of thieves to get what they wanted, so very few criminal types would risk that. According to Lisa anyways, her contract didn't state that in so many words but had a lot of figures for finding out how expensive it would be to kill her depending on how much she worked.
Additionally, any injuries occurred 'on the job' were her own to deal with but they would pay for any Mafia Land hospital checkups to be done after whichever job was finished and 'turned in'. If she was bleeding out or horribly maimed and needed surgery right away was apparently inconsequential, so long as she delivered whatever she was supposed to steal first and by any deadline set.
Oh… and any drug or human trafficking she might do while employed by the Thieves' Hall was grounds for termination in the more final sense of the word via their fellow contracted employees that did hits more than heists.
Mafia Land apparently had very little tolerance for both happening in its territory or by its people, but you could take any drugs you wanted while employed as there was no drug screening or rules against using controlled substances when working for them. A bit odd, but Sonya could deal with that stipulation by not bothering with any drugs in the first place.
As an official Mafia Land employed thief, she got a serial number and a very bogus looking but apparently legal ID that claimed she worked for what was probably an international shell company in 'Acquisitions'. Which was practically useless right now, being she had only recently been elevated into an age that had double digits would mean no one would believe she was legally employed anywhere no matter what documentation she had on hand.
Lisa's promised pass for the island was worked into that ID card, meaning she could come and go as she pleased but couldn't bring anyone into Mafia Land with her for free. At least she'd put in effort to ensure she kept track of what book she was using it as a bookmark for.
If Sonya decided to keep up with contracted jobs, she would eventually end up doing a lot of traveling. It did sort of appeal, in a way.
She hadn't really seen much of the world in her last life, staying put wasn't really all that attractive now she had and was on her second chance.
Apparently one of the reasons why Arseniy hadn't bothered to get them round-trip tickets for the train they used to get to the port they left the mainland from was that Mafia Land was drifting up from the coast of Africa until they were a reasonable distance from Iceland. It would then swing around to skate down the eastern seaboard of America until they hit the Florida Keys where they'll bounce down to South America, then round the southern tip of that landmass before heading into the Pacific Ocean and hitting up the Far East before starting back to Europe.
Meaning when the little foster family went home they would only really need a fraction of the time it took them to get to Mafia Land in the first place, because the island was more north of where it had been when they arrived. A short trip by boat to England or Norway and an overnight ride on the train would probably see them in the USSR by breakfast, if nothing went wrong.
Well… a lot of traveling probably meant she wouldn't have to join Cherep's eventual circus to keep herself fed or pay her Mafiya dues, all she'd have to do is keep in mind where they were going and line up jobs in the same general region. Not area because that would draw way too much attention to whatever circus her friend joined, but a country away was probably do-able.
There would also be a distinct lack of looking for reliable fences this way too, which had been something she had been worried about ever since her foster brother asked her to go with him.
Sonya would probably end up joining as a temporary worker or last-ditch replacement. If only to have an excuse to cling to so she wouldn't have to have a very awkward and probably depressing conversation with Cherep about exactly how she could afford to follow him around or where she went on occasion.
…and maybe pigs could fly without catapults, but she could hope. The boy wasn't stupid… just a bit too nice, a little dense sometimes, and lacking in school-related bookwork knowledge Lisa was only recently helping him catch up with.
The best part about being employed by a shady organization like the Thieves' Hall from a place as bizarre as Mafia Land was that she would be assigned a storage locker to keep whatever she wanted inside if she did five or more jobs within a year, if she did ten she got a tiny flat assigned to her on the island itself. She would have to keep up with whatever number of jobs each year afterwards to keep whatever bonus she got and wanted to use.
While it didn't sound like a whole lot of effort for rather attractive rewards, that wasn't considering the time she'd have to spend getting from wherever Mafia Land was to where the things that she had to steal were or the time needed to plan and execute a heist then the time getting back without drawing attention to herself to turn in whatever contract.
Five jobs might be sketchy for her first year even if she only spent two or so months on each, ten was obviously a goal to work for.
Although the apartment accommodations would probably be cramped and shared with numerous other international criminals, the storage option was something she was interested in.
It'd be a place to store her books for a couple years until she had a permanent place of her own, held in trust by Cherep or not.
Sonya wasn't at all sold on living on the island even if she was working here, but it was something to think about and an option if she ever needed it.
