Author's Note : I think, with this, we are either just brushing the underside of Deja vu's word count or about there discounting ANs and the reviewer replies I did for half the other story... at twice the chapter's length.

I've a question for you all if you would indulge me.

Is this easier to read? The shorter chapter lengths, but twice the chapter counts?

Edited (5/1/2017) - Minor story and grammar corrections.

Edit (3/23/2018) - Final formatting and minor corrections.

Edited (9/11/2018) - Minor corrections.


Russian Roulette : Reloaded

Chapter 50


(Thursday the 1st of May, 1969. Saint Julian's Hospital, Mafia Land.)

Renato had missed Sonya by a few days, and from the sounds of it for the rest of the month.

"Sorry," Tatiana informed him without a touch of regret, "but she left Sunday afternoon. She really only intended to do this last week, when a few clan things came up and finally freed her up a little. Nya does intend to take the rest of the summer and some of the fall off for various reasons, honestly."

The hitman heaved a nearly silent sigh, but since they had never really urgently needed each other's aid before there wasn't a way to get into contact with the woman quickly. He could try leaving a message that he wanted to talk to her with her Lackey, but as it was not that time sensitive he would merely leave it at that.

He could afford to wait a few weeks to get a solid answer from her, but until then…

"You're Russian, know any Clouds like your sister?"

"I haven't been back home for any longer than a week or so for the last few years. The most I could say anything about all either already pass through here or are not Clouds." The nurse informed him wryly, sliding shut the folder in her hands to hand off to a little brunette girl shadowing at her elbow. "I know there are other Clouds, one of which my sister has semi-regular dealings with and another she's about to have some with… maybe one or two more I haven't heard of yet, but not much more than that."

Of course not, he didn't tend to have that kind of luck. Then again, the rarity of the Flame type he was asking after would help narrow down the suspect list… as soon as he got one.

He slanted a look at the younger Russian hovering just behind the redheaded Sun, but all she did was pointedly stick her nose in the air and wander off determinedly with the file clutched to her chest.

"Avdotya might know, but I don't think she's going to talk to you." With a gesture tossed her aid's way to let him know who she was talking about, Tatiana tapped her lips with her other hand as she considered him thoughtfully.

"What?" He had refrained from getting close enough to pick up some of her thoughts, so he actually had to ask.

If Sonya had blown up at him for just getting details out of her head on her siblings, he really didn't want to know what she would do if she ever suspected he was violating their privacy even accidentally.

Those mauls hadn't been expensive per say, just… highly unnerving to gift to a woman still pissed off with him. He'd still rather not feel like what it would be to have one crush his ribs if at all possible.

"I'm not entirely certain she would even tell you about it, honestly." Offered the nurse a bit more hesitantly than she was normally talking to him. "Some of those Clouds she knows of are rather young, still. Nya's actually surprisingly protective of those within a certain age range."

As she was with Shamal, he had noticed that.

Adjusting his hat to sit lower on his brow, Renato merely shrugged that warning off. "I'm not looking for a younger Cloud, more one around our own ages or older."

"From Russia? I think the eldest in our area we have active is Nya herself. You can't quote me on that, because we really only deal with most of the eastern side of the Soviet Union and there might be more a lot west of us, but as for one that goes outside of the Iron Curtain…"

A niggling little suspicion was planted in his brain, but the hitman shoved it aside forcefully.

Sonya was a professional thief yes, but she had never stolen people before… or at least he had never heard her getting into kidnapping. Ransoms took a while to be completed anyways, and the AWOL Lightning had yet to be ransomed back to the mob syndicate that lost him. It had been nearly a week, anyone looking for money would've already contacted the Cerrito Crime Family by now.

Why the hell would the Russian woman deal with or inconvenience an American mobster syndicate anyways?

Sonya wasn't normally vindictive unless there was a damn good reason for it… but he couldn't say with any certainty if she even had contacts there.

He eyed the Storm-Cloud's bouncy Sun sister warily, wondering if he should ask if the woman in question had gone on any recent trips to America or not.

Tatiana either missed or ignored his look, pulling her hand away from her lips and giving him a slight smirk. "Now, unless you're going to finally give in to Doctor Kappel's insistence that you at least get semi-regular checkups… I should probably go back to doing what they pay me for."

"You can tell your doctor that I am fine." Renato ordered shortly, a bit less irritable than he would like to.

It wasn't her fault the medical practitioner of Sonya's liked to bug him about it, especially after taking Shamal in for his next set of immune shots and a physical to record the brat's rate of growth.

"And that's sure to put him off your case, if the last few times were any measure." Rolling her eyes, the nurse turned to follow her little protégé's path deeper into Mafia Land's hospital. "I'll let Nya know you were looking for her when she next checks in with me and Bjǫrn, tall, dark, and snarky."

"Thanks." Renato drawled sardonically at her back, turning on his heel to stalk his way out of the building.

Not quite a bust, but also not something he could work on for now. He might as well hit up the information brokers while he was here, see if they had any information on Soviet Flame users either around his age or older.

He kind of doubted it though. After first meeting a tiny Russian thief that could use Cloud Flames, he had specifically checked to see if she was following in anyone's footsteps. If Sonya was, it wasn't one known of outside their icy corner of the world.

Fuck… that would mean any information on older Soviet Flame users would be expensive no matter how slight or circumstantial.

Perfect. Price wouldn't be a decent judge if the information is worth shelling out for.


(Saturday the 3rd of May, 1969. Kingissepa, Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic.)

Sonya's first heist of the month was a minor milk-run contract, but excusable in that it was really only to get her in range of the favor her Lackey had been patiently waiting for.

Rovaniemi, Finland, was surprisingly farther inland than she had been expecting. Bjǫrn must have been at least exhibiting the faintest signs of his Lightning-Storm nature to be stubborn enough to illegally cross the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, and half of Finland before finally selling off his mother's jewelry for the funds.

Two decades after the Second World War, the city was back on its feet after apparently being nearly demolished entirely by invading German soldiers. Almost all of the buildings were built in the last twenty years, but there was still a hodgepodge of city planning where temporary infrastructure important services had once been before being relocated to newer more suitable buildings.

