Information

Raikov_330
Legacy Name: Raikov_330

The Custom Spectrum Pherret
Owner: Shalashaska

Age: 13 years, 6 months, 2 weeks

Born: October 23rd, 2010

Adopted: 12 years, 1 week, 1 day ago

Adopted: April 29th, 2012

Statistics

• Level: 51
   
• Strength: 128
   
• Defense: 128
   
• Speed: 115
   
• Health: 128
   
• HP: 128/128
   
• Intelligence: 10
   
• Books Read: 10
• Food Eaten: 0
• Job: Inventory Tracker

It went past in a blur, people say that about horrible events, that it happened in a blur, or sometimes that it was all in slow motion. For me it was too fast. The smell of chloroform, the panting body stopping me from moving as I struggled to escape the darkness. Waking up with his huge hand on my head, his eyes on the wall opposite us, he didn't see me wake up so I got to lie there and enjoy watching him when there was no one else around. Watch the way the shadows played on his scarred face. Why did so many people think the burns were ugly? They were beautiful... I raised my hand and touched the crazing pattern of burns and smiled when he jumped around to look at me, teeth bared in a grin. "Major," he growled, "I have him."
I laughed weakly, knowing exactly who he meant, "Good. Make him pay."
"Did he hurt you?"
"Coward snuck up on me," I sat up and leant against his shoulder, "What will you do?

He left me to sleep, though I went to the prison later to listen, I was asleep when the prisoner escaped.
I was alone that night, he didn't come to me, he was angry and I clung to my pillow and thought about that woman in his bed, and wishing he was with me, knowing why he couldn't be. 6am. A hot dry hand sliding over my belly woke me, I turned and kissed him before he could pin me down. He was in a good mood again. He was mine again.

Then he was gone.
One moment the alarms were screaming, everyone was running. The hangers went up in smoke and that giant tank ripped its way out of the rubble.
I ran after it when I heard my Zhenya was the one driving it, that he was chasing down the American spy--the man who'd attacked me. The bridge was out, I could hear them, see the smoke, but couldn't get across, anyway...I probably would have been too afraid to cross if the bridge had been intact.

By the time I got there, the tank was little more than rubble. There were bike tracks, the American was gone. And he... he...

It was raining.
He'd been left where he'd fallen, arms spread eagled in the mud, legs crooked against the tank. Blind staring eyes tearing up with rain water. I clung to his gauntleted hand, comparatively unscorched, and pressed my forehead against his palm, sobbing through my mouth so I didn't have to smell the burnt flesh. I couldn't open my eyes, they were clenched so hard they might as well be welded shut. That was probably for the best, if I'd looked on that fire ravaged, bullet torn body in that moment I think I might have vomited.

A sound clicked through the rain, finally I was able to open my eyes, but only so I could turn to face the approaching figure. His eyes glittering with glee, curiosity on his lips: "Dead, I presume?"
"Get away from him, Major."
"Where did they go?"
"Who? The American?"
"And that bitch?"
"Tracks!" I spat, pointing, and the GRU Major nodded and turned away, I could see a motorbike leaning against an oil barrel some distance away, "Kill him!"
"Maybe."
I screeched before I could stop myself: "'Maybe'!? 'Maybe' you bastard!? He's your enemy too!"
"Huh."
The bike growled as it rolled past, he stopped for a moment beside me where I remained knelt in the remains of the tank. His face was blank when he looked down at us, but there was concern in his eyes, it wasn't for me, but I didn't hear what he said, he spoke too quietly and was drowned out by the bike. Then he was gone, tearing after the American. I sat beside the Colonel, smiling despite myself--maybe I was a little mad--when I realised that we'd been surrounded by traitors. Soon everything would come crashing down. I'd lost my protector.

The Soviets hated me, so they sent me away.
The San Hieronymo Peninsula.
It was a miserable place. Even for a prison. Then all went to hell. Rebel soldiers ripped through the place and picked me up, "We heard you were a GRU Major!?"
"I-"
"The boss wants to see you!"

