MAJOR DEEJ UNIVERSE

Greta Zukov, as of 2020, is at least 115 years old, but you'd never know it with her wearing the visage of a 19 year old Russian woman.

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Born sometime just after 1902 but before 1905, Greta was the 'love' child of a Siberian witch and a rich, married Czarist businessman named Boris Zukov.  Not long after Greta was born, the Siberian witch visited Boris Zukov at his palatial estate.  After a brief discussion and an attempt at blackmailing Zukov, Boris let loose the dogs on Greta and her witchy mother.  They barely made in off the grounds alive.  Greta's mother, Zuria, lost her lower left leg as a result of the dog attack.  Zuria swore vengeance against Boris and his family and started concocting a plan that eventually would lead to the destruction of the Zukov line.

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By 1908, Zuria put her plan into effect. Every five years, the Zukov family held a massive family reunion party at his estate; 1908 was the next party. Every single living relative traveled from near and far for two weeks of entertainment, drink and song.  One special dinner was always planned at the end, where everyone got served before Boris, whom, by tradition was normally always to be served first (head of the house rules).  It was always a meaningful gesture on his part, however, it was an action that was destined to be the linchpin of Zuria's revenge.

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At the "Grand Dinner", as it was called, Zuria disguised herself as one of the kitchen crew. She added a slow-acting poison into the soup and served the soup to the whole clan, with Boris as the last one to be served.

 

The plan was to have Boris watch each of his relatives, wife and children die slowly, incapable of stopping their deaths, only to be the last to die amongst them.  In Boris' last few minutes, Zuria intended to give Boris a chance to live by having him sign the an official set of documents, one stating Greta was his true daughter and his updated will that now left everything to Greta 'Zukov", with Zuria as her financial overseer. Once Boris was to sign this, Zuria would supposedly give him the antidote. Zuria, however, had no intention of giving the old fool an antidote.  Zuria intended to laugh at him as she watched him die instead.

 

Of course with any complex 'revenge' plan, things go wrong, as did this.

 

After all at the table were served and Boris toasted his family with a spoonful of the tainted soup (for which everyone eagerly began to consume), Zuria turned about to go stand in a perfect spot to watch Boris eventual reaction, however, her disguised wooden leg (thanks to losing her leg form Boris dog attack) rotated the wrong way, causing the disguised Zuria to fall to the ground. Those around the table laughed at Zuria.  Initially, Boris laughed a hearty laugh, but then his face went stone cold and pale as he saw the boot twisted in an abnormal direction.  He looked to the waitress and looked back to the oddly positioned leg and immediately knew who she was.

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Zuria.

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The revenge plan had no gone askew.

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Boris leapt from his chair, picked Zuria up into the air with his strong arms and hands and slammed Zuria's head onto the tabletop several times in front of his astonished family and guests. Boris bellowed at Zuria demanding what she was up to and to tell him what she'd done or he'd kill her there on the spot. To that, Zuria spat a bloody cackle at Boris in return.  Boris beat and pommeled Zuria relentlessly until finally one of Boris' cousins pulled him off her. Zuria, concussed and barely conscious, then told Boris what she'd done. She'd poisoned every one of his family.  Zuria told them they only had a few dozen minutes of life left before their death. All stood in silence about the table. That's when the first of those Zuria served began getting sick.

 

One by one, around the table, each family member started vomiting and turning green and sickly.  A sickly looking serving headmistress bolted out from the kitchen (a day late and a dollar short) screaming that the soup had been poisoned and that one of the cooks who'd earlier sampled the soup was now dying on the kitchen floor. The seving headmistress them vomited on the floor and collapsed into convulsions.

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Each person in the room erupted in shrieks of terror, crying in anguish over their impending death...all except Zuria and Boris. 

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Zuria, barely alive, cackled in a broken, evil laugh.  Boris staggered to his chair plopping down into it, watching the chaos occur before him with eyes as wide as silver dollars.  One of the family members screamed that the nearest doctor was a day's ride away at least and that no other doctor was in the area that week (as Zuria had arranged). Boris sat transfixed at the screaming, yelling, crying and manic terror of those around him. One family member ran from room to room, disheveling everything in his path, searching for an unknown cure for his eventual death. Others tried to puke the poison out; two relatives tried cutting out their own tongues thinking their actions would stop the poison. Some of the single men believed they could 'flush out' the poison from their system by non-stop drinking of gallons of water and vodka. The dinner had now erupted into a display of death and sheer lunacy.

