Revision [355]
This is an old revision of FioFullBackstory made by BillHamilton on 2008-09-11 12:51:00.
August 13th 1991 – The three siblings, Leon, Lidia, and Fio are out driving when they get into an auto accident. They are driving down the road when a car, being chased by the police veers into oncoming traffic and barrels headlong into his car. Oldest brother and sister are killed instantly in the crash, Fio dies, but his powers trigger, causing him to vanish.
He wakes up alone and naked, in the middle of the Persian Gulf war. He doesn't last long, dying to machine gun fire, after stumbling around for a few moments. Wake up in the middle of the ocean, deep underwater, he drowns. He wakes at home in his bed, thinking it a horrible dream, and he comes outside to find his parents there, horrified.
He had been missing for a full day by the time he wakes up at home. His parents to this point had thought all three of their children had died, even though his body had not been recovered. They are confused as to how he is back home, and what happened, he has nothing to explain it. His mother grows angry at him, as if he were to blame, she shouts at him, “BRING THEM BACK TOO!” pounding on his chest, yelling to no one in particular.
His father pulls her away, and tries to talk to Fio rationally about what happened, but there is no rational explanation, he was in the backseat one moment. There was a crunch of steel and glass and then he was in the desert being shot. Then under the ocean, then back in his own bed.
Fio tells his father the truth over and over, frustrated and angry, but he never seems to accept it. Their neat little world does not hold a place where someone can die and come back to life.
His mother alternates between hugging Fio and treating him like a miracle, and pushing him away, and treating him like the devil's own.
Fio, for his part, doesn't remember much about the crash. At this point, he still believes that he dreamt the blur of the desert and the cold ocean, the confusion and pain of the bullets' impact, and the quiet peace of slipping below the waves. When his parents ask him how he ended up in his bed again, he says that he didn't remember. He never tells them about what he experienced before he appeared back in his bed.
September 21st 1991 – A funeral is held for his brother and sister, Maxim and Vera.
Fio's mother has taken to ignoring him, her grip on sanity lose. The grief from the loss of her children, and his strange return has shattered her comfortable little world. She lost her job because of it. The stress of his mother’s struggle has worn heavily on his father, he pulls long hours at work to keep the family afloat and then spends his few hours at home trying to help his mother cope. He still gets physical support, a roof to sleep under, and food, but not much emotional support. Fio becomes depressed, in his estimation, it might have been better if he'd stayed dead on that fateful afternoon. He lives in a world of quiet depravation for a ten year old, increasingly a stranger to his own parents, with their "real child" having died in that crash.
School becomes more and more difficult. He spends his time skipping out of class, avoiding teachers. He gets into fights, and seriously injures some belligerent bullies, but also takes his fare share of bloody noses and chipped teeth. It was easy for troubled children to get lost in the communist educational system at that point, though, so nobody takes much notice, and does even less about his behavioral problems.
October 12th, 1991 - Fio is skipping school, again. He's wandering around a seedy part of town, when he sees a glint of grey metal catching the sun in an alley. He wanders over, and his eyes widen when he sees a handgun lying amongst some trash cans. He quickly snatches the weapon. It feels surprisingly heavy in his hand. He sneaks home with it, and stashes it in his room.
October 28th, 1991 - Fio is playing soccer in an abandoned lot outside the tenement building where his family lives, with a few of the neighborhood kids. He's already quite athletic for his age, and he steals the ball from one kid, deftly sidesteps around two others, and uncorks a fierce shot at the net. The ball sails wide right of the goal, though, bounces off the neighboring building's wall, and flies off into the street.
Fio, adrenaline pumping, runs after it, and straight into the path of an oncoming truck. The driver has no chance to swerve, and Fio never even sees the truck. He only remembers images after that - the neighborhood kids gathered around him, then his parents with him. Then, nothing.Some kids, after seeing Fio get hit, ran to get his parents, while the others stood around him, unsure as to what to do. Fio looked really bad - his head was bleeding severely, and his arms and chest were mangled by the impact.
His parents rushed up, and his father picked him up into his arms. They could see that the blood was starting to turn grey around his side, and hardening into a steel scab. Maxim, knowing that Fio would be taken from them if he were discovered, rushes him inside his house. Fio's blood drips onto the concrete sidewalk, leaving little grey droplets, hardening quickly in the sun. His parents put him on the table, trying to comfort him. Fio is barely conscious. He doesn't want his parents to see him like this, and he's afraid of what might happen. He's in unbelievable pain, and his whole body feels like it might come apart. Moving his limbs feels like grinding steel needles into his flesh. He tries to hold on, and reaches out for his mother, who takes his hand, just as he drifts into blackness.
His parents watch as the color drains from his cheeks, and his flesh turns an inhuman stone color. Vera, his mother, sobs and calls to him, but he's gone. She holds his hand, and squeezes so tightly that his fingers begin to shear away in her hands. The hardened flesh of his hands starts to separate into millions of small metallic filaments, and his parents watch in horror and amazement as his hand slowly decays into a cascade of shards, pouring onto the floor. The decay quickly passes up his arms into his chest, down his other limbs, and up to his face. In no more than 10 seconds, he's completely decayed, and the pile of shards is quickly further breaking down into dust, and from there into a fine mist. Soon, all traces of him are gone.
