Novum Aurora was never so alive as it was at night. Their was the lights; The bright neon signs up on high that shone in the night sky like sparkling jewels, the ever flickering street lights that glimmered and twinkled when viewed from a distance to even the most simple of lights, like candles blowing in the wind, the odd chinese lantern was scattered around and the light's of people's houses, businesses and back yards. Then there was the noise; The chattering of people, the buzzing of lights and lamps, the riotous burst of sound then empty silence from the drunks and party goers as they passed or collided on their various paths. There was more of your sense's you could use to sample this rather unique city, upon the night air there were sweet smells, off food being freshly prepared at the local shops, down the back alleys there was the smell off grease as food was deep fried and served to drunk patron's, then there was the soft fragrant smell of the city gardens in central Novum Aurora.
If you stood in Novum Aurora at night you would feel the tingle in the air, it was almost electrical it seemed, then if you stood in place long enough your body would begin to notice the rumbling underground as the train's zoomed past and the tram cars at ground level that rumbled past at a slow but always steady pace. Every sense would be overloaded in a city like this, so those that lived here began to become immune to the noise, to drown out all the sounds and smell's, till eventually they could neither feel, nor see or smell all the things that went on around them. It was in a city like this, with so many people, so much visual and auditory stimulation that those who wished to remain hidden, cloaked in both mystery and shadow could do so as they pleased. Men and women alike with minds for such things would find they could not only survive in this brave new world but they could thrive and expand. One such man was Nikolai Zelenko, a Russian national who had nothing and no one back home to keep him grounded so he fled his home after one bad life decision too many.
Searching for a new home and a land that would welcome him, he stumbled along from place to place, never fitting in or finding that feeling he so longed for. Eventually he hopped on enough boats, trains, planes and automobiles that one warm summer's day he landed himself in the single biggest, culturally and economically extravagant city that Europe had to offer. It was called New Dawn and when he arrived he felt that very same feeling wash over him as he came to the "promised land". He had made it to the place of his dreams as here, he could be someone new, someone different and someone better even. He was a quick learner and good with his hands, there was always opportunities for a man like him. A fledgling city like this always had openings and gaps in it's markets of all manner off things. Nikolai was quick to take some shady jobs in the background, he never knew who was paying him or why they were but he was given large sums of money to do rather unusual or impractical jobs, jobs Nikolai was all to happy to oblige his benefactors in.
He would be tasked with stealing into building sites around the city as many places were still being built when he first arrived. He would sneak in at night to removing panels here or stripping cables back to the copper, sometimes stealing the copper and others just leaving it that way, it depended on his new order's at the time. He wasn't sure why he was doing it but he was a "Do-er", he didn't ask questions and he did it well. Soon he found out that he was causing industrial accidents to happen to simply put whoever was building these sites out of commission so that new one's could come in and take all the profit. Corporate espionage was now his new found skill set. Not to long after his real employer's surfaced and began the development, he decided he had seen enough and took his new found love for causing mayhem and moved to take it to the next level, leaving behind his last job to work the angles himself. He would become a newfound "business man", trying his hand at drug dealing and some small time protection racketeering.
He was a man of deep ambition. Not much would hold him back and soon he was entangled in the Bratva, joining the rank and file of the Russian mafia and mingling in their operations with his own. He worked hard, got men loyal to him and his ideals, took on new recruits and made his shady operations more and more lucrative till one day the Bratva leadership paid him a visit. It was on this inspection visit by his superiors that Nikolai seized his chance and proceeded to systematically kill any high ranking member there that day, those he left alive joined him and pointed him in the direction of the other leaders and within the day his men quickly dispatched any leading element left and by the next he had established himself as their head and all those below him would follow him without question. Now that he had power, he needed to make a move for more power and a better stake on the events that would proceed from his little internal power struggle. He decided to gather all those loyal and those doubtful together to shape the Bratva as the ultimate criminal element in Novum Aurora.
The great meeting of the brotherhood was tonight, the air was damp after a short fall of heavy rain, dew lay here and there and on the outskirts of the industrial area of Novum Aurora an empty factory building was ablaze with light and the sound of cheering and laughing. A hostile take over it had been but many had seemed to find it all to welcoming to usher in a new age of change. The higher up's, those in power and influence had stagnated within their rank's and their power and the younger blood yearned for advancement, in this very meeting they may get these very things and more, there were more benefits than simply more respect and control that would come with advancing oneself in the Bratva. The Bratva looked after their own, your enemies were their enemies and as long as you followed your orders you could have anything you wanted. You could pick from the purest drugs, the most beautiful women and sleekest cars. Money would be no option and as the Bratva's great hand took more control, so to would each brother.
