Chapter 25 1/2

Author's Note : I regret nothing!

Edited (4/29/2017) - Minor story corrections and grammar edits, still regret nothing.

Edit (3/22/2018) - Final formatting and minor corrections. Even still, I regret nothing.

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

Russian Roulette : Reloaded

Chapter 25

(Monday the 22 nd of July, 1968. Lille, French Republic.)

Skull de Mort was now a thing, and Sonya didn't quite know how she wanted to feel about it.

How long until that thousand-or-so-year old shopkeeper man gathered up the strongest Flame users of each type?

How much time did the thief have, to figure out if she wanted to try to prevent her dorky foster brother from becoming the Cloud Arcobaleno or at least try and warn him about the baby-looking curse of the damn things?

…or find a way to help him support himself without taking a nasty and sudden nosedive through the underworld's worse dregs?

Crina's new apprentice decided to linger with her during and after the stunt show, which made the Russian slightly suspicious.

…because first of all, she was very damn well used to the 'feel' of Mist Flames and had just come from visiting a baby Mist. Secondly, those tattoos were very… distinctive. Identifying.

At least this area was slightly abandoned, as most attention was at the front or the side where the prep tent was standing. In the twilight, well after a show, near the time another show was lined up to start for the slot after the stunt show. Perfectly deserted enough to have confrontation of the fiery sort without too much risk.

Cherep, still scrubbing the last of Skull's makeup off with a wet paper towel as he almost tripped his way around the back of the big top tent, flicked his purple eyes from the thief to the new girl but decided greeting his sister was more important.

"Little sister!" Sonya got glomped then pulled off her feet, and she twitched as he mashed their cheeks together. "Aww… you came to visit me. I feel so loved."

"You saw me not an hour before this and about to feel extreme blood-loss. Put. Me. Down."

He did so, grinning even with a threat of bodily harm aimed in his direction. "You still have an issue with touch? It's not a bad thing, Sonya. I will keep doing this as many times as it takes to help you get over that. Feel the love, sis. Feel it."

"You are being creepy, get away from me." Sniffing, and taking a couple steps backward to remove herself from touching-distance, the thief lightly smacked his hands away from her sides. "I do not have an issue with touch, I have issues with people touching me when not expecting it. As long as I do it, or I know it is coming, it is fine."

"Your double standards are appalling." Cherep informed her seriously, even if he still had that affable grin.

She puzzled over that comment, trying to figure out if he was being serious about that or just yanking on her chain.

Damn it all, she swore he was doing this on purpose.

"So… Viper, right?" The stuntman continued in another direction, looking at the Mist. "The old bat's new girl. I don't think we've met yet. Hi, Cherep Bazanov. Occasionally Skull de Mort. General mechanic and occasional stuntman."

"Charmed." Viper intoned in a completely blank tone of voice. "I have a question."

"That is nice, we have one for you as well." Sonya shoved her right hand laced with Storm Flames through the Construction of a massive spider before it could leap upon either of them, seizing her replacement by the front of her outfit with her left and hoisting the Mist off her feet. "So… question."

Viper's eyes were locked on the hand of Storm Flames about to touch her nose, her hood knocked off in the scuffle, a scowl on her fully visible face. "…fine. What?"

"Is whatever you are running from going to endanger the circus, Crina, or more importantly my brother?"

The Mist flicked her eyes to Sonya's own, and sneered with an insulted expression. "Of course not. I made certain of that before approaching such a civilian outfit. Can you put me down now?"

"Please. I don't want to have to figure out where to hide the body." Cherep chipped in dryly, entirely unconcerned with the sharp points aimed at his back but gripping hafts of the ones that almost impacted the thief's.

She scoffed, lowering the Mist to her feet even as she turned back to her foster brother. The Constructed spears behind his back faded into indigo Flames as the tension between the Cloud siblings and the unknown faded. "Enough Storm Flames and she would not leave a body. That is not a good protest."