Leaving gaping holes in some of the main street thoroughfares, which had yet to be plugged up by another shop or business.

Subarctic terrain, which at least meant that since she was visiting in the summer it was nice and balmy out on the streets instead of sweltering hot. A few mid-summer rain storms, but she could deal with the wet if it wasn't icy cold out.

Both the temperature and the frequent rains helped her out a lot, since she didn't have to resort to questionable Flame skills to keep herself warm or hidden while scoping out her target and spending a few nights delicately picking through a certain pawn shop's books before robbing it.

Some of Bjǫrn's mother's jewelry had been sold, so she wouldn't be able to get back the late woman's wedding ring or her locket in the same condition her Lackey had sold them in. Sonya regretted that slightly, but as it seemed they were sold years ago that wouldn't have changed even if she had come for them right after the Lightning-Storm mentioned the pieces.

She did get back the dead woman's pearl necklace and an heirloom silver bracelet, as it was likely they had never been sold… as well as a fair number of other jewelry and trinkets the pawnshop contained after double-checking their mafia connections.

Little to none, so the thief had no compulsions against looting them to the bedrock for anything else she might ever want to use. Some of it she put to use right away, when she exchanged out the slim gold wedding ring with the Celtic knot pattern for a fancier version holding a sapphire chip that didn't have a connection to her Lackey.

The locket she just stole off the old biddy with it, pissed off that any pictures it might have held were long gone now.

After carefully packaging her Lackey's keepsake jewelry so the Mafia Land sorters wouldn't put it up to be hawked with the rest of the pricy stuff she robbed the pawnshop of, she tucked it into a bulk shipment of caviar and added in the diamond tiara she had been actually contracted to steal off some little debutante twit's head.

That done, Sonya left Finland behind and crossed the Baltic Sea herself for the more immediately hostile lands of Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Which was part of the Baltic States that, technically according to three world powers, was part of the Soviet Union… but to most other countries the three countries that made it up were illegally occupied. Careful wording and legal loopholes were taken advantage of to argue the issue either way, but it was the Soviet Union in charge of the land in the end.

There was also still an anti-Soviet guerrilla force active in the Baltic States, which she hadn't actually known about until Arseniy pointed it out to her.

It was more immediately obvious now that she was looking, but the Soviet censorship was still strong here and the newspapers and radio only said what the government wanted. The murders, and the skirmishes with the Red Army, rarely if ever reached past the local to the national news services. You had to come in range to even hear anything about it, which made her wonder how her father had known.

No wonder Master Liam and the Großes Volksfest had avoided the country. Unless they went out of their way, the circus would have to cut across Võru County to even skim the lower half of the country.

A Russian traveling circus in expressly anti-Russian territory?

Liam might risk China's ever tightening insular policies, but there hadn't been any wide scale hostilities to Soviet civilians when she was with them. With the armed forces, maybe, but not the little people.

Yet, anyways.

The thief wasn't going anywhere near Võrumaa where the local chapter of metsavennad, or 'Forest Brothers', seemed to operate out of. She did mentally kick herself for not giving the term to Bjǫrn to research a little for her before coming out here. She didn't remember them from her time as Rachel but then again, she was starting to not remember a lot of things.

Thankfully, her heist was to take place on the opposite side of the country. Kingissepa was a port city on the island of Saaremaa, which had been restricted to only Russian nationals allowed.

In… Estonia. Which was a Soviet Social Republic state, but still.

Confusing, and a little disturbing in some way, but she didn't really have the time to investigate.

Sonya's nationality hadn't greatly affected her work before this point, and as a first she supposed she didn't mind this. However, it did bring to mind the fact she didn't even really consider herself American anymore.

Not surprising, given she almost now had just as many years of being a Soviet girl as Rachel had been an American one. It was just she hadn't intended to change that part of her identity, and now that she belatedly realized it had changed some time ago she was a little bothered by the fact.

Not her now being a Soviet girl, she was curiously unbothered about the fact even knowing full well the Soviet Union wasn't the best government in existence.

Not the worst, but what government didn't have drawbacks?

The thief supposed this was what it was to 'go native'. Interesting, slightly bemusing to only now realize, and something that occupied her for hours puzzling over.

Her contract here in the island port town of Kingissepa was to steal a defunct noble's crest from the walls of the local fortress/castle. She had a couple speculations for why, but without more information it was probably wrong.

The actual target she had only glimpsed of that very afternoon was set into a stone plate in the walls of the cloister, and probably weighed a good half ton. That was part of the reason the contract was more of a middling-difficult one… well, for most people.

She was going to bullshit her Cloud derived strength to both pry the stone loose and carry it to the ferry specifically re-routed for her contract that night. It would be the heaviest thing she ever tried to lift and sustain the weight of herself, if she couldn't there was all the heavy-duty carts left dotted around from the refurbishing efforts on-going she could appropriate. Would be stupidly easy to track her path with the marks those would leave behind, but an option.

It just was… well, until the castle emptied enough and she got a measure of the guard patrols Sonya was stuck in the rafters with little to do but think in the dim lighting.

What was she?

An American girl that lived in Soviet Russia, or a Soviet girl that once lived in the United States?

She was leaning more to the latter than the former, if only because she really didn't have much of an urge to return to America's shores just yet. There was little there for her, most of her family lived or returned to Russia so that was where she considered 'home' was.

Frankly, the thief hadn't even intended to stick it out in Moscow as long as she had.

Did the fact she was still intending on heading back for at least another year or more mean anything in that dilemma?

…why hadn't she intended to linger in the Soviet Union?

She had a reason for that, right?

Sonya couldn't remember what it was now, which was highly concerning for her. She did recall that it was a fairly important one…

Blinking a little owlishly in the sudden gloom that enveloped her, she peered over the edge of her perch in the support struts holding the vaulted ceiling of the refectory up. What she was taking to be the local equivalent of a janitor was making his ponderous way through the halls, flicking off a few of the lights as he passed the switches.

Well… to work. She'd have more than enough time to kick the problem around in her head over the next month, so she shelved the issue and set about getting down from her perch.

…there was a pickaxe somewhere around here, right?

