16317/Bludgeon Thy Blade

Bludgeon Thy Blade
Date of Scene:	13 November 2023
Location:	Hell's Kitchen
Synopsis:	Illyana Rastuptina faces off in Limbo against an intruder. A clash of blades for skulls turns very literal as Illyana remains the Queen of Limbo.
Cast of Characters:	Natasha Romanoff, Illyana Rasputina

---

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
It's a dark, dark night in Hell's Kitchen. Tonight, the area lives up to it's name in a literal way. Along one of the abandoned side streets, in a metaphorical slaughterhouse - in the sense of carved up chunks of human flesh that hung down from the ceiling of it like they were animals prepared for the market there was the stench of hellfire. Through the barbed guts and strewn intestines, there was fire. There was a scream. And a rage of glee over as -something- twisted came up from the underrealms.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Being who she is, Illyana rarely needs a lawyer or to attend church. Hell Lords might actually burn walking on the right kind of sanctified ground. She isn't quite in that league of infernally damned, having three-fifths and one smidge of her soul intact. Fangtasia, however, remains under the icy blonde's scrutiny for the evening. Why she happens to care about the ramshackle club serving an undead-loving clientele is her own business, but the reasons still keep her in the vicinity of a place where cosplayers wish they had fangs, drank blood, and wrote fanfic about twinkly people. Not everyone there plays nice.

Alas, the evening's excitement appears not to come from that direction but, instead, another altogether: specifically, a spot where the crackle of fire from an otherworldly source pulls wrong. Her soul isn't good enough to hurt in its presence, per se. But a lifetime in Limbo -- comparatively -- teaches her many things. Like this is a problem.

With a quick step, she starts to move, orienting on the source of that scream.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
From the charnel house of what were bodies left over for disposal by one of the Yakuza or Mafia families, out came what could be best described as a.. Demonic samurai. With an empty skull sheathed by flame, a body made in faded armor, a large dome like helmet on his frame and two hands clasped over wearing heavy gauntlets would rise up and out of the sizzling forms that were already going up in ashes, along with whatever useful things a forensics department might have found helpful tracking dwon whomever had left a dozen bodies literally hanging.

the beast would let out a high pitched cackle, of madness and morbidity. "Close enough. Close enough." It coming off hissing, twisting over and fading into the air, the voice disharmonious.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The scent alone would tell it apart from the normal routine in the city. How many places boast the reek of sulphur, the sick-sweet roasted hue of human flesh? Firefighters and other first responders know that probably all too intimately, burn warden nurses and doctors familiar with its after effects but not the fresh instinct.

Illyana, too, has knowledge obtained by other means, worse ones. She long since lost the means for her gorge to rise. One doesn't live in any layer of Hell, even Limbo, without growing uncomfortably accustomed to the stench. To identifying it anyway.

She hurries a few more steps to the left, zigzagging out of easy sight. Shadows swallow her into the network of alleyways that make Hell's Kitchen such a rats nest for cops, a playground for the Defenders. No Devil of Hell's Kitchen showing up today. Her expression changes as she adjusts to the dark, getting her bearings. The long coat she wears -- her husband's, not hers -- covers the coalescing shift of her clothing into armour and the reach for a spell never too far at hand to further reinforce her defenses. It hardens, almost in sight, almost a disk of light when it needs to be. Tap, tap, go her heels.

"Oh noooo," she moans like a fearful girl in a horror movie. "Where am I? What... maybe over here?"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The -thing- would creep out and over, the shack melting over along it and sending ashes scattered around. The literal demon-kin would take a glance over at Illyana. Then.. Of all things go to bow on down towards the ground, as if to go down to one knee before rising up.

"Ashmaker of Limbo." He would say as if that title held any sort of meaning more than Queen. Then again, the one that sent everything in Limbo to ruin was apt in it's own way. It would rise over, it's hands going over to a neutral stance, heavy metallic feet anchored over into the ground, the helm sizzling over as the skull within would have ti's jaws rise up in a feral looking grin.