Nikolai had spent no time in surrounding himself with his most trusted men and armed them all to the teeth in preparation for tonight, it wouldn't do to gain power only to throw it away with a careless mistake. The brothers would be gathering together, old allegiances would fall and new ones would be made but he could not count that all of them would go entirely in his favour. He owned this factory himself now and his most loyal and deadliest brothers were posted everywhere and he trusted most of these men he had only grown to know over the last few months than anyone he had ever known in his life back home. In this meeting there were three main big players coming that he would either have to threaten or bride to his way of thinking and if that didn't work, two holes in the head should resoundingly solve any further issue. Putting a few men six feet under might also help his chances of ruling over the others, fear was a good incentive when dealing with other dangerous men, each man here was lethal and skilled in some form of misdeed or misadventure. They would all follow the strongest amongst them and Nikolai's ambitions made him strong.
He had gotten his men to prepare the sleek black Limo he had taken from the cold dead hand of his now disposed off ex-boss. The driver had been murdered too, just for good measure, it was all good business. In the inside was heavenly, the comfort was to die for, the bar was well stocked within and there was enough room to hold a party roster of people all within with fuss. He would turn up looking every bit their leader and they would eat out of his hand. His new grey suit was just washed and pressed, ironed just right and he splashed on something nice for his face. Shaven face, cut back hair and embellishing himself ornate gold rings, he felt every bit a man. This was his day. He had already begun to sample the finest wines and spirits in the bar within and now he was beginning to feel it, he shouted something to the driver in thick Russian and the driver pulled over shortly afterwards. He hadn't noticed were they had stopped, he was to busy relieving himself up against the nearest wall that when he finally did take a glance around the sudden realisation dawned on him that he wasn't near his factory estate but near the dock side at another warehouse, much larger and older. It was falling apart in places and it did not look welcoming.
"Hey driver, this isn't the bloody place we are meant to be going to, this isn't even close. If you think your just going to mess me around on a day like today, your a dead man! Do you hear me?" Nikolai shouted out but all he got was his words reverberating off the empty docks. Water lapped against the side of the plinth but everything else was deathly still, Nikolai turned and turned frantically trying to see someone or something. He returned to the car and opened the front doors to find no sign off anyone there. He turned around once more and then a sudden gut wrenching chill went through him. He could feel it now, someone had stabbed him, the pain was overwhelming as red began to stain through his once crisp white shirt. He clutched at his chest and felt what could only have been some unusually sharp metal piercing a whole right through one end of him till the other. He cried out in pain and then without another word a loud thump was heard and then only silence. Nikolai sat back in the car now, he looked around with a smile on his face as his driver now got back into the car and began driving back to his warehouse to meet his brothers. He was late for his big meeting and they were all waiting on his very presence, he couldn't let his men down now could he?
Nikolai arrived late and his men grumbled in discontent but no one dared speak a word of dissent where he might hear. In an unusual turn off events, Nikolai spoke only to his men in Russian for the whole meeting and those that couldn't speak it were told to wait outside. He spoke off great dreams and fertile lands, off taking what was theirs and giving nothing back to those who would seek to stifle their power. Nikolai had them in the palm of his hand as his speech sent various burst's of cheers and laughter up through the crowd. They talked late into the night and with it, they brought through a new rule for the Bratva, each person had gained something, some small portion off area to control and look after. Each man was given a task fitting to his own skill's in life and with it they would seek to further each other's plans. They would grow strong by placing themselves within every working part of Novum Aurora, they had all been given drawing and plans, maps and schematics of buildings far and wide around Novum Aurora. Some men were directed to the room to the left were a solitary man waited for them handing out badge's of different sorts, police shields were common amongst them, other were for fire officers and lastly there were signed papers and laminated tags for building inspector's and health and safety personnel. This was to be a new chapter in the Bratva indeed.
In amongst the brothers that stayed and those that spoke no Russian, Nikolai walked and talked with them in both Russian and English, learning about each of them, some were then told to go to the door to the left and the rest were directed to follow Nikolai through the door to the right, he had something different in mind for these individuals. The Bratva men squeezed into a small room, there was nothing in here, no windows or doors. It was just an empty space that had one time been a shower room as there was a small drainage whole in the corner where a shower had once been. They were all inside when Nikolai locked the door and sudden it seemed like all hell broke lose, there was gun fire, men screamed in terror and blood curdling wail's or moan's choked on and on until eventually nothing moved for a time. Off all the twenty or so men that went in, only one man came back out. Nikolai emerged once more, not even a single mark was on him, he looked in perfect shape and condition and a sinister smile lingered on his lips as he left, sparring only a second to stare at the bloody mess left behind. Blood smeared every wall in every corner as the fluids drained into the gutter at the corner but there were no bodies behind to mark the men who had passed.