 

Boris' aunt stabbed and killed her two children so as to save them from their slow death, following up with her own suicide, all the while cursing Boris to her last breathe. One cousin attempted to ingest rat poison to 'counter' the other poison; nonetheless to say, the cousin died a much quicker death than the rest. As the pandemonium continued to erupt over the next twenty minutes, Boris sat motionless in shock in his chair at the head of the table.  Zuria was finally able to pull her bloodied and broken body up into an adjacent dining room chair to Boris. From there, she watched with a twisted smile the chaos occurring before her. She then performed her coupe de grace; she set the documents before Boris stating her ultimatum (recognition of Greta as his daughter and handing over the entire estate to her (and Zuria). Boris instead, continued to sit in his chair transfixed on the deaths and lunacy occurring all around him.

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With only fifteen minutes left before the antidote would be useless, Zuria slapped Boris in the face as hard as she could.  Zuria cackled at him telling him that his only chance to save what was left of his clan, his wife and his several children was to sign over the estate and his fortune to Greta.  Zuria was barely able to move the document toward him before he grabbed it up and exploded in a rage.  After a few minutes of verbal rantings, pounding the table and cursing at Zuria, he calmed down long enough to energetically sign the papers.  Boris then grabbed Zuria and demanded the antidote. 

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As Zuria was about to tell Boris "no", she passed out.

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Boris attempted to wake Zuria, but instead threw her against the wall, leaving her looking like a broken and dead rag doll on the floor.  Boris shouted a scream that could be heard miles away.  After he composed himself, he turned her pockets inside out and tore at her clothes looking for the antidote, only to come up empty.  Boris tried to think of where Zuria would hide the antidote.  Where would she hide something so precious...

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Greta.

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She was the key. Where Greta was, the antidote would be there too. He deduced both Greta and the antidote would be at the witch's hut. Like a bullet, Boris raced out of the room to the stables where he mounted his prized thoroughbred race horse and took off at breakneck speeds for the witch's hut. Getting sicker and sicker as he rode, he knew he didn't have much time left.

 

Minutes later, he arrived to see Greta eating her dinner, where there, centered upon the table, was a unique purple bottle. Boris grabbed up the bottle and grabbed up Greta like a sack of oats and rode like the wind back to his estate, heaving and convulsing along the way.  Once at his estate, it took every ounce of energy to dismount.  He dragged Greta behind him to the dining room and ran to his children. Boris plopped down next to his youngest daughter and was about to administer the antidote when the other deathly ill relatives and friends saw what Boris was doing and began to fight him for the antidote. Fists flew at Boris with shouts of anger and desperation filling the room as the poisoned relatives, guests and staff still capable of moving piled on Boris and the antidote. Boris fought like a gorilla, backhanding and punching men, women and children (not his own) as he crawled back to his daughter.  The vial was knocked from Boris hand, flying out and into the stone fireplace where the bottle smashed open spilling out the antidote, making purple flames in the fireplace.

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The antidote was destroyed.

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From the deafening silence, Zuria's beleaguered cackling came to life once again. Zuria was still alive. Barely.

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Greta, finally seeing and hearing her mother on the far side of the room, ran to the bloodied mass that was her mother and began crying. Some of Zuria's wounds were not caused just by Boris, but instead by the rest of his poisoned family who savaged Zuria even worse attempting to get Zuria to tell them where the antidote was shortly after Boris had rode off. 

 

Zuria died in Greta's arms seconds later.

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52 of the 53 Zukov line were now dead. Several attending acquaintances and house servants died as well. Even Boris' thoroughbred he rode that night died from exhaustion minutes after its journey's end. In the end, all that was left of the Zukov line was Greta.

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Boris Zukov shot himself in the head, committing suicide rather than slowly, painfully dying from Zuria's poison.

 

Funeral arrangements were done.  The dead were buried at the estate's expense with the exception of Boris as per a 'small print' paragraph on the document that Boris had signed; as per the document, upon Boris' death, he was to be buried in a potter's field graveyard miles from his own estate, complete with open jars of beetles, fly larvae and insects in the coffin, thus allowing Boris' body to be picked to the bone by the scavengers and bugs of the world rather than lie in an expensive family crypt for countless generations to visit.

