"How can this be?" Brent repeated for the third time. "We shouldn't be entering New York for at least another eight hours, did the Witchblade get us here this quickly?" he inquired of Ginger.
"I've never experienced or heard of the Witchblade involving itself in any aspect af time travel, the only time it did was just after it's birth and it was assisted by a great sorcerer."

"I think this came from a different source and judging by the way I've been feeling of late, I think I know where our speed came from." As the car approached Jackie Estacado's house there was a tremendous flash of Light and Brent had to shield his eyes, "Jesus Christ what was that!?" he exclaimed.
Ginger sighed but her hands tightened on the steering wheel, her voice showed her stress. "That," she said, "Is a fight between the parents of the Witchblade."
At Brent's blank look she explained, "The Witchblade is the offspring of the two primal forces in the universe — The Angelus (The Light) and The Darkness. In some circles, it is known as the Balance as it balances these two forces."

Brent looked thoughtful, "So the Witchblade senses 'a disturbance in the force' and leads you to the ones who are causing said problem."
Ginger smiled, "Pretty much."
"That still doesn't explain how we got here so quickly," he said.
"I have a theory Ginger replied, theAngelus has an ability for interdimensional travel it's possible that she might have called but," she carried on with a frown " highly unlikely.
"Wait I'm a bit lost here, why unlikely?"
"Well for one thing, the Angelus doesn't have a full grasp of comradeship, she has her warriors of Light and doesn't think she needs anyone else. She doesn't really care about people unless they can be used to help her in her mission, to rid the world of the Darkness. When she needs to use a physical body she will eventually take over that body completely and it will lose whatever personality that the being inside it had before The Angelus arrived."

Brent looked horrified, "That's like destroying a soul!"
"To the Angelus souls are what She's saving from The Darkness. To Her if one soul must be sacrificed for the greater good, that's acceptable."
"Then why do you think there's a possibility that we got here so quickly because of her?"
Ginger got a strange look in her eyes. "Soon after we left for Texas, before we changed direction to NewYork, I began to feel this heat, it didn't seem to come from anywhere I could see and no one around me had taken to wearing different clothes because it was too hot. I gathered that it must be only me feeling this way. That heat could have been the energetic leak of an inter-dimensional rift caused by the Angelus."

"Then if the Angelus is doing that, which you say is unlikely, something must have changed." he concluded.
"Mmhmm," she replied her mind obviously elsewhere.
As the Mercedes came to a stop there was a loud roar of an engine and a thud on the roof. Then the roof began to rise. At first Brent was puzzled until he realized something was pulling the roof off the car. Five seconds later the he saw the ambomination.

IT WAS A VAMPIRE! An honest to god vampire right out of the movies, or rather Buffy, only uglier. He looked over at Ginger only to find that she was no longer there, instead he saw her flying out of the car and knocking the creature backwards. He was stunned as this wasn't the sweet Ginger who had been his neighbour, this was a ferocious warrior with combat skills honed in the heat of battle. At that moment he didn't know her, at that moment she frightened him. But Brent was a seasoned marine he shook off his hesitation and moved to assist her if he could..

"Well, well, if it isn't our wayward offspring," said the vampire. Ginger looked puzzled as she said, "How can there be two of you?"
"It's a sign of the times," it laughed, "...and I'm evolving. The world grows more chaotic and so does my influence."
"So it seems that I'm not assisting you this time, that a relief!"
"Oh you and your ideas of balance are outdated just like the Light. Soon I will take everything back and then all will be as it should have been aeons ago. Darkness will reign!"

Brent had been quietly sneaking behind the vampires back and was preparing an attack when the creature turned to face him. "You idiot," it sneered, "you can't sneak up on me! Maybe you could on an ordinary vampire but I, I am the Darkness!
Brent had never understood why so many superpowered madmen liked to monologue but he was grateful for this because it had distracted the vampire from Ginger who now attacked it from behind.

She appeared to be covered in an armor which seemed to be as flexible as she was. It seemed to to grow and shoot toward the creature like arrows and then it penetrated the body of the vampire in two separate areas. The strands of the witchblade began to pull in separate directions and the vampire's body was ripped apart. Brent threw up in the bushes.