If not, she'd have to use her Bec de Corbin and that would leave behind some distinctive marks. Not that she was too concerned by that at this point, but best to be safe about it.

She was pretty sure the criminal remnants of a noble house either wanted their crest either back or removed from easy civilian access before the refurbishing of Kingissepa Castle was finished. If not, the next likely reason behind her contract was that someone wanted any marks of their rivals erased.

Sonya was betting the latter.


(Tuesday the 6th of May, 1969. Zolotov Headquarters, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

"This is not going to end well." Galina confided to Lisa in an aside, neatening her copy of the latest trade agreement between the Zolotov Clan and another Chinese Triad group called the Luen Kung Lok.

Apparently, a syndicate that had good ties to the first Triad group they ever matched who also worked in Hong Kong near them.

The older woman gave her a measuring look, tinged with a bit of sympathy, as she ordered her lover's copy of it all for easier transport as soon as they left. "Oh? You know that for a fact?"

"With your daughter gone, Gedeon intends to take the lead."

"It's his right." Lisa lingered with her as most the other vory that would be involved with security filed out of the meeting room, the only exception was her lover who didn't look particularly pleased at the hold up. "Look Galina, I realize Sonya's more their level… but if she is elsewhere then he is the next one in charge of your group. He might surprise you, as Gedeon does have some diplomatic skills. Maybe just not the best luck with them."

"And I'd feel better about that if he actually spent more than the odd afternoon just hanging around. It's not about his ability to deal with others, I'll reserve judgement on that, it what he's going to try to pass himself off as while he does so." Stated the Lightning sourly, as she finally got to air her grievances to someone that would listen and might be able to do something about it. "I do know Sonya has business in China coming up, so while I'm sure she wouldn't care much at any other time…. now is not a good one for Gedeon to test his leadership skills of us."

"No? Why do you believe that?" Asked Arseniy instead of his lover, who merely now looked a bit concerned.

"Gedeon doesn't do more than visit the Suns when he has to spend time with any Flame users. Sonya never minded, because he is one and that is where he might get more ideas for his own use." Galina held back the sigh, it wasn't the place or time. "But since that's so, he's not really that well known beyond more than ten of us and half that is the Suns he's deemed worthy to bother with. Any other Flame users tapped for helping out might inadvertently make that obvious. A lot of us are still rather young."

Lisa sighed instead, drumming her fingers on the conference table they hadn't gotten up from yet. "Is there something else we should know about this?"

"…err, ma'am?"

"You are asking us for help, aren't you? That's why you're bringing this up at all… right?" Not being foolish or slow on the uptake, as well as having a hand in shaping most of the girls in how they grew up by being the woman most went to for when they needed help, her elder arched an eyebrow when it took her more than a second to respond. "Galina? Speak."

"Sonya… doesn't intend-"

"-to stay with the clan?" Lisa's smile was a touch wry, but just mostly unsurprised despite her fellow brunette's surprised look.

"We've been expecting that." Arseniy informed her blandly, relocating himself closer to the both of them to keep the conversation as clandestine as possible without Flame users nearby.

"For a while now, actually. We almost lost her around her tenth birthday, to be honest. I highly doubt we would've heard a word about her after she finally left home if it wasn't for… oh, one specific thing she needed our help with." Continued the older woman lightly, another sigh given before she started picking up her things. "Can I at least hope Sonya is going to be careful about it all?"

"…the only thing I know about her plans is that she is going to 'give Gedeon exactly what he thinks he wants'."

Snorting back a still obvious laugh, the vor helped his lover collect herself and moved off to open the door for her.

"We'll see what we can do on our own end, Galina. Just try to keep things smooth on your own. That does mean getting your little trainees to play along." Lisa gave a smile to him, looking back at her briefly. "I don't think Sonya will mind much that you told us her plans, but…"

The Lightning winced. "Thankfully I'm not that wary of pissing off anyone else in the clan, Lisa."

"Smart woman."


(Wednesday the 7th of May, 1969. Kursk, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Next for the Russian thief was a very disappointing visit to the Polish People's Republic, where she got a pointed reminder that the further away one got from the inner blocs of the Soviet Union the worse it was.

This heist was a rather risky theft from a government office, information for a local crime syndicate that needed it to avoid crackdowns in the future, then Sonya moved on to Soviet Ukraine.

A brief detour to get her boots adjusted and to commission a few more pairs now that she had pretty much reached her final adult height of five foot four, then Sonya moved onto a new contract much closer to her heart.

She was contracted to steal books again.

Alupka Palace-Park Complex held the Vorontsov Palace, which held a truly phenomenally large library. Everything about the castle was large actually, surprisingly enough given it was over a hundred years old and had somehow survived the recent world war and Nazi occupation intact.

Excluding the manuscripts she was contracted for, she also stole a number of history texts and a few journals from previous owners as well as a random selection of other books she could add to her collection.

Out of storage, because of course the Soviet censors wouldn't want information that could or might contradict them about history to be used by anyone. Even if they were only on display to pad out a library shelf. Easier in that she didn't have to steal out of a room with large windows and more than a few KGB officers wandering the halls, harder in that there were a lot of boxes to clandestinely get through to locate what she was there for.

It just meant she had a good look at what else was available to add to her own collection.

It also reminded her she was running out of storage space on Mafia Land. Her storage unit was nearly crammed full of paper already, so much so that Fong's gift had been regulated to a lonely corner of her room in the condo her clan owed until she could address that.

Oddly, when she called in to her Lackey to get her next contract and trade off the information of which shipment her last contracted target was on, Sonya retraced her steps that same night and made away with the large lion statues in the palace's front yard as well.

Weird, but… books. She didn't care what use someone could put the lion statues to, she had new things to read.

It was a good mood that lasted until she entered the USSR and reached her next contract.

Grave robbing was a new one.

Stupidly easy, and minimal security meant minimal contract fees, but it was in the direction she wanted.

However, she found it distasteful.

Sonya did realize she had a few more morals left and stealing from the long dead crossed one. Admittedly she was there to steal a body not something off one, but still.

