Name: Helena Bertinelli

Alias: The Huntress

Origin:

Helena Bertinelli was born a princess in a Mafia Empire she blissfully knew nothing of. She knew her parents loved her, and her family loved to get together at her father's house. They would descend their home in Gotham Heights to see musicals in the city, or go to the zoo, or the circus, or the museums to see the dinosaur bones.

It was a happy childhood, until the day cruel men in black masks kidnapped her right after school ended at Saint Sebestation's in the Heights.

What exactly happened to Helena is hard to work out. Police reports suggest various mental and physical traumas, but Don Bertinelli pulled whatever strings necessary to ensure no one would examine his baby girl and put that filth on a report any of his enemies could pay some clerk to get ahold of. Her father told her to put it behind her, that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger", and encouraged her not to speak of it again.

Not even a year later, a van full of masked gunmen burst into the Bertinelli estate in Gotham Heights, and murdered every living member of the Gotham City Bertinelli family. All except the little girl too numb to be scared; without fear little Helena could think, slipping under the corpse of a still bleeding uncle.

Immediately after Helena was returned to the Sicilian Bertinelli clan, the "mother clan." There was talk of marrying Helena off to a distant cousin, or a rapid riser in the Sicilian scene. It was then one of the greatest assassins of the early 20th century, Giovanni Bertinelli, took Helena with him one early morning to hunt fowl.

Giovanni would later admit perhaps he was pushing himself to find something when he took the girl hunting that morning. His own parents had been murdered in a war within the Cosa Nostra. He knew that drive for vengeance. Just as much as he knew a natural born killer when he saw one; and in Helena, he saw it in spades.

Helena Bertinelli had no childhood after that day. Her training began immediately and unrestricted. She holds a degree in Corporate Communications from the Sorbonne, and both a masters and PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics. She achieved this by the age of 22 while receiving training in secret from Giovanni and Lady Shiva.

Where her father was a quick minded and ruthless businessman and Don, Helena had become a true master in the art and science of international business. Applying such radical approaches to business as the Theory of Constraints, Lean theory, and Six Sigma, Helena bought failing and crumbling business after failing and crumbling business only to turn downsize, raise product quality, and worker efficiency...and in turn cost efficiency of the bottom line. Sometimes called a 'corporate terrorist', the result was nearly inevitable, what businesses would assist her the most in her ultimate goals were kept while all others were sold off piece by piece to the highest bidder.

When Helena Bertinelli returned to Gotham City it was on the cover of Business Week and being covered by Bloomberg and CNN. Using the ultimate power broker of money, Helena used to the fact that she could make more of it than anyone else available to usher her return to not only the Gotham Mafia, but to the American Mafia as a

whole. Now the majority owner but never direct manager of multi corporations, Helena has turned her focus squarely on Gotham City's Mafia...and her quest to ruin it from the inside-out. Taking on the mission given to her by God the day she played dead under the corpse of an uncle, Helena has decided a theatrical method of hitting the Mafia from the outside while secretly exposing and bleeding them from the inside by taking on the mantle of a former feared and dangerous enemy of the Gotham City Mafia: The Huntress.

She is neither villain or hero, merely a very dangerous and resourceful young woman on a fanatical quest for blood and revenge. A quest that can only end in her own death or the death of the Gotham City Mafia as it is known, or had ever been known. A fact she has willingly accepted.

Attributes:

Helena Bertinelli is an Olympic level athlete, tall and athletically built. Her training regiment remains extreme, and the equal of anything the NFL or Navy SEALs can offer.

She is one of the premiere marksmen in the world.

With an extensive and often times merciless martial arts training record, Helena has forged herself into an incredible martial artist.

On the surface a Technohobbyist, behind the scenes a technician, mechanic, and engineer that has been trained from the start to create her own tools and equipment, to depend on no one. Still room to improve as a hacker, and has no experience with hyper-advanced technology.

