Chapter 5: XLI-L 1/2

Author's Note : Odd piece of irony for you all. I looked up vaccinations for this part of the story, just to ensure the girls were due for booster shots in that day and age, and got distracted reading about the progress of vaccinations over the years. Then this last weekend my dad and I went to get our advanced diver certification done, and I somehow ended up slashing open my palm. That same night I had a terrible ache at the base of my neck, painful enough it woke me up in the wee hours of the morning and it took me another hour to get back to sleep. The next day we were at the same dive spot, so I looked to see what the hell I had cut my hand open on. Turns out it was a loose rusty nail. I have a minor Tetanus infection that I'm still getting over, but I lucked out on getting mild symptoms. Hooray for vaccinations.

If anyone would like to correct my French, I'd appreciate it.

5/28/15 - ishdirections corrected Sonya's claim on her age. Unknown Variable helped out with my French grammar, but I screwed with the accents on the letters and am probably missing a few.

6/13/2015 - Sleiwd put the final touches on it, if you want to complain anymore about my grammar in another language... bug her.

1/18/2016 - Little concerned by how many people have commented on Cherep's 'uselessness' as a friend. I'm concerned by that because Cherep's value compared to Sonya's is a bit... unfair. Cherep's so called value to Sonya isn't anything obvious, it's that he had been 'normal' to her. A normal if oddly colored kid, she hangs around because he's less stressful than musing on her own criminally-flavored childhood she can do things with and not feel weird about it. Now that he's part of her foster family, he's less 'normal' and more 'comfortably stable'. Not a thief she has to watch warily in order to avoid being taken advantage of, not a criminal that might harm her in the long run. It'll develop more as time goes on, but the fact I've gotten several comments on how lopsided the friendship seems to be is slightly concerning.

Edit (4/24/2017) - General story corrections and grammar edits.

Edit (3/18/2018) - Final formatting and minor corrections.

Edited (9/2/2018) - Minor corrections.

Russian Roulette : Reloaded

XLI-L

XLI (Saturday the 28th of January, 1961. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Only belatedly, during the rather miserable first week home while the younger members of the house were recovering from a round of vaccinations and booster shots, did Sonya realize that she might have missed a very good opportunity concerning her first heist and her stupidly tricky ability.

If certain gemstone rings enabled Dying Will Flame users to focus and more easily use their abilities, then she might be able to find a gem that would work for her without shelling out a lot of money for some already made ones and attracting attention at a specialty shop. The rings they had found available in Mafia Land were probably a quality better than anything she could find on her own, but they weren't exactly masterwork pieces either and it might be possible to find her own and less expensive alternatives.

Conceivably, she might be able to rummage around another jewelry store for their stock gems and have an entire array of stones to test. It would be awkward as hell, trying to wear fiddly jewelry while attempting to break another handful of staffs and watching for which jewels broke or cracked on her, but doable.

It might even help her out in identifying her Flame type, though she was aware any gem that worked for her might not be in the color the Flame. Gemstones came in a wide variety of colors, and while her memory might insist the stones of Flame rings matched the Flames themselves that could just be because of a rare variety and not because those stones were typically thought to be that color.

Likely, whatever she made or found would be clunky and fragile since she wasn't a jeweler and as amateurish as could be when it came to Dying Will Flames. However, if she found one then it would work in a pinch for… whatever they were typically used for. Probably prevent her from stumbling into that tunnel-vision problem she had already butted her head against several times.

That old vor Aleksandr had not been amused to be almost smacked in the face one of the times he tried to get her attention while she was working on drawing up that startling strength at will. He now left gaining her attention to Cherep, who did so unheeding of the risks a startled girl who could shatter metal every now and again posed to the integrity of his skull. In response Sonya poured a lot of effort into not falling into a narrow mindset while training.

She sighed heavily once the pros outweigh the cons of that idea somewhat handily, added the idea for another jewelry heist to her list of things to do, and turned back to the slightly damaged book in her hands.

