Chapter 23 1/2

Author's Note : See? I knew better than to assume my update schedule. Admittedly, this was partially planned out by the time I posted the last chapter. Not sure if I can keep on doing this, though.

So… we're going to pretend I didn't forget this was still rated T for the longest time. I…uh, completely forgot about that…

Edited 94/28/2017) - Minor story correction and additions.

Edit (3/22/2018) - Final formatting and minor corrections.

Edited (9/8/2018) - Minor corrections.

Russian Roulette : Reloaded

Chapter 23

(Saturday the 24th of February, 1968. Madrid, Kingdom of Spain.)

Sonya let the two members of the Policia Local into the hotel room, still trying to bolt down what was left of her breakfast as she spoke thickly in Romanian around it. "Bjǫrn, the receipts for the nice gentlemen."

Her gawky little Lackey made a dive for his notebook, pulling the various receipts from different stores out of it and ordering them quickly. "Here, Dama Sonya."

She gestured to the uniformed men instead of taking possession of them. Her mouth was full and her fingers were sticky, her handling paper would do nobody any good.

"Gracias, la señorita." One of them muttered, pulling out his own little notebook to markdown what she was buying and sending from their country.

The other looked at her expectantly. "¿Qué pasa con las entregas?"

Sonya slowly worked through that as she swallowed, as her Italian was not up to translating Spanish very well but it was the closest language she knew. "I do shipping, gentlemen, not receiving. I sent my last shipment yesterday, as I did not know there would be more than just customs that would need to look it over. Pottery and house fabrics, mainly."

That, apparently, did not translate well. "¿No hablas español?"

"Not my usual port of call." She explained, flicking a hand at both Bjǫrn and her hasty made-up packing corner. "I normally get northern Europe."

A different voice interrupted. "English, then?"

"Oh, thank god." She really did have to either learn Spanish, or make her assistant learn it for her. "Yes, English will be easier all around."

"I can do English as well." The police officer with the receipts offered, handing the slips of paper back to her Lackey and flipping his notebook closed. "Repeat all that, if you would. No sense on trying to rely on bad translations."

"I do not normally get Spain to handle and have not learned Spanish. But as I do speak a related language in Italian, and my company's clients wanted Spanish goods now not later when the usual agents are available again, here I am. My last shipment was sent off yesterday, checked by customs. I did not know you would want to look at it, no one said, and so I do not have one for you to inspect."

"We expected that." He admitted, waving the problem off. "All we wanted was a look at what it is you are doing, and since we have that we shall leave you to it. Thank you for the cooperation, miss."

"Of course." Sonya dipped the two of them a small curtsy as they left and looked at her little assistant when they shut their hotel room door behind them. "Breath kid."

Bjǫrn's breath left him in a little wheeze, clutching at the receipts from their entirely legal purchases yesterday. Wide-eyed and a little paler than normal, he sank onto his bed shakily. "Dama Sonya, can we not do that again?"

"They'll probably want at least a look at another of my shipments, so… sorry. Once more." The thief informed him dryly, huffing in amusement at his groan of pain. "We'll need to talk to the Mafia Land customs agent to get him to slip the next few jewel shipments in after inspections and pay him off to do it."

At least she could give the man warning what she was doing was stirring up law enforcement interest in his nominal sector of work, which might actually knock some of the price off the top.

Two jewelry stores down, two more to go.

…actually, only one. It was getting a bit hot in Spain, but she wanted those white sapphires.

Sonya had a plan for those.

(Tuesday the 27th of February, 1968. Zolotov Headquarters, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

"First shipment!" Lisa called out cheerfully, bouncing baby Valerian in her arms and proceeding Arseniy, who was carrying a medium-sized crate himself with a measure of visible strain.

Bright and early a morning barely a month after Sonya had left them to resupply, actually.

Neither in the office had really expected any news for another month or two, even if the thief hadn't run into trouble getting what she and they needed.

"First?" Dmitriy questioned as he looked up from Galina's newly amended training schedule, wincing when the vor dropped the heavy box on his desk with a slam.

"Sonya planned a spree, this is only the beginning." The older Russian woman in the room informed him, patting the upset baby's back when he let her know he didn't appreciate the loud noise the box made.

