Chapter Text
“Kamui sir, how many more members are ideal?” Fyodor was bored, this meeting was dull and getting nowhere. 2 more was the perfect ideal to create enough members to challenge a government but not enough to get caught easily by it.
“Two members would be the best outcome,” Fukuchi uttered, he was clearly also bored of this pointless meeting, “You need to start locating our newest members Dostoyevsky.”
“Yes sir,” Fyodor left the meeting room and headed to his own room in the base. It wasn't the largest place, being a smaller 2 story house on the outskirts of Étretat, a small coastal town in France. The commander's political power allowed him to be able to travel here when he needed to the most, just telling the Hunting Dogs it was a vacation home.
Fyodor reached his room and immediately sank into his desk chair and sighed, this was going to take forever. Even with his brilliance it was still going to take a while to find and locate the perfect ability user for them. He began to scan forums and documents online about strange phenomena until he came across one.
The story was about 3 paragraphs long and described a robbery at a bakery in St Petersburg. What was so strange about it was that it was that the bread seemed to disappear out of nowhere. Now any normal person would think that a child just stole it or something of that nature but Fyodor spotted something in the photo. A faint yellow glow right above the bread basket with the smallest piece of baguette sticking out.
This ability seemed to allow the user to transport items and take them at will. This would be perfect for robberies and transportation if Fyodor assumed correctly. He needed to find the wielder of this ability.
His search wasn't easy, for all he had to go off of was a single location and knowing what the ability looked like. It didn't help that this article was a year old so this ability user could have likely moved by now. He needed more on this topic to find them, so he searched the website looking for more mysterious robberies in St. Petersburg, and bingo.
Another article appeared, this one was significantly shorter, but it was recent. Written on February 13, 2012 this led him Fyodor to assume the ability user still lived in St. Petersburg. And so Fyodor was to visit St. Petersburg.
-
Russia was cold.
Fyodor had experienced this weather but it still was much colder than France’s March weather. (which was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit and St Petersburg was around 20). But in his current outfit it wasn't doing much to help block the cold. He wore his unusual ushanka, black pants, and black button up. He hadn't been back to Russia for about a year and got accustomed to other countries' warmer temperatures, with him being anemic this wasn't going well. He was cold and tired, his feet ached with pain as he continued to walk around the market where the first robbery happened.
He knew it had to be a man, the second article revealed that by how a man's hand was revealed on camera grabbing a diamond ring from a jewelry shop. The man had pale skin and that's about all he knew, but if Fyodor saw his hand he’d know.
After walking around the marketplace looking at jewelry and knick-knacks alike Fyodor decided to call it quits and head to his hotel to continue looking for clues online. When suddenly a man caught his eye. He wore a large black coat, white collared shirt with a black waistcoat, and some form fitting trousers. In addition to this man's extravagant outfit he had long silver hair thrown in a braid.
“Have you seen a wallet anywhere sir? I seem to have dropped it somewhere.” The man asks Fyodor. Fyodor shakes his head and the stranger visibly saddens. Fyodor notices a long scar on his left eye as he watches him carefully.
“Oh drat, well thank you for answering,” and the stranger left as soon as he arrived. As Fyodor watched him walk away he noticed one distinct detail about him,
His hands.
They were the same ones he saw in the photo, so that was him.
Now Fyodor needed to recruit him, the hardest part.
He arrives back at his hotel and starts to research this man, he discovers his name is Nikolai Gogol and has lived in St Petersburg for only 7 years
Nikolai Gogol was someone who thought his life would go in a very different direction.
Upon discovering his ability was when it all started to decline.
_
“Mama! Look what I can do!”
Nikolai was about 5 years old when he discovered his ability. One afternoon he reached into his coat pocket and saw his hand appear at the other side of the room. He wasn't scared, more so intrigued. He tried grabbing the wooden train nearby and tried pulling his hand back. It worked as he now had the little train in his other hand and he started giggling.
His mother Maria cared deeply for her child, she wanted nothing more than for him to grow up and live a healthy life.
When her son wanted to show her something she thought it would be a dance or a bug he spotted outside. So when Nikolai put his hand in his coat and she then felt a tap on her shoulder she screamed. Her son's hand was floating and he was acting like this was completely normal.
Nikolai didn't understand why his mom was crying and begging him to not do that again, it was cool, he had superpowers. But she wouldn't listen.
“Please little rabbit, you can’t show anyone.”
“Mama! It's fine, it could help us--!”
“---You can’t son, please listen to your mother!”
It upset him, his mother from that day forth always treated him a bit differently. If he ever put his hand in his pockets she would glare at him until he took them out. His hands were always cold now.
-
For Christmas that year papa bought him a pair of black gloves.
“Your hands are always cold so I figured you could use them!”
“Thank you Papa!” Nikolai cheered and hugged his papa, he loved him dearly.
Nikolai’s dad loved theater and had a deep passion for it that spread to his son. They would often go to the theater together every Saturday to watch local plays and musicals. Those were Nikolai’s favorite days, just him and his dad spending time together. After the shows they always got ice cream, no matter how cold his dad knew he loved it so they always went. He loved spoiling his son, his pride and joy.
Cancer.
Something that takes precious life from us way too soon, his dad was diagnosed with lung cancer a couple months after that Christmas.
