I awoke with a splitting headache. I felt like I had been run over by a Mac truck, then again by a steamroller. My vision was blurry, but I could make out trees above me as I lay sprawled on the ground.
Okay, I'm still in the forest. Even putting a coherent thought together brought on a tidal wave of throbbing pain to my head. I groaned.
"You're awake." Said the man, surprised. He was on the phone with somebody and was only half-listening to what the other person was saying. I tried to sit up, but found that my arms were tied together behind my back, pinning my wings against my body in an uncomfortable fashion. My ankles were also tied. What felt like a dog-collar rested around my neck on my collarbone. What was going on?!
"Yes, Hun, I understand the situation just as well as you do… Yes, I remember what my orders are. What do you mean 'what they were'? Unless the Commander has specifically changed my mission I am going to kill… What? Are you sure? We'll me there in an hour." The man in black abruptly ended his call and turned to me. "You don't get motion sick, do you?" he asked. I stayed silent, watching him warily. "Good. Then you won't mind the ride at all."
As if on que, a bright light turned on directly above us and the trees began to sway with a powerful downward rush of wind. A helicopter was descending towards us, and fast. The immediate area was too crowded for it to land, however, so it dropped down a harness and what looked like a short, fat, oversized metal can with no lid or bottom. The cylinder, big enough to fit around a child at the shoulders, looked more like an oversized hand-cuff than anything. The man grabbed the cylinder, pressed a series of buttons on the side, and popped it open so it could be put around something. Unfortunately, that something was me. The man walked over to me, ignoring the deafening rush of wind that surrounded us, and yanked me into a standing position by my shoulders.
"What are you doing?" I cried out before I could stop myself. I strained against him, but his powerful grasp was just too much. He slipped the halved cylinder around my torso and snapped it shut, effectively pinning my arms and wings to my side by a giant band of metal. I could barely breathe, it was squeezing my chest so tightly. He didn't answer me, just reached over where his harness lay along with a carabineer attached to a long cord running from the chopper to where we were. He grabbed the cord, hooked the carabineer to a loop on the back of my metal inner-tube, and then yanked on the cord. Before I could register what was happening, I was being yanked off my feet and into the air by the cord. I cried out, caught off guard. Before I knew it I was being roughly helped into the cockpit of the helicopter and then transferred to the back wall, where my metal band apparently locked into the wall itself. I was stuck beyond a shadow of a hope. A few seconds later the man from the ground was being hauled up, too. Before he had even gotten into the cockpit we were flying away, towards the city. I craned my head, screaming for Leo, for Raph, anybody to come and save me, but my voice was drowned out by the deafening hum of the helicopter and deadened by the falling snow.
The next few hours were a blur. I was gagged at some point, but honestly I couldn't have said anything even if I wanted to. What was there to say? We arrived in downtown New York at an abandoned glue factory, the helicopter landing precariously on the roof just long enough for the man in black to quite literally throw me out and into the arms of a notorious gang in NYC: The Purple Dragons. The men who had come to pick me up didn't seem fazed by seeing my wings, and I could only assume they had known about my mutation beforehand. How, I had no idea.
"Hun really wanted her?" Asked a lanky man to my left. The man carrying me grunted, threw me over his shoulder, and left without saying a word. The others followed. One short car-ride, an exchange of money, and disorienting trek through back-streets later, I was being handed over, yet again, to another party. This one was about six and a half feet tall, with a purple dragon insignia tattooed on his arm, and a ponytail of long, blond hair tied behind his head. Hun looked at me with interest.
"You sure this the one Sacks had wanted?" he asked one of my escorts. He nodded, not saying a word. Hun, seemingly satisfied, picked me up by my shoulders. The metal band around my chest had long ago bitten into my skin hard enough to draw blood and thin streams of red were now running down the steel face. I grimaced as he moved me around, looking at me. Then he set me roughly on my feet and motioned for my escorts to go. They left without a word. Hun looked at me for a long moment and I glared back. I didn't know who this man was, but I instantly hated him. If he was working with Sacks, I wanted nothing to do with him. He put a hand on my shoulder.
"Get your filthy paws off me, hotshot." I spat, twisting in his grip. He laughed, making me jump.
"And who are you to tell me what to do, filth? You're nobody. Now, I suggest you keep that tongue of yours in check before it gets you into some serious trouble."
Before I could stop myself, I had made yet another biting comment, this time aimed at him personally. His eyes boiled with anger. He lifted his massive hand and slapped me across the face, sending me sprawling. Without hands to catch myself I landed on the frozen cement ground, my head colliding with the back alley wall. I saw stars, then nothing. Absolutely nothing.