"This culling was not your doing?" Even as embers of the bodies would be blasted off in the wind.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Ashes blow around and skitter. The swirling haloes they trace on the ground is disturbingly irregular, almost hypnotic in their strange fashion. Even in the most hideous moments can there be a beauty found, chaos plucked from the void. Proof that she isn't so far fallen as she could be, perhaps, that she knows to look for those things and not find them in broken bones splayed at irregular angles and split flesh gaping a bloody smile.

It bows and she stares at it through those ice-pale eyes, rendering Siberia a hot desert by comparison. Her hands remain at her sides but the sparkling sheen of magic threads just out of sight. "What brings you here?" The question lacks the girlish shyness evident a moment before, because that thing is present. "Do you hunt or has another come before you?"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
It gives her a bow, and then rises up. "For sport. For a challenge. I come to find one skilled enough to cast me back down to the pit. Or those unworthy for me to dismember and scatter thier bones across this plane." It's tone is entirely respectful over to her.

It is here to hunt in less the way that Kraven might but more like a Ronin seeking to slaughter any adversary to see if they were skilled enough to survive.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The Demon Queen thumbs the hem of her coat. The sleeve falls too long for her, something that a skilled opponent might take advantage of. Then again, the man wearing it stands a good few inches taller than she is. Only stands to reason his excellent garments need a little trim and hemming. Her mouth finds a bleak smirk as black as nightfall, obsidian edges to cut deep.

"And this?" A flick of movement indicates the wreckage, the scream. "Whose victim?"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The demon-samurai would shrug. "It matters not. The carnage was merely useful enough to use to break through." Dead meat puppets were beneath him after all. Not his affair. But a bunch of bodies dismembered did make for a lovely shriek in reality for one sensitive to slaughter to break through in.

"Do you come to cast me back or to test my blade?"

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Dead meat puppets, dismembered beings. They would not be the words she chooses to use.

Illyana frankly isn't interested in bandying replies or ripostes at all. She isn't Deadpool.

She snaps her wrist up and a vicious line of silver-white fire pours out from the wound in reality that follows her. Thought gives volition to the stepping disk that engulfs them both if it isn't fast enough to dodge. Flame and fury welded into splitting them both into the shell of Limbo is entirely her aim.

Only then will she dare to laugh: "Do you know who Stephen Strange is?"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
There would be a c ackle of glee over from the demonic samurai as the two go to teleport down to Limbo as he goes to take out a long, warped looking blade. Far too long to be a standard one, etched with barbs and poison.

"I do not CARE!" He would roar over, and then go to slash at Illyana even before the two had fully appeared in her home domain! The blade would slash, snuffing out molecules along the way as hellfire would blast from it as he would charge at her! His bladework bloody and precise!

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Limbo is her realm. Limbo is Illyana and Illyana contains that realm within her to a terrifying degree.

Hell's Kitchen fades out of sight, stars vanished, skies turned from darkness to an immutably strange shade of vicious copper-orange and streaming scarlet partly because the Demon Queen actually celebrates autumn in these parts. Pinnacles and hoodoos sculpted from volcanic rock shape deadly spires that a man could easily end up impaled on, bleeding out, hundreds of feet beyond the valley floor. Here the serrated quality of the stone reflects a forest, dancing rock shaped by aeolian forces rather than natural ones.

"You should. You walked in his realm," she replies, sidestepping and bringing forth a spinning shield disk in both hands. "Killed his people. He takes it personally, da? Me? I just take you apart at the atomic level. Him, he redeems you and puts you in a box."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The demonic samurai would laugh. "But HE is not here to press the claim. You are, Ashmaker. And what are the bodies that I have strewn compared to the ones of you? Of him? how many endless legions have the two of you left dismembered and dispatched? Those of us of the udnerrealms could never approach your carnage for want or will, even if we had a hundred thousand eons of misery to equal to!" He goes to charge at her, slashing as her shield goes to easily take the strike. "For what are the few millions we could dream of compared to the slaughter of entire universes like you can?" He's shrieking over in mad laughter, going to strike at her again and again! "I can only bask in the grandeur of the one that files away obliterated universes and needs a system to keep track!" Striking again and again, to no avail.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The smirk deepens a fraction, and the sorceress maintains that shield with aplomb. It may not be the depth of Strange's -- for who can really match him, pound for pound, defensively? Not that she intends to. Belasco sought her out from something else. The world shuddered when she extracted the portion of her undamned soul for this purpose.