His 'secretary' uncapped her pen, shoving the nib into the crack between the lid and the rest of the crate and wrenching it off with a flash of green Lightning Flames to protect her writing utensil. The lid came loose with a faint screech of nails against wood, revealing a number of brown paper wrapped packages.

Grabbing the freed wood before it broke anything, like his lamp, Dmitriy dumped it on the floor next to his chair and scooped up one of the packets to look at.

Neatly printed in a familiar hand, the word 'emeralds' in Cyrillic was listed under a Moscow address.

Ripping the paper spilled out a number of green jewels all over the Rain's desk with a multitude of little musical clatters.

"Any malachite?" The Inverted Lightning commented blandly, plucking one of the smaller oval cut emeralds from the package he was still holding and inspecting it closely. "I need a new one."

"Where the hell are we going to put all these?" He asked aloud instead of answer her, digging through the box's contents of little packages one handed for another to see what it held. "Is Sonya going to drown us in jewels or something?"

"She didn't really intend to do very many more jewelry stores after that first one. I think she intends to be sure you never need any more. Ever." Lisa informed him, still cheerful. "I think we could get you a couple boxes to put these in."

The Rain swallowed uneasily as Arseniy informed him that he had better not ask for that. Silently, with the power of his glare alone. "We can do that much, Lisa. Thank you."

Even if it had been a couple years since the vor taught him the ins and outs of Mafiya life, the man still scared him a little. He distinctly remembered what happened to that upstart that had tried to go after the vor's lover, and dismembered hands were still a private nightmare for him.

Galina tossed another package of emeralds onto Dmitriy's desk, still looking for her stone-type. "I take it this is more than only one heist?"

"Probably." The older Russian woman informed her, picking up one of the lighter colored emeralds to amuse her son with the sparkles. "Mafia Land ships things out in bulk, usually at the end of the month. So, this might be the contents of two or more stores that Sonya robbed."

"This one…?" Enquired the younger brunette, lifting a larger than normal package merely marked with an address and a question mark. Peeling the paper back slowly revealed an entire jumble of jewels in different hues and colors.

"Sonya had all the stones she wasn't sure of appraised before giving them over to the clan's use." The mother of the thief in question informed them both with a small smile of vindictiveness. "Since she's in the middle of something, you're going to have to get those identified yourselves."

He opened one of his desk drawers, sweeping the loose emeralds and the two packages of the rocks into it. With a less cluttered desk, he started pulling all the small packages of various jewels out of the crate. About halfway down he found the Lighting her package of preferred gems, but it was the very bottom layers that gave him trouble.

"Oh… I should probably inform you Sonya likes to pay her clan dues in gold and silver. Gold and silver bars, I mean." Shifting baby Valerian to a more comfortable position and putting the loose emerald back on the desk, Lisa smiled prettily at Dmitriy as he strained to pull two heavy packs from the depths of the crate and from under a few more packages of rocks. "So that's probably the bars she's marked out for the clan."

The heavy bundle of metal clashed to the desk with a heavy thud and a clang, startling the baby in the room into messily smothering his new bout of crying into his mom's shoulder.

The Inverted Rain ripped the paper off one end of the bigger pack, revealing the four bars of gold and four of silver. As well as a note tucked into the package on top of the metals.

Plucking the note out, and sniffing at the torn edge from his disgruntled tearing of paper, Galina read off the message. "Not sure how much this is total, sent extra to be sure to cover my and Bjǫrn's dues for the year and their take from the jobs. Kept the loose cash, sold the bulk of metal. Will total it up and calculate everything out when I'm back. Galina, I rather appreciate Bjǫrn's new bookkeeping skills. Sonya."

Arseniy opened the smaller pack of metal, but that one didn't have a message. Just another four bars of gold and silver.

"Well… at least someone appreciates clerks." The Lightning announced with a sniff, looking rather pleased with the note in her hand.

"We'll take the clan's cut to the treasurer. You kids have fun." Lisa announced before Dmitriy could do more than glare at Galina for her snippy and a little bitchy comment, jerking her head at the father of her baby to prompt him into taking possession of their foster daughter's dues. "Try not to drown."