“Papa, are you going to get better soon?” Nikolai was holding his fathers hand and could feel the tears welling up in his eyes.
“Soon little rabbit, Papa just needs to rest and the doctors will make him better. I promise.” He squeezed Nikolai's hand and patted the bed next to him, Nikolai climbed in.
“Okay papa, I trust you,” He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep next to his papa.
He awoke to a loud beep, it was constant and nagging, like someone was screaming at him. He slowly opened his eyes and nudged Papa.
“Papa, what is that noise? Are you calling a doctor?”
Papa’s chest wasn't moving.
He started shaking him, “Papa? Papa! Wake up! You promised you’d get better!”
A doctor rushed in and started to try and save him, but it was too late for him. He remembers shaking papa and grabbing his hand refusing to let go. His papa wasn't going to leave him alone yet, this was all a joke, like the funny ones at the theater.
“Papa? You can stop pretending, this isn’t the theater, please papa..” He sobbed, still clinging to Papa.
The nurse and doctor had to pry him off of his father, he wouldn't let go and was screaming as they tried to get him away, “NO! Don’t take Papa from me, he’ll wake up he promised he would!”
He only was able to leave when his mother arrived, also crying. He ran to her and they stayed in the hallway for a while, just holding each other and sobbing.
Nikolai can’t remember much from that night, he just remembers screaming, crying, laughing, sobbing, and just staring. There was a lot of staring, staring at the wall and asking God why this had to happen to Papa. Papa did everything right, they went to church every Sunday, prayed before dinner, and helped out the less fortunate. So why Papa?
He asked his mother the same question on the way to his funeral, “Mama, why did God take Papa away?”
His mother winced at the question then sighed, “Well Kolya, Your dad had a monster in him, it kept him stuck in his body unable to do things. Your dad wasn’t free, he couldn’t do everything he used to love doing. God took him because he knew your dad was suffering and wanted him to be free and able to do everything he wanted to.”
“So Papa wasn’t free, so God took him so he could be?”
“Yes little rabbit sort of, he is now free in Heaven to do as he pleases, and I bet he's looking over us now.”
“Oh okay,” Nikolai looked out the window for the rest of the car ride wondering what freedom really meant.
The funeral was the first time Nikolai used his ability in public. He put his hand in his coat as Mama was giving a speech about his father’s life and held Papa’s hand one last time.
“Goodbye Papa.”
-
Nikolai was now 17 and it was 11 years after papa had passed and Nikolai and his mother weren’t doing well. Their relationship was strained as she was mad he hadn’t shown any interest in school, girls, or sports.
“Nikola, you need to focus on your grades, you are barely passing. I know you are smarter than this, you are brilliant so why aren’t you putting forth the effort,” She nagged him after getting his report card.
“Jus’ not interested in school Ma, I want to pursue theater and be an actor,” He only put in enough effort to pass so he could get his degree and get out of school and move to a big city, “I have enough money to get an apartment in St. Petersburg, a crappy one, but I want to pursue my dream and be free.”
“Nikola we’ve been over this, you’ll never make a living off of that, you need to focus on going to university or getting a real career.”
“Acting is a real career Mama, I could make it big, like those theater stars me and Papa used to watch,” He tried to convince her again, but to no avail.
“I love you Kolya, but if you don’t start taking school seriously you’ll be out of the house by next week, I can’t afford to have you end up poor or worse homeless.” She threatened him, trying to get him to drop his dream.
“Fine.” He looked her dead in the eye and walked back to his tiny room. He wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. How could his own mother crush his dreams like this, how could she? He wrapped himself in the big coat he was wearing and sniffled, pushing the coat over his head so his mom couldn’t hear him. He suddenly felt the cold wind outside.
“What the-” Before he could finish his sentence he heard a scream, the neighbor, Miss Sokolova was walking her dog and she dropped the leash in horror upon seeing Nikolai’s floating head in their front lawn.
He quickly pulled his head back in and started to panic, she saw his power. The one rule that his mother had was to never show it, but he broke it.
There was a knock at the door and his mother went to get it, he could hear her footsteps on the creaky wooden floor.
“Shit, I have to leave now,” He thought, grabbing all his things he could think of and shoving them in his backpack. He reached for his wallet, savings, and some spare clothes and then he used his ability to grab a pair of his mothers gold earrings to sell for rent money (not one of his proudest moments, but he was desperate).
He snuck out of the window as he heard his mother scream after Miss Sokolova started mumbling to her. He used this new found travel ability to get to the nearest train fast.
“One ticket to St. Petersburg please,” He asked the man at the desk, smiling his best.
The man luckily did not care to question why a high schooler was taking a train to Russia, and just stated the price and handed him the ticket after he paid.
Nikolai never saw his home or his mother again after he got on that train.
-
Present
Nikolai was wandering the flea market looking for a poor lost soul to pickpocket and he stumbled upon a strange looking man who was wearing an ushanka.
Probably a tourist Nikolai thought
“Have you seen a wallet anywhere sir? I seem to have dropped it somewhere.” He asked the strange looking man as he used his ability secretly to snatch this stranger's wallet only to discover this man wasn’t carrying one.
“Oh drat, well thank you for answering,” He admitted honestly, he was bummed he didn't get any free cash today. He walked away taking his hands out of his pockets and strolling away carefreely.
Little did he know this was the man who would turn his life upside down.