"I don't want to know where you'd ever need that kind of information." He informed her, rubbing his temple tiredly.

"Excuse me, I believe it is my turn." Viper interrupted dryly, adjusting her bright and cheerfully patterned clothing to darker shades with less frills in a few distasteful flicks of indigo fire.

Strangely, she also got a whole lot less feminine looking but was still wearing a long sleeved and skirted dress. "Is there a reason a Storm Flame user's brother is hanging around a purely civilian outfit? From what I've been able to find out, one of you is a former performer and the other is still on-going without any intents to change that."

"Not entirely a Storm." Sonya informed the girl blandly, suspicious of how she got that information given the stonewalling she received when she started. "Cloud."

"Cloud." Cherep agreed, or echoed, with a shrug. "And yes, there is a reason."

That finally got some surprise painted across Viper's tattooed face, and she flicked her eyes from one sibling to the other. "…the both of you are Clouds?"

The thief gave the woman a hard glare, to show she wasn't at all pleased with the direction she was trying to go in.

"Yep!" The stuntman confirmed cheerily, the idiot.

"If that gets out from you, I will hunt you down and rip out your spine to beat you with it." She snapped at the Mist, turning the full force of her glare on her foster brother. "Why would you tell her that?"

"Why not? The first show I crash in she'll know full well, and this way we'll know which way she's going to jump on that information."

"She may not have been here for that. You do not have that many injuries from your work so far, and you had better not be purposely causing them. I swear to hell, Cherep, if you are I am going to murder any and all motorcycles you ever get."

"I'm not! I swear!" Cherep yelped in panic, grabbing hold of Sonya's hands and not letting go even when she dug her nails into his wrists. "It was only a thought, to see what Viper would do, I'm not going to do it. Ever. I swear to you on the grave of my first bike! Don't murder Betsy."

"…Betsy?" Questioned his fellow Cloud slowly, distracted enough she stopped trying to get him to release her hands.

Did he name his bike?

The embarrassed flush crawling up his face answered that question.

There was a snort from the Mist, and Viper smoothed a hand across her lips when the siblings glanced at her. "Mou… as amusing as all this is, do you have another question for me? I seem to have found a few more for the two of you."

"Please, your brain broke trying to process the fact you were looking at two Clouds."

"That's not the way to make friends, Sonya."

"I am not friends with Mists of no imagination." She snapped at him irritably, tugging at her still trapped hands. "They have to be at least somewhat intelligent for me to like."

"Your Mist friends are both under the age of fifteen." He countered dryly, and pointedly not releasing her. "And one is even younger than that. Doesn't he not count as a friend then? More like a kid you're mothering?"

"He's five, thank you. No, and," she corrected tartly, stomping a toe to get him to let go, "stop touching me."

"Why is my little sister so violent to me? All I want to do is help you make a new friend." Whined Cherep pitifully, actually contorting and clutching his steel toed boot as if that had done more than dent the very top of the metal toe-cap in warning.

"Because you have no sense of personal boundaries. Or self-preservation. And maybe I don't want to make a friend, ever think about that?"

Viper conjured herself a bag of popcorn and started munching.

"Friends are good things, maybe if you got one a normal way you might be less of a damn spaz. And I do too! It's just different, alright?" The stuntman defended himself, shoving a hand through his hair and frowning at her. "And leave my sense of personal boundaries out of this, you have just extreme ones so your sense of them are skewed all to hell."

"I am not a spaz!"

"I should charge admission for this." The Mist mused to herself idly, popping a few more kernels of popcorn into her mouth. "I'd make a killing."

"Can you even taste that?" Sonya asked curiously, derailed from her argument with her foster sibling.

It was Mist Flame food, basically food made up out of illusionary fire that did not really exist.

Wouldn't it just taste like fire?

Or did Viper's Flames also mimic the taste of food?

"Are you male or female?" Her brother asked in the next second, looking slightly frustrated. "Because you look female… but you also sort of look male sometimes. Like right now."