Promise it's not Limbo popcorn night and movie shenanigans.

The strikes dance off her shield long enough for the ronin monstrosity to feel like he's achieving something, because even deranged demons deserve their opportunity to excel! To feel accomplished in the face of tremendous risk, for coming to Earth inevitably is.

He pushes her back, slamming into that shield and producing a welter of sparks for the energy she has to feed into it. Fast and quick, laughing even, what a beautiful sight to disappoint him no doubt. For as fast as he is -- and the samurai must surely be fast -- his opponent is equally a master at her chosen art.

Which is pulling forth the Soulsword and dipping into a portal, leaving a multitude open for him to guess where she'll show up next.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
All he's here for is the duel. The fight. He engages. He charges. She goes to efficiently move to bait him towards the portal, even as he's on the defensive now, as her strikes go rapidfire. Even one as skilled as he cannot stop all of them. They slash thorugh his armor, goguing out chunks that melt and scald, seeming to turn to stone-lead beneath. He grins macabrely.

Then he goes to fire out a spike from a hand on a chain! It goes shooting over at Illyana on a long weight and chain! It would miss her even as she's going on the offensive. The intent of the Fallen Samurai is to take that moment where instinct and training go to track the thing flying past, to get ready to brace against it in case there's a followup, and attention is ever so faintly circulated over to it..

Then.. "FOOL!" As he goes to give her an attempted brutal roundhouse kick to hopefully strike her over in the middle, power on it! A long scythe-like blade snapping out of the ankle to try and skewer her with a barb on the upstrike! Even as behind her head or to the side if she didn't fully evade it the chain-spike would rapidly retract!

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Ever so many shiny things to chase, except that Illyana tends to not be the sort to chase. Sending the Soulsword through a portal is one favourite routine, but so is falling back through those self-same gaps in Limbo's reality to bunnyhop out of trouble. She has no issues with fighting up close or even at range, though relying on the equivalent of a magic missile is... tawdry, really.

The danger too is trying to pierce through that armour of hers, fully on display when she dances across her realm with the demon in hot pursuit. She has no cool cloak, no Sentry belt or Wolverine claws. That armour, a lot like her brother's, is exceptional at resisting stabby things. And pokey things. So whilst the chain might wrap around her, it still has to somehow try to break through, and her armoured boots and armoured arms and other armoured bits are actually fairly good about not being torn to pieces.

Then comes that portal business. Again. WITH the chain.

Until there's no portal, and yes, while he bruised her, his weapon is now in segments perhaps.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
His weapon goes to hit her. She's bruised. Perhaps at most. The type of injury that likely she could heal fairly cleanly if she even had to. His weapon is destroyed, it crakcing under the power of the strike. With her magic, it won't be something he can reforge until it's too late. He goes to grin over at her.

There's a savage respect to his posture. "Come then, Ashmaker! Let us finish this!" Hilt of weapon in hand, he goes to hold himself at regal readiness. With but just the jagged eges of it, whatever or so several centimeters of blade are left.. He goes to a formal position. Ready.

One final exchange. One final strike. One final pass. Held and ready to charge at her.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
His weapon may be in pieces, but it's not as if she trusts that. Eventually she might toss them Strange's way to box up and to ward, but the Demon Queen has more important things to face down, like the risk of eager demons showing up to sing in untuned choruses or a large, disgusting slug deciding to come take a good bite out of the creatures stamping over its lair.

Limbo can be rather gross.

One final exchange is wanted by the leering samurai, and if she were honorable, Illyana might answer him fairly. He grins -- not much choice with that face -- and she doesn't even bother to salute him. The ground twists and shivers slightly, and when he goes charging at her--

--rock becomes sucking mud. Broken spindles collapse, forming a forest of jagged little caltrop outcroppings amidst a quagmire, and the only solid ground of any consequence is the one she perches upon. Her sword remains poised for a counterstrike as he runs, wades, or gets swallowed in unstable watery peat up to the nose-hole, partly because she is atrociously unfair. Maybe he can skitter across it like some kind of bug, and approach unfazed. Either way, she doesn't hesitate to perform a nasty little lunge and reverse strike at his bony torso.

A Bony M deep cut, you might say.