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Lawyers who'd found the signed documents made Greta the sole heir to the Zukov estate and fortune. No one ever went to work at the estate ever again. Rumors flew about the estate and Greta being cursed.  Ghosts of the murdered souls were said to be seen haunting the estate's grounds and nearby graveyards in the dead of night.  Demons were said to be seen dancing on the graves of the murdered after midnight during a full moon.  Some even believed that Greta was actually the devil's spawn. Of course, none of this was true, but it sure stopped everyone from visiting the estate.  Even Greta's lawyer, who lived next door, would rather talk through the estate's locked gates to Greta rather than risk entering the estate's cursed grounds. Greta soon realized that this sprawling mansion was simply not for her.

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One day, Greta walked to the lawyer's home next door.  She told him she wanted to sell the manor and move to Bucharest, Romania where her mother said there may be relatives alive there that might take her in.  With great angst and trepidation, the lawyer saw to Greta's requests. He managed her a luxury apartment in the capital of Bucharest and even created her new bank accounts, bought her furniture and even had Greta's mother's old iron crates kept at the Witch's hut shipped to her new home in Bucharest.  After capitalizing on Greta's needs with a heavy fee for his 'services', the lawyer was rumored to have died the next day of a heart attack.

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Greta, now in Bucharest, began the search for her family, all while browsing through her mother's books, scrolls and parchments found in the the iron chests. The more Greta read, the more she became entranced in witchcraft.  Within a year, Greta found a long lost aunt in the Slovakian mountains.  Her aunt was a witch too.  The aunt was in poor health,but thanks to Greta, lived another several years.  Several years that was used to train Greta in being a witch.

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Greta became a very powerful young witch in no time.  She mastered alchemy and potions quickly and in only a matter of months was able to utilize magical wards, spells and enchantments. Within five years, she was making her own magical talismans and writing her own spells. During this time, the Slovakian region was mired in territorial disputes between the Austria-Hungary Empire and Romania, as well as the shadow of the Russian Empire, Bulgaria and all other bordering nations that made up the conflagration that was World War I. Though Greta and her aunt weren't directly affected by the war, Greta's aunt finally died died in 1917 at the age of 45.  Her death was mostly due to bad potions and caustic concoctions she'd been exposed to decades ago that diversely affected her health; a life lesson Greta was all too familiar with as her skin color started becoming ashen white, just as her mother's was, as a result of her continued dabbling in witchcraft.

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Days after her aunt was buried in the woods, Greta carted all her own and her aunt's witchcraft materials, books, scrolls, etc., back to Bucharest.  There, Greta closed herself off from the world for a year back in her old luxury apartment while she focused on mastering her art.  Over the year, Greta was able to not only start dabbling in arcane spells, sometimes with dire consequences.  At one point, she accidentally infused an ancient relic used by death magic mages and opened a portal to a demonic realm that nearly overran her.  Thanks to a contingency spell, she was able to prevent over a hundred demons from tearing through the hotel and Bucharest proper.  The hotel catered to Greta everyday, cleaning, bringing her meals, drawing her baths, etc., however, her expenses soon became more than her estate's fortune was able to maintain.

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It wasn't until the luxury hotel manager's arrival later that year that Greta was told she was broke and that she could no longer afford to stay at the hotel.  As a result of the financial dishevelment resulting from World War I, Greta's fortune had been drained (especially in continuing to rent the luxury hotel room for over a decade with little to no income to recompense her financial losses).  With few choices left, Greta decided to move back to where she grew up, outside of St. Petersburg in Russia.  There, she would begin her destiny as well as meet the man that would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.

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Upon returning to the land that was previously the Zukov estate, she discovered the estate had been torn down and was now farmland, taken over and run by a Bolshevik farming collective. These farming collectives were growing across the land as the Russian Civil War continued between Vladimir Lenin of the communist party and the Russian Czar, Nicholas II.  Greta went to her mother's old hut to discover a nice home had been built up in its place instead.  Amidst the many documents Greta had taken from her mother, one such document was the deed to the land, provided by her long dead husband.  Greta was identified as the sole heir to the land, and as such, Greta decided it was time to evict whomever it was that was now trespassing and squatting on her land.  That's when she met Vladimir Ostov.

