Prologue

There is a saying that most people know about. It's always darkest just before dawn. No one seemed to know how true that saying was except for a few unlucky souls. A storm was brewing, lightning crackling in a mass of clouds that were rolling in quickly from the Atlantic Ocean. New York City was bustling still, regardless of the fact that it was night and most people would be asleep at this hour. If the people of this city had really good eyesight, they could see a small silhouette on top of the tallest point of the Empire State Building. The form was crouching in wait for something, almost as if there was some cue to signal its next move.

There was a flash of lightning, one to reveal the form to be a woman in her early twenties. She watched the traffic below her with disinterest, a smug look upon her face as if what she was doing was below her standards. Thunder cracked the sky as the clouds finally covered the city and the woman stood to her full height. Although she wasn't very tall, she was of average height and had this aura about her that made most people go out of their way to avoid angering her. She wore what looked like a black leather outfit, but it seemed to shiver as if it moved on its own accord. Her blue black hair started to flow in the wind that had just stirred up with the storm. There was more movement as she walked to the very edge, balancing there for a couple seconds before tipping forward and freefalling down.

Her eyes were closed for a few stories of the fall until finally they opened to reveal golden cat eyes, the approaching lights of the city below causing her pupils to turn into slivers. With a snapping sound, black feathered wings seemed to just erupt from her back, catching the wind just right to send her upward. A wing beat had her up above most of the buildings as she glided elegantly towards a well-lit building. The name the building went under was Friedmans and she started to circle above, noticing a large skylight at the very top. With a roll of her eyes in scorn, all of the lights in the building blinked out. She then dived down at the skylight, snapping her wings open a split second before crashing into the glass, shattering it with her feet. There were screams and yells as the glass crashed down in what looked to be a conference room. The woman crashed down onto the large table there, everyone in that meeting looking at her in both fear and awe as the emergency lights came on.

"I'm only going to ask this once," the woman said, looking at the people around her. "Where is the relic you have stored here?"

"What relic?" an older man that was obviously in charged asked.

"It goes by the names the Mortal Sword or the First Blade. I know it's here because I can sense it."

"Then find the thing on your own. I refuse to help a thief."

Like a blur, the woman moved quickly and had the old man by the tie, lifting him out of his chair and dangling him off of his feet. "Unless you want to be choked to death by your own tie, I suggest you lead me there. I can't have your stupid minions trying to shoot me, so I need a human shield."

"Don't you mean you need a hostage?" he blubbered, sounding as if he was finally scared of what the crazy woman could do.

"No, I definitely meant human shield," she said with an evil little smile. When she finally saw him wave his arms around in panic as his face turned blue, she dropped him down on his feet and he crumpled to the floor. "Now, will you be so kind as to escort me to where I need to go?"

The boss coughed but nodded, standing up and offering his arm to her. With a grin of triumph, she looped her arm through his and practically dragged him along. The first sight that greeted them both when she opened the conference room door was a large group of men all dressed in body armor, pointing large guns at them both. With an evil little giggle that almost sounded playful, the woman darted behind the older man, tucking her wings so that they lay down flat against her back and the tips of her wings brushed the ground.

"I really don't think you want your precious boss man to die by your own hands," the woman told them all loudly, "so I suggest you move along. Go home."

The older man nodded at them and they slowly pointed their guns towards the floor. They moved to the sides to allow them both to pass, which they quickly did without much hassle. As they approached the elevator, there was a popping noise and the woman whipped around faster than any human ever could to snatch something out of the air. Examining the thing in her hand with the same disinterest she had earlier as her bangs fell over one eye, she saw it to be a bullet. The woman looked up angrily and the men with guns all gasped in shock as they saw that her eyes were glowing blood red.

"Which one of you idiots just shot at me?" she asked quietly.

All of them seemed to be rooted to the spot as one of their number stepped forward, looking absolutely petrified as he did so. The woman lifted her arm up, then made a twisting motion with her hand as the man's head snapped to the side, his neck broken instantly. His gun clattered to the floor as his lifeless body landed with a thump. There were some screams from the conference room as they caught sight of what just happened and the woman pushed her hostage to the elevator the doors opening without anyone touching the buttons. Once inside, the older man hit the button for the 50th floor, which was ten floors below them.