The bonus Lisa got for referring her was nice, a semi-large lump of cash in a currency of their choice the two opted to split. She had been running a little low, given most of the money she had brought with her had been the proceeds from her jewelry heist almost half a year ago. The blonde had been wondering if she wanted to risk picking mafia pockets or not, and this would at least let her opt out of trying that.
She was somewhat confident she'd probably get away with it, but she was trying not to do stupid things that might end up killing her.
XXXVIII (Sunday the 22nd of January, 1961 continued. Mafia Land.)
On the last full day they would be spending on the island, the girls managed to drag Cherep out to the beach for most of the afternoon.
They kept to the more child friendly bits of the amusement park after spending a few hours in the water and, if you glossed over the fact most of the carnival games weren't rigged to ensure you lost or that the sharpshooting booths were set up on a live-fire range and had actual firearms and live ammunition used to play, it wasn't much different than any other carnival or fairground Rachel had ever seen.
There wasn't much that Sonya could use that distracted her best friend from the fact most of the game booth prizes were generally either lethal or something normal children probably wouldn't want, or that the various game was a lot more expensive than typical in exchange for the realism.
She did get him to smirk when she joined an arm-wrestling competition because the gentleman running the mini-tournament implied he was more than just girly-looking, and their brother cracked up with Tatiana when she won it with only slightly suspicious ease. Thankfully there were mostly fellow mafia brats in that round, and she could escape before any of the older members of the underworld decided to test how far her strength went.
Their older sister proved to be a better shot than either of them, but their dork of a foster brother stuck to playing games of chance instead of skill even if he lost more than he won. The redhead won herself a very nice handgun that probably wouldn't nicely fit in her hand for a few more years yet, while Cherep ended up with a rainbow-colored feather boa he decided to proudly wear even if the girls were laughing at him. The younger sibling won her foster sister an extra clip for her shiny new handgun and managed to find him an equally gaudy set of heels that matched his new accessory perfectly.
They returned to the hotel before sunset, merely because none of them wanted to find out what the Mafia Land nightlife was like and they still had to pack to leave the next day.
Admittedly they wouldn't be leaving until after noon, but both young thieves did want to buy a bit of everything they couldn't get in the USSR before then.
A combination of the morning fright, midday exercise, and a steady diet of sugary foods afterwards made both Tatiana and Cherep turn in for the night early enough that Sonya had a lot of time to spend pouring over the other books she had bought earlier the day before.
Not that it told her much else beyond what she already knew.
It did give her a couple more facets to the 'typical' personalities each Flame type was supposed to have, as well as a whole set of Soft/Inverted personality types via a very transparent 'enemy' introduction in the one aimed for mafia teenagers. Other than restating the biggest attribute each Flame had, the storybooks didn't go into specifics of what else they made the user capable of.
It really did look like she'd need Arseniy's help to find anything else of value on the island, or risk it by asking around herself, or ignore the whole thing and keep on trying to develop something she only had half a clue how to do.
Instead of reading pro-mafia propaganda repeatedly when she didn't have to, she stayed up with Lisa long enough to catch the older man when he came back from his own business and explain the problem to him.
The vor made no promises, which she hadn't wasted time hoping for, but agreed to at least see what he could get on the subject before they left Mafia Land.
She did leave him with her mostly useless set of books on the subject when he asked her to.
As she hadn't decided if she would take them back home with her or not, the more useful information could be written down elsewhere and probably in a better manner than how they were as children's stories, she gave them up easily enough.
Besides, maybe he could pin down her Flame Attribute better than she could. She wasn't entirely sure if she was managing an objective view of her own personality.
That kind of brutal self-honesty was rare, and not something she was sure she had.
XXXIX (Monday the 23rd of January, 1961. Mafia Land.)
Sonya managed to get Cherep to go weapon shopping with her by ambushing him with the idea before he was awake for the day and coherent enough to refuse.
It wasn't a tactic that worked very often, as he was usually one of those disgustingly peppy morning people who were awake when they opened their eyes and usually he was quicker than her most mornings. She tended to get more out of Tatiana by resorting to asking before any caffeine was to be had, even if Lisa only allowed them tea instead of coffee.
Her newish foster sibling was inherently nice enough to keep his word to a friend no matter how crooked, even if their elder sister tended to see anything she agreed to in the early morning as promises made under duress and therefore not something she had to be held to.