She was merely digging up an old World War Two soldier to be sent elsewhere, curiously with exact directions to where the man was buried. Not in a graveyard, but a park on the outskirts of Kursk.

She kind of understood why no one had tipped off the local government that there were dead bodies under the local park, Soviet Russia probably would not be gentle or circumspect about the whole find, but it was still rather creepy in a way.

That strange job over with, and one dead body on its way to being redirected through Mafia Land's ports sent on its way, Sonya took a very long shower and then called her Lackey for her next contract.

She got Tatiana instead. "Tall, dark, and snarky wanted to talk to you."

"Oh?" She thickly mouthed around her fork. If it was a reminder to be in Italy in a few weeks she would somehow convince her sister to slap the man again. Swallowing the bite of her dinner and scrubbing her hair with a towel with the hand not holding a phone, Sonya tossed the cloth to the side and pulled the fork out of her mouth to speak more clearly. "What did he want?"

"Not sure if it was the same thing he wanted to talk to you about, but he did ask me about older Soviet citizens that have the same skills as you." There was a pause and a rustling of some papers, and then the Sun rattled off her next coded contract details Bjǫrn had likely handed her.

Sonya jolted the whole thing down on a scrap piece of paper her hotel was providing for later translating, abandoning the rest of her mostly uneaten dinner in favor of speaking with her sister. "So, were you just hanging around my Lackey's apartment just waiting for me to call in or something?"

"Something like that. It's still my apartment, thank you very much."

Smirking wryly, the thief tapped her pen against the pad of paper a few times as she wondered what the hell an 'Altai' was. It sounded familiar, in a something she read recently kind of way. "Yes, sorry big sister. My mistake. Was that all Renato wanted?"

"Like I said, not sure if that was exactly what he wanted to talk to you about. Tall, dark, and snarky did look slightly frustrated that you weren't available."

Sonya rolled her eyes at the semi-teasing tone her sister had adopted, then frowned as she realized there was still graveyard dirt under her fingernails. "Ever so sorry about that. Kind of busy here."

"Mmm… speaking of, you might want to call Lina."

…fuck. She knew something like this would happen the moment she stepped out of the office.

"Is it going to blow up?"

"It might? I don't have all the details, but I do know she's fairly frustrated."

Sonya's Lightning assistants didn't normally get frustrated. As a whole, the entire Flame type seemed to view frustration and aggravation as kind of useless to them which was a trait she highly appreciated. At least the Russian versions did.

The French versions too, she tacked on as she recalled Verde's one-man crusade in getting access to her research. He hadn't gotten frustrated, every time she stymied him he just went about it in another way to get the results he wanted.

Staving him off via a semi-bullshitted excuse until she knew his character better was all she could do in the end. It was either that or kill the man, and she was pretty sure someone would be pissed off if she did that.

There was the wonder if they even really had the patience to feel frustration, but that was actually kind of stereotyping on her end.

Lightnings could feel frustration and aggravation, it was just with their attention spans it didn't last long for them. Either it passed too quickly, or they basically ignored it as they thought a way around whatever was frustrating them.

That wonder didn't help her much with trying to figure out if she should leave it to Galina or call in and see for herself what was going on. She was technically close enough to the clan she might be able to do a quick fix and go back to what she was doing… but it held the risk of getting mired again.

Of course, if it wasn't something she could quickly fix that would mean she'd probably get stuck behind a desk with extra attention on her ass so she wouldn't hightail it off for her own purposes.

"Tell Galina," how to word it so she wouldn't get passive-aggressive paperwork revenge dumped on her the moment she got back in the office… "that… I trust her to manage things. If it all looks to be going to hell in a handbasket I'll cut my work short and go back, but someone fairly important had better be dead or dying in that case."

"When the hell did I become a messaging service?" Tatiana bitched rather good-naturedly, a rustle of paper echoing down the phone line they were tying up.

"When you decided to remain in a predictable location for a few years."

"Real funny, little sis."

Sonya very quietly lit herself a cigarette. "Anything else I should know?"

"Put that out when you're talking to me, little sister."

How the hell did she always know?

"And yes," the faraway nurse continued only after she stubbed it out, "Cherep called in. He crashed, so expect a very bored stuntman to show up when you want him this summer and fall until he replaces his bike."

Sonya froze, and tried to convince herself that no she didn't need to check up on her brother.

Obviously, if he called Tatiana then Cherep was fine. Could talk and supposedly walk and made it through a conversation with their eldest sister who was quite a health nut in her own way.

…it didn't help much. "Where is he now?"

"Apparently the outfit he's with made it all the way to Denmark this year." After a pause that was a nearly audible shrug, the nurse continued in a markedly more business-like tone. "Should I inform Bjǫrn to aim you in that direction?"

"Please."

Tatiana didn't bother taking a note of that, she merely repeated it verbally to her Lackey. The Icelandic young man made some noise she couldn't understand on the other end before her sister continued. "That should be it, I think."

"Well, I've got nothing for you myself." Aside a request that Bjǫrn never pick up another grave robbing contract ever again, but she could give that anytime in the next few days. Preferably on a phone she would have to be less circumspect on in order for her to be able to sleep securely after said call.

"Alright then. Have fun shopping for phones."

Sonya blinked a few times as the dial-tone informed her she had been hung up on, wondering if that was what an 'Altai' was.

Time to find out, anyways.

(ooo000ooo)

(Wednesday the 7th of May, 1969 continued. Bjǫrn's apartment, Mafia Land.)

Shuffling the deck of cards and letting Tatiana cut them, Adrik doled out another round of hands. "Are you sure she's not going to mind too much?"

"Nya won't care. I'll give you good odds she won't even ask what happened to the money she left for just in case." Replied the nurse, seating herself neatly next to the Lightning-Storm and the Mist in the room. "She's got a really weird sense of value for things. I ever tell you she gave a Ming Dynasty vase to our mother, to be used as a flower vase, for her birthday?"

Viper pinched the bridge of her nose. "Mou, I do not want to hear this."

