The First Second of Eternity

It's true what they say - no good deed goes unpunished. Especially since the Vanishing.
 
Waking up someplace dark and cold without a proper spot of tea is never how you want to start your day and standing up for what's right can cost you when you get cheeky with the wrong group. The knot on the back of my head tells me those agents had help I never saw.
 
I can't access the spirits; they do not come to my aid when I need them now. I've worn myself out trying at this point, and it feels like it's been a full day. After a rest, maybe something new will come to mind.
 
Bloody Hell.
 
As if being stuck in this miserable box isn't enough, the nightmares came again last night. I sound like a broken phonograph whenever I write about them - It's almost always the same theme though. Innocents crying out for help and the spirits don't answer my control and people get hurt and die while I'm unable to do anything about it. Ironically, today, those nightmares are, in fact, true, and the spirits are not answering my control. There was one thing I can vaguely remember that stands out from tonight’s nightmare that might mean something. While trying to save a woman from falling, I flickered between Victoria and Liliana, transforming rapidly between my two selves. I changed back and forth uncontrollably, almost like when my iPhone with the bad screen kept rebooting. That gives me an idea. I don't know about power dampers, but they may be attuned to the person in the cage, and they may take just a bit of time to readjust if it senses a different person in the cage, which may give me a tiny window of opportunity.
 
I revert to Victoria, pause, and then focus on controlling the spirits to push open the door of the cage, and transform into Liliana. There is the briefest glow of purple and a sense of the spirits before it's gone. If may not be much, but when Peter Capaldi was The Doctor, I recall the episode where he was trapped and relayed the following story:
 
"Every hundred years, a little bird comes!"
"And sharpens its beak on the diamond mountain!"
"And when the entire mountain is chiseled away, the first second of eternity will have passed!"
 
I remember this and take away its lesson - given enough time, even a bird can wear down a mountain. Peter was a good Doctor, and that story stuck with me, but I'll never be over David Tennant - he was _MY_ doctor when we did The Silence in the Library, and that will always be special to me.
 
I lost track of how many transformations I went through that day, but By George, this bird wore down the mountain enough to blast free from its cage.
 
I'm not out of the woods yet... actually, I appear to be in the _actual_ woods. Luckily, it's night and my eyes adjust easily enough. Even better, it's a clear night, and I can tell by the stars I'm in upstate New York - that's not where I was yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place to visit, but I still prefer the city. Looking around, there's more containers like mine stacked, and there seems to be some commotion. It is tempting to just fly out of here, but I hear cries for help, and I’m going to help whomever I can, starting with the cage next to mine. It takes a little effort, and I communicate with its occupant to have them stand back while the Soul Train blasts open the door from the inside out, enough that it disrupts their power dampener enough that a very large man is able to break out the rest of the way. Well met Bluewave.
 
Together, Bluewave and I work on getting out of there, coming around corner of a hangar, another large man covered in runes gives me pause and bluntly asks who I'm with. Apparently saying you're against Destroyer is enough to make a new friend today. It's then we hear screams of help from even more containers lined up in this compound. It appears the guards are still occupied by something, or someone, else. Friends of my new friend I'm guessing? BlueWave, RuneForce and myself set out to start freeing people from the containers and have freed many of them when I'm blasted from behind and I'm down on the ground looking up. I look up through half closed eyes and barely see it's that bastard Gigaton, but he's soon knocked around by a streak of a person I didn't quite see. Runeforce helps me up, and we finish freeing prisoners when someone shouts something about Destroids and getting out of there. I'm about to take flight when Runeforce grabs my elbow and offers me a quick way out with his team.
 
It was a split-second decision to go with Runeforce - but what am I getting myself into? I've laid low until now and kept my profile off Destroyers radar, but I don't think I have that luxury now. Luxury. I'm missing that right about now. What I wouldn't give to just be home soaking in my jetted tub with a fresh bottle of wine and enjoying a good movie in the theatre room afterward. It sounds like that will have to wait though...