When he awakes, he's in a street near his house. It's during the day, but Fio has no idea what day any more. There are no clothes nearby, so he sneaks home. His mother yelps in surprise when she sees him. She's clearly unnerved by his presence. After some moments of silence, she confronts him, "Where do you go, when you...?" She leaves the last word unsaid.
"I don't know", he smiles sadly. "All I remember is you, and Papa, and then I woke up down the street." She's not angry this time, and Fio senses that she's trying to accept him, so he tries to give whatever details he can. She quietly tells him about the grey, hardened blood, the metal filaments, and the dust.
Fio now realizes that his "dream" from the crash where his siblings died wasn't a dream at all. He knows that his body different, and he understands the teleportation, and that he died several times in those few, confused minutes. The reality of it all comes crashing down on him, and tears well up in his eyes. He reaches out to his mother, but she recoils back. "I'm sorry," she shudders, and stands. "I can't. You... You're not natural! It's wrong, that you... can't..." She backs away, her fearful eyes never leaving him. Fio turns and walks to his room, and silently cries. He's really angry inside, both at the injustice of being rejected by his parents for circumstances outside his control, and at his own body, for being different. Desperate with anger, loneliness and revenge, he grabs the gun that he stashed under his bed, runs downstairs to find his mom in the kitchen. She turns, and shrieks as he levels the barrel of the gun at her. He screams at her, "I hate you! I wish I'd died with Leon and Lidia! And you do too, so fuck you!" He turns the gun upside down, so that he's looking down into the barrel, closes his eyes, and pulls the trigger. The last thing he hears is his mother's scream.
Fio wakes up in dark, icy water. He cries out in frustration, beating the water with his fists. It doesn't take long before his entire body goes numb, and he slips below the waves. He wakes up back in a lot near his house, and he sits a while before sneaking back home. It's nighttime, and he's exhausted, so he walks up to his room and collapses in bed.
Over the next few days, it becomes clear that his parents are willing to feed him, and give him shelter, but they're too scared of him to talk. When he wakes up in the morning, there is food waiting, but his parents are gone. His mother returns later in the day to make dinner, but they seldom eat together as a family again, and never talk about what happened.
Fio's behavior problems escalate. He's getting into fights all the time at school now, and he starts shoplifting just to pass his time. He goes to jail at least once and picked a fight in the holding cell, got shived, and "escaped". He sees a few local thugs get in a fight, and the one who gets the worst of it ends up on the ground, unconscious. After the other two leave, Fio creeps up and goes through his pockets to see what he might find. He's excited to find a lock pick set in the thug's overcoat, and he tucks it in the waistband of his pants for safe keeping. Fio knows that he'll end up in situations where picking a lock would be useful, and he teaches himself how to use the picks. He dives into this project completely, and spends his days wandering the city, looking for padlocks or abandoned doorways to practice on. After a while, he decides that he needs to try to fashion his own picks, as he'll not have anything to work with if he's teleported somewhere new. He figures out how to bend safety pins, paperclips, wire, pretty much anything he wants into a suitable pick.
The way he sees it, since the world wasn't made for people with his power, he's not really subject to the law. There aren't always spare clothes around to use, and so stealing some from a store isn't really a crime to him -- it's just a fact of life. Fio has no long-term goal, no purpose, so his idle thoughts rule his mind. If he wants ice cream, he'll rob an ice cream truck, or steal money from a classmate, or beg his way into a spare ice cream bar. He doesn't need or want the approval of others, or any sort of congratulations for doing a good job. His satisfaction of his own desires is its own reward. This keeps him occupied for some time, though in a way, it all feels a bit hollow to him.
March 23, 1992
Inevitably, Fio's shoplifting habit and his newfound lock picking skills intersect. He decides, one dreary night, to break into an electronics store near his house, and steal the new Nintendo system that they were displaying in the window. He deftly picks the lock on the door with his lockpicks, and creaks open the door. He knows that the owners live above the store, so he has to be fast, and silent. He snakes his way around the edge of the doorframe, and over to the display window. He picks up the game system, and gathers the controllers and the power brick into his arms. He knows he's won, now, and so he's shocked when he hears a man's voice behind him yell, "Stop, and raise your hands." Fio's initial instinct is to do as the man says, but he thinks over the risks for a few seconds, and realizes that at worst, he'll just end up teleporting. He decides to see how the game plays out, and bolts for the door. "Stop!" comes the yell from the owner, but Fio flings the door open. A shot rings out, and the shop door window explodes into shards of glass, but Fio ignores it, and makes a hard turn out of the storefront, and snakes behind a dumpster for cover. He can hear the man running after him, and he dips down a dark alley that he knows, and slips through the hole in the fence at the end, and hides in the shadow of a darkened door stoop. The store's owner runs up to the fence, and looks around, but cannot spot Fio in his hiding space. Fio is bursting with glee and pride, and with the adrenaline of the moment. The man looks around one last time, hangs his head, and heads back to his store.
May 14th 1992
Fio finally pushes a little too hard, and gets into a fight with a thug over the jacket he liked, and took from the coat rack at the restaurant he was in. In the ensuing fight the tough pulls a gun, and then in a muzzle flash Fio is dead again.