"She is dressed as female. Unless otherwise requested or informed differently, you would refer to someone like this as what gender they are conforming to at the time." The thief snapped yet again, backhanding him in the gut hard enough to make him wheeze. "And you call me socially incompetent."

"…how? Why? How do you even know that?"

Rachel's lifetime had a transgender community that decided on that as the best way to refer them as. Well… that or gender-neutral terms that would just confuse everyone if she used.

"Never you mind, Cherep. That was beyond rude, though."

"It's alright, I've heard it before… except the method of sorting out gender labels." Viper waved the rebuke from the younger sibling away idly, allowing her Construct of popcorn to fade from existence. "And I can, actually, taste the food I conjure. It has no nutritional value but saves me the hassle of actually buying whatever food I wish to eat as long as I have tried it once before."

"…huh."

"…sorry." The stuntman offered sheepishly, scratching at his messy and likely sweat-soaked hair then smoothing it somewhat straight… ish.

With another shrug, the Mist turned her attention on Sonya. "At least he asks instead of tries harassing the answer out of me."

"Well… true. I suppose."

"My question, then. Is this not your territory?"

"I do not have one."

"Yes, you do."

She sighed heavily, directing her gaze to the sky where the stars were starting to show under the encroachment of twilight. "Cherep is of the opinion my territory is actually the people I am closest to. Even if not, I do not have a physical territory. Before you ask, he does not have one either."

A line of stiffness in Viper's thin frame relaxed slightly, which the Russian belatedly noticed had been hovering over the edge of a 'flight or fight' response.

…wow, she really was a very strong Mist. Even her familiarity of Mists and their Constructs didn't help her notice this Mist's more gradual preparations for any further violence.

"…mou, I suppose that is relieving to know." She settled on after a long moment, flicking dark violet eyes between the two of them again. "Next question."

"I do not have any more." Sonya refused flatly, already more than fed up with what information the Mist was going to be walking away with.

Cherep cradled his chin in one palm, looking thoughtful. "…you know, I don't have any more either. I just really wanted to know what gender to call you by, so I didn't offend you or something."

Viper blinked, then blinked again. Finally, she frowned while looking slightly irritated. "Nothing? Then how am I to get answers of my own?"

"Guess. Or suffer. I do not care. As long as whatever you are doing will not harm my brother, you are not that interesting." Even if she was or was related to the future Mist Arcobaleno.

"And you were doing so well, too." The stuntman sighed, aiming a mournful look at his sister. "Really?"

Sonya shrugged it and the look off, not feeling remotely sorry for whatever it was he was now exasperated over. "I am going to go bribe Crina for information. Would you like to come to dinner with me while I do that?"

"Eh… sure. Why not? It will probably be better than the 'leftover' concession stand fair I'd eat otherwise. Even if Crina is going to be there."

"The old bat is not that bad."

"The old bat is a crotchety, sour old woman. I have no idea why you like her so much."

"Well… I somehow like you too, and now I wonder what that says about you."

Cherep gave her a deadpan look. "That you have some moments of pure sanity?"

"Or insanity, if you think about it."

"Ouch, really feeling the love here. Just… wow. So much love." He paused, looking back at the frustrated Mist. "Hey, you coming?"

Viper gave him an odd look.

"I'll pay, think of it as an apology for insulting you."

"…I suppose." She allowed after a moment of thought, following along after them as the thief lead the way out of the little alley and into the circus' main thoroughfare. "Your sister is very… straightforward."

"Yep."

"And you are not."

"That is still a line of enquiry, and if he answers I will gain my return answer in a manner you may not like." Sonya called out to the two behind her.

"There's a reason for that too." Her fellow Cloud answered in a way that wouldn't end up with the Mist owing the Cloud a favor of unnamed information. "Sorry though."

There was a smirk audible in Viper's voice for her next comment. "I have all night, I can probably find a way."

"You'll piss her off, and I would rather you didn't do that."

