Chapter 9: LXXXI-XC 1/2

Author's Note : To clarify, I wasn't angling for more/better reviews in my previous note. It's just an explanation why there might be a three-four-six month gap between future chapters. I get more than ten reviews every chapter, I'm happy enough. Review only as much as you want, really.

Updates will slow from here on out. How can I say that when I already admitted I'm a dirty, filthy liar when it comes to that? I put Fallout: New Vegas on my computer… yeah. I am such a sniper in that game, lot's of time is wasted sneaking around and shooting people in the head.

I really have to get back to writing for my other stories, as well...

We don't have translations this chapter, and in the next unless otherwise stated all "normal" speech is in English from that point on and "italic" would be Russian/Italian/language of choice instead.

Edited (4/25/2017) - Editing and minor story corrections.

Edit (3/19/2018) - Final formatting and minor corrections.

Edited (9/6/2018) - Minor corrections.

Russian Roulette : Reloaded

LXXXI-XC

LXXXI (Saturday the 2nd of January, 1965. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

1965 started with a bang, literally.

Sonya blinked a few times, looking to the hallway out of confusion and wondering what the hell her foster sister was up to.

Whatever it had been, it sounded painful.

…it wasn't Cherep, right?

He had that engine in his room, but she was sure he wasn't so stupid as to try starting it up while it was both in the house and not connected to anything stabilizing.

"Sonya! Come here, please?"

The young thief, because as old as she was mentally/spiritually she was physically and experience-wise a young teenager, sighed. Putting her book to the side and slipping off her bed to heed the Sun user's call. "Coming."

Unlike Sonya's room, which was a budding librarian's wet dream even after she removed the bulk of the books that migrated into her hands, or Cherep's, which still smelled like a garage even after Lisa forced him to clean it, Tatiana's room was more alike a fifteen going on sixteen-year-old girl's room in 1965.

Meaning a lot of clothes; go-go boots, hot pants, lacy camisoles, afghan knit shawls, and more scarves than there were colors in the sky cluttering certain parts. Black market vinyl records from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, and Sonny & Cher just to name a few, stacked next to a record player on her desk. Posters of British rock bands she might or might not have records for on the walls, and her latest discovery of beaded curtains strung up behind her bedroom door.

…and the psychedelic colored bean bag chair, couldn't forget that monstrosity her sister found somewhere and dragged home.

Even if half the clutter she had was entirely out of place for a 1965 version of a USSR bedroom, since they were in the middle of a less hostile than could be Cold War, that bit still baffled the younger sister.

While Sonya would've stared at the multicolored thing that doubled as a floppy, misshapen chair normally when entering her sister's room, her attention was more drawn to the fact the redhead had seemed to have startled herself out of her bed.

Laying on the floor on her back. Staring at her left hand.

Not that she was stoned, it was because Tatiana was on fire.

Fascinating.

"You said you wanted to see the first time, right?" The older teen questioned warily, eyeing the Flames like it might just try biting her nose off even if it wasn't burning her skin. "This is really creepy, just so you know."

"Mmm."

It wasn't like the Storm-Cloud's tri-colored start.

Tatiana's inner fire was yellow all over… solidly a Sun and showing it. No flickers or a different color threaded through. Possibly the first time did show everything one had, but that would mean the redhead had no other Flame type to her.

Equally likely, the only reason Sonya's turned up in the colors it had was because she knew of them and knew it was possible.

Overall, this was pretty much inconclusive for trying to prove any theory over the other.

Well, that was Cherep and now Tatiana who had single Flames to them so far. If Dmitriy didn't turn up with a secondary Flame to him, or her foster sister didn't develop one later, she was going to start wondering how accurate her book was on other bits it had claimed.

She could easily see Dimitriy being a Rain-Storm, and if he did turn up and inform her he only had blue fire to him when he managed it then… it would still be all inconclusive.

Sonya was both running out of other people to gather information about Flames on and time to collect the data together. Once the older teen left home, that would be it for what Sun information she could get within their clan.

Unless the redheaded Sun decided to keep some sort of journal on it, but the younger thief didn't think Tatiana would do that for her. Out and about, it would be hard to both keep traveling around as much as she'd probably have to as well as write and keep a diary secure in a group containing three males and another girl.

The only thing she could learn from this incident was her theory on how fast a Flame user developed did have some effect on how they gained control. Her elder foster sister might have been the last one on the train in Dying Will Flames, but she outstripped the Rain in getting good at it.

"What were you thinking about? I was… well, pissed off myself." Sonya shrugged her slight embarrassment off when she thought of how girly her scream had been, and exactly how Arseniy had looked storming her own bedroom in response.