He finds himself naked at the front gate of a church, shivering with cold. It's late at night, and there's nobody on the street. He recognizes the building, so he decides to take shelter in the church, and squeezes through the bars of the gate. The front door is locked, and he spends five minutes with his ear pressed against it, listening for sounds of life. Hearing nothing, he moves around to the side of the church to look for another way in. Someone has been repairing some aging stonework here, and there's a dusty worksite. There's a refuse bin there, half filled with odd ends of stone and wood shims. Freezing cold now, Fio digs through the bin for a minute, until he finds a discarded broken masonry chisel. Its edge is still sharp enough to pry the door handle off of the side gate of the church. He jams the chisel under the handle's faceplate, and wrenches at the door. His fingers are numb from the cold though, and the chisel slips, biting into his flesh. Hot red blood runs down his hand, but Fio does not feel the injury as numb as he is, he simply continues to work, and after a few moments he wrenches the door open. Gratefully, he stumbles into the darkened church.
Some candles were still burning near a shrine to Mary, and their warmth was irresistible. A quick glance around revealed a back room, where he found a priest's robes in a closet. He wraps himself in them, and curls up behind the shrine. It is only then that he notices his injury, looking at awe at his hand he sees the blood has dried a deep silver gray color instead of red, and it is hard like a stone. He picks at it idly, and wonders if that hardened blood would make good lock picks or not. He sits quietly there for a while, thinking on life, before drifting off to sleep.
In the morning, Fio hears someone unlocking the church, and he steals away quietly, and sneaks home.May 22nd
One of Fio's favorite hangouts when skipping school are the old industrial zones, now rusting from years of economic collapse in the post-Soviet era. There are huge manufacturing plants, workyards with broken down heavy earth movers and pile drivers, abandoned construction sites. These are amazing playgrounds for Fio. He spends time climbing and leaping across the rooftops here.
Some days, kids from the neighborhood will spot him, and sneak out to play. They are totally in awe of Fio's fearlessness, and Fio likes the attention and the company of the kids. They started playing a game to see who would do the more ridiculous stunts. "I'll bet you can't climb up that wall," he jeered at a kid named Anton, pointing at a two-story tall cinderblock barrier. Anton, a strong child for his age, and of course fearing nothing, climbed it easily. Then, from the top, he shouted down, "That's not even hard! You do it." Fio's pride was hurt a bit by the ease with which Anton had clambered up the wall, and he rushed to duplicate the feat. About half way up the wall, one of his feet slipped, and he cried out in pain as his knee banged sharply against the jagged concrete blocks. His fingers held the wall though, and his feet suddenly found grip where there was none before, and he pulled his way to the top on pure adrenaline. It was only after he got to the top that he saw the red blood running down his right shin, soaking his sock and dripping off his shoe.
The kids on the ground were eerily quiet, and one of them was pointing at the wall. Fio and Anton leaned over to look, and they saw the deep red blood smear running the upper half of the height of the wall. But at even points on the wall, forming neat footholds are protrusions of the strange cool gray substance that his blood seems to dry into. The dizziness hit Fio hard just then, and he half blacked out from the blood loss. Anton tried to grab him as he fell, but Fio's limp arms slipped through his fingers. He didn't remember hitting the ground. Fio wakes up outside a darkened, barred storefront, late at night. He soon discovers that he's nearby his school, so he sneaks his way through the mostly-abandoned streets to there, and throws a rock through the gym window. He grabs some badly-fitting dirty gym clothes out of an open locker, puts them on, and heads home. His mother and father are waiting for him, but don't confront him at the door. They know what it means when he comes home late, wearing someone else's clothes. They keep their distance, and his mother's tears wander silently down her face. Fio goes to bed.
The next day, he's out on the playground again, and some of the neighborhood kids see him again. They're amazed to see him alive, but he explains that he's really a ghost, and that's how he survived. To prove it, he gingerly climbs up to the 3rd floor of the building, takes a look over the edge at the kids watching him, and jumps. He knows that he'll disappear, but he gathers all his will to keep himself nearby, and he wakes up inside the building. He walks out, naked, to the fearful eyes of the kids. He sees that they totally believe him, and he tells them that they must never tell their parents about him, or he will come and haunt them at night. They believe him, every single kid.
November 10th 1992 – Fio returns home from school to find a bunch of men in suits at his home, talking with his mother. Much to his shock the moment he walks in the door, one of the men roughly pushes his mother down, as two of the others draw weapons and point them at him, the last drawing a weapon and pointing at his mother.
The men pointing guns at Fio don’t even ask questions, they just open fire, saying “Never suffer a witch to live, so sayth the lord.”
The shots lace through his body, and he pushes though the pain. To Fio, no matter what has happened she is still his mother, and he tackles the legs of the man pointing a gun at his mother. He feels the hot blood running from the wounds that he has taken, but he pushes though. Pulling back his hand to punch one of the men, the blood on his hand solidifies into a cool gray substance that forms a club around his hand. With a sickening crunch he breaks the man's nose, instantly knocking him out if not killing him.
The other men turn on Fio, declaring “The Alliance of Humanity will not tolerate your actions, you metahuman freak!” and are about to do more, but then they hear sirens from a distance and the men shove Fio down and rush off.
In his last moments before slipping off, Fio sees his mother, the cloud of insanity gone from her eyes for the first time in years, coming over to him. She is unhurt and she mouths the words. “I love you.”. Fio blacks out.
He awakes in an alley, far from home, cold and alone.
When he is able to collect his thoughts, he recognizes the men had little in common save for a cross tie clasp, perhaps some sort of religious organization.