"This is your fault," the only remaining woman in the office remarked, smirking at the owner of said office once the door closed behind their mid-morning guests, "you did tell Sonya we ran out of jewels."

"A few of them, and we might be low on a couple others, but this is… what the hell does she expect us to do with all of this?" Shoving a hand through his short-cut brown hair, the Rain looked from the pile of different packaged gemstones to his drawer and back to the still half-full crate. "And, since the girl isn't back yet, she's probably going to send us even more."

"Lisa said Sonya intends to not have to do any more jewelry stores." Galina shrugged, opening up the pack of malachite and picking out a new stone for herself. "I don't think we'll need more for a couple years after she's done."

(Friday the 1st of March, 1968. Madrid, Kingdom of Spain.)

"Money does smooth out a lot of bad translations." Sonya informed the very same English-speaking police officer with a shrug, idly shifting on the loose gravel for better footing. "If I cannot find another language to speak with suppliers with, usually a written translation of what I want to buy helps."

"It just seems… a bit of a hassle." He commented as they waited for her shipment of Spanish fruits to be inspected and cleared from both customs and the police.

"It is," the thief admitted with a sigh, "but we are done in Spain. France is next, but at least we speak French."

"Ah… I've been meaning to ask, but the kid?"

"My cousin. His parents are… well, they are not with us anymore. I got him a school-sponsored internship with my company and will probably set him up with a job with us when he is a tiny bit older, but it is only for the now until a more stable home can be found for him for a year or two."

"Lucky kid to have a cousin like you." The Spanish police officer commented, marking down a few more notes into his little booklet of notepaper. "That's all we need, you're free to go señorita."

"You are not going to wait…?"

"I'm pretty sure you're not trying to smuggle anything with fruits." He told her over a shoulder dryly, waving the offer to wait for the end of the inspections off. "No, I'm pretty satisfied with what we've found."

"Trying that would ruin the fruit…"

He laughed, shaking his head as he made a shooing motion to his partner to have him get back into their police car.

Entirely worth the slightly exorbitant cost of having her real shipment hid and another offered up for customs to inspect, complete with receipts and all.

Sonya was actually sending Mafia Land machinery parts, figuring that the moving island would like the replacements if needed. Some just general hardware replacements that she knew her brother had fussed over for the circus' few mechanical rides, some more for industrial standard replacement parts, and a bit of specialized car parts she was sure would end up sold more than used. Her last Spanish jewelry heist was already packed away in that, meaning she didn't have anything illegal on her at all.

Bjǫrn was slowly getting used to being both criminal and interacting with the police, at least. He looked a lot less shaky and pale than the first time around as the law enforcement officer walked away. Still nervous, however.

"He's not going to somehow magically know, kid." She informed him in Romanian, because it was still entirely less suspicious than Russian this far into Europe. "Your expression, on the other hand, might let him know something was up."

"It's nerve-wracking, Dama Sonya." The teenager defended himself, clutching his notebook to his slowly filling out chest.

Two years of decent food and care had turned the scrawny street rat from Iceland into a healthy-looking teenager, the combat training all members of the Zolotovs were encouraged to at least attend occasionally gave him the beginnings of muscles. Bjǫrn's Slavic origin gave him dirty blond hair, blue eyes, a blunt nose, and a square jawline as well as an unfortunate need to start shaving early.

He could easily pass as a short sixteen or seventeen-year-old even if he was only barely fourteen, his years on the streets would likely always make him seem older than he was. That kind of stress was… difficult to shed from one's features.

"It's not, really. He has his work to do, and as long as I do mine correctly he'll never suspect me. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about." Sonya had gotten over her nerves years ago, now she was either immune or used to the stress.

That might not be a good thing, actually.

"You have nerves of steel, Dama." The Icelander muttered rebelliously, checking his seemingly ever-present notebook for something he wrote down. "I am to remind you we have a three-fifteen train to catch, and that we still need to eat."

As it was two in the afternoon, and they were still stuck watching a shipment that wasn't really Sonya's be inspected in the late winter afternoon. The thief was pretty sure she was going to have to run to catch that train.

However, there was no reason for Bjǫrn to have to do the same. She dug out her wallet and her cigarettes from her purse, handing him a handful of peseta coins she had. "Head to the public entrance for the station and pick us up something to eat on the way. I'll meet up with you there."