It was an incredibly stupid crush, she was not going to moon over the fact he did go to rescue her as if she had needed it.

It took her a few moments, but she belatedly realized Tatiana was blushing heavily.

"…nothing."

"Really?" She eyed her foster sister, especially the rather magnificent blush lighting up her fair skinned face. "It doesn't look like nothing."

"It's. Nothing." The young woman insisted stiffly, moving to pick herself up only to recall the fact her hand was on fire and jerk her left off the floor. She looked both disappointed and a little relieved to see her Flames were gone. "What…?"

"The next step is lighting up deliberately, and continually, until you end up getting a uniform result overall. Lose your will to be on fire, and it goes away." The information made her thoughtful, so she stepped farther into her sister's room to help her up off the floor. "Are you sure you don't want to tell me? I promise not to laugh."

"Liar." Tatiana snipped snootily, the mock-accusing expression faded after a moment when she was back on her feet. "Well… to be honest, I kind of don't want to leave."

The younger thief blinked blankly up at her. "Why the hell not?"

Sighing, the redhead let herself fall backwards onto her bed. "Oh, my. Lord. You might be getting better, but I swear… your incompetence when it comes to people…"

"What?"

"I don't want to leave you here for another year, alone except for Cherep. But he's a boy, and we're finally actually sisters." Pouting outrageously, only half faked as far as she could tell, the other thief peered up at her hopefully. "I end up leaving, and you might go back to being an ice block the next time we see each other."

Sonya frowned slightly. "We can always use Lisa as a point for letter exchanges until either one of us actually has a phone number. But how did that light you up?"

"I noticed you didn't address the ice block concern." The Sun shot back, getting herself comfortable on her bed again. "I was thinking about kidnapping you and making you come with me and my gang, actually."

"…no."

"It'll be fun! I promise!"

"No, Tatiana."

"…please?"

Sighing, the Storm-Cloud started rubbing at her forehead. "We'll be fine, even if we have to do a yearly get together in Mafia Land. I do not intend to give you the cold shoulder."

Pursing her lips in a pout, the redhead shrugged and picked up a magazine on the floor to read. "That sounds like a good idea, actually."

Eyeing her foster sister, the younger thief decided she was being derailed from the question.

Tatiana didn't want to answer, and there was little Sonya could do to make her.

She wasn't going to do anything but annoy the Sun if she kept asking, so she left it at that.

LXXXII (Monday the 22nd of February, 1965. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Since Sonya's usual times to visit Mafia Land was around late spring/early summer and once again near the tail end of fall, she had a decent amount of time to waste before Sinclair would be getting back to her on what she asked of him.

Renato, before Renato would be getting back to her.

She had to correct that in her head, or she'd slip up and continue to call the asshole Sinclair. It would be both frightfully rude, since he was doing her a favor in a place she had no good contacts or personal desire to be there, and rather petty of her.

Not that being petty would've stopped her, but she did occasionally like talking to the bastard.

They might have met when she had been twelve, but it hadn't stopped him from talking to her rather than at.

Of course, her physically tender age hadn't stopped him from drinking in front of her, flirting with just about every female that walked past them, or annoying her with just being himself. If she hadn't been as mature as she was, he could've been an incredibly bad influence on her.

While she waited, she got to see Lisa attempt to cram everything even remotely educational that any thief might find they needed into Tatiana's head. She and Cherep caught a little of that themselves, but the bulk of the attention was on the Sun's head.

The redhead didn't complain nearly as much as her foster sister expected, probably out of nerves over the idea of leaving what had been home for the first time.

The safecracker wouldn't be coming back after a week or two, or after a job was done and over. She'd be going out to first set up someplace for a home base, then to operate on her own in free territory or some other Mafiya groups'. How well she succeeded would either enable her and her gang to range farther and get into other jobs or drive her back to the clan's headquarters, but that was only if she did fail to get a foothold somewhere.

The only way the eldest of the foster siblings would be coming back was if she was here to visit or to live somewhere in the neighborhood herself.

Sonya guessed she did have a reason to be so panicky, even if she privately doubted the older girl would do badly out on her own. That was the point of having a gang, to help smooth the way and share the workload.

The bang of the backdoor slamming against the wall distracted all the members of the house.

Tatiana thankfully shut the math book, Cherep hiked up the chemistry one he was deciphering, and Sonya watched idly over the top of her history text.

"They sold it!"

Even Lisa was confused over that as a greeting. "What?"