1993-1994 - Fio spends the next year alone on the streets of what he learns to be Sao Paulo, Brazil. He finds that he can pick up languages quickly, and soon is proficient in Spanish. He picks up more education in that year than most of his years in school. Not so much school learning, but useful skills non the less. He learns to sneak, and pick pockets, how to con a quick meal, and how to read people's faces. He learns to run and jump, how to live.
Though life is hard for the first time since the accident he feels truly alive. The freedom, the adrenaline of not knowing exactly where his next meal will come from fills him with a certain satisfaction and joy.
Fio hits his puberty growth spurt during these years as well, early but non unwelcome in his new hard life. He begins to add height and weight, quickly looking much more like an adult than a child.
He lives fast and reckless, without much of a guide in the world. He dies at least twenty times during this period, ending up all over the globe. It becomes a game to him. He is not trying to die, like before, but he simply has no sense of caution. He drives cars recklessly though oncoming traffic, he stands up to bullies with guns, he has little care for his own life, and it shows. The teenage sense of immortality is magnified by a thousand times, by actually, you know, being immortal.
At the start, Fio is in it just for a thrill, looking for something to fill his hours, and no direction in life, and no authority figures to impose it on him.
1994-1995 - Christchurch, New Zealand -Jonah Petri 7/3/08 3:44 PM
However as he dies over and over again, only to wake up naked in some distant part of the world, he finds something out about humanity. Time and time again he is found by kind people, given clothes and taken care of. Even by the poorest people who have nothing of their own take him in.
This experience beings to shape him, but its not until after dieing again and waking in a church in Barcelona, Spain, that he begins to believe that some higher power is trying to tell him something that he had forgotten: that he has a purpose. For the first time in a long time he realizes what that purpose is: to protect those whose lives are so fragile.
June 3rd 1995 – Madrid, Spain Fio is still trying to sort out his thoughts when an opportunity is presented to him, this cool evening in June. He sees a woman being persued by men of ill intentions. He steps in, tackling the first of the attackers, and sweeping out a lanky leg to bring down the next as he tries to go after the woman.
In the struggle one of the men pulls a knife, stabbing Fio's arm, and as his blood runs hot down his arm, he grapples with the man and is knocked down. He can feel the red blood drying quickly on his arm, and turning gray. He pulls the blood into a long thin shape and toss it at the man.
It whistles though the air like a knife, striking the man in the back just as he was turning to go back to the terrified woman. The blood blade drives though the man's chest, and he drops like a sack of potatoes.
The other two men run off, and he helps the woman to her feet. She thanks him, and he walks her back to her house, making sure she makes it home safely. She invites Fio in, cleans the blood off, and offers him dinner…as well as much more.
June 10th 1995 – Fio stays with the woman, Mary, for a few days, and its nice to have a roof over his head again. However life is not that easy, it turns out that Mary is a prostitute, and she is trying to get out of the business, return home to Italy, but her Pimp is not about to let her go, that is what the assault had been about.
Now having defended her, Fio himself is now a target, especially after having killed one of the Pimp’s hired thugs. His street contacts keep him afloat for a while, and he manages to get Mary safely on a train to Italy, but he is accosted, in the train station after loading Mary on the train, a drawn out fight ensues where Fio takes on three or more of his number, chucking "blood" knifes and ducking between cars. This romp ends when he and the pimp end up wrestling on the platform and fall to the tracks. The oncoming train kills the pimp and sends Fio away in a shower of gray steel sparks. Fio dies again.
He wakes up somewhere cold. Surprisingly freezing to death is not that bad.
He next finds himself back in the church in Moscow.
June 4th 1996 – Stealing some clothes off a clothes line, he sneaks back to his house, his old house. He finds the lights on in his parents home and he is about to approach when he sees though the window his mother enter carrying a baby girl. She looks so happy, and normal. his hand pauses on the knocker, and he watches the happy family scene for a few more moments before turning back out into the night. Fio's parents have moved on, and surprisingly its not a sad moment for him. He is happy that he is not causing them more trouble; happy that they have moved on with their lives. His life now has purpose, and he doesn't need to involve them, or put them in danger again.
Fio walks away from his old house, and his old life, forever.
Fall 1996 - Fio spends his days reveling in life. He makes many quick acquaintances all over eastern Europe. His days usually start with begging or stealing a breakfast, roaming the streets during the day, stopping a mugging or two, taking an afternoon nap in the park, then hitting the clubs in the evenings, getting into or stopping fights in the clubs, then bumming a couch from a new male friend or sharing a bed with a new female one.
Fio's disregard for his own personal safety, and his utter moral streak often lands him in harms way. He refines his own abilities, and he finds that no matter how bad the injury, he can force himself to stay and stop those who caused others harm before being teleported to his next port of call.
He also gains greater control of his blood. He can focus it now, pumping it out of his body at will, as well as shaping it into objects. He can also control it at limited distances, making him an incredible "knife" thrower, with his blood pulling off impossible shots that curve and bend at his will.
1996-1997 - Hyderabad, India
January 1997 – Fio finds himself in a train station, sitting at a small two seat table, when his next life changing event happens. He is contemplating which train to sneak onto, where to go next when a young woman in a black business suit sits down opposite him. Her hair is cut short, and has gone prematurely gray. She walks with a smooth motion of someone very comfortable with her body. As she sits, Fio catches a glimpse of a holstered gun hidden by her jacket. He's pretty sure that the fact that he saw the gun was not an unintentional slip up.