That wasn't to say he was entirely happy with the idea, but he still didn't stay behind as he had for their shopping their first day on the island. Instead, her followed in her wake a little too close to be mistaken as a very young bodyguard and kept eyeballing the suspicious splotches of what was probably various bodily fluids spilled the previous night as they made their way to where the arms dealers had set up a block of shops.
As Tatiana had guessed the day before, the main trade in the violence industry was mostly guns, ammunition, and explosives with a side order of poisons, concealed knives, and garrotes.
How some of those poisons didn't count as 'drugs' with some of the claims their hawkers professed was a little beyond the younger thief, unless they all ended in death no matter what other effects tended to pop up while the target was in the process of dying.
"I don't know, Sonya. This doesn't look like it will have what you want."
She scanned the four closest vendors, and their 'display' pieces that she was mostly sure could fire bullets if someone wanted them to. "We're not looking for the cheapest or bulk suppliers, so we might have to go farther than one block in to find anything interesting."
Shrugging, the redhead wandered on ahead of them. Taking a moment here or there for a closer look at whatever was on sale that hour, most of which she would be hard pressed to aim correctly much less actually use.
Shotguns had nasty kicks, right?
Cherep still kept as close as a burr for the most part, almost tripping over Sonya a couple times before the lack of anything more violent than an argument or two happening around them made him relax slightly.
"I distinctly recall you mentioning I could spend all the time we were here in the hotel room and you wouldn't have been bothered."
"Well… yes, but I never said I wouldn't try to drag you out once or twice. Which you never said I couldn't do."
He gave her an unimpressed look, which made no dent whatsoever on her self-satisfied smirk. "The next time we do something like this, I want veto rights."
"So that means there will be a next time? I'm holding you to that."
Blinking in surprise a few times, the young Cloud heaved an aggravated sigh and carefully nudged her in the ribs out of protest. "This isn't as… bad as I thought it would be… but not something I want to do very often."
She rolled her eyes at him. "This is probably the safest mafia playground and black market in the world, simply because there isn't the ever-looming threat of a police raid possibly happening and ratcheting up the tension everyone is under. That means it is, ironically enough, safer than any other illegal market in existence. I would never bring you along to any in the USSR, simply because I would never trust them with you. Safe to say, unless you actually want to come back here sometime in the future, I'm not going to be the one getting you into anything illegal."
He gave her an incredulous look, then shifted those wary purple eyes to take in the closest of the arguments on-going around them. The wrinkled looking and middle-aged hitman looked pretty pissed off already, the vendor he was yelling at looked a moment away from pulling one of the guns he had on display and shooting the bastard.
"I said safer, not safest." She defended herself a bit waspishly, seizing him by the wrist and pulling him farther into the crowd so they didn't lose sight of Tatiana's flame bright hair.
"Right… that make it all better. I'm sure."
Cherep was turning into such a snarky little shit, much better than his spooked kitten face when he didn't know how to deal with her in the beginning. She wasn't sure if she was rubbing off on him or if this was purely just him, but she appreciated it all the same.
It made her want to hit him less, strangely enough.
Their elder sister put a stop to anything else they might have said, hurrying back to them with a wide grin. "Found something you might be interested in. How about a polearm instead of just a stick?"
"You complain about my sticks, but I can whack you from across the room with it." Sonya followed her anyways, because while she might really want to stick with something safe and blunt like a staff she may just need a blade or two if everything went to hell on her in the future.
The older safecracker rolled her eyes at her but showed her the store she had found. It was quite the find she had made, a catch all for melee weaponry instead of yet another ammunition store with a side selection of knives ranging from pocket sized to short swords in length.
The real prize of the store were the clunky gemstone rings locked into a very secure display case, which the young pickpocket only belatedly realized were for Dying Will Flame users after wondering why rings were available in a weapon shop.
They looked rather shoddy at a glance, the stones cracked and cloudy, and since Sonya couldn't recall when Flame rings became a thing to be used even if she vaguely knew they would be she doubted they would help anyone much.
If she recalled correctly, that kind of ring would shatter after a use or two.
They were also hellishly expensive.
Until she knew what Flame type she had and how to use it, it wouldn't be worth the hassle to see if she could get one.
"Sonya?" A nudge from Tatiana drew her attention, as she pointed out a specific weapon displayed on the wall. "What about that one?"
She was pointing at a slim and lightweight war hammer.
Sonya left the store with a Bec de Corbin the proprietor insisted was Flame resistant, though she had her doubts about that. If she managed to shatter it, she would be rather cross given how much the damn thing had cost her.