Adrik skidded into the living room, giving an awkward shrug and a sheepish grin at the older woman's reproving look for his haste. "The Olivetti Company, they sold their electronics division."

The Storm-Cloud in the room set her book down slowly. For the love of fuck… if she had bartered with Sinclair for no reason she was going to kill someone. "Excuse you?"

"They were the ones developing the computer, the division sold I mean." Breathing rather hard, probably from running from wherever he had been to Tatiana the moment he heard the news, the cutpurse slunk into a seat next to his leader. "To General Electric, in America."

Hopefully, that would mean the younger thief could avoid Italy… but damn it all, that meant she hadn't had to ask Renato to check the company out.

Sonya sighed and rubbed her temple. "Then I'd have to steal you this computer thing in the US, right?"

"I… don't actually know." Adrik scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "It's so… well… such a new concept that it might still be with the company, and not with who they sold their branch off to. Depending on which it is, you might still have to go to Italy."

"You don't know?" She gave him a rather poisonous look. "Well then, go find out. This is your little baby project, I'm just stealing it when the time comes."

The young man flinched a little under her eyes, flicking his gaze to his gang leader but finding no help from that quarter either.

"You heard her, off you go." Tatiana waved him off, eyeing her own textbook as if it might grow some strange appendage and attack her. "She's already doing a lot for us, and this is what you wanted."

Adrik muttered something that, by the look Cherep shot him, he was lucky neither sister heard. He did obediently get up to leave. "I'll come back if there's any more news."

"Please and thanks." The younger thief muttered herself, thinking rather fondly of impaling him on her polearms.

"Sonya?" The Sun peered over at her curiously, probably trying to stall off another lesson session if she could. "Something the matter?"

"I made arrangements to have the company checked out while I was in Mafia Land last, and he might have just told me it hadn't needed to be done." Sighing, the Storm-Cloud shut her history book as well and set it on the floor of the living room. "If I don't have to go to Italy, I might have just bartered away a favor for no reason. I'm a little… irritated."

Lisa considered it, humming softly. "With who?"

"A… Italian Mafioso I know from doing my contract work." Sonya temporized, not willing to tell her entire foster family she knew and was dealing with a hitman.

Cherep was doing incredibly well as it was, but they were all mostly thieves. The vor he might not get were murderers before they became one, but there wasn't any way to fudge the fact a hitman killed for a living.

Even he knew what the term 'hit' meant in the underworld. It was ridiculously romanticized in the civilian world.

Stealing was markedly different than murder.

"Well… live and learn." The older woman shrugged. "Not everything is set in stone, and occasionally things like that happen. I hope it wasn't too dear of a price."

"…no. Not really. He's a bit of an ass, but he only asked that I addressed him by name."

…so far, at least.

LXXXIII (Friday the 12th of March, 1965. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Sonya had not actually equated her ability to Propagate force with being able to jump high on her own.

It was one of those things that started with an absolutely idle and banal comment that segued into something either remarkable or foolish… or both.

Cherep was fantastically good with basic mathematics. It was something he hadn't known before Lisa started to get his schooling up to par, and the young man was absorbed with engineering which just made it all the better when he started devouring math textbooks like she did everything else ever written.

That meant he got to physics and theoretical mathematics when his baby sister was still trying to make sense out of basic trigonometry again and why the hell she had to know it. Tatiana was even lagging behind their purple haired foster brother, and she had gotten to physics long before him.

It was in his physics books he showed her, that 'lift' was the application of force that exceeded the weight of an object dragging it down and the wind resistance. He was pretty sure she'd be able to get some height before her lack of wings brought her back to earth.

Sonya, rather pointedly, informed him that since humans weren't made to fly she'd keep her feet on the ground… thank you very much.

Cherep called her a chicken.

The incident didn't get any better from there.

Now… the Storm-Cloud was a little stuck. On their roof.

In broad daylight.

While she could… possibly… make it from their home's roof to a neighboring one, and thus find a way down that might not shatter her legs trying, someone would see and/or hear her.

Complete coin toss on who would spot her first, a civilian or a Mafiya member of the residential area.

The home they lived in was two stories, four bedroom, two baths, and a basement type affair. Three stories if you counted the attic space. It was also built like it had once been a barn.

Meaning it had a peaked roof, but sloping sides.

Sonya was stuck on the back of it, pretty much in full view of the backyard, from their neighbors' backyards, and maybe the windows of the house behind theirs. Cherep was being of no help at all, he was laughing a bit too hard to be able to breathe right.

She hoped he choked, it was a little uncomfortable sitting up here in early springtime.