The boss. Not the person I first thought of, but it was close enough. The Boss was the master, dead for years now, as long as the Colonel. This was the apprentice. I didn't find that out for some time though.
First I was tossed into the back of a truck, hands bound, and was soon joined by a blond man with a gammy leg. I waited for the interrogation to start, for him to bark at me or cajole me, or do whatever he intended to do, but all he did was ask me simple questions, it seemed he just wanted to know if I was who they thought I was. I considered denying it, but it seemed pointless. I did try, but he just smiled, and I knew they already knew.
"Why are you asking me these things, if you already know who I am?"
"Just making sure," Campbell stretched out his leg with a grimace, "So you are a GRU Major?"
"Was."
"Was?"
"Exiled," I muttered.
"Why?"
"If you know who I am you know why."
The wounded soldier looked down at a scruffy pad of paper in his hands. "Abuse of power?" he hazarded, "My sources tell me you were inclined to mistreatment of your underlings." I tried to laugh, but I wasn't never very good at being blasé, when I looked up his eyes were narrowed under his head bandage, "I wouldn't keep you around, personally, from what I hear you're a cowardly little prick who likes to beat people who can't defend themselves. Heh. And a glutton, and we have little enough food as it is."
My mind raced, looking for something to argue, but unfortunately he had me pegged. I knew what I was. I'd spent too much time hiding from alarm bells in a locked toilet cubical not to have done some pretty serious reflection--I wasn't proud of it, but I didn't have any urge to change. Zhenya had liked me, protected me, I could live as I liked with him around, then he'd been murdered and I'd been left high and dry. Should have seen it coming. With no protection--my eyes fell to Cambell's boots--I'd been picked up by the KGB, then discarded like so much trash. I tried to tell myself at least I was still alive.

"Well I believe it's you." He beckoned to the guard standing outside the truck, "Get the boss, see if he wants to talk to him now."
"Who is the boss?"
Campbell leant back against the wall of the truck, "He wasn't too happy to find out it was you. It was weird, the way he perked up when he heard there was a GRU major imprisoned here, then grimaced when he heard the name 'Raikov'. Was there another Major that you might be mistaken for, blond, skinny, obnoxious?"
"Ha. Hahahaha!" I couldn't stop myself that time, "That two-faced snake in the grass, I knew it!"
"Knew what?"
But it was absurd, I couldn't answer, I just shook my head and alternately laughed and bit back tears, my lover had been surrounded by villains out to kill him, people he'd thought loyal and each and everyone had been a spy? And suddenly I knew who was coming and I was filled with hatred at my own impotence. Better they'd just left me in the prison.

"Uglier than ever I see," I spat when the one-eyed man climbed into the truck, he just gave me a withering look and sat down, "What do you want from me?"
"Your help."
To the point.
"My help!?" I lunged to my feet, the guard jumped around but Snake raised his hand and told him to leave me, "You bastard! You left me unconscious, killed Volgin and let me be thrown into this--" he waved his arm widely to indicate their general location, "--garbage! And you want me to help you? Did you stop to look at what you did to him!?"
"I didn't kill him, he killed himself."
"Liar!" I howled, "You're a murderer! You're as bad as he was! But I loved him and he protected me and you took EVERYTHING from me!"
"It was my mission. I'm not sorry he's dead either, but I am sorry for your loss."
I slumped down, hiding behind my tattered hair, "Work for you. That's what you want." It would be the ultimate humiliation being at the beck and call of the American who'd stolen my life from me. Maybe it wasn't what you'd call a good clean life, but it was mine!
"You can work with us, or go back to prison and rot." Campbell shrugged, "Your choice."

"I'll stay. I'll help."
Better, I supposed, to work for someone I hated, then to be thrown back into prison. My name had run ahead of me, so many people delighted in making me face my short comings.
Snake's reptilian grin made my blood boil, but I bit my tongue, only looking up again when I felt myself being freed, I looked up and Snake gestured for me to follow him, "Lets talk," he said, "I'm glad to have you with us," he side-eyed me and I felt my self pouting against my will.
"I don't want to, but I don't see I have much of a choice. Working for Volgin's murderer is the lesser of two evils in this case."
"You're still willing to defend him?"
"Defend him? He protected me, my colonel, I loved him. Just because you didn't know him like I did--and don't think I don't know about you and the Ocelot Major."
"The Ocelot Major? What about he and I?"
I blinked at Snake's puzzled look, "Well... We all knew how he was about you. And that you saved him on multiple occasions," Snake squirmed under my gaze and I sneered, "I heard what he did to you too," I tapped my closed eyelid and watch him grimace, "And you still didn't hate him."
"..."
"You're in no place to judge me."
"I wasn't sleeping with Ocelot."
"More's the pity, he was terribly uptight."
He guffawed, "I'll make sure to tell him that if I see him again."
"Snake. How did you know?"
"Know?"
"About me? We'd never even seen each other before you stole my uniform... And disguising your face?"
"Photograph. EVA, Tatyana, got it. Took me a while before I fully understood what you were to Colonel Volgin."
"Has anyone ever told you, you're not very bright?"



Art by User not found: tusk

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