"…mou, fine. I demand an expensive dinner for my apology then."

She came to a sudden stop as a wonder occurred to her. She glanced behind her at the two of them. "Freebie, what does alcohol do to you? Or just a normal Mist in general?"

"Is there a reason why you are asking?" The Mist user countered with a quick frown, her features readjusting to appear more feminine as they approached the crowds.

"Firstly, because we will likely be drinking tonight. Secondly, he was correct about the ages of the Mists I know, and knowing what to warn them of before they try liquor the first time is something I am interested in."

"I can accept that." Viper mused aloud, cradling her chin in her left hand in a thoughtful manner. "More creativity, less substance when it comes to others. It is easier to disbelieve a Mist's Constructs if they are drunk, usually because they tend to be sloppier as well."

"Huh… right."

The Mist user likely turned a demanding look on the stuntman, because he huffed lightly with good humor in the next second. "We're Polarized differently. Like extreme opposite ends differently."

"…ah."

(Tuesday the 23rd of July, 1968. Lille, French Republic.)

Calling into Mafia Land just to check in with how her sister and Lackey was doing before she took a month or two off to try and find a long dead Arcobaleno proved to be a very good thing.

"What you do mean he picked up a contract for me?"

"I mean you have maybe half the usual time to complete this next job, is what I mean." Tatiana informed her over the phone, sounding stressed already and they had barely just gotten past the greeting part of the conversation. "I informed him not to do it again unless you were going to be expecting it or told him he may, but…"

Defaulting on contracts were not good things even in the civilian half of the world and in the underworld, it could get downright lethal.

"Give me the details." Then Sonya was going to have a very sharp conversation with her Lackey about when and where using his authority over her schedule was appropriate or not.

Rattling off both an address, city, country, and target in rapid succession, the nurse sighed heavily after the thief confirmed she had it written down. "I think… someone confused him into doing it. I'm not too clear on who, or why, because he's keeping his mouth shut about it. But Bjǫrn's not that great of a liar, nor does he have the personality to have done that intentionally to you."

"I'll figure it out when I get back." In… a week.

Sonya had to go and transfer the notes inked onto her hand to an actual piece of paper or something, then wash off the details of a criminal heist from her skin. Then she likely had to go catch a plane, even if she was still highly wary of flying in this day and age.

It was the only way to get from France to the US in time, and that was only if she used two or three days for said heist then flew back to Mafia Land.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Sonya was going back to Rachel's hometown.

She didn't know how she felt about that.

On the other hand, she could go surprise the hell out of people that some girl from Europe could pronounce the Native American names correctly. It might be worth a snicker or two to purposely mispronounce them.

She would not be looking for either her/Rachel's parents. It was still a few years early yet, there wasn't much of a point. They both were probably in high school still, or only just made it into collage.

That was still something she had yet to figure out what she wanted to do with too.

(Thursday the 25th of July, 1968. Pabst Theater, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.)

Sonya spent the flight mostly looking over the extra details she got just before getting on the plane, more notably more than just 'a chandelier' at 'a theater'. She also spent most of it either trying not to allow herself to worry or mentally cursing out Bjǫrn in her head.

The teen needed to do some serious detail work for future heists.

'A chandelier' in 'a theater' didn't quite cover the pertinent details.

Memories from another life told her that in Milwaukee's Pabst Theater, above the main auditorium, was a frankly massive chandelier of crystal. From what Sonya could dredge out of Rachel's memories, it wouldn't yet be the couple ton chandelier of Austria crystal… that was still a decade away, but even with her strength she wasn't even sure she could steal whatever was hanging before that.

That wasn't even counting the fact the bloody thing was suspended over a two-story auditorium… or was it three?

Either way, the thief was going to have to get creative in a fast hurry.

Milwaukee, thankfully, was a port city. The Russian Storm-Cloud loved these cities, especially since it also was a main train station in the US train lines.