She had more than enough euros to cover their traveling expenses, he could probably use the Spanish coins up before they left the country.

"Anything left is yours to deal with."

He accepted the money with merely a nod, having gotten over his surprise at being handed large amounts of money from her over the last two weeks. "Anything in particular you would like?"

"As long as it's not too odd, I'll eat just about anything. Avoid mushrooms, though. I don't like those."

She never had, not even as Rachel. It wasn't so much the taste, because mushrooms didn't really have one, as it was the texture that got to her.

Sonya actually used a lighter, because this was so civilian it sometimes made her want to wince, and then tapped her lit cigarette on boxcar next to her as her little Lackey walked away.

Train stations were not pretty affairs, at least not past the reception rooms and into the shipping part itself. There was nothing to look at besides the trains themselves or the train cars, and that in front of her was just a train car full of fruit. The sky overhead was near-boiling with steel grey clouds from the recent rains, even if they had dumped most of the humidity out of the air and back into the groundwater tables, there was a shit-ton of gravel and steel tracks laid out every which way.

A whole lot of buildings and train cars around to hem in one's sightlines, a couple engines puffing this way and that, and… almost nothing else.

The thief's grey eyes slid to the not-really-a cargo loader, seemingly watching the inspections going on during his mid-afternoon break. He gave her a toothy grin back, revealing the small number of gold teeth he had.

Her shipment was sent. Good to know.

(Sunday the 10th of March, 1968. Paris, French Republic.)

"Well, you're a restless one. Aren't you?" Sonya muttered to herself, slinking backwards into a vent as the guard she was trying to work around got up for yet another wander around the store he was guarding.

She was fast coming to hate restless guards. They were unpredictable, even if that frequent movement meant she could likely… adjust things to her liking and he wouldn't notice it on average.

A slight, minuscule dab of Storm Flames had the last stripped screw melting away once it was safe, the broken metal reduced to ash with only a scorch mark and a little uncomfortable heat to deal with. With the vent cover that had decided to give her difficulty finally out of the way, she bent it in half to get it up past her and stuck it up into a branching vent for safekeeping.

A quick check around, to ensure Mr. Guard wasn't in range, and she slipped to the ground.

There were only few ways she could cover up her Flame use in this job, and that was by making it seem as if she hadn't somehow snuck a blowtorch in with her and the guard never noticed the noise or light.

She'd appropriate another screw from a different vent cover and reaffix the vent once she was done. That crease she made in the metal would still make it obvious how she got in, but with four screws and four screw holes and a bit of cleaning it wouldn't be too obvious that she burned her way in.

However, that was a lot of detail work to do. Sonya didn't feel like doing it around a guard's patrolling.

The restless guard was about to take an entirely unanticipated nap.

(ooo000ooo)

(Sunday the 10th of March, 1968 continued. Paris, French Republic.)

"At least we did not have to deal with the police this time." Bjǫrn commented sourly, poking his pasta a few holes so the ravioli would cool down a bit quicker.

"Stop playing with your food, cut it up if it needs to cool." Sonya informed him from the other side of the restaurant table, reading the police report on her first heist of France. "And yet, you mean. They might want to ask us some questions too."

While her little Lackey could speak a respectable amount of French, this wasn't a conversation to be overheard by any civilian off the street so it was still Romanian. Which wasn't quite as foreign to this country as she would like, but since her Icelandic still sucked and he didn't know a word in Chinese it had to do.

The thief folded up the newspaper and tucked it away for later, content in knowing her Flame use was adequately hidden. The guard she knocked out wasn't even going to be fired, since he was 'assaulted' before the store was robbed.

He just had no explanation of why he never heard a thief or thieves break in.

The local Paris police were operating on the assumption there were two thieves that were responsible, breaking in from the rooftop air duct exit and leaving the same way, given the volume of gemstones and metal stolen from the store.

Which, okay. Sonya was a little stronger than the average woman, or even a male twice her size. She would even accept the estimation that she was stronger than two or three bodybuilders put together when she really wanted to be.

However, how did that translate to doing the work of two or three thieves?