Before Fio can speak, she does, “Afternoon Mr. Ivanov. You’re a hard man to track down. My name is Victoria Redgrave, and we have much to discuss.”. The conversation is fairly terse. She tells him about TheAgency, and about the the TheAllianceOfHumanity. He also gets told that he has an agent, and he says that he wants them to back off. Finally, she shows him a glass canister containing a small bit of grey substance, which acts as a compass towards him. She tells him that it is some of his blood.
The conversation ends with Victoria telling him in no uncertain terms that the agency would be following him, and that there were forces that specifically meant him harm following him, that he was in danger. Fio laughs it off, though is partially infurated with the implied threat. He tells Victoria that he doesn't need a baby sitter, and she flatly returns that she will be following him weather he likes it or not. He tells her she is welcome to try.
Fio then tries to melt away into the train station, but Victoria was not the only person pursuing him that evening, he slips onto a train bound south and he lifts a ticket from one of the other passengers and slips into a car to get some sleep. Just as he is about to drift off as three men enter the cabin with him, two of them are large and stocky of Eastern European decent, the other, who appears to be the brains of the operation is small and stocky and has a thick British accent. The man introduces himself as BrodySullivan Brody Sullivan, and and starts to make small talk with Fio, Fio is about to tell the men to toss off so he can get some sleep when he picks out the gun in Brody's coat and the cross pin on his lapel.
Fio tries to make a move but the men are ready for him, but Fio is no punk, he wheels on the first man breaking his nose and pushes Brody down holding him there with his knees keeping Brody from drawing as he struggles with the other man. Cursing the man with the broken nose pulls a knife and jabs it at Fio, the blood sprays down his back hardening. Mentally controlling it it slimes its a length becoming a knife in Fio's hands, he slashes the man clearing space, he is about to make a dive for the train window and escape when Brody pulls his gun in a smooth motion and lets it bark at point blank range at Fio's head.
Fio feels himself slipping away but pulls hard on his body focusing his will. And he finds himself alive again, but this time not far. He is in fact nude on top of the train he just got shot out of. He can hear Brody's voice cursing in the car below him. "You fools, no no, grab the freaks blood. Yes yes, don't let it melt...good."
Swearing under his breath Fio picks his way along the top of the train car and slips inside the baggage car, he relieves some traveler of a bit of clothes and slips back into the passenger car. Using all of his street skills he shadows Brody and when they change trains heading towards western Europe Fio slips in after them. As hes leaving the train he notices Mrs. Redgrave and two men he does not recognize in blue jumpsuits looking at the passenger car he was in when he was accosted. He sees one of them carefully removing a bullet from the wall of the car as Victoria looks on. She turns just as he looks away and hes pretty certain she did not see. He heads off quickly after Brody.
He trails them though the middle east, ending up in Istanbul. Before he gets a chance to strike, they stop in a small hotel in a shadier district. Fio watches from the fire escape, waiting for them to leave so he can slip in and take the blood. The hotel room is two rooms, one bedroom with two beds that he is looking in on, and a front room area, separated by a door. The three are relaxing on the beds, though they look like they are waiting for someone.
The larger of the “thugs”, who Fio has figured out is called Van, says, “So when is he supposed to get here?”
The other thug, Ivan says, “Yeah, I want to go home at last, I don’t want to be near that freak’s blood any more. I feel like its making me sick.”
Bruno slaps him, “Rovere will get here when he gets here, till then shut the fuck up, I don’t pay you to think.”
They fall into silence watching TV for a while and Fio lies in wait. Fio spots his blood in a small glass container engraved with crosses lying on the bed.
There is a knock on the door and Bruno stands up, grabbing the blood and goes out into the front room. Through the door Fio sees three men in suits. The lead one stands out in that besides his immaculate suit he is sporting a broadsword in a scabbard at his hip. “God smiles upon us this day, Bruno,” the man says in a thick Italian accent, as the door closes. Fio can only assume that this man is the Rovere they were talking about earlier. He picks the lock of the window and slips inside the hotel room and listen to the conversation. He can hear Rovere saying. “You have done well Bruno, Lady Rossi will be pleased.” Bruno replies, “Good I’m glad to get that off my hands.” Ivan says, “You sure the cops aren’t going to care that we shot the poor kid?”
Rovere says, “I can assure you Mr. Tolovo, this has gone well beyond cops and robbers. If our Hand sources are worth what we paid them, there will be no evidence for the cops to find anyway. Do not worry, God is with us. The order thanks you…” There is a pause as Fio hears a clinking against the glass, and it dawns on him that his blood has given him away. He rolls away from the door as it explodes in splinters, and Rovere steps though as glowing white plate armor forms around him. He swings though the door like it was made of pick-up sticks.
“Mister Ivanov!” he shouts, obvious excitement in his voice. “How nice of you to join us, perhaps I can return with a fresh sample!” Fio rolls away from his next strike, which digs into the ground and shakes the whole building. Fio knows that if he had been hit that he would have been split in half. Fio can see the other guys in suits that came in with him going into their coat pockets. Rovere, blocking the door with his fully plate armored form holds up a hand, not even looking back. “That wont be necessary, gentlemen. I will take care of this.”
Fio catches a twinge of dissapointment in the faces of the thugs behind Rovere, but he can't quite figure out why. He does spot his blood in Rovere’s hand. With a smooth motion, Fio leaps back from his next strike and forces blood out of his right hand into a dagger. With a flick of his wrist, he hurls the dagger of blood steel into the glass container, and the glass shatters. Both the dagger and the drop of blood in the jar disintegrate in the open air.
