Chapter Text
Everything in life is connected, all the circuits of a motherboard align like pawns in chess. While the pawns may be able to change into knights and queens, no living being can ignore what they have experienced.
The story of the Russia’s most curious duo and their experiences through life began on a melancholic night, among the street lamps of Saint Petersburg, March 14th, 2042.
A twelve year old boy was walking alongside an older woman into a vast mansion. Only twelve years old, and the world was already at his fingertips. As the son to a moderately known Russian actress and a politician, the boy was truly unaware of how fortunate he was.
He had it all, until the young son followed his mother into the main hall of their mansion, where numerous men with a sinister look in their eyes gazed upon him. Ignoring all of the gazes, the boy barely managed to look at the bloody corpse wearing his father’s business attire. Before he could even let out a scream, the boy was grabbed by one of the felons. His mother, in a panic to protect her child, desperately fought back to make it to her child. With the sound of a single shot resounding in the air, the boy had now lost both his mother and father.
Such is the tragedy of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Three Months Later…
“Ugh… why should the government get my money. It’s not like they’d use it wisely at all.” After tossing an empty cherry soda behind himself, a teenage boy rubbed his eyes before gazing at the computer screen once more.
“How else can I earn money quick, without getting a stupid job? Surely, there’s plenty of get-rich scams out there that could save me~.” As he complained, the young teen exited out of another useless website.
“Maybe… I can hack into a government official’s phone and blackmail them for money… Oh how very noble of you, Nikolai. You truly are an angel, a saving grace, a perfect—.” Unfortunately, his monologue was cut short, as the first image to pop up on his newsfeed was a picture of a young boy. Eyeing the child, he scrolled down the article.
“The child of.. boring… been missing for three months… boring. Why should I care, children are always running off.” Nikolai nearly closed out of the article, but was compelled not to by the sight of a seven digit number at the bottom of the article.
“Well, well, well, someone’s getting paid well tonight, and that someone is Nikolai Gogol!~.” While smiling wildly, Nikolai clicked on a few specific keys, and with that, all the cameras of Saint Petersburg were within his grasp.
Finding the ‘secret hideout’ belonging to a bunch of pigs in human clothing was no hard task. Sneaking into the hideout by analyzing which hallways are never monitored, also not an issue. The main issue was… the small kid facing Nikolai.
Locked inside of a small room for probably weeks on end, the boy looked like the embodiment of death itself. Nikolai decided he would not think too hard about what he has been through and how horrible it was to be kept locked up only to be sold like livestock. ‘After all,’ he thought, ‘there’s no time like the present!’ While he wouldn’t exactly call himself an asshole, he does agree, he is not the most sympathetic person around.
“Sooo, looking for a lifestyle change?”
The silence following his remark was more than enough of a response. Obviously this was not one of his brightest moments. Attempting a different approach, he put on his sweetest smile, then slowly walked over to the youth, only for his eyes to grow dull, and his face to take on an astonishingly dark expression.
“Heh… not much of a talker, huh? All you’d need to say is ‘you have seven days’ and you’d make me shi—I mean, make me very scared. I’m Nikolai Gogol, by the way. Your savior.” As he pulled out his phone, the boy watched boredly, only for the most dumbfounded look to appear on his face when, after a few seconds, the cuffs binding him fell to the ground.
“Everyone relies too much on technology today. Makes my job a whooooole lot easier. This trick also helped me escape— escape from bad guys. Totally not the cops, after they discovered me stealing all the money from a downright criminal claw machine.” Offering a sheepish smile, the boy held out his hand. “Let’s get you out of here, Mr Fyodor. I have a nice, warm couch with your name on it, and tons of fluffy clothes that children of all ages love.”
The young boy stared at the outstretched hand, and then to the gun secured around Nikolai’s hip. Inside the dark trenches of his mind, a desire for revenge grew.
“Kill them, and I’ll go with you so you can collect your reward money.”
“How did you—I mean, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m an upstanding citizen, you know. I just so happened to notice you kidnapped—“
“Do you ever stop talking about yourself?”
For once in his entire fourteen years of life, Nikolai was speechless.
“I guess that answers my question. Now do as I say, clown.”
“First off, you’re like eight. Sec—.” Within an instant, the boy had pulled the gun out of its holster, and was now aiming it at the fool’s head. The seriousness in the younger boy’s eyes momentarily hardens the jokester’s expression, before he returns to his antic disposition.
“You do know the safety is still on, right? Buuut, if you insist, it’s much easier to just hack some things here and there, then make the place go booooom than to go around wasting bullets,” Nikolai continued, speaking of slaughter as if it’s but a minor inconvenience.
Fyodor continues pointing the gun at him, but replied in a quiet voice, “I just want them dead. The whole world is better off without such sin.”
“Ah, then so be it, small fry~.”
In a city shrouded in moonlight, an explosion occurred in an abandoned warehouse once utilized to make children’s toys. Two children, remained at the scene, entranced as if they were watching the summer fireworks. Blue and red lights shine from the across the street, and the accompanying sirens announce the beginning of an iconic, inseparable duo.