"Come on," she urged, "he won't stay dead for long, follow me."
They ran toward the house where sounds of fighting had been coming from but suddenly ceased and in it's place screams rent the air.

* * *

Vampirella knew what was happening, it had taken her a while to figure it out but now that she had she could only hope that they could battle the Darkness without her. She had learned of the rogue vampire death from her mother. For some reason her mother was saddened by his death but, for some reason wouldn't explain her sadness. Ella accepted that Satanna would talk about it in her own time, so she didn't push her.

She did however, piece together that this new vampire that had attacked her was the dark magician that she had heard rumours about. She figured that the rogue had probably awoken the dormant vampire gene which would have changed him. She had assumed that the new vampire had killed the rogue, but that was before the visit from James White-Eagle.

She wasn't quite sure how he found them, she asked but he didn't give a very straightforward answer. All she knew was that he knew a family of daywalkers in New York City and they told him about the new vampirella. But nobody, exept for the council knew exactly where she stayed each night and she would know if somebody had told the sorcerer. So she could only presume that he had used magic to find her.

White- Eagle had been born in 1310 A.D and had been the shaman of a small part of the Navajo nation. In his 33th year of life on earth he was given the choice of serving the world instead of just his own small community and after faking his own death he left the shores of what would one day become known as the United States of America, to study sorcery, healing, alchemy, religion and spirituality in the many different countries around the world.

He'd arrived on her doorstep without alerting anyone and surprised her by telling them everything that had happened in Arizona. At first she was put out that a human was able to find her but the longer they spoke the more impressed she became with the man.

White -Eagle it seemed, knew precisely what happened to the rogue, he also explained to her that theDarkness had over-extended Itself and there was a chance that It could lose much of It's hold on the world. However this had to be done before It got used to having two hosts.

He explained to her that because Darko was now also a host for the Darkness, Estacado would be the weak link because the Demon of the void would be concentrating on gaining control of the new host. She would need to deal with the new host of the Darkness, but only after he got overconfident.
Their whole strategy hinged on the Witchblade.

* * *

Stephanie stared at the Angelus and the Darkness, she glanced at the sleeping Bablioni and looked back at the two entities that seemed to be writhing in agony. Her friend was in pain and she didn't know what to do. Suddenly their cries of pain stopped and Estacado and Dani collapsed.and into the room stepped a new player, an extremly handsome man, with red skin that seemed to glow with fiery heat. She couldn't be sure, but it looked like his hair was concealing something.

She was about to run forward to see if Dani was okay but strong arms grabbed her from behind, "Don't be a fool!" Ginger snapped as she held Stephanie back. She struggled against Ginger's grip but couldn't run forward. She released pheremones but nothing happened. Eventually she just resorted to begging, "Please, she's my best friend." Ginger's arms loosened but didn't let go. She turned Steph around and looked in her eyes.
"Don't worry about her, she's been through worse than this."
Steph wasn't convinced, "How do you know?"
Ginger smiled a smile that had no humour in it, "Because she's my mother."

It took a while for what the woman said to register in Stephanie's mind. "That's not possible she's younger than you." Steph retorted.
"I am talking about the little trinket that is now a part of me- the Witchblade. The Angelus is the Witchblade's mother."
Ginger didn't want to tell the girl that the Angelus had probably consumed her friend, but that was her modus operandi: Obtaining a new body and then taking control.
"Okay, she's your mother, but she's different now, she shares my friends body."
Ginger sighed, "You see that guy over there who just appeared out of no where?"
Steph nodded.
"You don't want anything to do with him."
"Why?" she asked
The reply came, "Lucifer is very unpredictable."

* * *

It burned. He felt it burning, a part of him that had not felt pain for eons. He had once been Adam, but jealousy drove him to the ultimate folly. He had surrendered his soul in order to extract revenge.
'The person who coined the saying 'revenge is sweet' probably regrets it.' This flashed through his mind. Did he just think that he wondered. He was amazed to realise that he did. After so long not having access to his own mind Adam was suddenly aware of himself again.