Tatiana was very, very lucky they were all feeling a bit under the weather. Booster shots might not be as bad as getting full vaccinations, and somehow their foster brother was doing better than they were even if his shots were supposed to be worse, but the girls did have slight fevers and the redhead had an annoyingly persistent cough Lisa was trying to sooth with honey laced tea.

The book Arseniy got her, which had a suspicious gouge into the back in the shape of the redhead's throwing knives from when she fumbled one undressing and it dropped point first onto the book, might not have specific answers for her but it did have enough that Sonya managed to strike off another two Flame types from her possible list.

Which left her with her two likely suspects. Sun and Cloud.

According to the book, use of Disintegration by Storm users left small particles behind and was never uniform in any initial application. Instead, she might have Disintegrated part of the vory she kicked or broke an arm of if she had primary Storm Flames.

That was, if the possibility of channeling Storm Flames through a wooden stick without it turning into dust in the first place was possible... and she wasn't really sure of that.

Lightning Flames would've kept her makeshift staff intact no matter the force, and while Hardening would've explained some of the damages she had done it wouldn't explain the kick impacting a brick wall to the point it dented or her continually shattering her practice weapons.

However, according to her new book it wasn't likely she only had one Flame type.

Apparently being purely one or another type was almost as rare as a being a Sky. Supposedly.

Even if it wasn't likely anyone could utilize more than one at a time, it was entirely likely a trait or two conformed more for a different Flame type than her 'main'. It was more likely she had two or more, the main she had probably already tapped into and another that would just confuse her until she got a firm grasp on her own abilities.

That was… not right?

Something about that was off from what she recalled, and that reminded her that all books had a bias she had to be careful of. May or may not be correct, in other words.

Unlike Cherep, who she could almost confidently say was purely a Soft Cloud Flame user from the information she now had and what she knew of him, she wasn't likely as clear-cut.

Worse, aside from the fact she now couldn't fudge the point that she didn't know for sure what her foster brother was in Dying Will terms, Sonya now likely knew how he was keeping himself alive through events that should have killed him.

If he internalized his Flame almost to an insane degree, he was then Propagating himself instinctively to either cover the damaged or weakened parts of his skeleton with new bone cells or replicate more blood and flesh to seal up injuries. She had gone around his back and gotten her hands on his medical reports, all those x-rays specifically, and could now understand enough to tell why that mafia doctor had been so enraged.

The more he became injured, the more of his Flame he used. The more he used, the stronger it got and the quicker he was back on his feet. The quicker he was back to moving around and continuing whatever it was he was doing, the more he got injured.

It was a vicious cycle that started early and probably only recently tapered off a little.

Hence why her Cherep would become Skull de Mort, the strongest Cloud of their generation. All because the brat would enter a highly risky job of being a stuntman and internally use his Flames, probably unknowingly in a different life without her up until he met others who were the strongest of their types, to survive everything when all logic dictated that he should've been dead trying some of his tricks.

She didn't know how any head injury he might get would heal, and she was slightly terrified of learning how that would end. She'd buy him that damn helmet if she had to, because brains were tricky things and she liked her Cherep the way he was.

She also had to figure out if she was going to teach him to use his Flames or not once she got a handle on hers, but Sonya was leaning towards not anytime soon simply because of the idea of him running out of Flames then getting injured made her feel cold down to her bones.

The fact he hadn't burned himself up, and she had already read a whole chapter dedicated to the ways and how Dying Will Flame users could kill themselves via their abilities early on, was impressive already considering the amount of power it had to take to Propagate something even as tiny as bone cells at four or five years of age and then hold it until the injuries healed up naturally around the faked cells.

Cherep was kind of scary-awesome. The thief wasn't going to tell him any time soon, because then his head would get big and her brother would never shut up about it.

The Great and Glorious Skull-sama, indeed.

Dork.

XLII (Wednesday the 1st of February, 1961. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Recovering, but with a lingering and annoying headache persisting that made her want to spend most of the day in bed, Sonya was pouring through the newspaper looking for the old Russian glass goblets she'd need for her Mafia Land job when a fully healthy Tatiana bounced into her room.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for idiots bragging about things they really shouldn't." She absently replied, paging through the Editorial section and wondering if the Lifestyle one would help her more.