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Vladimir's parents came to St. Petersburg to get away from the war and Bolshevik uprising.  They'd built a home on a tract of property that everyone said had been abandoned by a 'witch' decades ago.  As a result of the war, their only son, Vladimir, was pressed into service during World War I, where he eventually was promoted to the rank of Captain before the war's end.  As the Russian Civil War started, Vladimir was informed that his parents died of starvation.  When he went back to their home, he saw the destitution and famine that had taken over the lands.  He resigned his commission and went to work creating a community farm for the area.  The Zukov lands were considered legally unowned since the people who bought the estate (from Greta) were later deemed traitors by the Tzarist-controlled regime.  Vladimir himself farmed the land as well and hundreds of acres in and around it to provide the area with food and sustenance.  Eventually, cows, goats and pigs were brought in and the community quickly pulled itself from the ashes of despair, thanks to Vladimir.  He was the area's folk hero.

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When Greta knocked on the door of Vladimir's home, little did she know that she was about to meet the one man she'd ever truly fall in love with.

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When Vladimir answered the door, his young, shirtless and muscular frame coupled with his kind face and bright blue eyes greeted Greta in a way she'd never expected.  Greta was immediately speechless with the handsome strapping figure that was Vladimir. This was a reaction she'd never had with anyone else in her entire life.  Vladimir and Greta stood in the doorway looking at each other in a forlorn way for what seemed like an eternity to both of them but in all actuality, only mere seconds.  Vladimir apologized for his dress and deportment, introduced himself and asked how he could help her.  It took Greta almost a minute of stammering to finally get to the point that she used to live on this land and that she was the true title bearer.  Vladimir was excited to know this and invited Greta to tea inside. The home was modest, yet vast.  simple, sturdy furniture, brandished with a large modern (in those days) kitchen, five rooms and a large pair of workshops in the back, as well as stables for the oxen and horses.

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Upon showing Vladimir the deed to the land, Greta saw the sadness that welled up in his eyes.  Before he could respond, Greta changed her mind about the untold evicting she was originally going to do to whoever was in the home.  Instead (and uncharacteristically), Greta compromised with Vladimir.  Greta would continue as the proprietor of the property and live there, while Vladimir would be allowed to perform the manual labor and maintenance on the property in return for room and board.  As the details of the compromise continued, Greta found herself offering to cook, clean and garden for him as well.  Vladimir offered to hunt game for meals for them and protect her and the property from anyone who'd dare to harm them.  By conversation's end, both agreed to the pact with a signed document Greta wrote up on the spot, however, watching the two react to each other during the signing, you'd think they'd instead just signed their own marriage certificate rather than a land trust document.

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Over the next year, Greta took one of the two workshops to be her own shop for her witchcraft and alchemy practices, while Vladimir continued to be the hard working handsome laborer that Greta obviously started to fall in love with.  By winter, all presumptions fell the wayside, and the two became romantically engaged.  It was a Harlequin romance novel in a Russian collective farm setting.  They both admitted they were not religious and as such made their own vows to each other under the light of a full moon instead.  Their romance and life together was magical, in all manners of speaking.  Vladimir of course found out that Greta was a witch, but didn't care, so long as she didn't 'grow warts on her nose' or turn their neighbors into newts, Vladimir was fine with her continued practice.  As a matter of fact, due to her potions and salves she made, she quickly became the area's best midwife and 'alternate doctor' for the ailments of the local community.  Most of the community trusted her with their health issues rather than the drunk quack of a doctor down the road that claimed he was once a surgeon to the Tzar.  Nonetheless, together, Vladimir and Greta lived a life of love, lust and romance for decades to come.

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Greta soon realized that due to her dabbling in witchcraft, she'd somehow prevented herself from ever having children.  Although Vladimir was disappointed about this, he instead took in several local orphan children to help around the property.  To Greta and Vladimir, they were much like the children they couldn't have naturally.  As the years progressed, the boys became men, and the men stayed on and worked the land of the collective farm and lived with Greta and Vladimir until they'd grow up and find their own wives and start their own new lives.  Their extended family grew and by 1940, Greta and Vladimir were godparents to over 20 of their orphaned children and those children's sons and daughters. It was a happy time for Greta and Vladimir.  It was a hard life, filled with sickness, tough winters, hard work at the farms and the constant barrage of the propaganda of the new communist regime that was now the Soviet Union, but they got by, together, as family. Now in their late 30s, Greta and Vladimir, still madly in love with each other and surrounded by their own self-made family and collective, now faced the advent of World War II and the cataclysm that destroyed all they'd built their lives on.

