Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1999 In a dark and frigid garage, a man sits tied to a chair with a black bag covering his face. He had been left there for hours after being searched for weapons or valuables by the same men who came to collect him for a debt he owed the local Bratva boss: Taras Rodionova. He'd already attempted to go the police and was rebuffed. He did borrow money from these men but they went too far in trying to collect it. What started as just vandalism became threats at home and work, and even against his wife and son. He didn't have anywhere near the money to pay it off: god willing he could convince them to give him 1 more year to make it big in the used car business so he could finally get them off of his back.

He hears 3 sets of footsteps: a heavy-set man in old Red Army boots, a lighter man in dress shoes, and a young girl's soft boots. He'd heard rumors of Taras having his daughter aid in his work but he assumed that was just a rumor. His daughter was a 14 year old girl and on the shorter end, always with bodyguards or friends of convenience.

The bag is taken off of his head, and the shop lights blare into his eyes as he takes in scene. Taras was dressed in a black suit and a red tie, his bald head shining under the lights as he cast a wiry figure over his victim. A burly, scarred, and tanned man stands beside him in blue jeans and a long coat carrying a Tokarev menacingly. Standing by her father with a meat tenderizer in hand was a young girl in a navy blue skirt and white blouse, with blonde twintails and her father's blue eyes. The girl wore a toothy as she runs her hand over the spikes on the tenderizer, occasionally glancing up at the victim.

[The following dialogue is entirely in Russian]
Taras snaps his fingers: "Up here!" he demands. "I've given you every courtesy to pay back what was given to you. In cars, cash, or favors. You chose to do none of them and even involve the police. What was the most important thing we lost after the Belovezha Accords?"

"C-Communism?" the victim answers in a panic before Taras steps hard on his foot and gets in his face.

"No: We lost civility. A man like you emulates the American capitalist, taking money he can't pay back for your own works and never planning to pay it back. There is a loss to my organization that you have created and yet you refused every offer of solving this in a civil way. You could have given us some of your cars in lieu of cash, but you refused. You could have let us put packages into the seats and packaging, but you refused. You could have simply payed us back instead of purchasing a house for your family, but you chose your families whims over your obligations to another man."
"The interest was meant to make you take this seriously, not go to the police to try and bail you out. At every step of this process, you've taken me for a fool and acted as though you're a fox robbing a henhouse."

Taras gives his daughter a nod. She swings the meat tenderizer onto his fingers with her full force. The pain is incredible and he makes the choice to not look at his broken and bleeding fingers.
"Since you have no civility, I must treat you like an animal. An animal only respects that which can hurt or kill them, and their words are just another tool of survival and deception to find food. Alyona, again"

The girl nods as she takes a swing at the fingers on his other hand, the blow being lessened by his body's attempt to just survive this by dulling the feeling. Alyona stands in front of the victim, her insane smile only enhanced by the blood staining her cheeks.
"You can limp away by granting my father a 60% stake in your car lot, or we recover our investment by butchering you for organs if you insist on acting like an animal" Alyona says as stops smiling, taking a more serious tone.

"I give up! The car lot, take it!" The The man is desperate to blurt out. Their was no winning this: but this way his family wouldn't starve.

Taras nods: "Find Philip, get him to draw up papers. Get Ilya and his boys to occupy the lot and protect the merchandise" he says to the bodyguard.
He pats Alyona on the head as she wipes the blood off of her face and a doctor attends to her victim. The two leave while their victim is given a dose of painkillers and his hands rescued from being useless stumps for the rest of his life. Alyona is driven home by her father, back to their penthouse in the city center. The ride is quiet as Alyona looks out her window in the front passenger seat at the grey, decaying structures which made up her home. Under communism the city was beautiful and alive, without it the city was filled with drug addicts, debtors, and degenerates that needed to be corralled into something vaguely resembling civilization. Give them even a portion of her father's resources and they will squander it within the week, meanwhile her father turned the modest funds he reclaimed from his former band mates into an illicit empire which kept order in place of the ineffectual government and corrupt police.

There was a small part of Alyona who hated the man despite it all: she wasn't given a choice to be something other than her fathers successor. She has to be thrice as terrifying as any man would, because even with her pedigree she'd be seen as just another weak-willed woman without a very long shadow. Her mind goes back to when she was kidnapped and tortured because she was known as his heir. She clutches her stomach, the place that was used as an ashtray by her kidnappers.