Rich people could be some of the worst snobs, boasting about this and that. Hopefully some socialite had been stupid enough to comment on any acquisitions of a glass nature, so she'd know where to go to get them. She'd also use the time she wasn't completely healthy to Lisa's specifications and check out a few antique stores.

Nothing said she had to steal what she was contracted to get, and it was looking like the only thing she'd explicitly have to was that State Seal. "What's up?"

"It's my birthday coming up next." Tatiana needlessly informed her, bouncing on her toes and grinning like the cat that got the canary.

"Yes…?"

Sonya had known that her birthday was next, just like she knew there was little under thirty months between them. Tatiana was almost thirteen, gangly and almost all bony elbows and knobby knees with it.

"Lisa agreed to get me alcohol, now instead of just on my birthday, but she said to ask if you wanted to try as well."

Blinking blankly at the redhead for a long moment, the tiny thief eventually sighed. She should've figured, of course she would recall that comment weeks ago about what they had to do to try 'adult' stuff like drugs and liquor. "Not particularly, no."

"Aww… but-"

"How about, instead, I watch you get drunk and report anything stupid you might end up doing?" Sonya cut her off before she could really get into a good whine, settling the newspaper in her lap since she figured she wouldn't be getting back to it anytime soon. "Then on Cherep's thirteenth birthday we do the same for him, and so on for me when I get to your age."

She had been marginally impressed the preteen girl hadn't badgered the boy into telling her why his medical check went so strangely or took so long, but she really should've figured something else had the top spot in her mental list of things to do.

It had apparently come down to what interested her more, Cherep's probable past abuse or alcohol.

Unsurprisingly, the liquor seemed to have won out. Tatiana probably, correctly, figured she knew and could tell her if she really wanted to know.

"Do you have to be so responsible sounding? I'm supposed to be the older sibling here." Slumping on her bed, the redhead pouted up at the blonde and batted her blue eyes up at her. "I wanted us to do it together…"

Sonya frowned at her but gave in with a shrug. It was for Tatiana's birthday, supposedly.

She wasn't going to put it past the other girl to try gaining her agreement to something else closer to the actual date later too.

"Fine, whatever you want. I'm still not going to drink much, but I promise I won't take any pictures of you doing stupid things in return."

"You're such a darling, Sonya." Muttered the older girl into her comforter, rolling languidly off her bed before she could do more than glare in response. "I'll let Lisa know, and go tell Cherep all three of us are going to do it."

"Cherep's going to be drinking too?"

"I asked him first, just in case you proved to be stubborn I could mention him and then you'd go along with us anyways."

Touché, thought the younger girl in amusement as her elder gleefully flounced from the room.

Tatiana was lucky she was her foster sister, as that sounded very much like manipulation via her relationship with a civilian. She'd have to think of something to counter that before the redhead thought to try that again.

Now she got to look forward to two drunk preteens, and probably the worst tasting swill Lisa would try to scare them off drinking with.

Joy.

Sonya turned back to her newspaper, wondering if there would be anything interesting in the personal ads section.

By the next day the budding safecracker greatly regretted her early birthday wish for liquor and, from what the younger thief heard over the course of their ballet lessons, the resulting hangover.

Lisa was looking distinctly proud of herself throughout breakfast, Cherep had copied her with sticking to the cheap box wine and was mostly fine, and the younger pickpocket herself at least had an interesting night watching the redhead drunkenly stumbling around the house.

XLIII (Friday the 3rd of February, 1961. Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

"What are we doing?"

"I don't know what you're doing, but I'm shopping." Sonya informed Cherep seriously, examining the address she had written down on a piece of paper and trying to find the antique store she was looking for. "Why are you following me, anyways?"

"I don't like visiting Aleksandr's when you're not there." He shrugged, as if informing her he skipped his self-defense training when she was occupied doing other things wouldn't get him smacked upside the head. "So instead I'd see what you're so busy with."