"Not exactly running a tight ship, Friedman," she growled. "Don't you know it's impolite to have someone shoot another person in the back? I could have been killed if I was a regular human."

"What are you exactly?" Friedman wondered out loud.

"That's a long story that you don't want the answer to, mister. It'll drive you insane."

The elevator reached the floor they wanted fast, the door opening to show the whitest hallway ever, which could only mean that this was a research floor. From the elevator, they could see another door that looked code protected. The woman dragged her hostage over to it, standing beside him rather impatiently as he punched in the numbers. The doors opened to reveal another set of doors down the hallway. Once they reached those, the doors required a fingerprint and retina scan. Now, the old man stopped in his tracks.

"I can't allow this," he said. "I can't just let you take the sword when we haven't even finished our research on it!"

The woman grabbed him by the collar, pulling him close enough so that their faces were only inches apart and that he could look at her red eyes up close. "Listen, old man, I'm being rather polite about this. Now, I don't need you alive to accomplish getting what I want. So unless you want me to cut out your eye and chop off one of your fingers before killing you, I suggest you do what I want and open those doors."

Friedman shivered in fear before turning around quickly to put his thumb on the sensor at the same time as he pressed his face close to the retinal scan. There was a beeping noise as it confirmed their passage, the door sliding open for them both. The lighting in this part of the hallway was dark, almost as if this were some secret tunnel that held a secret. They reached the end of the hallway to see a set of doors, the woman practically dragging the old man behind her as she made her way to the door at the farthest end of the hallway. She whipped the door open and startled a few scientists.

"Get out," was all the woman said, the scientists not bothering to argue with her as they scurried out of the room as fast as they could.

There was a large glass case in the very middle of the room, one that had what looked to be an obsidian sword. One side of the blade looked like a short sword while the other side had the look of a falchion. The woman looked at it fondly as if she were in the presence of an old friend. The blade then started to glow with an otherworldly light, as if it was just as happy to see the woman as she was to see the sword. A supersonic sound wave that lasted for only a few seconds shattered the glass case and sent the old man to his knees, covering his ears in pain. The sword started to flash excitedly as the woman approached it, then the light was constant as she picked it up and held it in her hands.

"Who are you?" Friedman asked, a look of fear on his face.

"My name is Deirdre," she said, turning her head slightly to stare at him with one eye, making him shake. "And I'm your worst nightmare."

She had her sword in her hands and before the old man thought to scream, she slashed the sword at his throat. He crumpled to the ground and she laughed, shaking her head slightly. She heard a noise up above her and saw that there was a man around her age sitting in an open vent a few feet above her.

"Was it necessary to scare him so, Dey?" he asked quietly, amusement flashing in his eyes. "He might have had a heart attack."

"He would have deserved it," Dey said scornfully, giving the passed out man a look of disdain. "You should have seen the way he acted. Not so tough when a woman is calling the shots."

The younger man sighed and stood upright, stretching his shoulders and revealing large white wings that seemed to glow. "You know," he said, giving her a look of desire that she purposefully ignored, "one of these days you should just stop fighting me and the deal we made years ago."

"I don't think so, Xavier," she said, looking at him with such hatred that he was lucky it didn't burn him alive. "If this is what keeps you from killing his reincarnations, I'll keep the deal."

"A little birdy told me that he reincarnated again and is in his twenties now," Xavier sneered, obviously trying to illicit hope or anger from her but getting a blank stare instead. "Maybe you should go meet him, see if you can't get him to fall in love with you again."

"I've done that enough and it goes nowhere that I want it to. He won't be immortal like us anymore, thanks to you."

"Well, that made it easier to eliminate the competition that I had. Now I have the rest of eternity to try to win you over so that you'll love me."

"That will never happen, not while I'm alive," she told him calmly, internally noticing with glee that it irritated him when she didn't give him an emotional reaction. In a safe act of defiance, she teleported from the room with the sword in one of the larger loops in her belt, winking out of existence before the other being could protest.