Whatever, it was a neat cover for her stealing. A lone woman with a bratty tagalong would not instantly equate a thief and an assistant thief so she might even be overlooked in this country.

She was contemplating scaling up the volume of what she was stealing, because she had yet to run into anything too major that might upset her work entirely. If she stole more, if her equipment could take it, would the local law enforcement assume there were more thieves running around when it was just her?

…she would likely need to reinforce her backpack, at least. It was showing some wear, from the heavy loads put into it.

Maybe a new one?

A bigger one, if she wanted more loot to handle. She might want to look into a purse… a new one, as she was running out of room in that dratted thing too.

Well… they were in Paris. "We're going shopping after this."

"Dama?"

"I'm giving you my old pack, so I need a new one." Sonya informed him after swallowing her first spoonful of lobster bisque. "A more… sturdy one."

She'd have to alter it a bit too, sew on an extra buckle to go around her waist as well as another one to secure the shoulder straps in place when worn. All things she could do while waiting for Bjǫrn to attempt scouting out a store on his own.

Most if not all in-country attention was more on the Winter Olympics happening to the south east, in Grenoble. While the possibility that the police might catch on the thief from Spain had moved north around the time they did themselves, the fact it was now assumed to be more than just one might actually keep her work in Spain and her more recent heists in France unlinked.

She could maybe afford to run another job here before they had to move on.

(Saturday the 5th of May, 1968. Bern, Swiss Confederation.)

"Really?" Sonya asked with a touch of amusement, cradling the wired phone receiver between her ear and shoulder as she fed the pay phone box a few more Swiss franc coins.

"They're none too pleased with you at the moment. But even I have to agree, the second shipment was a touch over the top." Lisa confirmed, sounding entirely cheerful about the fact and a bit tinny from the phone line. "I think young Dmitriy is regretting allowing the store of rocks to fall so far, and for relying on you to get them more."

Hey, unintentional revenge. "Are they good? I mean, if I don't have to do these last two stops then I won't. There was… a bit of an upswing of general suspicion crossing the border this time around. Landlocked areas are just harder all around, too. No convenient ports included, alas."

"Don't risk it if you don't have to." Her foster mother agreed a touch more seriously. "They're good so far, sweetie. You go too far overboard, and someone might get suspicious. But, since you're out there, why not take a look around for something a bit different? You said you didn't want to do anymore, but you've really haven't put effort into finding something else."

"That's… not a bad idea, Lisa. Not too sure if I have time for that instead of just some sightseeing, but thanks."

"Have some fun with it, sweetie. We'll see you in a couple weeks."

Sonya gave her own farewell, hanging up once she knew the older Russian had done so too.

Bjǫrn looked up expectantly as she stepped out of the phone booth, but the thief shook her head at him. "What do you want to do?"

"Dama?"

"I mean it, anything you'd like to do? Go see? We're free, for the time being."

She had more than enough money, and if she could sell some of the more common but less responsive jewels she had stolen the last two months then she'd probably be set for at least a year or more. Not that she was going to stop working for another year, but it would be a nice nest egg just in case.

The teenager perked up a bit hesitantly. "Can we go see the clock tower?"

"Sure." With a shrug, the thief jerked a thumb behind her. "It's this way, come on."

Bern, Switzerland, had a medieval clock that really was quite a work of art. Sonya had first seen it with Cherep, and it was still really cool to watch it tick away. Bjǫrn probably just wanted to see it ring the hour, because that was done by a clockwork man-figure as a couple other clockwork figures put on a show.

The Old City of Bern was a bit confusing in layout, even if it was a pretty place to get lost in, only because the streets followed the curve the Aar River imposed on them since that part of the city was built almost four centuries ago. It was still a bit of a nippy walk, as they were solidly edging into spring, while the two of them wound their way further into the city.

There was actually a crowd wanting to see the same thing, so she set them on the edge of that and turned to her Lackey. "Okay, here's the thing. We're going back to Moscow in a week or two, for another month or so while a few things get sorted out. I'll get us both a hotel room. You need to pack up everything you want to keep for the next few years, I'll store what you won't need for you, then we're heading back to that island. The one we went to in order to get your medical files straightened out."