She opened her mouth to scold him for skiving off his combat lessons but shut it after a moment and just kept on walking.

It was his life, though she worried over him she really had little to no control over his actions. She might guilt-trip him later, just to see if she couldn't get him to take it more seriously, but right now wasn't the time.

"I thought you didn't want to be involved with anything in my world?"

He blinked at her blankly a few times, brow furrowed as he belatedly realized what she was referring to and why it mattered with what she was doing now. "Sonya… what are you doing? Honestly."

"Shopping… mostly for a target if I'm unlucky." After bluntly informing him of that, she pulled the doors she was looking for open.

Cherep would probably keep his mouth shut while around others, and she was kind of running behind on finding a few certain things.

The antique store smelled musty, dusty, and… well, old. There weren't a lot of ancient things for sale, most of what was on display looked to be less than a century old and typically furniture, but all Sonya was really looking for was ways to narrow down her selection list.

Possibly to steal a ledger book or two if someone made the comment of once selling old Russian glass to anyone.

A clerk, probably drawn by the bells attached to the doors, took one look at the two children standing in the front of the store and almost sneered.

Almost, because she spoke up before he could. "I'm looking for Imperial era glass goblets for my mama, it's almost ded's birthday you see. We thought he'd appreciate it."

The man's face went carefully blank for a long moment. "Ah… do you wish to inspect the selection, miss…?"

"No, I'm just supposed to see if you have any. Mama will be the one to look at them." The thief blatantly ignored his fishing, telling him her name when she might be robbing the store later would be pure stupidity.

"Allow me to consult the books, miss." Giving the two of them another look over, and probably not thinking anything nice about how either of them were dressed, the man swept away again.

She sighed and rolled her eyes a bit tiredly, there was little that could make her dress up more than she was when there was little reason for it. Dress and tights were as far as she was willing to go for right now, this shop wasn't in any affluent neighborhood where her apparel might discredit her significantly.

Cherep hadn't been planning on going anywhere himself, he was in the same clothes he usually visited Dmitriy in. Which had some suborn oil and grease stains on them, to say the least about the condition they were in.

"So… if they have any?"

"Might come back later to take a look at them. Much later." She didn't really think so, but she was hoping the stiff old ass manning the shop wouldn't mind calling around to see if any local stores had some in stock. Whether or not she bought them legally or stole the glassware was entirely up to the reception she got.

"Oh…. well… that's… nice."

Her brother looked rather uncomfortable now, and Sonya was enough of an ass herself to think that was funny.

"You don't have to stick around, I'll understand if you want to go do something else."

His expression shifted strangely, part relieved, tempted, and resigned all at the same time. "No, it's just… I have nothing else to do."

She frowned at that. "Dmitriy?"

"He's gone for the week, probably some of next too. Something about a final something or another."

Well… her oldest friend was about fifteen now. She wasn't surprised to hear the older teen was pulling his end-of-training heist, what did surprise her was that he took so long to do it. She did kind of wonder what he was going to steal, and what he'd do with the proceeds if he succeeded.

Then if he would continue until being arrested for the vor path or stop there for a supporter type one.

Sonya might have been the first one in their cohort group, discounting her age because she had a different mental one which made it a whole lot less impressive than it sounded, but there were several Mafiya brats that had already moved out of the neighborhood and got replaced with new children. The last go around even had a group of thieves moving out, meaning five new children moved into their neighborhood all at once.

Thankfully she was no longer the youngest of their group of Zolotov fosterlings anymore, but it did mean there were new children that hadn't learned not to bother Cherep because his baby sister would probably break their fingers in retaliation.

Listening to them whine to Aleksandr was funny in a way that almost depressed her. It amused her because the old vor had little to no patience for whiny little brats getting their comeuppance and depressed her because once upon a time she hadn't been this cruel-minded.

That was probably part of the reason why the Cloud didn't want to go without her, even if he didn't like it when she purposely stomped on some of the worst behaving brats that bothered him.