* * *

Jackie Estacado burned. It was painful but it felt good.
In the haze of pain he saw exactly what the Darkness was and his mind trembled in fear. It had destroyed each and every one of it's former hosts corrupting them until their spirit was so stained that the only way to cleanse themselves was with celestial fire, which the Darkness thought would never happen while the Angelus and Itself were at odds. And so while the male and female aspects of these forces were drawn together, the demon of the void kept them apart. And to do this it began a gender war.

The plan was actually one of the cleverer things that the Darkness acheived, but It never took into account that the plan was going to fail when men wanted to be women and women wanted to be men. It never took into account female brains in male bodies and vice- versa and it definitely didn't take into account the meta- gene gender switch.

And so it was that the soul that had been Adam rejoined it's higher-self, Lucifer. The body that had been Adam and was twisted to house the Darkness was incinerated in celestial flame. Jackie Estacado suddenly found himself free of the cloying senseof being beholden to the Darkess and he breathed a sigh of relief.

* * *

Danielle Baptise had tears streaming down her face but she wasn't in pain...at least not physically. She had seen everything that Estacado had seen. And mourned the loss of somethingthat she didn't even realise had been stolen. The Devil walked up to her and softly cupped her face. I made a mistake and hopefully have now rectified it. The Darkness is still here but it is greatly weakened you now have help in a fight that is almost over."

Suddenly he disappeared into thin air.

Lillith then spoke to her from the depths of her being, "It is now done, I am needed no longer. Finally I shall go home with Lucifer for he is no longer the devil but the angel that has climbed back from his fall. You, my darling soul, " she said to Dani, "now need to bear all the responsibilities of the Angelus on the mortal plane." With those final words she was gone and Dani felt an emptiness in the part of her where she had unknowingly shared space with another soul.

* * *

Ella waited for White -Eagle to tell her when the time came for her to enter the fray. She was standing by the gates leading into Estacado's mansion when a being that could only be Satanna's father appeared. Ella felt a sudden surge of attraction to this man,which she quickly pushed down. 'Good god Ella, he's your grandfather' she thought.
"Greetings daughter, Satanna has been trying to hide you from me but I wished to see you one time before I leave this realm."
Ella, tried to get over what he had just said, "Don't you mean grand-daughter?"
The man who was the devil no longer laughed, "Good heavens child no, is that what she told you?
No, no, no - Anna is my daughter-wife."
"I'm a product of incest?" Ella was appalled.
"I suppose if you could put it like that if you wanted to, but that's a very human way of looking at it."
"...But, but, but..." she was flabbergasted.
It's not as bad as humans think, the only reason it's frowned on in human society is because of how genetics work. We are different to humans, immortals on the mortal plane. Genetics play no part in immortals. Just know that I have always loved your mother as she has me. It was only recently that she decided to play in human affairs and left shortly after you were conceived."

Ella still didn't understand how that had occured , turning her from a grown half-human hermaphrodite into a grown vampire woman. "But how..."
"Hush" said Lucifer, "listen to me for this is important."
"I am returning to what many humans call heaven, however that is just another word for home. The devil has played an important part in the maintaining a certain balance in the order of things on earth. Now that I am leaving there will be a power vacuum, I leave it up to you and Satanna to ensure that it does not get out of hand."
"But that's unreasonable," she screamed in a panic, "I have no experience in that. I don't want to be in charge of a hell!"
"My dear girl, you are a divine child of angels, look within yourself and you will find the answers." He cupped her face and kissed her, when they parted she was utterly confused, but before she could think about it further, he vanished.
"...lla, Vampirella where are you?" It was James.
"I'm here," she replied. "I got a bit sidetracked"
"Well, I've been trying to contact you for the last ten minutes, I only hope it's not to late. Go . You're on."

Dying had been really painful and Darko was angry, "Stupid bint thinks that's enough to stop me! I'll show her." With all of the commotion going on Darko was able to sneak up to the Witchblade bearer unnoticed.

Ginger and was next to Stephanie facing away from Darko so she never saw him coming. Only Brent who was too far away to truly discern what was going on clearly saw the figure glide up to Ginger and plunge the blade of darkness into her back.

The vampire crowed in triumph as Vampirella looked on in horror. She realised she had arrived to late.