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Hel - Mistress of the Underworld

She felt so elegant looking down at the silly little flies buzzing all around her, their tiny wings beating as they struggled so very hard to survive with the shadow of their doom looming over them. It was a high that she hadn't had the privilege of enjoying in quite some time, the thrill of the battle against a horde of enemies, and while she had plenty of fun when she tore down the impure souls that came under her care in the Underworld, there was nothing quite like picking apart a hopeful little human, still so full of life, hoping against hope that fate would intervene and free them from their impossible plight! Oh, how she relished the stunned looks of surprise on their faces when they saw what she could do with her hands, her long, feminine (bone) fingers...if only they could endure her touch, she would love to show them some of the other things that she could do to them. Alas, there was not a man alive (or dead) that could feel her caress and not wither into dust; all things died, and when they died they fell into her dominion. Still, work and play were two different things, and even when she tried so hard to mix them for her pleasure it just didn't have the same oomph, the same pizazz that she was looking for in her life. That was what made this little battle oh-so-sweet. And when their eyes widened, awe coming over them as they saw the limbs of her foes turned to dust inside her palm? Delicious! She almost wanted to eat them up where they stood right now...but she could wait, could pick at them bit-by-bit, for none of them as they were posed much of a threat. It wasn't good to gorge, after all, and completely unladylike. She should moderate such a rare treat, and enjoy it slowly. One limb here, another limb there...soon enough, she would finish them all. All in due time...it wasn't her fault if they couldn't last, right?

Of course, just because she wasn't in a rush to eat them didn't mean they weren't in a rush to be eaten. On either side of her she saw the red-haired doll and the inky-haired wacko closing in on her, aiming almost too obviously for her hands and some manner of incapacitating them. Were they really that naive? Her fleshy fingers curled around the hilt of the wakizashi and her eye narrowed in concentration, but her half-mouth lips curled into an amused smile as he laughter echoed throughout the area again, mocking and light as ever.

"Too clumsy, my dears," she sang as she twisted her body at the last possible second, placing her back to either of them and bending at the knees into an elegant crouch as she drew her wakizashi to block the ripping claw of the red head and let the sharp teeth of the Ivy Sting wrap itself around her Necrotic Hand, the very claws slowly rotting and turning to dust even as her fingers seized the weapon so that it couldn't escape. What happened next was a move that only a truly precise and devilish fiend could have managed, a backflip out of the crouch down the icy slope, but with her sword and hand she tugged at the trapped weapons of her enemies and jerked their arms before they could release their weapons. Smoothly pulling them into position, it was their eyes which were blinded by the Flash Grenade, their bodies which absorbed the endless torrent of bullets, and by the time that the torrent ended, the damage was done enough that Hel felt no remorse at tugging back again and flinging the two ragged, bullet-ridden bodies to either side of her, ruthlessly slamming them against the icy towers of buildings on either side of the street from the Dojima House. Now there was nothing standing between she and the masked mercenary with the motor-mouth, and nothing to shield her from his sudden rush of katana blades save her own short wakizashi.

And yet, that was all she needed...a single, perfectly-placed insertion of her blade blocked the unpredictable arcs of both his weapons, his forward momentum stopped by a raised knee crammed shin-deep into the most sensitive part of his anatomy. The smirk on her lips as she glanced at him, her one human eye peering out of the corner towards him as she leaned forward, close enough to his cheek that he could feel her breath...and as she exhaled, rather than feeling the skin beneath his mask grow warmer it was suddenly deathly cold, the material of his mask on that side already rotting...as the skin beneath turned black and began to spread. "Hello there, Tiger," an airy giggle followed as she slowly raised her bone fingers up before him, lightly reaching out as if to touch his face once more...only then to feel the sudden descent of the real coup de grace of this round of attacks bear down on her...the impossibly intense heat of the Magma Axis flames. They hit and burned with heat that would have straight-melted the house concealed beneath the ice at her feet, and no doubt if the masked 'hero' with the rotting face didn't take this as his cue to escape, he would be melting right along with it. However, just like the Meltdown and the Agilao prior, these flames did not melt the bone or the flesh of the Mistress of the Underworld, nor did they temper the frozen ground which lay beneath her feet. Standing still, rather than running or dodging, her amused expression erupted into a rather excited chorus of laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Hadn't they learned anything yet? Anything at all?

"Oh, I was getting a little annoyed with all this, but now I'm having too much fun," the dangerous devil laughed, mirthful and devious as she replaced her weapon in its sheath with one hand (perhaps a hint at the quickdraw style which had allowed her to counter the zhua strike earlier with such efficiency), the last dusty remnants of the teeth of Yoshizo's unique weapon sprinkling to the ice from the palm of her other, "Wriggle all you like, little worms! I'll be planting you back into the dirt very soon, and I'd just love it if you could entertain me a bit more."