His hilarity eventually drew notice, thankfully, from the other members of their home. Lisa stepped out herself to see what in the world amused him so much, and eventually caught sight of the youngest and her predicament.

The brunette, entirely unflappable even in the face of the weirdest incidents and always ready with support, simply smiled up at the thief stuck on their roof. "Need a little help?"

"…I didn't quite think this through well enough."

"No, it seems not." She eyed the distance, then spared a glance at her middle child. "Alright there, kiddo?"

"My… ribs… ha!"

"Alright then." Lisa wandered inside, probably to find a rope or ladder that would span the distance needed.

"I'm going to kick you in your damn ribs when I get down from here."

He spluttered, trying to stop laughing at her but being completely unable to.

Sonya sighed heavily, huddling a bit further into her probably way too thin coat.

It wasn't entirely his fault, she had contributed a fair bit into this little experiment. Neither of them had thought of getting down, only to figure out how high she could go alone. Figuring out how to apply her multiplied force into a downward direction had been a little tricky, during a few bounces of irregular height that told them Cherep had been onto something.

It hadn't been until Sonya foolishly tried to see how high she could go that she noted she might not do as well on the landing as she had been doing on the initial jumps. Hence her scramble for the roof, which at least wouldn't break her legs or at the very least twist an ankle on the impact.

She could manage a story worth of height on a drop as it was, maybe another half that on top. Two or three stories would hurt, especially if she hadn't been prepared to try and mitigate the damage.

If she didn't have the grace and flexibility nearly a decade of ballet and gymnastic training had given her, it was entirely possible she would've failed to grab hold of the roof and get herself somewhere stable.

While she could go up, getting down seemed to be her problem. If she ever did this again, a rooftop with a fire escape would be a preferable feature. At least, maybe some way to equal out the force down that would refrain from blowing out her knees if she wasn't careful on landing.

Nice to know, and it might just be a bit of talent that would save her down the line.

It would not excuse her supposed best friend of laughing at her when she got stuck.

Lisa came back outside with a rope and a simple grappling hook in hands, a whirl or three and the clawed metal went flying at her.

Catching it, Sonya hooked it to the weather vane a little higher up than she was sitting.

"Are you sure that's going to work?"

"Might not, but at least I'd be lower than I am now when I drop." She tugged the line a few times, once viciously, and swung herself off the side of the roof.

It groaned suspiciously, and bent a little under her no longer inconsiderable weight, but the young thief touched ground with it still upright.

Mostly.

Sonya gave the rope to Lisa, so she could try to unhook the grapple, and stalked over to her foster brother.

"Oh, Cherep… hold still…"

LXXXIV (Monday the 29th of March, 1965. Mafia Land.)

"Olivetti is clean of any mafia involvement. Only shifty thing of note there seems to be a bit of sly misnaming."

Sonya pushed a cup of espresso closer to the hitman, silent offer for the drink she pre-ordered him and the waitress just dropped off when he reached the café. "Misnaming? This wouldn't have to do with the selling of a division to General Electric in the US, would it?"

Renato picked up one of the silver spoons that had come with her cup of tea, cleaning it off with a napkin then dipping it into the drink just to check for poison before taking possession of it. "Yes. So, you heard then?"

"It was fairly annoying to hear of." She wouldn't ever take another of these jobs ever again if she could help it. Brand new, fresh off the line, whatever, no more. "Would this misnaming have anything to do with the team in charge of the Programma 101 they were developing?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." He eyed her over the rim of his cup. "Will you now tell me why?"

"A favor, for someone rather dear to me. I am to steal one of those newly developed, overly glorified calculators. In return, I will be taught to use one myself." Her expression probably told him what she thought of that, being as it was merely a calculator no matter what functions it had. "If said someone had not asked, I would not have touched this job with such an unclear target objective."

"So, you will go all the way to Italia for this someone?"

"Likely sometime this summer, yes. Possibly only to check on the situation and ensure the terms of this job are as required." The Russian sighed lightly, blowing softly over the top of her drink. "So, one, at worst two, visits to Italy this year… alas."

The Italian across from her looked, frankly, insulted. "What is wrong with Italia?"

"Besides being the home of one of the largest and strongest mafia Famiglia in the world, which I do not wish to become known to if they take offense of a Russian thief on their home ground?"

His affronted expression melted into an amused mocking one, saluting her with his cup. "Well… yes. Point to you, little lady Sonya."

She rolled her eyes at him, setting her tea down. "Really, Renato. There is also all that nastiness left over in the underworld from the Second World War, as well. I do not think I heard if that had been resolved or not."

Humming instead of answering that concern Renato stretched out his lanky frame, so he was practically draped over his spindly café chair.