As he had none until she took him to Mafia Land, that should be more than enough of a hint to ensure he didn't require a clarification.

"Are we staying there?"

"For the most part," the thief agreed absently, digging out her cigarettes again, "and for the foreseeable future. You know what that place is like, so you need to be a bit careful, but you'll have your own place for a year or two."

"Really?"

"Until I can afford us an apartment for us all, yes. My sister, the redhead? Tatiana agreed to allow you to stay in her apartment while I pulled that in, then we will live together." She pointed a finger under his nose, shaking it sternly. "You will keep it clean, and at least somewhat in good repair. Do you hear me?"

Bjǫrn nodded hurriedly but got a little distracted as the clockwork across the street started to move.

A small spinning plate showcased a few animal figurines, statues of knights, and what she was sure was a flutist as a jester pulled on two ropes to get the bells over its head to ring. When the figures stopped spinning and the ringing stopped, the rooster on one side of the façade waited a long moment before crowing in musical tones.

"Two minutes."

Her Icelandic Lackey was barely able to rip his eyes from the spectacle. "Dama?"

"The main bell rings in another two minutes." She pointed back at the clockwork figures. "The old man in front will turn the hourglass, then he and the figure on the other side from the rooster will nod in time to the bell ringing. When they're done, the rooster crows again. Watch carefully."

It happened exactly as she said it would, but Bjǫrn was entirely happy just watching the show.

What was with all the easily amused men in her life?

First was Cherep, who was just happy covered in grime and mucking about with gears and machinery. Renato could hold an entire conversation by himself, even if she did no more than snap something once or twice for his every thirty or so words. Shamal just liked hearing her talk, apparently.

Now her Lackey?

(Wednesday the 29th of May, 1968. Zolotov Headquarters, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

"You know, I think we've done this before." Sonya remarked idly, folding her hands together and resting them on her knee.

Dmitriy was glaring at her from across his desk. It was getting old.

Galina looked up briefly from Bjǫrn's notebook, and the estimation of what was stolen and the general price a halfway decent fence would pay for it all. The Lightning flicked her dark eyes from the Inverted Rain to the Storm-Cloud then back again, but the woman returned to checking her Lackey's work on estimated prices and clan dues of five different jewel heists instead of comment.

"Since it seems we have more than enough supplies to last us this year, the year after, and likely the year after that," commented her old childhood friend sourly, still glowering, "we should probably finish up here."

To get rid of you for the year was left unsaid but clearly heard.

"Cherep is…?"

"I'll get him next year." Sonya informed the Rain easily, uncrossing her legs and accepting a pen and blank notebook of her own from Galina. "He and the circus he works for already left the city."

The young man grunted, getting up himself and rounding his desk to the far corner of his office.

Which had been taken over by a number of little boxes piled on more boxes sitting on yet more boxes. All of them had a different type of jewel sitting in them, some types had more little cardboard boxes to them than others but there were easily a hundred of different sorts.

"Right… start from the top?" Dmitriy posed after they had a good look at the work ahead of them.

"I suppose… but I don't expect anything from diamonds."

Folding herself down on the floor in a neat tailor fashion, Galina grabbed for the box of said clear rocks. "I don't either, but we're looking for both a uniform and a complete set of results from each of us. To be through, we're starting with them."

"So… I count as both Classic Cloud and Inverted Storm, right?"

The twitch the Lightning gave at her comment confused Sonya, until she turned to glare at her.

"…right then. Test both Flames one at a time rather than both at once." That was going to be exhausting, but the other woman intimidated her a little.

"Hey, Sonya. Those white sapphires you wanted us to leave apart?" Dmitriy shook the box of them, showing the few handfuls of only lightly blue tinted stones the thief had acquired. "What are these for?"

"Sapphires give the best response for untrained Flame users." She reminded the Rain, plucking a few of them out of the box and holding one up as she flooded it with her Flames.

The mix of Storm and Cloud Flames made it throw off red and purple light, even as the sapphire acquired an ill-placed crack down the middle under the stress that widened the longer she held on.

"I think I can use these to figure out who is a Flame user and what type they are without taking a couple stabs in the dark."