Since she could use Mafia Land shipping/smuggling services to transport her illicit goods and buy a hell of a lot of beer while she was here to cover it, her attention went mainly to the damn mess of crystal and metal she had to steal.

While a show was going on.

The theater was almost sold out, doing a midsummer production of Fiddler on the Roof. There were both day-shows of different productions and night-shows of the main feature, meaning the auditorium was likely being cleaned for the few 'off-hours' between the last show of the night and the first show of the day.

Over the heads of about a thousand people. Thousand and a half if the actors putting on the play and the musicians were included.

This was probably the riskiest thing she was going to attempt yet.

Sonya, strangely, was excited the moment she laid eyes on her target.

It wasn't something she would've picked to do herself, not with the risks she knew would come with it. It was a massively ornate thing, it was going to be unwieldy and hard to move, likely possible she'd get caught doing it, but she still was mentally planning out exactly what she would need to do in order to remove and steal the damn thing silently while the room was full.

Two days' worth of traveling, and the one or two day return trip, left the Soviet Storm-Cloud with three days to work with.

"Miss…? The show is about to start." An usher helpfully reminded her, causing the thief to glance at him instead of stare at the massive chandelier three stories above her head.

"Ah… sorry." She took the last few steps fully into the theater and nodded her thanks when he pointed her down the aisle she needed to go to find her seat. "Thank you."

"Enjoy the show, miss."

(ooo000ooo)

(Thursday the 25th of July, 1968 continued. Pabst Theater, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.)

The chandelier was actually connected to a hoist and pulley system, supported by the heavily reinforced theater ceiling. It was lowered for cleaning, which ruled out maintenance access as a possible way to it. While that would normally nix any attempts she could've made to get it from the top, the Pabst Theater also had an incredibly old-fashioned air conditioning system.

Old-fashioned in that massive blocks of ice were once imported and set in a room at the very top of the building, then two massive fans would blow cool air down ventilation shafts to the audience in summer.

Sonya loved ventilation shafts. They were so useful.

It didn't quite remove the issues a solid ceiling gave her, nor did anything about the weight and mass of what she was about to steal, but it provided a way it could be done. Given she had two days left to work within, the same night she visited a show to get a good recent era look around, she also slipped away from the crowd exiting the theater and did a bit of cautious poking around.

Finding a ventilation shaft took her barely two minutes, as they were rather ornate things and she knew what she was looking for but getting into one without raising suspicion took her nearly two hours.

With a method in mind and a general feel of the scope of the heist figured out, she called Tatiana back her second day from a phone booth downtown.

"Do I have to steal the entire thing, or would just the crystals do? The rest of it is metal, possibly even a ton of it."

"I don't think anyone expected you to steal the whole thing," the nurse replied wryly as a shuffling of papers sounded, "I'm not sure what the fact you assumed the whole thing of ton weight was what you were to steal says about your head. No, according to the paperwork, they want the… glass? Or crystal dangly stuff."

"Is that seriously the term used on that paperwork?"

"No, Bjǫrn got the paperwork in Icelandic and I'm working off a translated copy in his handwriting. It sucks, by the by. For two years of learning, his grammar can end up all over the place. Might want to work on that with him when you have the time."

Yeah, this was the last time she'd ever be doing a contract without actually reading the damn thing herself.

"Sonya?"

"Hmm?"

"…what are you thinking?"

"I kind of wonder if I should not steal the whole thing anyways."

"HOW? It's a ton or so of metal, you said that yourself."

"It would have to be done in pieces." Agreed the Cloud almost absently, thinking hard. "But the contract has no limitations on damages to the item, right? Since it was so large in volume?"

"Well… no. But, ton. Of. Metal."

"The production being performed is a good two hours and some long. Almost three, actually. I might just have time to not only get the crystals, but everything else including the pulley end as well."

"Oh my god." Tatiana whined into her end of the phone, making the thief yank it away from her ear and give it a strange look. The nurse's voice continued after a long pause. "My shy little sister is an exhibitionist. I never saw that one coming."