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When World War II started, Soviet Russia had a non-aggression pact with the Axis powers (Nazi Germany and fascist Italy).  The German's 'blitzkrieg' tactics took Europe by storm and quickly plowed through France and the Netherlands.  As the Battle of Britain air war raged on, Germany plotted to attack and invade Soviet Russia.  Much to the Nazi's later laments, the Axis powers eventually turned on the Soviet Union and in doing so, invaded Petersburg (at that time, called Leningrad) - the city where Greta and her new family lived by.

 

To prevent Vladimir from being recruited/drafted into the Soviet Union's Red Army, Greta created a concoction that made Vladimir sickly, even though Vladimir was actually in good health. Vladimir wasn't too keen on this plan, but knew he'd simply be throwing his life away by being forced to fight for the Soviet army. Sadly, all the younger orphans and men in the collective were drafted, leaving the collective farming to be performed by old men and women.  Vladimir dodged a bullet with Greta's concoction, but now he had to work five times harder to cover for the loss of the collective farm's workers.  Greta was lucky to converse with him for a few minutes a day as a result. Both worked hard for the farming community, sadly draining the youthful love from each other due to the necessary work each had to do for others to survive.

 

One day, the Nazi army was heading to the outskirts of Leningrad...and the collective farm. To prevent the German's from gaining anything they could use, the farm and crops were set afire, cattle, goats and pigs were killed or poisoned and those on the farm evacuated to Leningrad.  There, Greta, Vladimir and over 280 older men and women became trapped in the city as the German forces encircled Leningrad to take the city. Thankfully Greta brought a majority of her spells, books, scrolls and potions with her; those items would be used with a vengeance in the coming month.

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That's when the famous Siberian winter storms hit the area.

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Ill-equipped to handle the cold, the German offensive came to a screeching halt against Leningrad.  The populace fought day and night to protect the city and their comrades, all the while the German military's attrition rate grew. During the fighting, Vladimir was killed by a Nazi sniper. Greta lost it.  Using years of her arcane knowledge and thousands of deadly and dangerous spells, Greta went about decimating the Nazi ranks with every spell, conjuration, poison and potion she could create against the Germans.  One of the city's leading military defenders was the famous Soviet Red Army General Semyon Budennii, a man who would one day be know as the Generalissimus of the Red (and Soviet) Guard.  He saw what Greta's arcane powers could do against their enemies and as such, relished the idea of allying with her even after the Siege of Leningrad. 

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After weeks of battling, the Soviet defenders of Leningrad won against the Nazi military siege machine. The Nazis withdrew from Leningrad, but at a great price to both sides.  Each side of the battle faced enormous casualties, starvation, exposure and a city in ruins...as well as the ruins of many family lives, including Greta's. By winters end, Greta was informed that all her 'boys' that her and Vladimir adopted on the collective had died in combat against the Nazis.  After Greta buried Vladimir back at their decimated home, Greta quickly enlisted her powers to the Generalissimus to become one of the most powerful vessels of vengeance against anything and everything that was Nazi Germany.

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Throughout the rest of World War II, Greta, now known by her code-name of "Mystyck", and additional super-powered Soviets that made up the Red Guard, fought against the Nazi war machine.  As the Soviets pressed on towards Berlin, the Soviet Red Army and General Budennii's Red Guard laid waste to anything related to the Nazis.  Women, children, buildings, Nazi culture, all destroyed.  Greta was one of the most powerful forces in the Red Guard and had a determination and drive that was second to none to make the Nazis pay for killing her family. Finally in 1945, the Soviets broken through the remaining remnants of the Nazi forces in Berlin and took over the city.  Rumors had it that Greta, left unchecked, would have vaporized everyone and everything in Hitler's bunker, and actually had to be dragged away by their own troops to prevent her from decimating the enormous amount of military intelligence that was in the bunker.  When the war ended, Greta was given a "Hero of the Soviet Union" medal for her efforts, which she promptly buried with her dead Vladimir back at the collective farm.

