It was one of those days that most people would put on the label “great day!” in bright colours. It consisted of everything that would make most people’s morning just that much better: the sun was up, the air was warm and there wasn’t a single cloud on the sky over New York City - oh and the birds, let us not forget the birds: they sang the song of happiness that flew with the wind like its hosts. It was this song that was carried through her window by a weak breeze and woke up the girl within the room on the 7th floor in an ‘officially’ abandoned house that was positioned relatively close to South Street. The building was an old building that would have been torn down by the city council if it wasn’t for the fact that it was a popular residence for those that had no home, drug addicts and the poor. Among these different social groups there were of course also those that were on the edge with the law, and Evelyn Blackbourn - or ‘Eve’ as she went by in most circles - was just that kind of person: she was, in crude terms, a criminal. She didn’t have a job and barely did anything other than what she felt like - only robbing banks for the things she just couldn’t live without: sweets, coffee and liquor. Of course she could also steal these items without much trouble, but, at least for her beloved caffeine, you just couldn’t steal a proper Frappuccino - plus for some unknown reason Eve liked the interaction with the baristas, especially those at Starbucks.

It was this song of the birds that woke her up, the sun was blazing in through the half opened window and the sounds of life rushing by down in the streets were a soothing buzz that never died out in NYC. It took Eve a few seconds to realize where she was: it was bright, dry and she had a major hangover.

“Damnit!” She cried loudly, immediately regretting it as the echo of her own voice ricocheted back to her making her head throb even more that it had already been. “gaah…” she moaned, rocking back and forth on her bed with her hands rubbing her eye-sockets, “Why did I go to that club last night?” she groaned to herself, but soon it dawned on her: she had gotten so drunk with some people she met last night - and then went to a club with them.
Quickly she jumped up and tossed the rest of the blanket that covered her king-sized bed, a sigh of relief was the next thing that could be heard: she was alone.
“Well at least that is one good thing that went right” Eve laughed to herself, immediately regretting doing such a thing as the hammers inside of her head began working once again. 
“Ahh… coffee” she moaned holding her head with her right hand, “...coffee and a bath”.

Because Eve really didn’t have anything to do that day - she had robbed a small bank on the other side of the harbor the day before, which was the reason why she had felt she deserved a fun night out last night - so she took her time. After an hour and a half she was strolling down the sidewalk of one of the busier streets, in her hand was a freshly made Frappuccino she had just gotten from a Starbucks that was well known among the conduits for being… ‘nicer’ towards them; even going as far as treating conduits as actual workers, and the sun had settled in nicely in the blue sky - even for someone that was so filled up with rage as Evelyn Blackbourn, this was indeed a nice day.

But as Eve had come to know so well from her own life, things rarely stays the same - and in just seconds after Eve had started whistling the tunes that flowed into her ears from a pair of earphones, the sound was pierced with the sound of an all too well known sound: the shrieking of the conduit siren. Most people - even conduits - had started to fear this sound; it welcomed in the event of a rogue conduit causing problems through the streets of New York City - however Eve hated it for another reason: It was the symbol of the suppression of conduits, it signalled the call for conduits to go against their own wills and fight against people of their own kind. “You have the obligation to take care of you own!” - was what the spokesperson had said, but what a sham it truly was; it was just excuses to get conduits to fight conduits.
“Conduits versus conduits - the perfect showdown, coming to you on channel 4!” 
Eve could almost hear the excited broadcaster exclaim these words to the masses over the loud roars of the excited crowd. It made her feel like she was going to puke up that delicious Frappuccino she had just bought. 
“If society had really accepted conduits they should let us live as free beings” Eve muttered to herself, but of course this wasn’t a popular belief, even among conduits: most of them would rather live peacefully than to extend their hand out to what was rightfully theirs. “Ugh,” Eve coughed, “just the thought is giving me a bad taste…”
Shaking her head lightly - and thanking the painkillers for dulling her headache - she looked up, in order to gain an idea where this rogue conduit was having all the fun. Quickly she located the dull sounds of what appeared to be cars being thrown through the air and crashing into the street. She began to take a step forward with her right foot, but before her feet landed on the street she had disappeared, instead planting her foot on the rooftop of a building overlooking the area of the alarm: A tornado hurled through the streets of New York, tearing up anything in its way - and the awesome conduit causing all this chaos would have had so much more success if the siren hadn’t brought in the bloody X-men: soft and weak-norm-loving conduits that fought with all their might in order to bring down the one conduit that had dared to reach his hand towards freedom. It would go without saying that Eve didn’t participate in the fight; she didn’t see the point in defending the one conduit, nor did she feel like rescuing the weak - and she could care less for the reward money, if she needed them she could just steal them from the government. So instead she quickly disappeared yet again, this time arriving closer to the situation, and just in time to see something you don’t often get a chance to observe: a lightning bolt shot through the air, sending the rogue conduit flying into a nearby alleyway.
“Well well,” Eve mumbled to herself, taking a loud sip of her drink, “looks like the X-men won”, but instead of running away as she would usually do this extreme showcase of power had peaked her curiosity: who were the people making up this team of crime-fighters? With these questions in mind she trailed after what was presumably a burnt corpse by now, and arrived at a rooftop a few floors above the alleyway that the conduit had fallen into.
When she got there it wasn’t the increasing crowd that the event had summoned, the X-men nor the burning corpse. No, it was the man wearing a clean suit and the mask of her enemy that she would never forget: The Syndicate.

“The Syndicate sends it’s regards.” He said.

It wasn’t until the voice penetrated the air that Eve came back to the real world, as soon as she had laid her eyes on the figure any conduit would have known, her mind went blank. It was a mixture of fear and revenge: she wanted to kill everything this single being stood for, yet she also feared what the man could do to her. Her ears ringed with the sound of excitement, but before she could have done anything too drastic the man was swallowed by the shadows and had escaped her.

With a sigh she sat down, letting her legs hang off the edge of the roof, taking another loud sip of her delicious Frappuccino she watched the X-men break up, watching them intently as they began to depart - she wasn’t sure if any of them had spotted her, but she sure did watch them intently. 

“Well done X-men” she said with a big grin that would fit that of a hunter, “seems like you took down the big bad conduit, but I do wonder if you dare going against that monster…” she wondered to herself. That was the first time that she had seen The Syndicate with her own eyes - and they were just the monster she had thought they were. 
"Now," she spoke a little louder, "I wonder what will happen at Cinder..."
With each word spoken, her grin grew bigger.