"Err… Lisa might be willing to help you learn more French, and a handful of other languages. She taught me and Tatiana."

Cherep seriously considered that option, rocking back on his heels while they waited. "That sounds like a good idea."

"Be warned, if you do ask she'll have us speaking nothing but whatever language she deems you need practice with. So, you'll have to look forward to a month or two of whichever tongue being the only language spoken in the house."

He pulled another face at her, which made her smirk again.

A polite cough drew their attention back to the store clerk, who looked a lot less snobbish suddenly.

Sonya carefully didn't let her features twist into a frown. Eavesdropping, probably.

She ran the conversation she just had with Cherep through her head to ensure he wouldn't be suspicious of her, then almost snorted when she realized why he no longer looked as if someone shoved something metal and pointed up his ass.

Multiple languages in the civilian sector meant middle to high business class sorts of people.

Her age, multilingual, and looking for antiques apparently equaled out her plain dress and her brother's less than wealthy look in his head.

"We don't have any Imperial era goblets in stock at the moment, young miss, but our sister store on the other side of the city does."

She sweetly smiled up at the bigot. "Oh? Do you have an address for them?"

XLIV (Tuesday the 21st of February, 1961. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Some experimentation and another solid month of working on it, Sonya knew a few more interesting things about Dying Will Flames… more specifically her own Flames.

For one, although the metal head of the Bec de Corbin she bought in Mafia Land was resistant to everything she could do to abuse it… the wooden shaft it had been mounted on hadn't been.

The handle had shattered as easily as glass in her hands. Aleksandr had been interested enough in the testing to volunteer himself to either find a more resistant shaft for her or see if he couldn't get ahold of more of the metal the head of her weapon was made of.

With that being dealt with, she instead turned her attention to the beginner's introduction book to Dying Will Flames Arseniy had found for her. More specifically, to the personality tests to identify one's Flame type located near the back.

She knew enough before to pin down her own types as a mix of Sun, Storm, and/or Cloud. She was hoping mostly for Sun's Activation, merely because being able to heal on demand sounded so much more useful than Propagation or Disintegration.

Scouring through the book and the hints about what certain types tended to do in their personal life and habits soured that hope, though.

What she knew for sure was that Cherep was a pure Cloud, Soft/Inverted though he may be.

Using that as a starting point and being as brutally honest as she could, Sonya had gravitated to him on her own without really knowing why at first then justifying it to herself later with his odd coloring and possible future. After that first meeting she had never really thought of his coloring as unusual again, just odd enough to identify him from a distance if she had to. His possible future was something she had mainly ignored until she admitted to herself that she wouldn't be letting him deal with that without her.

Which, according to her book, meant she was either a Hard/Classic Cloud or a similarly polarized Sun as those were the two most likely to put up with a Soft Cloud for any reason.

Storm Flames apparently only justified her continually clinging to him mulishly, regardless of which way those Flames polarized.

According to all three of the people she tended to hang around, Tatiana, Cherep and Dmitriy; Sonya was an icy little bitch if she didn't care about whoever she was interacting with. Once past that she was still a standoffish introvert, but she would give someone a moment or two of her time if she had to.

All of which were personality signs of a Hard/Classic Cloud Flame.

Her being more sociable to Cherep, and later Tatiana, weren't part of her likely Cloud instincts.

That, limited by the range of what she already knew, restricted her to a Soft/Inverted Sun or a Storm type secondary Flame. Sun wasn't likely, even though Suns typically did better socializing with Clouds of their same polarization and could put up with the opposite if they had enough of a reason to. Storm was much more likely to allow the socialization she did, but which Storm polarization she had was still murky.

Apparently, there was something to that social incompetence Tatiana liked to reference when talking to her.

Thus, Sonya manifested her Flames as a Storm-Cloud according to her book. More Hard/Classic Cloud than whichever polarized Storm she had, but with the remote possibility of Soft/Inverted Sun either in the fullness of time or if she really worked on it.