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Now with the war's end, the Cold War started.  Greta continued to work beside General Budennii for the next 35 years as a founding member of the Generalissimus' super-powered Red Guard unit. She was a believer in pure communism and enjoyed the equality of each and every man and woman.  During the final years of the Cold War, the Red Guard's leader, the Generalissimus, fell into 'disfavor' with the newer Soviet military powers and was removed from his position.  Shortly thereafter, Greta became disenfranchised with the Red Guard and their existing weak and corrupt Soviet leadership.  In 1989, she left the Red Guard and went back to the newly burgeoning collective farm she'd abandoned at the end of World War II.

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Back at the collective farm outside of Leningrad, Greta, now in her 80s, was quickly recognized by those that knew her during World War II.  Those that survived the Siege of Leningrad who'd lived on the collective farm, created a large and powerful monument to her and Vladimir at the site that was once their house.  Greta cried and embraced those that had survived the siege of Leningrad with her. For the next year, she stayed in the village and used her potions and arcane magics to help heal and take care of all the village's ailments.  Some ailments, however, could not be cured.  Sadly, by the end of 1991, the Leningrad siege survivors began dying off, one by one.  Eventually, Greta lost any and all of her friends and acquaintances she'd ever known. She pondered her future; a future that included a nation of crumbling Soviet ideals and the prospect that she'd outlived most she'd ever known. At that point she was ready to give in to death's taunts and finally be with her beloved Vladimir.  Instead, the forthcoming fall of the Soviet Union catalyzed a completely different path for Greta, one to this day she felt she was born for.

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As the Soviet Union fell, General Budennii stole.  He stole millions of tons of Soviet weapons and hardware, as well as thousands of state secrets, projects and devices.  During his raids, the General sent word to Greta under her Mystyck code-name and invited her to join him in his attempts to reform the glory that was the Soviet Union.  Greta debated for a few days, thinking it was a poor idea.  Her age, her health and her desire to lie beside her long dead Vladimir filled her thoughts instead.  In a discussion with one of the young women in the village, Greta confided in her the offer by the General and asked her advice.  The girl not only strongly agreed with the General, but said that it was time for Mystyck to once again became the powerful woman that Vladimir once saw in her.  With that, Greta went to work on a dangerous de-aging spell, one that she'd never done before.  With her stock of rare arcane materials thin and withered, she went through with the spell to bring herself back to a youthful state.

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The spell went right...and devastatingly wrong.

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Due to the poor quality of the spell's required rare and unique products, the spell intensified and expanded in its strength.  The resulting maelstrom that engulfed her small home destroyed it and several other adjacent homes, even killing three of the residents including the young girl who gave Greta the recent advice. The ebb and flow of the diverse range of arcane powers took everything Greta had not only contained them, but dispelled them.  After minutes of chanting, casting and rerouting of the arcane powers swirling around her, Greta stopped the arcane maelstrom she'd created.  In her place stood a young, 19 year-old woman, sleek, trim, strong and enhanced with mystical powers to all new uncanny levels she'd never had before.  The effects of the maelstrom also affected Mystyck's mind.  There was now a twisted darkness swelling within her soul.  Fueled by her desire to bring back the old Soviet ways, her new yet darker demeanor now included maliciousness towards any not desiring to follow her lead.

 

Basically, the once vengeful yet kind Mystyck had now become a dark aggressor as well as a die-hard supporter of what she considered to be the 'true' Soviet doctrine.

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With a glancing, malicious look back at the damage she'd done, Mystyck used her new powers to teleport herself to General Budennii's side.  After a brief discussion, Mystyck deigned the "Generalissimus" the only one worthy enough to ally herself with for their similar life mission - bring back the  power, glory and strength of all that was once the Soviet Union all in honor of her beloved Vladimir and the adopted children Greta and Vladimir once raised. 

 

Today, Mystyck continues her duties to the Red Guard (now Soviet Guard) following the Generalissimus' lead, performing incredibly dangerous spells to 'empower' other members or attack anyone that dares cross her. She has thrown caution to the wind with more aggressive and dangerous spells, thus becoming her own boiling cauldron of arcane witchcraft; a cauldron that, at times, even causes the Generalissimus a sincere level of concern as to whether, if she goes mad, if he'll ever be able to contain her at all.

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