Her older sister picked up a couple of knives while the shop clerk tried to sell the 'specially designed to be damage resistant' weapon to the blonde, and both girls chipped in to get Cherep a set of brass knuckles when he lingered a moment too long over them.
Even if he spluttered in protest.
XL (Monday the 23rd of January, 1961. A Mafia Land Ferry.)
"That wasn't so bad, right?"
Cherep gave Sonya a very level look over the head of the stuffed bear he was resigned to be carrying around for their whole trip back home. His crooked best friend merely smirked wryly at him, lightly kicking her luggage under the bench they were sitting on.
They would apparently be disembarking from the ferry in France then take a couple of different trains to hit the main rails, for an overnight ride to get them most of the way back into the USSR, and they'd probably hit Moscow sometime after dark tomorrow.
He was looking forward to watching the scenery pass by him because everything even remotely questionable had been packed into a shipping container that would probably reach Moscow before them, so he didn't have to sit there with the wonder if they were going to get arrested by any border inspections or not hanging over his head.
The only sour point was the fact he didn't speak or read French, German, or any language other than Russian or Czech. Cherep could at least deal with that issue in time, Sonya promised to help teach him a couple of languages then he could read the signs like any other tourist in the next year or so.
Mafia Land had been rather baffling in that respect. While he appreciated being able to read some of the signs and managing a conversation if he wanted, there was still the tiny fact it was mafia that boggled his poor head. Until their trip to the amusement park it had almost looked like some beachside vacation spot, with packs of foreign speaking tourists wandering around. Much to his surprise they hadn't even been the youngest children there, which told him that mafia people were almost another subculture entirely.
He hadn't known some people allowed their children lethal weapons or viewed the act of carrying them as some kind of reward or prize, and he probably would've been perfectly happy to have never noticed that. Even his new baby sister had looked bemused, guiding him and Tatiana away with a sour muttering about cows and hand grenades he didn't understand correctly.
At least, he hoped he didn't understand her correctly.
"It was... different." Cherep temporized instead of admitting she had a point, propping his chin on top of the ridiculous stuffed animal she had forced on him. "Not entirely good…"
"…but not that bad either, right?"
"You're not going to drop this, are you?"
"Nope."
Rolling his eyes skyward, he gave an awkward shrug. "Fine then. No, it wasn't that bad."
"I found a book for you and Tatiana, got something long and surprisingly pointed to play with, and might actually have gotten something I'd been wondering about done." Sonya informed him almost haughtily, kicking her feet idly and leaning back against the ship's railing. "I think our stay was great."
"Hooray for you. One question. Is there going to be lunch on this boat?"
"Oh god." Tatiana complained sickly, already green in complexion and hanging onto the railing they were leaning against for dear life. "Cherep, shut the hell up."
"Lisa said we'd be getting lunch in France before we board the train, because of poor Tatiana's delicate stomach. Just think… raw snails served in their shell… frog legs…" The blonde trailed off with a wicked smirk, waiting for the redhead to regain some control over her rebellious stomach. "…raw oysters and sea bugs boiled in their shells…"
Cherep winced in sympathy as their older sister got sick over the side of the ship yet again. "You are a horrible little foster sister."
"I'm the little sister, I'm supposed to be either sweet and loving or conniving and evil. And there's no way in hell I'm ever going to be sweet so evil it is." Defended the girl with a prissy little sniff, giving their horribly ill sister a sideways look. "And hopefully this will teach you not to mess with my damn books."
"This means war, you little hellion." Tatiana hissed back at her, pulling a rather good glare for all that she looked a moment away from losing the battle to keep what little of breakfast she ate where it was supposed to be. "I didn't know the damn thing was there."
"And you leave your shoes all over the place too, so you have no room to complain."
Sighing, and wishing that Lisa hadn't abandoned him with his foster siblings when it became apparent this wouldn't be one of the little things Sonya was totally apathetic about happening, he dropped his face into his hands.
His crooked best friend didn't normally tend to get this vicious, so he was rather curious what had been in that book when he was sure she had already read all the ones she had picked up that first day.
Arseniy had given it to her… so maybe that was the reason she wasn't letting this incident go?
AN#2 : Translations
Vory v Zakone (Singular vor, Plural vory) – Thieves-in-Law, title awarded by one's peers (like a peerage title rather than a military rank).
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