Rovere curses under his breath in Italian and drives back at Fio, and Fio rolls backwards and dives though the window, carefully pulling on his blood so it goes with him, and doesn’t stick to the shards of glass left behind. In a shower of red, rapidly turning to gray, he plummets over the railing and lands with a thud on the ground. Slowly he stands up and prepares to run, when Rovere lands nearly on his chest. Fio rolls out of the way as Rovere's armored form comes down in an agile crouch. He swings at Fio, who blocks with his arm, which is now covered with bloodsteel. Fio lives, but the impact is teeth rattling, sending him flying end over end and into a car. He can feel his ribs crack as he pulls his armored from out of the car just in time to roll away from another strike. This is a losing battle and Fio isn't sure that he can hold onto the bloodsteel for much longer. He focuses every ounce of his will on keeping all the bloodsteel chunked to his body.
Just when Fio doesn't think that he can hold out any longer, there is a long crack of a pistol that snaps Rovere’s head back. He wheels around, and Fio catches Victoria standing there with a still smoking gun, two men in blue jumpsuits flanking her. As Fio blacks out, he can hear Bruno’s voice, “Redgrave! Damn, Rovere You know the orders," and then feet running off. With his last breath, Fio sees Victoria standing over him, and she smiles and says, “You owe me one Ivanov.”
1998-2000 - Nome, Alaska, USA
After a few more quick jumps Fio finds himself in Alaska, and he gets some work on a oil refinery. The work is backbreaking and long, but it builds his muscle mass, and it makes him tried enough after a day of work that he doesn't think to deeply about things. To Fio, it's nice to be able to just get up, work with his hands, and then go to bed for a while. He fits in with the other workers there pretty well. They are all from places they would rather not talk about, and he knows that he is working with more than one fugative or ex-con, but it’s a nice break to get his head back on straight.
While there, Fio's strength increases exponentially, doubling nearly every day to the point that he finds himself doing insane things. One day, the main gas line breaks and is about to explode, potentially killing Fio and the rest of the crew that are working on the line. Fio physically crunches the metal with his bare hands, bending steel like it was tinfoil to block the hole. As impressive as that was, and as much as it gave time for the other workers to run, the pipe ruptures in another spot, the pressure too great for even his impromptu patchwork job. In a flash, Fio is gone again.
2000
Fio ends up back in his old stomping grounds around the Mediterranean; he picks up some old friends who wondered where he'd gone for so long. He hangs out a bit, but then quickly moves on, realizing that the people who are looking for him would most likely have those places watched.
That life frustrates Fio. He wonders why these people should prevent him from living the life he wants to live, why they should keep him from hanging out with the friends that he wants to have? Sure, most of the people are just random acquaintances that he only knows from drunken nights in clubs, but still, he didn’t ask for this! Fio decides that it's time to stop being a pawn. It's time to take the fight to them.
For the first time in his life, Fio puts some focus into his skills. He finds a dingy apartment and gets a gun, a silencer, and some targets, a punching bag and other things, and sets out a daily regiment of training. He doesn't want to be caught like he was in Istanbul. Rovere was a much better fighter than Fio was, and though he survived, he realizes that he doesn't want to get caught with his “pants down” again. He's determined that it will be different, next time.
2001 -2005
While he's training, Fio is keeping his ears and eyes open. Here and there, he catches glimpses of the Alliance, seeing lapel pins or overhearing things. He busts up some guys, and burns down a warehouse full of Alliance supplies. He spends time this way, stealing a payroll payment, sabotaging a car, and it feels sort of satisfying, but inside Fio feels like he is just chipping away at an iceberg with an ice pick. He can tell there are larger things going on, things over his head, and he hears a lot of strange words dropped: Hand of God, Voice of God, Will of God, Alchemists, Couriers, The Order of the Wall, Red Hoods, Cult of the Clockwork Goddess. Though interrogation and conjecture he puts together some rudimentary information, but it mostly has holes in it. He tries to make do with what meager intel he can get, but he's fighting a losing battle. Then, along comes Spencer.
September 5th 2006
Fio is in a Casino in Monte Carlo and losing badly, but having a good time. He's tired of losing, and is about to take his last throw of the dice, when a man he hadn't noticed before tapped him on the arm, and softly said, "bet it all, and throw those once for me". Fio, intrigued, bets everything he has, and throws. He feels the man manifest beside him, and the dice come up six and one, a natural seven. Fio wins. He gathers his winnings, and says to the man, "You seem to have some interesting talents. Where can we talk?". The two end up talking over a drink in the bar.
The man's name is Spencer Price, and he's a metahuman with some entropy control abilities, or at least so Fio guesses, from their time together, everything seems to break Spencer’s way, he never waits for elevators, never hits a red light, just seems “lucky”. He also blends into the background very easily. He's thin as a rail and on the short side. He and Fio discover a common hatred for the Alliance, and a similar view on the invisible war between the metahumans, the Alliance, and other factions. Spencer mentions some of the other factions to Fio, including the Alchemists and the Cult of the Clockwork Goddess. He unlike Fio, thanks to his ex-agency status has a inline to this upper level of met human politicking. He explains about some of these other groups to Fio over the next few months:
Cult of the Clockwork Goddess
Is a group of individuals, metahuman and human alike that believe in a once thought dead religion, the religion believes that the human machine is imperfect, and can be improved upon with technology. They are at a technological level well beyond anything that exists in the current era. They were sporting Uzi’s in the middle ages and their technology has only expanded from there. The members are more machine than human at this point and extremely long lived, while small they are individually powerful and often will supply this powerful technology to the highest bidder.