"You think." The Lightning repeated, passing out the diamonds they were starting with and accepting the cracked sapphire in return. Already knowing how easily they fractured under Flames, she didn't try touching the stone with Lightning Flames.

"I'm going to test it out on Bjǫrn first. We'll see about it, anyways." Sonya mused, a diamond in each hand as she called on her inner Flames to try gaining a response.

"Ow fuck hot!" Dmitriy suddenly shouted not a moment later, dropping the diamond he had been testing with Rain Flames to clutch at the burn now present on his hand.

She and Galina exchanged a look, then looked at their own stones bathing in their respective Flames. The Inverted Rain's was making a char mark on the wooden floors of the office but didn't seem about to start a fire.

There was no flicker or waiver of the distinctive watery Rain Flames either, or the sharply jagged Lightning in Galina's, or the thief's own more fire-like two Flames in either of hers.

"Non-responsive?"

"Agreed."

"Fuck you both."

Sonya finished marking down the agreed upon results, tossing her diamond back into Galina's box of them. "Next?"

"Rubies." She informed them, glancing at the Rain still glowering at everything. "Go really slowly with these, Dmitriy."

"Yeah, yeah. I know, alright? Just as bad as sapphires. Just more risk of burns."

(ooo000ooo)

(Wednesday the 29th of May, 1968 continued. Zolotov Headquarters, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

"You know," Sonya informed Galina, who was nursing a massive exhaustion headache from the testing, "I don't think sapphires actually aid control or anything."

"How would that make sense?"

"I think they're amplifying Flames." She admitted slowly, rubbing at her burned and nicked fingertips with the burn ointment Bjǫrn had fetched them on her request. "Which would be why they shatter so easily under our hands but coax out the slight amounts any newbie user might grasp, like how Dmitriy could once learn to use his Flames on them but can't use them now. And why they don't scorch, just shatter."

"Would explain why the more facets it had the faster they exploded." The Rain sourly commented, glaring at the marks in his office's ceiling and tending his own injuries clumsily.

She coughed sheepishly, since it had been her Storm testing that caused that violent reaction.

They were all very lucky the gem blew outward from the flatter face facet rather than the pointed end of the brilliant cut sapphire.

It was also very lucky they were so cautious of sapphires to begin with, meaning they had picked different corners to test them in so as to not harm the others with any mishaps.

Sonya had a weird little burn mark from the pointed end of the sapphire she used with her Storm Flames, one that actually had eaten into her hand before she felt the pain and the rock exploded on her. There was a nice little pockmark in her palm now, that didn't particularly like the continued testing and let her know it by aching something fierce.

Why was it always her right?

"Well… it's a thought." Likely the only reason Galina wasn't writing it down was because she had her own burns and nicks littering her fingers, and probably didn't have the energy to grope for her pen and paper.

She wondered if she could use her Cloud Flames like Cherep did to cover that pockmark. The flesh around it might be a little… well-done, but surely she could at least cover it up.

Right?

A trickle of Cloud Flames responded to her will, slowly replicating her skin and flesh in a very painful fashion.

How the hell did Cherep do this to himself?

Unconsciously?

Was he always in pain?

Sonya let her breath out, hissing between her teeth, and gripped her right wrist with her left as the injury faded from sight but not her awareness.

As a burn, it had ached. Now like this, in twanged in a decidedly more painful manner. Like it had been rubbed raw, actually. Every little bit of it.

Like in her life before this, as Rachel, the one and only time she got into her father's chemicals brought home from the lab. Acid burn, just without the acid and tingling like someone was scrubbing with steel wool and a dash of bleach.

"Fuck…"

"How do you have more Flames left?" Dmitriy demanded, as if the mere fact was a slight on him or something.

Flexing her not-really healed hand curiously, she watched her palm flicker with lavender fire as the area she had pockmarked stretched and contracted a few times. More so near the edges, where she had supposedly healthy cells not barbecued by a glassy rock. "I'm… um, not sure. I just do?"

That still hurt.

Fuck, Tatiana could heal it up, screw Cherep's method.

"She started before us," Galina informed the Rain tiredly, rubbing the pads of one hand against her thumb as Bjǫrn switched to her other to tend to, "of course she's stronger than us."

"But I'm not any stronger, actually." Literally not any stronger.