Since he had decided to stop being helpful, Sonya busied herself with her own drink again. She had two heists she had accepted to plan out, having taken twice the number of contracts she had been doing just to see if she could merely add a visit in the summer to her yearly habits or if she'd be better off trying for the ten contracts for an apartment deal offered.

The thief needed that storage space, especially if she wanted to keep her books. Getting an apartment could wait another year or two.

Thankfully they were close enough together she might just be able to do one after the other, but they also weren't as… 'sanitized', as she had been doing.

Meaning if she got caught, she'd be dead and not just arrested.

Civilian targeting contracts were all pretty much milk runs, really. She had been using them to get used to taking contracts and being forced to plan little while traveling to them but being this was Mafia Land it meant there were very few of those to be had. She'd been lucky enough to get the two years' worth she had as it was.

This would be slightly different, in that her first mafia orientated target would be first up. They wouldn't be nearly as loose or easy in terms of internal security, or even as easily infiltrated as a civilian business or home.

It was likely she'd never get hold of a blueprint for these either.

"Anything interesting?"

"Not likely. They never seem to like giving me actually interesting jobs to do."

She caught the dismissive look he shot her paperwork. "Think you might find a different Hall more to your liking?"

"Like the intel brokers, you mean?"

Renato snorted disgustedly, which made her smirk.

Aside the Thieves' Hall, which was right across the street from the hitmen's version of it, there was also an office building for those that traded intelligence and another for the international network of fences on the same street. Farther down one end there was even an assassin's' watering hole, which usually only took the contracts the hitmen didn't. Down the other and across a street was a rather large bar/hotel that freelance 'made men' tended to frequent if they were unaffiliated and looking for a group to join.

The street was called 'Body Avenue', a play on both the fact you could hire just about any crook there or get someone killed… if you paid.

Since they both did work on the same street, technically, it helped explained why Sonya saw Renato every time she got into Mafia Land herself if not why they didn't tend to miss each other more frequently.

Even if they were all located on the same street, it didn't mean they all got along.

Most of the rest of Body Avenue viewed the hostel/bar/hotel for the unaffiliated as best thugs, grunts, and maybe a bullet catcher or two. They, in return, disliked just about everyone that sold their skills instead of finding someone to direct their loyalty to and having them make use of their skills.

The fences might work with the intel brokers but tended to get along better with thieves since they did supply them with more items to sell. The intel brokers preferred hitmen, because thieves were apparently a bit overly picky with the quality of information they got. The hitmen apparently didn't really get along with anyone, especially not the assassins that lingered farther down the street.

Sonya was in and out of Mafia Land too much to get a good feel of her fellow thieves and what they liked, but it seemed as if they dealt with assassins better. Why she didn't know, just that she was unusual for her continued association with Renato.

LXXXV (Wednesday the 19th of May, 1965. Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Once her doubled up contract work was over with, Sonya decided she might just be better off taking a season and trying to cram five contracts within three or four months.

If the jobs were at least lined up, so she wouldn't have to go too far out of her way back or forth, she'd be able to manage her Mafia Land job and following Cherep around the Continent.

Only taking a winter or winter-spring break to handle the rest of her work, at worst merely half a year at once away from keeping an eye on her best friend. If she did it, the whole thing could only be called a brief crime spree streak.

She'd try that next year, during the summer. If it worked, she had the next five to ten years of her life scheduled out already barring anything unexpected. Hopefully that would be for only long enough for her fellow Cloud to decide how the hell he was going to go about being a stuntman outside of a circus.

That part concerned her a touch, to be honest.

Stuntmen were not an injury-free group of people.

Sonya stopped in the middle of a sidewalk, wondered if her foster brother actually knew how to drive yet, and swore viciously in her head as she turned around to go home.

She had been driven out, mainly due to Tatiana's nerves sparking a bit of a competition between her and the purple want-to-be stuntman.

The redheaded Sun user had decided to try and recruit her little sister into her gang, so the sisters wouldn't have to be apart… or for their relationship to deteriorate any. Cherep had overheard one such attempt, made a rather stupid comment of getting there first so she would be tagging along after him, and thus why she got out of the house most days.

…and they called her socially incompetent.

The time away had at least allowed her the time to investigate and control her Cloud patrolling nature and decide that it wasn't crime that irritated her but stupidity happening.

Only perk so far, really.

She was at least mostly sure the tension at home was all in good fun, just a little more sibling rivalry than they ever really had to deal with before. Tatiana got a distraction, Cherep got to brag a little, and Sonya was… annoyed.