Adrik warily eyed the interloping gender-fluid person warily as he traded three cards from the deck for the discarded with his 'partner' for the night. "Maybe this was a bad idea…"

"It's not like you have been instrumental in preventing us losing the money." Verde observed dryly from his other side, shuffling his new hand thoughtfully before tossing the bills for a raise on the card table made of Mist Flames. "Either somehow gain more skill or be silent."

"Our mother was so amused, she actually uses it to hold sunflowers when they're in season." Tatiana continued her little story wickedly over the two of them, folding her own hand and forsaking her initial buy-in for the pot with only a glance.

Given the Lightning was the only reason their little tag-team pairing had yet to be ruthlessly cleaned out, Adrik reluctantly shut his mouth and gave the Lackey his two new cards to make up for the discarded ones.

Either both it and her folding or just the story irked the Mist user something fierce, earning the nurse a flat glare over Bjǫrn's head. "Silence."

"Aww… what's the matter, Viper?" Cooed the Sun Flame user, leaning over enough to nearly shove her ample chest into the suddenly beet-red face of the fortunate young man sitting between the two. "Tiny bit vexing?"

"…a genuine Ming Dynasty vase goes for half a million in euros, easily, in any auction house." Groused the money-grubbing Mist sourly as she picked up two new cards after discarding a few of her own, indigo Flames floating a raise to top Verde's bid into the middle of the table. "Who the hell uses such a thing for a flower vase, mou?"

Anything that upset the damn card shark was good to him. Maybe Verde could get back half of what he'd lost unknowingly to the Esper's damn good poker face if the nurse kept it up.

'Teach Bjǫrn a few tricks of ingraining himself in high stakes circles' Adrik's ass. The Mist just wanted all the money she could make off the Russians as possible, which was blatantly obvious from how little coaching the young Lightning-Storm had gotten at all through the rather cutthroat game taking place in his living room.

Viper had made impressive work on trouncing them all too, right on up until Verde started getting the hang of poker with criminals and stymied the miserly individual with some underhanded aid from Tatiana.

The young Icelandic man hadn't done too badly, and he called Verde's raise with an impressively straight face, but he was barely hanging on even so.

Before Sonya's call, and a disqualification Verde had successfully argued for on his behalf, he had almost lost the small amount of cash he had managed to hang onto throughout two hours of learning the ropes.

Admittedly, Adrik had gone into the 'friendly game' a bit arrogantly, gambling was a pretty minor vice considering the job descriptions the people here normally had and one he thought he could keep up with… but as the Lightning said he had nearly been cleared out in short order as well.

His old gang leader was of no help whatsoever. All she was interested in was finding a way to get under Viper's skin and was making good inroads if the semi-belligerent expression the other was wearing was any indication. The money she was throwing down the drain in both pursuit of that goal and to keep the Mist's interests in the game enough to ignore the times she hit too far under the belt barely made her flinch.

Adrik finally stopped putting it off, glancing at his pair of cards. Letting the truly dismal pair of threes, a seven, an ace, and a jack go as he wordlessly folded. He would've played it any other time… except he was getting disturbingly low on funds.

"…if the card table is made out of Mist Flames, does that mean Viper can see the cards dealt out onto it?"

The Mist user in question eyed him suspiciously. "Of course I can."

"Da, it's why we asked you to hand them to us." Bjǫrn tacked on miserably, having to go all in to match his tutor's and Verde's counter-raises.

Tatiana flashed her former gang member a tight little grin. "Aww… poor Adrik. Are you only now realizing that?"

…well, they were all cheating.

Adrik was pretty sure Verde had long since resorted to counting cards, the Sun nurse had made a few suspicious burn marks on a few of them, fuck… even the Lackey was fiddling around bending certain corners. With a Mist in play, there were probably numerous ways she could cheat that he would never think of.

"Call." Verde decided to cut his probable risks that round, matching the limits of what the Icelander could afford and not dipping into the rest of what they had.

Viper made a moue of disgust, but also matched the funds with the other two. "…fine then."

The Mist had been holding onto a set of three Aces, which were beaten out by Verde's Full House, but both hands lost to the Lackey's Straight Flush.

Tatiana burst out laughing as Bjǫrn tripled his funds all in one instant. The kid very pointedly did not look his current teacher in the eyes as he raked in the pot.

Viper's expression was livid. "Trying to surpass the master there, Bjǫrn?"

"No!" Yelped the youngest in the room, cringing under the highly unimpressed look leveled at him from that corner. "It was just luck, I swear!"

"I think it's time to stop playing nice, then…"

Verde turned and looked Adrik in the eye. "I suggest we withdraw anything you do not wish to lose."

"At this point, I think Viper might engineer a messy murder for us all if we tried."

Thoughtfully considering what they had left, the scientist slanted a look at the very irked Mist user in the room and then at the Russian he had been more or less stuck with since Sonya took off. "How about a compromise, then?"

Viper shot him a seething look as Tatiana took possession of the deck to dole out the next round. "What?"

"Now that Bjǫrn has the full amount Sonya left behind to pay you secured, I will forfeit the rest of what we have left if you will submit a few answers I would like to pose."

Adrik spluttered as he was unceremoniously sold out shamelessly by his so-called 'partner', dropping the newest and still dismal hand he had been dealt in shock. Viper abandoned her own to pounce on the money the twosome had left, fanned through it with a thumb, then gave a short nod. "Two."

For a very long moment, it seemed Verde would argue to try and raise the number of questions he was allowed. In the end, after another side glance to him then back to the miser, the scientist just gave a tight nod. "Very well. Two in-depth answers on the subject of your Flame type."

"This is some bullshite."

"Next time, don't lose too badly. Most of it was Verde's to handle anyways." Tatiana put in her two cents from the other side of the table, folding her own new hand and handing the much-abused deck to the youngest player. "I think I'm going to call it a night, before I have to dip into my savings."

Adrik made an admittedly rude sound in her direction, getting to his own feet. "Come on, Verde. Or you'll have to walk back yourself."

By his expression alone, the scientist was none too pleased the night was being called in early. Especially not after finally getting the Mist to finally agree to answer a few of his burning Flame questions.

"You've paid, mou," Viper intoned blandly from where she was stubbornly sitting on Bjǫrn's couch, "I'll find you later."