Hel - Mistress of the Underworld

She supposed it would be too much to hope that they would simply give up and let her have her way with them, but then again, she really didn't mind the struggle each of them put up as they were picked apart bit-by-bit. In fact, she rather liked toying with them, exerting her dominance over each and every one of them so thoroughly that by the time she was through, they would never again question just whom they would ever call their Mistress. Gripping suddenly the masked man suffering the pain only a guy would feel, she tossed him by the back of his costume to the bottom of the icy hill at the top of the frozen-over Dojima Residence. It was starting to get the feel of a particularly one-sided game of King of the Hill, or Queen of the Hill in this case, and as each of them charged up at her with their different attacks she turned them away and left them bruised (or worse) for their troubles, laughing all the while. Now as her latest victim crashed into the ice below, she couldn't help but notice that they were still coming after her with such hopeful looks of confidence on their faces. They were just precious, weren't they? "You all have such spirit, I'm touched," the half-skeletal Mistress of the Underworld mocked gaily as the little flies began buzzing about her again, one moving slowly (what she must have thought was fast) into place behind her, one ripping away a large pole in front of her with the intention to...use it as a club?...and the others were again going through their predictable pattern of chaotic attacks, none of any concern to her as far as she could tell, "but everything I touch falls to decay. Even. You." Punctuating her last two words playfully, she pointed her bony finger at each of them in-turn...stopping only when she felt that the girl at her back had decided to make her move. Using Light against her...it was the logical choice, she supposed, but really? How cliche`! She was much more beautiful than the demons you would read about, fearful of the light and gross and/or hideous in appearance! What need had she to fear of Light when she looked so, so...fabulous?! She could have laughed as the Nirvana washed over her, whatever effect it had leaving no visible marks upon the devil's skin. If that was all she had to offer, she was hardly a worthy plaything, and she had even gone and attacked from the back. "Have you no shame?" she taunted in a girlish voice over her shoulder, as if teasing the fact that she would stoop to that level and still come out with such minimal results...of course, her taunting couldn't last as the next torrent had begun, starting with the launching of a fairly dangerous-looking light pole shooting in her direction like a rocket-propelled harpoon. She supposed that to parry this one wasn't going to be possible with just her little wakizashi...troublesome little beastie, that girl was.

Or maybe annoying was a better word? Hel considered which sounded better to her as she ducked to the right of the oncoming projectile and, as it passed, reached up and touched the side smoothly (and incredibly swiftly) with the tip of her bony fingers...the pole reducing itself to ash in mid-air just before it landed on the far side of the house (and in the line of sight of the girl who had run behind her).

Slowly but surely, she was indeed following through on her promise to tear down her foes until there was barely anything of them left, but as she noticed the red-haired girl keep herself on the verge of death (as opposed to fully embracing it) with a spell and the sensed the sneaky regeneration of the zombie with the missing leg, she couldn't help but think this was going to take a bit longer than she intended at the current rate. Her move to the side had avoided the launched projectile, but put her more dangerously in the path of Yoshizo's tentacle and whip-sword attack. She hadn't missed them, of course, but judged that the tentacle was the lesser of two evils almost instantly; drawing her blade in a flash with her living arm, the tentacle severed and flopped hopelessly past her back, allowing her to avoid the flinging of his whip-sword around her wrist...a move that was better luck for him than her, since his sword would have indeed turned to dust had it connected with her bony hand. Fast as she was, however, all this moving had delayed the other moves she hoped to use, and instead of closing the distance between she and her enemies she felt a Primal Force bearing down on her...then a strike of lightning crashing down after that. Dust instantly exploded from the ice beneath her feet and atop the house in a cloud as the two struck home; the vision of her eye obscured from view so that they could not see whether their attacks had truly cracked her shell or not. A few moments passed...the dust settled...and she still stood there moments later, looking no less damaged than before (whether or not she had been hurt despite that, only she could say). Stepping forward to the edge of the ice's ledge, she looked down at them with a mixture of amusement and disdain and when she spoke, both were evident in her tone.

"You're all so boring, I think just fell asleep there for an instant. I should thank those who handsome little devils for waking me up," she laughed, airily again, as she raised her bony finger and pointed down at the assembled crowd below, "you all think you've got me figured out, don't you? All employing the same tactic, praying that I don't come your way...it's really quite pathetic." Her voice was deadpan and flat, honest, and cutting. Scanning the crowd with her finger as if deciding which one to select, she decided to make a game of it...and began counting off in a sing-song voice as she closed in on the first one she had decided to move against. "Eeny, meanie, miney, mo~" she counted as she pointed at a different enemy with each count, "who will be the first to get a real show?"

Her count ended...the cold finger of death had fallen upon its victim...