Nikolai went through the now empty warehouse, all the other had been quickly taken away and given their new tasks to take care off. He ran his finger along the desk in the middle of the main hall as he slow traced a singular line from one end to the other, it took a total of thirty-two steps to get from one end to the other. He smiled to himself again, he was always smiling now. It wasn't every day you took a criminal organisation and put a plan in place to infiltrate and corrupt all major government organisations and others that would prove useful in the future. It was all starting to fall into plan quite nicely actually. He stood alone for sometime, listening to the dull buzz of the single light bulb that hung above him in this wide open storage space that this warehouse once would of had filled to the roof with things before it was "acquired" for it's current purpose. It was half an hour or so later before the man who had been handing out the badge's in the room to the left returned from taking a select few men to a certain destination that was undisclosed to anyone but their driver. The man moved with almost unnatural determination and power in his stride. He walked beside Nikolai and stopped as he starred unflinchingly at him with his glacial, pale dead eyes.
"Your order's have been carried out, all have reached their destinations now and within a few days they will blend in and soon we will have eyes and ears on everything you asked for. I didn't come half way around the world to play chauffeur to some hair brained Mafia low-life's!" His tone was flat and harsh, though his American accent could be heard in all the little things he said. You can take the man out of America but you cannot take America out of the man....How unfortunate but he was still much to useful to throw away just because of his place of birth. If all this poor fellow wanted was something more entertaining he figured he could give him just that in one easy step. The man that was Nikolai smiled deeply and then almost instantaneously he began convulsing and spewing blood onto the floor, it sprayed liked slush at first, some was liquid and other parts were semi-solid, eventually it turned into mush as pieces of organic tissue began to spew from his mouth. Blood and bone forced their way out with force, coating the floor in a deep red that would probably never truly wash out. In a pile on the floor, the blood pooled and soon, it was wriggling, jelly like in appearance. His colleague never flinched or fled, he watched with a unwavering curiosity.
There was cracking as he spat a few more bones and soon the mess on the floor began to take shape, growing over and around the bones. Soon the flesh was sealing itself up and almost instantly it began to take light in and the flesh turned firmer and pinker. In what was only seconds, a pile of blood and bone on the floor had morphed into a humanoid form. It was twisted and ugly, pieces were still missing and it's left arm was swapped with it's own right, the hands sticking out at awkward unnatural angle's. It stood on three feet, two big main legs and a third longer and thinner leg sprang out from the back giving it more balance. The mouth was more of a whole in the flesh than an opening for breathing, the creature gasped with every breathe it took of our air and as it came into being a single eye surfaced in it's face but it was dead and saw nothing. It starred lazily into space and fumbled around itself in vain. Within seconds it was sealed within a crate that had been set to the side earlier that night. It put up no resistance until shortly after being placed in the box, it scrapped and scratched on the box in a blind furry to no great avail however.
"Ahh, so that's how that happens, huh? Never would of guessed it but then people like us are just full of surprises. Where is this one to go then, hopefully somewhere fun, cause a lot of destruction this time. Some place in the city maybe, one of these bad boys could do some serious damage, no?"
"I am not interested in what damage it may or may not cause, Your only concern is to transport it to the alley on the western side of the Martial Art's demo that will be held in a few days time. You saw his gifts yourself, if he is one of us, he will attract others. They will either bow to us, fall before us or be crushed beneath our might and left in the dust to rot. Our plan is perfect and this city will bow to us as their gods but to do so, we will need more of our brothers and sister's to make it a reality. Can I trust you to help build my vision of a perfect future, my brother?" The man that had been Nikolai was no more, a much more gruesome younger man stood in his place, blood stained his clothes as he had covered himself when he coughed and spluttered to bring forth the monster in the box. He smiled an eerie, thin smile as the white's of his eye's gleamed bright under the darkness that covered his face beneath the hood of his clothes.
The American soon left with the box in toe. The other figure remained and moved to the nearby table and quickly shuffled a few papers up and down the table, smearing blood on each as his hands were covered, he took the top page and wiped his hands on it till he could touch the other pages without leaving a trail. He had deliberately hidden one sheet of paper at the very bottom of tonight's meeting documents and forms. On this page there was a picture at the top of a little girl, maybe no more than 8 or 9 by the look off her. The whole page was about this little girl, it spoke of her family, her age, living arrangements and habits. There were other things written on it, blood type, hair colour, personality and her interest's. Included was a diagram off her height, weight and in small print there was even mention of how she walked. This person's whole life was on this one page, the face gazing down at it smiled that creepy paper thin smile as he starred down at her face.
"You my dear, I will pay you a visit myself!"