Dismissing the Lightning for the time being, the miser then pinned the younger Lightning-Storm with a hard look.

Hunching his shoulders, the Lackey merely secured the larger chunk of money that was the funds Sonya had left behind for bribing the Mist if more aid was needed. His expression when they shut his front door behind them was torn between highly wary and resigned.

"That's why Nya's never going to ask." Tatiana confided to both Adrik and Verde as the three of them left the Icelander's apartment behind. "She knew full well that if Viper heard a word of any money left behind explicitly for him, he'd do anything to get a hold of it. A poker game is pretty tame compared to what she was sure he'd try."

The Russian man idly scratched at his still healing surgery scars absently, only for his hand to be batted away irritably by the nurse who fussed after it for a moment until she was sure they were fine. "Was male the gender of the day for him?"

"If I can't tell, I just go with male."

"Does-"

"Viper never seems to mind when I see him. Even the day we were introduced through Bjǫrn and I accidentally called him a 'he' when she was wearing full skirts and somehow had a bust a girl her size would be proud of." Shrugging, the Sun waved the interrupted scientist's irritated look for interrupting him off. "I think it's his preferred standby if you can't tell. Because if he didn't get tetchy then… when she was obviously female…"

"Eh… still kind of squicky." Adrik dismissed after a moment of contemplation. "Can we change the subject?"

Tatiana clicked her tongue at him as they made it to the streets. "So sheltered, aren't we?"

"Sheltered?" Verde asked curiously, plodding along in their wake. It was the safest method to travel for him, given the nurse's medical badge ensured only the very foolish messed with her and Adrik could at least flash a stolen pistol to clear his own way.

"Homosexuality and transgender people are persecuted in pretty much all corners of the world. Which means…?"

"They go underground with it." Verde concluded obediently to the expectation to finish her thought. "So, they often end up here?"

The nurse shrugged absently, sternly eyeing some of the people they were passing who were speculatively eyeing the Lightning in turn. "Not here, exactly. But they're pretty common if you know where to go. There's always a district or two you can dig up with enough effort. Very sympathetic about hiding you if you word it right too. There were these girls, and I used the term girls lightly here, back in Germany…"

"Ugh. Viper's bad enough, can we not bring that up?" Adrik bitterly asked, pulling a face at her.

Tatiana flashed Verde a smirk over a shoulder. "They really liked him when we were there."


(Thursday the 8th of May, 1969. Voronezh, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

As it turned out, Altai was actually an incredibly clunky looking precursor to mobile phones.

The Soviet Union's version of them, maybe, but they were still multi-channeled portable car phones.

Sonya realized why the contract was paying so much out for a few hundred units of brick-like technology and the control tower for them that had been produced for a couple years already pretty damn quick, she had to steal them from the KGB.

The reason why the thief hadn't realized the cellular age was creeping up was because only Soviet government officials and apparently some emergency services had access to them. If she didn't want to steal them from hospitals or risking the police to get theirs, one would invite Tatiana to bitch for years if she ever found out and the other was just bad news all over, it meant she had to go after either the production factories or the politicians and government spies about it.

Heading a good distance east, the Storm-Cloud ended up in the city of Voronezh. Having ruled out actually uninstalling the target bricks of technology from places they were already installed, since they were likely highly guarded and it was entirely impossible to do nearly two hundred units all in one night before security got sicced on her ass, her target was the Voronezhskiy Scientific Research Institute of Communication headquarters and it's attached factory/lab/production buildings.

…and more importantly, the factory that produced the all-in-one 'mobile' communication units.

Sonya flatly refused to call them cell phones even in her own head, they really were more like bricks you'd install into a car's dashboard or which needed it's own suitcase if you carried it around with you. Regardless of what they were the forerunners of, she was calling them phone bricks.

Sticking above the weird, fake-foam ceiling that seemed to be a staple of business offices and public buildings for the most part, the thief managed two relatively quiet nights of scoping out the factory and the offices than handled production. She ended up pretty dusty and had a few tight moments when the fragile ceiling didn't want to support her weight over people she never wanted to come to the attention of.

However, the easy time she had staying out of the way rapidly lead her to the conclusion something serious was needed to interrupt the normal security before she could even set a toe into the factory for what she needed.

The KGB were not slouches in any respect and were of a caliber higher than private security firms she had tangled with before.

Security patrols were way too tight for her to take advantage of any holes, and while she could rewire some of the alarms and security feeds she couldn't do all of them before someone checked up on them and plugged the holes she might be able to make.

All in all, not something she could ghost through like she preferred.

Taking one extra day, which she could afford in terms of the contract she was on if not happy about the delay personally, Sonya carefully inspected each of the females that even remotely could enter specific offices. Picking someone at least generally her size, she made careful note of the hair color and her behavioral ticks.

Sonya had no expectations about somehow avoiding the KGB's attention on this one, all she really could do was muddy the trail as much as she could. When they traced her movements back, they would likely realize there was a blonde woman involved then run into the fake passport and ID she had been carrying around and using in favor of her legal ones since she left Mafia Land.

Thank fuck she had, even if she had wondered if she should bother getting fake papers this time since she was just going back into the Iron Curtain.

Hopefully she could make a case that there might be more than one thief involved like usual when her acts came to the attention of anyone.

(ooo000ooo)

(Thursday the 8th of May, 1969 continued. Voronezh, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

"Excuse me!"

Rapidly clicking her way towards a pair of KGB security men, a harried looking secretary wordlessly handed over her identification to the elder of the two and used the moment when they checked it to regain her breath.

"I left my house keys in my desk. Please tell me the office is not locked down yet, my husband will be very unamused if I do not have dinner waiting for him when he gets off shift." When all her babbled excuse earned her two highly unamused blank looks but one grudging nod, the young woman straightened herself up and returned the nod sharply an attempt to hide her obvious nerves. "I have no objections if the two of you followed me in, I just need to unlock the bottom drawer of my desk for a moment."

They both smoothly stepped aside, ensuring she felt every inch of their suspicious glares.

Still nervous but determined, the secretary led the way into the VNIIS headquarters building and down the correct halls to the office she worked in front of without so much a twitch in the wrong directions. The key was removed from around her neck, and it took only a moment before the lock turned and the drawer in question opened up.