This was depending on if the book was accurate or not-slanted enough to take at face-value.

She carefully cleared off a spot on her desk and planted her face into the wood with a groan or exasperated pain.

Cloud and Storm weren't the best results a thief would want, besides Propagation meaning she could make her own fakes and Disintegration meaning she could make her own emergency escapes. Both were things that would probably only come up if she epically failed at her job and were a breach in Omertà just waiting to happen, meaning while not useless they weren't typically useful for her either.

If the Propagation failed at just the right moment… or the Disintegration was supposedly impossible and yet some civilian put the pieces together correctly to convince someone else… she'd get a visit from the Vindice in a way she wouldn't escape.

If she ever got to the point of needing her Flames to steal, she vowed to retire as a thief and do something less pathetic with herself.

Hell, Rain Flames would have been more useful in an immediate sense. She could've even made use of Lightning's Hardening more than Propagation or Disintegration.

According to her book, if polarized in opposite directions Clouds tended to work well together and occasionally were drawn to one another as that way they didn't think the other was infringing on their territory and lash out in response. The fact she and Cherep let the other hang around them at all was part of that. His initial reluctance was probably partly the fact he was stronger than her, but she was the one bothering him first.

That she was plotting to keep him out under the Zolotov's collective thumb was entirely her Cloud nature trying to keep her territory from being pinned down. Which according to the fact she didn't have physical territory she was driven to patrol or monitor meant that someone was taking that facet of her nature up, and three guesses for who that was according to the book.

Sonya was never telling anyone the fact her book insisted Cherep was her territory. It could go with her to the grave as far as she was concerned.

Storms just tended to fixate on things, her continued and fierce attachment to her brother and her mysteriously multiplying hoard of books were symptoms of that… as well as her strangely odd desire to exceed at a job she once had little interest in. Slightly or very reckless when fueling their fixation were signs of a Hard/Classic Storm, an almost insolent disregard for everything while in pursuit of their fixation was a sign of Soft/Inverted Storms.

Sonya could be either, certain oddities about her kept her from pinning down her Storm Flame polarization.

If she had to, she could then identify Tatiana with a main Flame of Classic/Hard Sun and Dmitriy as a Soft/Inverted Rain. The redhead she called her foster sister might even have a tiny amount of Sky potential, not enough to start drawing Guardians but enough to utilize a kind of Harmony manifestation to bond different personality types together.

Which would be interesting if she could prove it at all.

In theory, anyways. Figuring it out in practice was just as hard as it had been before she tentatively identified her Flame types.

According to her book, the next step should've been meditation. As in sitting in one place and trying to draw out one's Flames for both confirmation via the color of said Flames and as a control exercise.

Sonya had accidentally skipped that and headed into attempting to channel her Flame with her weapons practice, to the point she was basically a freakishly strong little girl who somehow managed not to burn herself up while getting a hold on one of her own abilities.

Backtracking into meditation probably would do wonders for her control, so that was what she planned on doing next.

That was, after she finished copying the more relevant bits of information on Dying Will Flames into the blank journal Lisa had picked up for her on a recent supply run to their clan's headquarters. There was no real reason why all the information had to be spread out in several different books, masked with children's stories which may give someone the wrong idea about what skills they had or slanted to 'only this' when there were exceptions to the 'rules'.

Cherep wasn't a territorial asshole about his space, he moved in with her surprisingly easy if his freedom was so damn important, so the book was lying a bit. Or was misinformed. That was one of the few things she was sure of, but that didn't mean the rest of it was equally so.

Instead, Sonya was going to ensure it was all in order and laid out in an easy to read manner then donate the books she wouldn't need to keep to her clan. She might even make a copy of her resulting book and give that to Arseniy if she ever needed a favor from the Zolotovs later in life.

XLV (Saturday the 25th of March, 1961. Mafia Land.)

Antique stores were a hell of a lot easier to rob than jewelry stores, but the museum was harder than anything else Sonya had yet done as a thief.

Antique stores didn't have night guards, but museums had several 24/7.