The Lost
The Lost are those who believe that when they sow death, it benefits their leader, Zaizen since they kill in his name. The membership of the Lost is made up of two types of humans, those that deal out death and those that fear it. For those that deal out death their actions are given more purpose and greater potential power because they believe that if they kill in Zaizens name will not only provide Zaizen with additional power, but has the possibility of gaining power for themselves within the faction. Those that fear death can be brought into the Lost because of the potential to avoid death itself since Zaizen can control it and therefore provide immortality to those that serve him. One of the goals of the Lost is to free Zaizen from his prison, although only a few know the complete story behind his capture and the artifacts needed in order to achieve this goal. Deathblade is one of the main leaders who can gather forces to him through his aura of power. Lost members can be found at places where death and destruction is being dealt as additional members could be obtained and additional power gained for Zaizen by continuing or escalating these efforts for Zaizen. Once a member, one does not leave the Lost except in death.
Alchemist Guild
The Alchemist Guild is some of the real power players in this secret world. They in stated purpose are basically supernatural arms dealers, dealing in ancient artifacts and technology both, and often combining the two into powerful weapons. They however have little to no scruples, they have no problem selling to both sides of a conflict, and then stealing back their weapons once the conflict is over. The whole group is of individuals and something in there power structure has these members duke it out with each other over power, killing many innocents in the way.
The Voice of God
The Voice of God is the smallest but most influential faction within the Alliance of Humanity. Made of five members they divide up the known world and each of the five members focus on manipulating the leaders and power bases in their geographic region to the overall objectives of the Alliance and its pro-humanity ideology. Their efforts also work to clear the way for the Will of God and Hand of God to act with limited impediments. Replacements are only made upon the death of a member and there is no possibility for retirement.
Spencer tells Fio about his time with the Agency, and how he faked his own death to escape. They end up spending a week or so becoming friends and scamming money off of the casinos.
Spencer mentions that he's been thinking of doing some guerilla work against the Alliance, and possibly some other folks, and asks if Fio would be interested. He's calling his group the Minute Men. Fio agrees, and they do some work together. During the next few months, Spencer helps him hone his powers, especially the bloodsteel. He realizes that it is attracted to him, and that it can be both offensive and defensive. He becomes very comfortable squeezing it forth, and controlling it. He also gets much more comfortable taking damage. He slowly works up from simple knife cuts to gunshots, until he finds that he can be severely maimed during an op, and still be very functional. They move around a lot by necessity, to keep ahead of the Alliance and the Agency. Spencer uses some of his connections to keep the Agency off of their back, but it only goes so far. He also gives Fio some tips on how to stay ahead of them.
Fio and Spencer recruit two more to the minute men while Fio is with Spencer, DuncanFraizer and FeliciaJones. After they part ways, Fio gets the feeling that Spencer is still making more contacts, but he don’t know those others personally. Howevery, he feels confident in the organization that if he needed help they would come help him.
After a few months, Spencer tells Fio that he needs to go elsewhere and work on expanding the Minute Men into other battlegrounds. He specifically mentions that he has a lead on getting in on something the Alchemists are after. He tells Fio that if he continues to fight against the Alliance, he can have access to some resources. Spencer has been bankrolling their operation for the most part, and he gives Fio a bank card with some funds attached to continue his work. He also makes Fio memorize a list of disused or forgotten Agency safehouses, where he could find food, clothes, money, and weapons, were he to need them. Fio has his phone number, but with the understanding that each call carries risk, so there's a protocol for signaling an emergency. He also has contact info for other Minute Men, with the expectation that they'll help each other when in need.
At this point Fio spends the next 2 years as a Minute Man, tracking the actions of the Alliance, and taking them out or screwing up their plans as much as possible. He is still a party guy, and keeps his connections in the underworld, but he really feels like this is somewhere that he can do good, and that feeling changes him in some ways. First, he gains a lot of perspective on the world, and sees most of humanity as unwittingly and unjustly caught up in a battle between higher powers, of which the metahumans, the Agency, and the Alliance are only a few. This leads him to feel more merciful towards the everyday Joe. Secondly, he loses all taste for revenge against mundane humans, as he sees them as victims, too.
Barcelona, December 13, 2006
Fio is sitting in a cafe by the window, hoping that a cute girl (or two) will come in, so he can talk them up a bit, but no bites so far. He's about to give up and head out when he glances at two men walking by in suits, and catches a glimpse of an Alliance lapel pin on one. He sinks back in his chair behind the window frame, and they pass by without looking up. They seemed to be discussing something urgent as they walked, and Fio tails them. They stop to wait at a red light, and Fio grabs a discarded newspaper off of a nearby bench, and pretends to read it as cover. He listens in, and it's clear that they're discussing a deal. One man is from the Alliance, but the other is a mid-level lackey from a local mob. They've got some sort of arms deal going down, with the Alliance spending a decent haul of money to get a new, high-tech focused microwave gun. The thug brags about how the gun can burn the skin off of targets from 1000 yards. The mobster asks, "I know it's not my business, but I gotta ask: You're putting up some serious coin here. Why buy this, when a good old fashioned bullet will do so much more for you, for pocket change?" The Alliance rep turns to him and flatly states, "You're right, it is none of your business. We have the money you asked for. Where's the demo?". The thug scowls. "Okay, okay. I don't need to be told twice to butt out. The demo is set up at the Alliance Railyard. We thought the name appropriate. Be there at 6, bring the cash. If you're satisfied, we'll conduct the deal there." Fio knows the railyard well, and he starts hatching a plan to fuck up their deal. He gets to the site early, and hides amongst the freight cars.