Retrieving a set of keys from inside, the young woman closed the drawer and twisted the key in the opposite direction to re-lock it. "Thank you, gentlemen, I'll get out of your way now… oh!"

With a wince, a part of her left earring that had caught on her suit jacket popped off and clattered away further into the dim semi-lit hallway.

She held a hand to her smarting earlobe but glanced at the two security officers instead of go after the broken end of her earing. "…I'll just find that tomorrow."

"Smart idea, miss. Now, please exit the building."

"Of course." With a nervous little smile, the young woman turned on her wobbly heels and clicked her way out of office as asked.

They stalked her completely out of the building, and down one street, until she was definitely on her way home and less nervous overall.

The moment they turned back Sonya did not deviate from her path, making three turns down the street she knew the secretary she was impersonating actually lived down. Once past the apartment building's front doors, the thief took an immediate left as the girl she was impersonating always did to avoid the elevator.

Once in the staircase, she slipped off the impractically high heels she was still wobbly on and peeled off the suit and skirt ensemble in favor of the other change of clothes she wouldn't mind losing at the end of this just in case. Stamping the generic boots on her feet, promising herself she would only wear them for a few more hours at all before destroying the damn things even if then she'd have to go barefoot, the Storm-Cloud darted up the stairs to the apartment she had been heading towards.

Sonya carefully broke into the home of the married office girl she had impersonated, carefully sneaking around the young woman in the kitchen and replacing the ID she had pickpocketed out of a purse for her own use. She also stealthy slipped into the girl's room, leaving the earrings she had borrowed and slightly modified to break so easily.

Exiting via the bedroom window, the thief scaled the brickwork using only the tips of her fingers and her Cloud Flame given strength. Once she reached the roof, she spent a moment to Disintegrate the clothing she had purchased in the city so they hopefully couldn't be traced back to her.

Then she looked out in the direction of the office building she had just visited and willed the small kernel of Storm Flames in the gemstone she 'lost' in the offices to burn.

If this didn't work to start a fire she'd have to risk sneaking in, without the cover of civilians wandering around to cover any inadvertent issues she came across, to light one. She did not want to risk that, in fact she would greatly prefer the cover of an industrial accident for her first interaction with the KGB…

Narrowing her eyes at the silhouette of the Voronezhskiy Scientific Research Institute of Communication building, Sonya's night-adjusted eyes picked up the faint glow of something fiery going on through a window.

…did it really work?

Staying put for five more minutes confirmed the fact there was a fire going on where she wanted it. The mechanically grinding siren that belted out a warning of a fire belted out in the rapidly fading evening was her signal to move as well.

Re-covering the ground she clicked her way down in heels took less time via rooftops, at least until she reached the industrial sector of Voronezh. By the time she returned to street-level, the fire she started had consumed a fair bit of the office she had impersonated her way into.

A fire was a very disorientating thing to manage security patrols around, especially since it could spread. Storm Flame started fires had a bad habit of melting its way through things plain fire really shouldn't be able to get through, adding even more confusion and disorientation for the KGB agents on the scene.

Using the distraction the disaster provided as cover for her more risky actions, Sonya leapt over an electrified two story tall chain link fence and hit the ground a little more heavily than she liked. Gritting her teeth, she slunk her way past a guard shack with only one man currently glancing through the feeds of nearly thirty monitors on his lonesome.

Summoning a palm full of red fire to her hand, the thief carefully and slowly brushed it to the bundle of cables right at the juncture they entered the shack. Mimicking the burn pattern for phosphorous to prevent immediate replacement of the severed cables for as long as possible.

It blew the assumption this was just an accident or electrical fire that started somehow out of the realm of possibility, and they'd connect this to the office building's sudden fiery issues, but if she didn't want to be caught on security cameras there were literally no other way to take the recording devices at least temporarily down before they could catch her image.

She had tried to plan for that, only to give up when the redundant camera angles kept tripping up anything she could think of.

Immediately ducking out of range around the corner of the tiny building, the thief only just barely missed being spotted as the guard bolted out of his assigned shack with a semi-automatic rifle in one hand and his radio in the other.

He barked out the report of what little he could see, which was basically that his security monitor bank's cables had been somehow melted instantly. No fire, possibly chemicals used.

Another siren cranked to life a few beats after, this one wasn't ever going to be mistaken for a fire alarm but she was already making good time towards the warehouses supposedly holding the production of the factory and labs. Supposedly, because this was the part she had been unable to actually get personal confirmation it was as blueprints and office memos suggested it was.

The riskier part.

Sonya could afford a bit of time to locate where exactly her targets were with everything going on but couldn't afford to somehow spark off another night of distractions. After this, she was pretty damn sure they'd call in even more KGB agents to beef up security to the point she would either have to murder her way in or give up.

As she didn't intend to murder her way through her contracts if she could just steal things instead, tonight was her only window.

Assuming there was security within the warehouses themselves paid off, abusing her inhuman jumping and her circus-trained acrobatic skills to enter the great building after prying up a bit of a roof, from what she could see right away just by looking down.

Five. More than enough to split off a team to investigate any noise she made without seriously compromising their guarding or leaving someone as the odd man out.

Perfect.

Sonya moved painfully slowly, aware that the fire she started had long since run out of Storm Flames and was likely already being controlled but unwilling to rush and make any mistakes now that she was within reach of pulling this off.

…but this was the wrong warehouse. She only had to slowly and carefully pry open three crates to realize that, and she had no use for airplane parts.

Even expecting a few misdirection problems going into the night, it still was aggravating to run into. Nearly half an hour of precious time wasted on a red herring, and now she had to exit and try a random other warehouse in hopes she might get lucky before security finally tightened up.

They only had another large one and a few smaller, but this part was the one that could easily trip her up. Her assumption was that the larger warehouses were for shipments waiting to be shipped out, and the smaller ones were just storage for completed parts until assembled on orders. If one was shipment, and the other wasn't

She stopped that mental train of thought before she could convince herself to doubt her plans.