But it was pointless to argue with him about her freedom: she was almost an adult of her own, the time for childish dreams was nearing an end. Alyona closes her eyes to try and rest on the way back. Her father had always chosen discipline through lectures and speeches rather than using his fists. The wives and children of the other bosses in Saint Petersburg sometimes had marks of injury she could see: the fact she was never hurt by him means she's not just an inconveniently female heir to him.


The building Alyona's family lived in was an old fancy soviet hotel that was all but entirely destroyed during the Great Patriotic War, and rebuilt with more modern materials. Her father still sometimes called the city Leningrad. One of the few concessions he made in his idolization of Soviet Union was that he used the name everyone else did for their home city: the old name of Saint Petersburg. They had a two floor penthouse with armed guards, but her mother preferred splitting the domestic duties between herself and Alyona while her father would sometimes take an evening to cook a nice meal.

Alyona had finished making the bed in the guest rooms, her mother finishing the dishes and polishing the silverware before coming to check on her daughter.
"Alyonushka, If something is wrong you can tell me" she says as approaches

"I just feel like I wasted my time learning Japanese" she says, sulking.
"4 years to go and I am an adult. My hobbies go away and I have to work much more, father has made it clear that I will need to work very hard to earn the respect of his associates."

"Your cartoons and studying don't need to fully stop, even after you start working harder" her mother states with conviction in her voice as she hands Alyona a letter she received, in Japanese. The girl reads it over with some difficulty, as even with all of her studying reading the language was hard for her. When she finally finishes the letter she leaps on her mother with an affectionate hug.
"I didn't think you'd be able to do it! Thank you! Thank you!"

The woman pats her daughters head with a smile: "You wrote all the letters, I just dictated what to say: there is one person we need permission from though."

Alyona sinks to the floor like a punctured balloon: "He... He won't say yes...." Alyona says in a miserable tone.

"Then I'll make him" Her mother responds with a facade of strength while helping her up.
"Is he still out on business?"

Alyona nods: "He said the computer importers left some rubles off of their last payment, wants to make sure it wasn't an... accident" she says as she heads toward her room at the end of the hall, her mother nodding. Alyona's room looked over the grey and snowy city from a large plate glass window, but today she lowered her blinds so she could sit in the dark. Her room was filled with figurines, posters, wall scrolls, and plushies from her favorite shows: Cartoons from Japan which easily beat anything from Europe or America that aired on the TV along with most of the domestic animation projects from before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

What space wasn't taken up by merchandise was filled with her second obsession of Japanese Lolita fashion. She found it prettier than anything she could buy even in Europe, where her mother preffered to shop. The intrictaely designed dresses, adorable blouses, and general air of overt cuteness helped her forget what was waiting for her in the future, a future of hurting people so she could survive off of what they 'give' her. She used to cry about it, even thought about running away sometimes, but people are the same everywhere: if they aren't scared of you then they will extract whatever value they can out of you and leave you with nothing to live off of. She wasn't going to be anyone's victim again: if other people had to be her victims then so be it.

She picks a random Laserdisc out of her organized album, mixed between bootlegs with unmarked exteriors and the rare home release a proxy service could ship all the way back to Russia. Sometimes she got bootlegs with English subtitles, but she ended learning the language herself after much of what of her father managed to get her was unsubtilted. She always marveled that Japan in anime was nice and clean unless she was watching something really disgusting and gory. The police did their job, the people were nice and friendly, the sun was bright and shiny and everyone looked happy. Saint Petersburg was lucky: they still had police to stop petty crime sometimes. Men like her father made sure the politicians didn't bow to the Western Powers and turn what was left of her home into another American colony. Kidnappings, rapes, and murders were a fact of life she wasn't even safe from. She looked outside and knew almost every person she saw was an animal that would take everything she could possibly give if her father wasn't so powerful.

Most of Russia was lost without the Soviet Union to hold it together and provide for them. Like chickens with their heads cut off, they flailed around and bled to death in full view of the indifferent West. She shakes her head, trying to focus on watching Usagi Tsukino beat up the bad guy of the week. Deep down she wanted nothing more than to live somewhere like Japan forever, where she didn't have to break peoples fingers to make them listen to her. Her mother used to make a fuss about how violent her husband would get around Alyona: her father always had the right rebuttal.
"If we don't make them suffer like animals, then they will inflict it fatally onto us when we falter."