"…I… what?"

"You just want to steal it in order to giggle in your stilted silent way over the baffled head scratching as people wonder how you did it, don't you?"

Well… "…yes."

"Really?"

"It will also unnerve and possibly upset whoever it is you suspect has fooled Bjǫrn into accepting that contract on my behalf. As… well… as… allow me to stop being a jewel thief and actually start thieving other things."

"From jewels to crystals isn't much of a jump, little sis." Tatiana informed her bluntly, sounding slightly exasperated. "Are you sure you can do that?"

Honestly? "Yes. It will be tricky, but possible. I think I can do it, anyways."

"…I'll get the bail money ready."

"Very funny. I'll see you soon, alright?"

There was a snort from the other end. "One way or another."

Sonya wasn't intending to do anything like this again, but since she started thinking as 'whole thing' rather than 'little parts of it' she might as well keep on with that.

Admittedly, she'd only try for the full damn thing if she could get everything her contract stipulated first.

Best to be careful, at least.

(Saturday the 27th of July, 1968. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.)

The night of day two in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Sonya spent on a dry practice run just to be sure she could do what she wanted to do.

Mainly, finding and locating not only the method of which she would be getting a ton of oversized lamp disassembled but snuck out of the theater without getting caught.

A ton was stretching it, even for her strength. If she didn't have to find out at the last minute that she couldn't support that kind of weight all at once, she would prefer it.

In her further investigations of the old ventilation system, she ran across the method used to transport ice blocks before the advent of electric air conditioning. It included a set of railroad tracks in the attic to move said ice of old, but also a freight elevator.

Investigating to see if that worked or not netted her a way to actually accomplish the heist as she wanted. For something almost seventy years old, it was in surprisingly good condition. It also needed an oiling in the worst way so as to not screech or clank in all sorts of disruptive manners, and she had to sneak out and back in again with a few bottles of machine grade oil to slather everything that moved with, but immediate transport was set.

While she was at it, she also started carving into the ceiling of the auditorium with a trowel she picked up from a hardware store. Getting the bulk of the work out of the way, like cutting the vent's metal open more than wide enough for her purpose and starting in on gouging away the concrete until she had a very thin amount left to prevent the façade from cracking or just falling apart on her.

The pulley system used to raise and lower the chandelier told her exactly where she had to stop, at least.

One wouldn't normally be able to cut metal with a small little hand spade, but Sonya cheated all over the place.

With that mostly set up, she then had to think of how she would get either the crystals she was contracted for or the entire damn chandelier from the theater to the dockside. In the end, she rented a heavy-duty van.

Legally. Then she stole it.

From herself.

Reporting it stolen did carry some risks, as in her current fake name and description would be linked to the theft if only in a 'victim' way. However, in it being stolen and her 'official' business was acquiring a lot of beer for an Octoberfest party arrangement wouldn't necessarily raise suspicion of its own, it was a risk she had to run.

Since Bjǫrn accepted the contract on her behalf, he might have to turn it in as well. It was possible she would not be leaving America on time.

After stashing her truck close by once a few 'adjustments' she learned from Dimitry were made, Sonya got some sleep.

Then bought an ungodly amount of beer that she would not be drinking, bright and early the next and last day she had before her contracted time limit ran out.

It took up most of the morning, because there were two main breweries she had to decide between. Pabst itself and Miller. The Russian eventually went with Miller Brewery Company just because she would be having a Pabst item in that shipment. Illegally, but the point remained.

While the shipment was being assembled, she took the legal paperwork she would be smuggling things through to the dockyards and found the local Mafia Land contact.

That would be her alibi for the night, the man here well used to handling shipment details to Mafia Land by himself and claiming otherwise.

She really had no idea how effective of a long-range thief she would be without this network of dockyard crooks.

(Sunday the 28th of July, 1968. Zolotov Condo, Mafia Land.)