Retracing her steps back up a stack of crated machinery parts and up to a position that would hopefully let her jump to the rafters without any horrible clanging noises that would give her presence away, Sonya accidently kicked a loose nail she couldn't see in the gloomy unlit interior. The background sirens and muffled noise of the ongoing fire concealed it striking wood until it fell into the partially opened crate she had started with and it rattled around more noticeably, which she had left open because even pressing the nails back into the wood might end up creating a screeching noise she couldn't afford.

She also could barely afford that noise.

Swearing in every language she could in the privacy of her mind, the thief leapt for the roof's supporting braces to get herself the fuck out of there quickly. Barely escaping ahead of the flashlight sweeps, she did spend the time carefully and slowly bending the sheet of corrugated metal roofing back down to make her entrance point less obvious.

There was only one other large warehouse where assembled bundles were kept before shipment, and while it wasn't too far from the first one she tried it was far enough away from anything she could use as cover to reach it.

Sonya spent two minutes, all she could convince herself to spare given she knew her time was running out quickly, to inspect the area and ensure she knew where the patrols were running.

Flat out bolting once she could convince herself the coast was clear, the thief ran nearly bent in half to keep her profile low and hopefully out of any unfortunately timed glance by any of the farther patrols.

Since she couldn't be sure she was unspotted anymore, she abandoned the slow and silent method for a distraction-heavy one.

A two-handed strike of one of her Cloud Flame mauls on the sliding of the next warehouse almost rattled her teeth, and possibly half deafened the guards within. Going with another inhuman jump got her out of the way when the great bay doors were slid open, a long pause happened before one guard who got the short straw poked his head out to see what had hit the building.

The fact there was nothing around that could've created the very obvious dent in the metal walls drew out another two, but Sonya only knew that because she had peeled away another part of the sliding far above their heads and on the opposite side of the building that was taking up so much attention. Slipping inside from an angle that was not under so much scrutiny gave her the few moments to be sure this was the correct building.

Thankfully, because she was pretty sure those guards on the warehouse's floor were being chewed out for opening the bay doors for any reason from the flinching going on and the muffled sounds she could hear so far up so the maul trick wouldn't work again, it was. The shipment she was after was sitting neatly near the ground, almost ready for loading onto a truck.

Now she had to get nearly a ton of circuitry and packaging out of here, without getting caught or doing anything stupid.

Sonya crawled back up the towering stacks of boxes and crates to take a moment to catch her breath and settle her nerves, considering the open doors that gave a very nice view of the scrambling KGB agents both swarming over the smoldering building in the distance and crawling all over the wide-open wasteland of concrete that was the shipping and receiving area of the complex.

Unfortunately, the memos she had spied upon had been either intentionally wrong or just lying to the people they were sent to. The shipment might be all together, labeled and packaged correctly… but it wasn't on a shipping truck.

She couldn't get out again the way she planned on. Not with her fire-distraction already dying down and even more security pouring into the industrial part of the factory in response to her cutting the security feeds. She also couldn't stay here until she or someone else could move it all in some other way, the security cameras would only be down for however long until patches could be made to the wiring she had destroyed.

There was no residue normal phosphorus would leave behind on the burns she made on the wiring, and she had no doubts that this place didn't had the lab to test for that, so barely a few hours of no security cameras was all that earned her.

Pursing her lips after a long moment of thought, the thief glanced first at the shipment and then at the far away trucks.

…maybe she could still use her original idea.

It would be tricky, and risky especially since she was pretty sure a very thorough sweep would be done in response to her break-in… but she might be able to actually get away with this if she did it right.

It was just a matter of guessing correctly.


(Friday the 9th of May, 1969. Voronezh, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

"Someone broke in?"

"That's what the rumors say." Grumped the driver that had been called in hours ago and was still expected to work his regular shift to his enviously more rested younger counterpart. "Nothing was taken, they only know it was a break-in and not an accident because the fire 'mysteriously' spread to a part of the building not connected to offices."

"So what… was it? Someone breaking in?" The fresher man lowered his voice and leaned closer to the other. "Sabotage? Some kind of protest?"

Shrugging, the wearer of the two picked up the clipboard of which truck he would be driving and where he had to take it. "Don't know. No one's talking. Supposedly, one of the girls from the office was taken in for questioning… but if anything comes from that…"

With an uneasy expression, the man he had been talking to picked up his own orders and wandered off to his truck.

Running an eye over the destinations he would be driving to, and exactly who and where he would require signatures on delivery, he made sure he looked properly put together as a delivery man was supposed to according to his employers before heading off to the truck he was assigned. Apparently already loaded, he merely had to wait for the guards to finish inspecting almost every inch of the truck cab and the shipments he was responsible for.

Once he was waved over, he experienced another few moments of getting eyeballed by all corners as his IDs were meticulously examined and compared to his own face before being dismissed to actually do his job. Grumbling under his breath, the tired truck driver hauled himself up to the driver's seat.

Almost buckling himself in before he realized some asshole had failed to close the passenger door all the way and it was swinging open again.

Once everything was firmly shut and he had pulled out of the shipping and receiving area… he was already an hour and a half behind his schedule.

While bitching under his breath about unnecessary searches and assholes that would never accept security as a valid excuse for being behind and keeping an eye on early morning traffic, he never saw the hand that suddenly snapped out to gripped him by the hair and smash his head into a window only just hard enough to shatter it.

(ooo000ooo)

(Friday the 9th of May, 1969 continued. Voronezh, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Sonya rather roughly hauled the insensible body out of the driver's seat, barely stifling a wide yawn that still made her eyes water as she rolled the window down to conceal the damage.

A long night playing peek-a-boo with several search parties all around this damn truck's underside and interior cab as well as the rest of the fleet of vehicles had done nothing for her nerves, and the high-strung Storm-Cloud would maybe admit she hit the man a little too hard… but she really didn't care right now.

Grumpy was going to be even later than he thought, and she'd let him wake up without blunt force trauma sending him back to dreamland… once she reached a secluded enough stretch of road to hide a stack of crates nearly half a story tall.

Then she was going to take a goddamned nap before arranging alternative transportation for the shipment and clearing out of Soviet Russia for a while.