Alyona almost loses herself in her shows as she sits on her floor with a blanker wrapped around shoulders, until a knock on her door is heard. It was firm and demanding, her father's way of doing it. She hits the pause button and fixes the straps on her dress after she stands up, heading for the door.
"Ludmilla tells me you want to go to high school in Japan" he says with a serious look down onto his daughter as she steps out of her room.

"Yes but I know its not-" Alyona starts before being cut off.

"It is feasible. I just wanted you to take your mother with you" he says, trying to encourage Alyona with a hand on her shoulder.

"What? But if I'm not here I can't help with... work" She says, wondering if this was a trap.

Her father shakes his head and kneels down so he is looking up at her, just barely.
"Alyonushka: I want to give you a childhood you can look back on and not regret. If you want to indulge your fantasy of living in Japan, I only ask your mother goes with you along with some bodyguards"

"I understand the bodyguards but why Mother? she is perfectly happy here. She doesn't know any Japanese either"

Taras chuckles: "Alyona, you need one of us to watch over you until you are an adult. Both of us made great mistakes as teenagers, and it is my duty as a father to prevent you from carrying that same unfortunate weight"
"Besides, we can speak over the phone or through a chat room, I'm told. I will visit when possible, but things with my associates have gotten... complicated"

Alyona's eyes sharpen: "A war?"

Taras nods: "A war I will win, rest assured. Yaroslav thinks he can take over the whole North town. It is for the best you are elsewhere, you have your own weapon and your own guards if you are hunted, and I know you will not hesitate to use either to defend yourself"

Alyona nods as she hugs her father. She tried to avoid tearing up at the thought of him being ingloriously shot in the street and being left to die in the snow. A small part of her scolded her for crying at the thought, if he were to die another man would vie for the power of his position and leave her free. Everything would solve itself and she and her mother would be safe in Japan. A part of her knew it would never be so easy: she had to be on the lookout for anyone coming after her and make sure to send them home beaten, broken, or dead. The one thing her father never had her do when it came to hurting others was killing someone herself. He wanted to wait until she was an adult and she understood at what point an enemy stopped getting harassed and tortured and got marked for death.

She loved her father despite the undeniable evil he committed because he chose the way he lives so she could have the knowledge to live in turn. She hated her father because she was being treated like a weakness, as if she was an object to placed where was convenient for him. She loved him because he freely let her choose where to spend her massive allowance and pursue her own interests. She hated him because she was not free to fly wherever her whims took her.

She could see her mother standing off to the side, already packing her bags. A phrase sprung to Alyona's mind:
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth"


2000, Kageoka, Japan Alyona is dropped off at school by her families chauffeur, a man named Illya who had a haunted look in his eyes even on a nice and sunny day like today. The car was a specially ordered armored sedan from her father, though Alyona was mostly assured it wouldn't need to be use those features in a country as peaceful and perfect as Japan. She stood out among the students, wearing her skirt short and keeping her blonde hair in high twintails. She waves to her peers with a smile on her face as even the ones who do avoid her seem to just want nothing to do with her. Her real concern for the day was not an academic or social issue, but managing her own power base at the school. If she didn't own people here, she was in real danger after all.

Her closest ally sat near the entrance to the school, an outcast from Kageoka with spiritual powers. Renka had ash white hair with a single covered eye and a shorter stature than Alyona. She was one that people whispered about as dangerous, just the kind of person Alyona wanted working for her.
[All Dialogue is now in Japanese]
"Good morning!" Alyona says in a sunny tone, her blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight, contrasted by the shade that Renka was as she leaned on a window.

"The Baseball club says the girls in on the volleyball team are planning a fundraiser, but they seemed to think that was a bad thing" Renka says

"If we let it happen were owed a cut at least, I'll make sure things stay civilized between us and them. They have national aspirations this year so I imagine we can come an agreement. I let them get away with no obligations during my last inspection so lets hope they can stay civil" Alyona says.

"The Ceramics club said they wanted maid service for a meeting: I checked and no clubs owe us that service right now." Renka continues as they slip their shoes off and lock them up.

"The balance sheet needs them, but we shouldn't bend to their every whim. Send them one of outfits and have them do it themselves if they want it so badly"
"Oh, and remind them I'd like pictures of whoever who gets put into it" Alyona says with a devious smile as Renka nods, herself cracking a smile.

