Два (Two)

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Сокофия - Sokovia

2016

The train from Budapest to Sokovia left at eleven o'clock in the morning

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The train from Budapest to Sokovia left at eleven o'clock in the morning.

After their escape from the Red Room, Sascha and Yelena had been inseparable. They had been inseparable even before that, but this strengthened their already intense bond.

They lived on the run for a while, jumping from place to place, using fake I.D. after fake I.D., allowing their scent to falter. Eventually, they settled down in Budapest, living a quiet life. Well, as quiet a life as two ex-assassins could live.

Budapest - close enough to home but still far enough away.

But then, a couple of years ago, Sascha's visions had started to become stronger, her insomnia worse, so things were becoming more and more disrupted. And it was all only becoming more messy and confusing.

In the wake of the Sokovia Accords, Princess Kalyna's image was everywhere, she being the ruler of Sokovia, so this made sense. What didn't make sense was that, for Sascha, it was like constantly staring into a mirror and seeing her own reflection. She constanstly had to keep doing double-takes, thinking it was her own face she was seeing. Despite a slight difference in shades of red for hair colour and eye colour, their images appeared identical

It was no secret to her that she and the soon-to-be-Queen of the Sokovian throne shared a striking resemblance, but seeing it so frequently and all of the sudden was a strange and constant reminder.

She had heard of resemblances before, but not like this. This wasn't just a resemblance, this was like a clone. She hadn't heard of cloning in the Red Room before, but she wouldn't put it past them.  Besides, Sokovia had no connection to the Room, at least as far as she knew.

"I'm starting to wonder if one of my parents had an affair with one of the Sokovian royals." Although this seemed like a lesser option compared to the Red Room cloning people.

"Don't joke about that," said Yelena, but chuckled a little.

Sascha chuckled a little too. Then she turned more serious. "Do you think they had access to cloning technology?"

"Who?"

"The Room."

Yelena sighed before reaching out and giving Sascha's hand a supportive squeeze. "I don't know, to be honest. They kept many secrets. But with all the other stuff they did - horrible, terrible stuff - all that they made possible, maybe... But I don't know."

"I'd like to find out."

"We can look into that next. But this first."

Sascha nodded. She had no intention of digging back into their past anytime soon, if ever. They were gone, they had escaped from it. It was over as far as she was concerned.

Only it wasn't. They may have escaped the Room itself, but never what it did to them.

And, the knowledge that it was all still going on, that the Red Room was still very much active, tugged at her thoughts in the back of her mind. Those bastards. Far away, deep in Russia, dozens of other young women were currently being trained and brainwashed into becoming lethal assassins, as they had been since the early 1900s. And this knowledge hurt more than anything. Those poor girls... They don't deserve that, none of them. None of us...

Sascha would like nothing more than to burn that entire place to the ground, but, at the same time, also never wanted to lay eyes on it again. Also, the Red Room had expanded, with agents and secret bases all over the world now, so even if they managed to take out the main centre, they wouldn't destroy the whole thing.

The train rode past what were the ruins and remains of Нови Град, Novi Grad, Sokovia's capital city, destroyed by the Avengers last year.   Natalia had been one of them, the Avengers, she had been here.  So close to home. And now so were they.

They had to do this while the princess was at home.  If she was away on business, or perhaps visiting her ally and love the King of Wakanda in his African Kingdom, then it would be widely known that she was out of her own country on duty.  So while it increased the risk, it was also a necessary move.

да, they we're going to infiltrate the palace.

----------------------------

The whole scheme was Yelena's idea. And what a scheme it was. She was certainly thorough and creative.

"The country is so distracted by the Accords at the moment, it's perfect timing," the blonde kept reminding Sascha.

The strawberry-blonde was less convinced, but she trusted Yelena wholeheartedly.

The palace had been 'moved' to the oldest of the country's cities, where Princess Kalyna and her government had been running things in the wake of the capital's destruction.

Yelena had done her research and discovered that the security in the palace was based on facial recognition - perfect if you were pretty much an exact clone of the princess.

"Are you sure this is necessary?" Sascha wondered aloud. "I mean, to go to so much trouble for this?"

"You want answers, don't you?" Yelena reminded her. "And I think palace records is a good place to start." She had a point there. If there was any information on this resemblance, records on it, it made sense that a royal family would have access to them.

"You know, out of all the stunts we've pulled, this might just be the craziest," Sascha remarked. In their tiny Sokovian hotel room, she was just fastening a necklace with a feather charm around her neck. With the national symbol of Sokovia being the Firebird, it hadn't been difficult to find an assortment of good with the bird emblazoned on them. They were wasting no time.

"And this one doesn't even involve killing anyone," added Yelena. "And for a couple of trained assassins, I'd say that's good."

"Unusual," agreed Sascha.

"Here, you'll need these." Yelena handed her a pair of amber-coloured contact lenses, the only other slight difference in she and the princess's appearance. Sascha's hazel eyes disappeared and were replaced by the glowing amber.

She then donned a red blazer and turned to face the blonde. "Well?"

"Well, Princess-" Yelena smirked. "-You have me convinced. I think you're ready."

















(Wow, thank you so much for the 200+ reads already! :) Sorry, for the delay in updating, I have a bunch of other stories I'm trying to finish up so I can focus on my new ones! I do have the next few chapters planned out though, so hopefully there will be less of a wait for those! ;)

So I saw 'Little Women' and really enjoyed it! The acting was really good - and wow, when Amy burned Jo's book... D: As a writer I definitely understood Jo's reaction! And after seeing that dark side of Amy, I can see why they cast Florence as Yelena! ;)

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :) Cпасибo, до свиданья! (thank you, goodbye!))

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