In this latest chapter of Birds of Prey fanfiction, Sonya Blade confronts Seattle crime lord, China White.
Want to read from the beginning? CLICK HERE!
Sonya entered the restaurant and stood at the entrance, taking in the interior layout. It gave off a homey feel, with inexpensive furniture and gaudy Chinese artwork that looked more like what an American would think a Chinese restaurant should look like than authentic Chinese art.
Just the boring façade one would expect for a drug queenpin.
Spotting some stairs in the back, she headed in that direction.
The restaurant was between the lunch and dinner rushes. Only two tables were in use; one by a goth teen reading a manga, the other by a professional-looking man and woman on a late lunch meeting judging by the laptop the two hovered over.
On her way toward the stairs, a server approached Sonya. He was barely out of his teens but looked athletic enough to be a problem if he started anything.
“Please wait in front to be seated, ma’am,” the server said. He was cordial, inviting.
“Not here to eat, thanks,” Sonya replied. She continued toward the stairs. The server blocked her path. Sonya’s gaze fell on him.
“Our bathroom is for customers only,” the server said.
Sonya glared at him. To his credit, Sonya failed to intimidate the server. Was he zealously guarding the bathroom or something else?
Sonya assumed the answer was something else. That’s why she didn’t feel the least bit bad about throwing him into an armlock. The other patrons and servers were wise enough to observe but not to interfere.
Over the man’s grunt of pain, Sonya asked, “Tell me about those stairs. Where do they go? And if you say ‘up,’ I’ll break your arm and start on the other one.”
“Offices!” the server squeezed out through gritted teeth.
“The building is three stories. What’s on three, and how do I get there?”
“We’re not allowed up there!”
Sonya dropped the server onto the ground.
Her show of strength was enough to make the other servers and customers stay away. Their eyes followed the detective as she threw aside a curtain that blocked the patrons’ view of the upper area and headed up the stairs.
The stairs went up, turned, and turned again, bringing Sonya to the center of a hallway on the second floor. Three doors lined the wall across from her, presumably leading to the offices the server mentioned.
Heavy drapes covered the walls to Sonya’s left and right. Someone did a poor job of hiding a camera within the sconce at the end of the hall to Sonya’s left.
Sonya approached the door in front of her. As she reached for the handle, the door on her right opened.
Four Chinese men in suits emerged. They were far more intimidating than the server and dressed much too well to be patrons of this establishment.
Still, they weren’t anything Sonya couldn’t handle.
“This is a private level,” the man in front said. “You need to go back downstairs.”
“The media said I was too violent to be a Seattle cop.” Sonya took up a fighting stance. “Maybe they were right?”
The four men were more than willing to oblige Sonya.
Two of them pressed forward, looking to flank her. She met one of them with a fist to the jaw that sent the man against the wall of doors.
Sonya spun back around to give his partner a taste of knuckle sandwich, but her target parried the blow and launched one of his own.
Sonya ducked the punch, spinning to a position behind her attacker with her back to the two men who were yet to engage.
They held their positions while Sonya dispatched their ally with a chop to the throat.
Turning, Sonya looked at the other men. “Sure you wanna do this?”
The men raised their hands, balling them into fists. Then the man who initially addressed Sonya hesitated. Sonya noticed he wore an earpiece. He listened for a moment.
Whoever he talked to must have told him to stand down because he lowered his fists.
His partner flashed him a look of confusion. The listener addressed Sonya. “Mistress White wishes to speak to you.”
The upper floor of the restaurant took up the entire level. The design was of a sparring chamber suitable for training twenty or thirty people at a time.
Those twenty or thirty people assembled in the room now, dressed in suits like Sonya’s sparring partners downstairs. They lined the walls, ten on either side. All stared at Sonya as the two other suited men led her into the area.
Ahead of them, Sonya looked at the source of her problems, the city’s problems, really:
China White.
The Chinese woman sat in a high-backed chair as if she were a queen lording over her domain. As per her name, she dressed in an all-white jumpsuit that matched the color of her flowing hair.
White appraised Sonya as the detective approached.
“Sonya Blade,” White began. “You have been quite the annoyance.”
“My partner would say the same about you,” Sonya replied. “If he weren’t dead.”
“I heard of his death on the nightly news,” White said in a dismissive tone. “So unfortunate when a dedicated law officer, a father of two, a loving husband, dies doing what he believes is right.”
Sonya’s escorts stopped her a few yards away from China White. Sonya pushed their hands away. She turned to look at White.
“I’m picking up where he left off, White. I don’t intimidate easily.”
China stared hard at Sonya. “Kano tells me you have a new partner.”
Sonya shook her head in confusion. Then she remembered the previous night on the boat and laughed. “If you think you can intimidate Black Canary —”
“Did I intimidate your other partner?” White became stone-cold serious. “Or did I just kill him?”
Sonya balled her fists. Twenty men, twenty-two counting her handlers, and China White. Not the best odds, but she always liked a challenge. If Canary were here, Sonya would push her luck and take out White here and now.
Then she realized Kano wasn’t here. LoDolce saw him come inside. But he wasn’t here now.
“Canary wears a mask,” Sonya bluffed. She wanted to keep White thinking of the vigilante and not her ex-partner sitting in the car outside. “You don’t know who she is, so you won’t know how to find her.”
White leaned back in her chair, exuding the relaxed pose of someone who knew they controlled the playing field.
“The thing with you hero types is you cannot help yourselves,” she said. “All that is required to draw you out is endangering the right people.”
Dark thoughts moved through Sonya Blade’s mind. “What did you do?” she asked.
As we dip over to a day in the life of Black Canary in civilian mode, find out just what China White has done in the next chapter!
While writing this fanfiction, I used Green Ronin’s Mutants and Masterminds, 3rd Edition RPG, to leave some things to chance. Check it out!
Like this Sonya Blade fanfiction? Check out Mark’s original “Shadowdance” saga books!