"The Caligraphy club is insistent that they need a 3d printer, something about seal designs but they seemed very eager to get me out of their room" Renka continues.

"I'll buy it privately, but it will take some time. Keep them practicing on signatures and put a bounty on any pieces of writing from student council members they can mimic" Alyona says in a quiet, commanding tone.

"How much?"

"1500 Yen to start. If we don't get any takers by next month we raise it to 3000"

Renka points to the girl's bathroom before engaging in the last piece of business she has to discuss with her friend/boss, and the girls find a stall in the back to speak privately in.
"The occult club was missing a member. They were looking into one of the Southern forbidden zones but they seemed to forget he was even part of the club" Renka says with her staring at Alyona's. The Russian bites her lip lightly while she thinks, looking elsewhere.

"So when I came out of after a day and nobody even noticed I was gone except you, it wasn't just because I was unloved" Alyona says.
"Me, you, and Archie: were going in to rescue the lost student"

Renka nods: "I was going to go after them anyways, but the more support we have the less painful this will be"

"We can't start losing people already, regardless of the cause" Alyona says grimly.
She tries to switch gears with a smile as the two get back to the halls: "Anyways, that's for after school. You have no idea how much better this school is compared to than what I was used to in Saint Petersburg. It was a private school yet it still managed to be worse than the pioneer program I grew up with as a young girl"

Renka looks up at the ceiling while she walks, her arms behind her back to support her head: "Yeah, I was in Hong Kong for a while and I got bullied just for being a bit weird. Was an international school too, lots of kids from all over the world but I was the one they liked to single out for jokes"

"Such is the result of an education system built on pure competition: it creates class warfare within its own ranks. Ones talents are not cultivated, but shunned" Alyona declares in voice that tries to sound wise.

Renka knew to just nod along with her friend's communist sensibilities as they made it to their desks, Alyona's homework nearly organized and prepared to be turned in like the eager student she was. Renka lazily produces her own work, finishing some questions while she still had time by after fishing it out of her disorganized bag of drawing tools, graph paper, and other trinkets.


The Tovarichi of the Census club stand outside of a bleeding zone, the dark, inky portal behind a dilapidated building as each of the three prepares in their own way. Alyona repeats some quotations from Lenin while digging her fingernails into her palm as hard as she can. Renka performs some tai-chi like stretches before consuming her medicinal candies. Archie wraps his fists in boxing tape and slugs down an energy drink:
"We going in? Or just sittin' out here here until something tries steppin' out?" Archie asks impatiently.

"Have some patience! Renka is our escape route so we don't have to worry about exerting ourselves from a walk back" Alyona growls as she shuts her book. She had fired herself up for a fight and wasn't in the mood for being diplomatic.

Archie rolls his eyes: "Whatever you say boss" he grumbles. Renka lets out a deep breath she had held for over a minutes and opens her eye dramatically.
"I am ready"

"Then onward with haste!" Alyona says with a dramatic points toward the inky black portal, stepping in her first herself.

The group enters and finds the inside of the bleeding zone to be strangely calming, a pastoral community built atop rooftops with a fast running river below them. The inhabitants sit around and stare at the sky, many humans who have wandered inside being tricked will-o-wisps to getting strapped into rocking chairs with sunglasses on. Their is a moment where the many wisps notice their new visitors and a standoff occurs.

"The enemies of the people will be punished under the light of the Red Star! Princess Alyonushka, TRANSFORM!" The Russian says, her body being engulfed by red sparkles as she becomes her Idolon form. She isn't any taller or stronger looking, save for the Dragunov rifle in her hands and the smirk of superiority on her face. Archie becomes a great, impenetrably fat ogre, and gives a big belly laugh:
"COME ON WISPIES! SEE IF I FEEL IT!" he bellows as Alyona flips upwards onto the roof of a nearby hut and takes aim at the wisps.