Soon thereafter, the mob lackeys show up and start milling around. Right at 6, the Alliance pulls up in 3 black, unmarked SUVs. Fio knows how the Alliance roll, and he figures that the first and last cars will have the muscle, with the brains (and the goods) in the middle car. As if on queue, three men each pile out of the first and last car, and two men step out of the middle. The guards each have submachine guns strapped to their chest, and the two men from the middle SUV appear unarmed. The two Alliance men go and meet with what some upper-level mobsters, and after a brief exchange, the mobsters signal, and a rail car door is opened. Out rolls a heavily modified humvee, with a huge dish attached to the top. Fio's barely watching this, though, as he's noticed that all of the Alliance guards are focused on the appearance of the enormous weapon. Fio quietly slips under the last of the Alliance SUVs.
The mobsters start their demonstration of the weapon. They open up a cattle car on the opposite side of the railyard, and a thug kicks one of the cows until it walks out in the open. He then gives it a shot with a cattle prod, and takes cover in the car. One of the mobsters takes the two Alliance reps over to the hummer, and opens up a control panel. The mob leader fiddles with the panel uncomfortably for a bit, and it appears that he's getting a bit flustered when a train starts rolling through. Fio was waiting for this, and he takes advantage of the noise to stab a hole in the gas tank of the last hummer, and then with the guards distracted again, he slips into the car itself . The car is empty, but Fio sees a few grenades stored in the passenger seat well, and he grabs two of them for good measure. The Alliance men can't see him in here, as the windows are tinted. Once the train finishes rumbling through, he watches the mob guys working on the control panel, until one of them figures out whatever was wrong, and the dish smartly swivels, and points straight at the cow. A hum fills the air, and then the cow bellows, and starts to run off. The hum continues, and the cow is screaming now, and Fio can see the beast's hide being burned straight off. He's seen all that he cares to, slips out of the car, and lobs a grenade at the microwave dish, and then in a fluid motion puts a knife through the chest of each of the two guards on his side of the middle SUV. Two things happen simultaneously; first, the grenade hits the dish, bounces down onto the heavily modified back of the hummer, and then explodes. There must have been some serious batteries in the trunk, because the whole thing explodes in a shower of blue flame. Secondly, the Alliance guards finally notice Fio, and open fire. He knows that three of them are in front of him, so he takes cover behind the second SUV and squeezes and throws a knife at the single remaining guard from the first SUV. The guard opens fire on him, and Fio takes 3 shots in the leg, but keeps his concentration enough to land his knife straight between the guard's eyes. The back windows of the middle SUV explode in SMG gunfire from the guards in the first SUV, and Fio takes cover behind it, and quickly cuts a hole through the side of the trunk to look inside.
Inside, Fio sees what he'd hoped for: two suitcases. He knows that the Alliance would be true to their word, and would bring the goods with them, so he grabs the two suitcases through the hole in the trunk, and then punches two holes in the back tire of the middle SUV. The SUV is pretty much totaled by the incoming gunfire at this point, so Fio pulls the pin of the last grenade with his teeth, lobs it towards the first SUV, and as the guards scatter, Fio bolts off into the railcars. He takes a few more rounds, including one in the shoulder, but it's nothing that will slow him down. The last grenade explodes, briefly lighting up the darkening railyard, and Fio slips off with the two hardcases.
Later, at a different cafe, he has some better luck picking up a hot girl from France. He takes her out and spends a ton of the Alliance's money on showing her a really good time. Later that night she laughs at him and says, "Baby, you spend money like it's not even yours!" and he laughs and replies, "cause it's not, baby, it's not!".
October 2007 – Modern Day
Fio is sleeping off a hangover so misses a call that goes though from Spencer.
“Fio, I got a lead on something going down that I figured would be of interest to you. There is a Sutherby’s auction taking place in two days, in merry o’ England. The Alliance is planning on nabbing something there, by hook or by crook. I think they will try to buy it first, but failing that they will take it by force. I want you to make sure that they succeed.” Pause. “Don’t freak out on me though, I am on top of things, their drop off crew has already been replaced by people loyal to us, heh, in fact Duncan will be driving their pick up vechicle. So your job is to make a show for whatever they are buying if things get ugly, make it look like we don’t want them to get it, but let them think they got away. When they drop off the goods, it will be ours.”
“If the Alliance wants this thing so badly there will most likely be other interested parties. So keep your eyes open. Good luck.”
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| industrial1.jpeg | 2012-01-22 02:56 | 103Kb |
| industrial2.jpeg | 2012-01-22 02:56 | 79Kb |
| microwave_gun.jpeg | 2012-01-22 02:56 | 33Kb |
| railyard.jpeg | 2012-01-22 02:56 | 126Kb |
| soccer.jpeg | 2012-01-22 02:56 | 46Kb |