After a long campaign to successfully embed herself within the American Mafia, on top of her Sicilian upbringing, Helena holds all the resources and power of a Mafia Don without many realizing it. Thus far Helena has primarily used this as an intelligence resource.

Stomping Grounds:

Helena Bertinelli, and the Huntress, are currently based out of Gotham City and don't look to be leaving (by choice) any time soon. Helena has purchased and redesigned her father's Gotham Heights estate, while purchasing a high rise flat in a posh, selective, apartment building near the banking district. Recently Helena has purchased a historic four story marble building in Old Gotham that, among it's many other uses over the years, was once the legitimate business "front" for Helena's father.

People of Note:

Lady Shiva, former teacher, rumored lover.

Giovanni Bertinelli, mentor, near death due to old age.

Guiseppe Bertinelli, cousin, Gotham born and not present during the Massacre. Remained in Gotham City with his mother.

Hayley Alcott, executive assistant, the second most powerful person in Helena's holdings empire.

Character Goals:

To see just which side of light and dark Helena eventually lands on. I'l let the events of the IC determine her path.

Sample Post:

It took roughly over a second for her mask's optics to switch to thermal, and for the pnuematic crossbow to be drawn from it's holster upon her right thigh into her hand. Two shots were fired even before she hopped airborn. Each man stood out in various shades of red and orange, making each an infinitely easier target to her than she was to them. When each bolt hit it's mark, both men began to scream over the unmistakable high pitched buzz of electricity--zapping them until the hard 'thud' of bodies hitting the ground, leaving them shivering and shaking.

One more was pistol whipped with the crossbow after she landed. Five, the count in her mind sounded off. She wasn't moving fast enough. He was already on another, but Helena had bought herself some time with the electric bolts: a number of the remaining men suddenly went still at the sound. And then one of them began firing randomly through the electric green smoke.

The trademark 'pop' of a Batcave grapple went off; metal screaching and clinking into metal as the three pronged titanium grapple hook attached itself to the barrel of the random firing goon's gun, and sending it flying the air when she depressed the 'return' button. But the Huntress didn't want the gun, she only wanted it away from the scared man firing at random. He'd almost hit one of his own, and the Huntress. A heartbeat after pressing the return button, the Huntress ducked.

The gun flew just over her head, smacking into the head of a man behind her. The crossbow rose again, trained a thermal figure making for an exit. A hiss of air pressure, and the thermal shadowed figure tumbled to the ground. A crossbow bolt sticking out the back of his left thigh. "I'm shot!" The man's voice rose in a frightened shrill. She let him squeal, running towards a duo of men with their backs pressed again each other.

It was a little more tricky than she was used to, the aerial motion of a sideways somersault. If she'd had time to think about it, she might not have even risked it. But by the time the second thought hit her, she was already at full speed; already springing off her feet with a surge from her hips to her thighs to her toes. She had to reach a little further than she would've liked with her hands, but in the end the result went as planned: her hands took hold of the crown of each man's head, and smashed them together.

It was instinct that told her she wasn't going to have room to land on her feet. Instead, she tucked her head in and down, and rolled as her body returned to the ground through the force of gravity. It was just dumb luck she rolled right into one of the last men, her left gloved fist exploding forward, crushing into the main's groin. She heard him gasp for air, through pain, as his weapon dropped. When his body recoiled and his hands shot to his ground, his dropping chin met her rising knee at a very rude force of impact.

Her right hand rose again, her trigger finger squeezing. The bolt thudded into the heavy warehouse wooden door a full step before the running man reached for the door's handle. Her left hand drew the other small crossbow, and she fired, it might seem, without looking at an odd upward angle--smacking into the control panel for the warehouse loading bay door. He was finishing up, and the opening bay door would let the smoke rush out. So the man she'd stopped at the door could see just who had crashed their party.

And so he could see both crossbows aimed at his head. "Move and you'll never have the option of children again."