Renka gets the message casts her eyepatch off into the raging river below: "This reality is mine, surrender or perish with the old world!"
She takes a more monstrous form devoid of human likeness beyond its basic form, her fingers moving as is drawing in the threads of the bleeding zone together to make a tunnel shaped shooting gallery. The group needed little time to communicate a strategy as they all saw the singular path forward, a trail blazed by Alyona, cleared by Archie, and kept in its shape by Renka. The group had no patience for using their powers conservatively as Renka handled creating garganta portals to rescue the wisps victims while her comrades handled the violent part of the job, searching for the lost occult club member among the civilians being drained tortured by the wisps: office workers, delinquents from other schools, and a few joggers. Alyona lets loose with her finishing artillery, a group of Beast Dreams being blown sky-high after they'd manage to make Archie flinch and shrug off AKM bursts. The blonde magical girl turns around to Renka as she stands in firing position on a lamppost:
"Have we found him yet?!" she shouts

"Not yet... these spirits have been very busy with their work" Renka says as she sends an Office Lady on her way back to the material world.
"Ahead! I see him!" she says, Alyona noticing a particularly large opponent in the form of a bigger idea which was a giant humanoid flower with smiling sunflower for a face, bigger than Archie by height as the ogre grunts: "TAKE YOUR SHOT AT THE KING! COME ON!"

The bodies of the some of the sleepers hang off creatures back, still bound by its vines as it wrestles with Archie and Alyona tries shreds her soul trying to muster the fire power needed to hurt it. Renka can see both of her comrades getting exhausted and can start to feel it herself. She focuses the bleeding zone into her own form again, snuffing the sun out as Alyona's shoulder is pounded by the recoil of an anti-tank rifle. The bullets hits and explodes a large gash of green plant matter into Archie's face, prompting him to go in for the kill and rip the appendage off before delivering a stunning headbutt. The world is narrowed to allow Alyona's fateful bullet to rip into the idea's head and send it tumbling down. Renka relaxes the dimensional manipulation as the exhausted combatants get to the rescue efforts. Among 4 other victims, their target was being dryed out of his emotional energy. He was a relatively average boy with short brown hair and a weaker physique. Alyona feels a spark of pride in her before she collapses into the river below, unaware of where it would even take her as her eyelids grew heavy.


A wet and tired Archie carries Alyona over his shoulder back to Renka's place, an outbuilding of a shrine that was far away from the bleeding zone portal which closed after the Tovarichi had scared off every spiritual monster in the general area.
"Alright... where do you want her?!" the boys as with deep frustration in his voice.

Renka pats a red wooden table with a white cloth laid over it and Alyona is ungracefully deposited on it. Her carrier finds a chair and catches his breath as the other girl gets to work mixing some kind of tincture to get Alyona up and moving.
"That pile of people is gonna be asking how the hell they got there, Renka" Archie says

"That is not our problem. Kageoka is too blind to understand their experiences anyways" Renka says as she mashes a brightly green root with a mortar and pestle.

"Bitch could have at least chosen to fall on the ground and not in a running river. You can't fix that little issue with her with your magic smellin' salts right?"

Renka shakes her head: "Her soul must improve for that, I cannot do anything from an apothecary's standpoint. But I agree that she pushes her harder than she should"
"But your quick thinking is appreciated on rescuing her, I had needed to rest my mind after performing so many alterations to the battlefield. I wouldn't have been able to respond in time"

Archie gives slight nod: "Little rusky gives gives me a club of my own and that seems to determine your social status here. She croaks, I lose my place"
"You got anything to drink?"

"There's some mugwart energy-"

"I mean something you can buy in a store, I don't want to be puking my guts out tonight too"

Renka sighs as she finishes mixing some herbs: "We have some standard carbonated beverages in the refrigerator in the kitchen"

Archie walks off to go loot the fridge while Renka burns the herb mix to produce a foul smell to invigorate Alyona and get her up. The blonde girl coughs as if expecting to have drowned and looks around with the eyes of a paniced doe.
"Renka! What is that? It smells like a rotting carcass!"

"I'm glad you're back, Alyona" Renka says before taking a big whiff of the bowl before snuffing it out and saving what she could of the mix.
"Its a mix of herbs from various parts of China, a fairly simple one to speed up ones return to consciousness"

"Well next time just let me sleep a bit longer, if that ever gets into my clothes you're going to pay the cost for new ones somehow" Alyona says as she shakily hops off the table.
"...Thank you, both of you" she says as Archie comes back.

"Just doin' my job boss"

Renka gives a simple and stoic nod: "Would you both like to stay over? Its quite late"

Archie shrugs his shoulders: "Why not, you got a couch?"

Alyona brightens up: "As long as it's on one those cool futons: I use those more than my bed these days. The Japanese truly understand the art of sleeping"

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Pub: 19 Aug 2025 18:21 UTC

Edit: 02 Sep 2025 23:11 UTC

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