Chapter 1 - Flight of the Sparrow
Dianica watched the building closely from the darkened alleyway, only the moon light illuminating the street. Her black leather uniform, including jacket stockings and boots worked well to keep her concealed in the darkness. Her long blonde hair and porcelain skin offset her uniform, giving her a striking appearance that criminals didn't soon forget after she had dispatched them. The only indulgence she allowed herself was her choker, adored with a dark jewel, around her neck.
Criminals that were introduced to the Night Sparrows fists always tried to avoid a second encounter.
She looked around the street, to say it was a run down part of the city was an understatement, several of the streetlights were knocked over and pushed to the beside the buildings and the rest had broken bulbs and provided no light. Only one still stood upright and provided some illumination as it flickered on and off.
There were the remains of several cars lining the street and most of the buildings looked to have no windows left in their decaying husks. The one she was interested in was still in good shape, though it had been staged to appear like the rest of the buildings and only a trained eye could tell it apart.
The tip she'd received earlier in the night had led her here, she'd been tracking a new smuggling operation for several weeks and this, her informant told her, was the warehouse that it operated out of.
She wasn't sure what was in the warehouse, no one seemed to know exactly what was being smuggled in to the city, but that just made it even more likely to be something that deserved her attention. What she did know was that it was very organized, involved a large number of people, seemed to use some very high-tech methods and was definitely illegal.
Dianica stepped out from the alleyway and towards the building, taking care to keep to the dark as much as possible. As she approached the front of the two story structure she could here activity going on inside, almost like construction.
She hugged the wall and shuffled towards a window, taking a quick look inside. Her years of training required only a fraction of a second to evaluate the scene inside.
The building was a large empty space, with only a small office raised off the floor at the back, creating a small second story. The main floor of the warehouse looked like a construction site, with several incomplete structures underway and two completed cubic structures linked together with a smaller connecting rectangle.
Four henchmen were busily working on the incomplete cubes with a variety of tools. The bright overhead lights made a direct entry problematic. The pattern of windows along the back wall, 3 on the first story but only two on the second, looked like there should be one where the office was and that would provide her more cover.
She worked her way around to the back of the building and confirmed her hunch, three windows along the top of the building, two with light coming from them and the farthest one to the right, dark and inviting.
Pulling her grappling rope line out and heaving it on to the roof, she snagged a secure anchor and double checked it to make sure before starting her climb.
Bracing herself with her legs against the building she easily climbed up the rope, hand over hand until she arrived at the window and carefully peered in. The blackness thwarted her attempts to deduce what was in the room but checking the window revealed no obvious alarms and so she slid up the unlocked lower section of the window and pulled herself up and on to the sill.
Dianica pulled out her small flashlight from her black leather jacket's pocket and turned it on, it's narrow beam providing enough light for her to see without illuminating the entire room and attracting unwanted attention. It looked like a normal office, a desk with a chair and some paper on it along with a laptop.
A quick scan revealed nothing of interest and so she stepped down from the window sill and moved towards the desk. Perhaps the laptop would have the information she was looking for, though she suspected she'd have to take it with her to get one of the League's tech wizards to break in to it.
As she took her second step forward, she heard a sudden noise behind her, she turned to the window just in time to see the armoured slab drop down, sealing it shut. Just as it hit the floor, the lights in the room burst to life and she was momentarily blinded.
As her vision cleared she moved quickly to the door, she reached for the handle and found herself grasping at air as the hologram wavered as her hand passed through it.
"Damn it!" she said aloud as she turned back to the desk and went to grab the laptop. It too shimmered as her hand passed through it and she let out a sigh.
Whoever was behind this was expecting someone to find them and that meant this was a trap, it was time for a tactical retreat so she could come at it another way.
She turned to the window and inhaled, there was no point trying to go through the door, there was no way to know what was behind it, but she knew the window lead outside.
The Night Sparrow let out her cry, giving it more than enough to break through whatever armour plating they had installed. The plate though, seemed to have a different idea and instead her cry bounced off of it and back at towards her, she ducked just in time as it passed through the hologram of the desk and hit the other wall.
Her gut suddenly had a sinking feeling as the wall stood fast and her cry bounced off of it as well, but this time as it passed by, it sounded louder.
She dodged again as it bounced off another surface and again, it was getting louder *and* faster. She dodged to the corner of the room and managed to get a moment to regroup. She took in an even deeper breath and let out the most powerful cry she had at the window.
It rattled before it bounced back, she dodged to the side but had lost track of her first cry and moved right in to it.
She grabbed the sides of her head, covering her ears as the noise overwhelmed her and she collapsed to her knees.
It ended just in time for her second cry to slam in to her and she fell to the ground, unconscious.
Chapter 2 - Bound to Cry
Dianica awoke and took stock of her surroundings, the room was a dark grey cube and she was bound in a chair in the center of it.
Wide leather straps were rapped around her ankles, thighs, waist, wrists, elbows and neck, securing her to the chair. She could still feel her costume on her, the skin tight black outfit she came in, though the jacket and choker was gone.
She felt something on her head but couldn't quite make out what it was. There were several cool spots though from where it touched her skin through her long blonde hair.
And of course, there was a large metal ball gag in her mouth, she could only assume it was made of the same sound reflecting metal she had encountered in the room.
The rest of the room seemed empty so she struggled against her bonds to see if they would give, but they held firm.
A few minutes later, after exhausting every possibility she could think of, she heard a faint "click" from the base of the chair. It was followed by a prick in her butt and a sudden warmth as she felt something being injected in to her.
The warmth spread across her entire body and a wave of calmness threatened to engulf her as it reached her brain. She struggled against it, trying to keep a clear head as the drug fought her relentlessly.
As she started to lose the battle, a slight electric tingle passed over her scalp as a blinding flash of white light obscured her vision.
******
Dianica stood in a white expanse of nothing which seemed to go on forever. She looked around finding no land marks or other points of reference for as far as she could see.
She looked down at her naked body and was unconcerned by it. In fact, she was unconcerned by anything that was happening for some reason.
She crouched down and touched the "floor" but her hand passed right through it. She cocked her head to one side and reached under her own feet and touched the bottoms of them. It was strange as she still felt the weight of her body resting on her feet as if there was a floor there.
She called out, "Hello? Is anyone there?" to silence. She called out several more times but not even an echo responded.
She tried her cry, but it too seemed to disappear in to the distance.
After a while she decided to start walking, she placed one foot in front of the other but couldn't really tell if she moved, the vast whiteness remained unchanged and without a reference point, she looked to have stood still.
Still it was something to do and so she continued.
What seemed like days passed, there was no night so she didn't sleep. There was no food so she didn't eat, but likewise she didn't seem to get hungry either.
Without any reference for night and day, Dianica had a trouble keeping track of how much time had passed since she had arrived, but days must surely have turned to weeks and months at some time.
Eventually she'd stopped walking and sat down. Once in a while she'd called out to the emptiness, but never received a reply.
Months must have turned to years, years to decades, decades to centuries? She didn't know but at some point she'd curled up in to the fetal position and started to rocked back and forth and hadn't stopped.
When the voice first spoke her rocking at come to an abrupt stop and at first she had thought it must have been her own voice, but she didn't feel her lips move.
"Are you there?" it came again.
She stood up and looked around, unsure of what to do.
"Can you hear me?" it said.
She parted her lips and replied softly, "Yes."
