Her jaw hangs open, loose and bloody against her slumping neck. Bella lifts her sword arm to her mouth and squeezes it until the bones crunch back into place. Already the sinews and fibers of her skin and muscles are stitching themselves back together. Already fresh teeth are growing in over the broken ones, as sharp and lethal as ever. Already her joints are spitting out glimmering shards of metal and bone. Her body hurts. Her body twitches and crackles with power, power, [i]power[/i]. Her body sings a song of ecstasy that demands she speak it aloud. 

Bella tosses her head back and laughs. Guttural, wet, mirthless. She drags her tongue across her bloody claws. Ever the cat, concerned with cleaning herself in the middle of a battle. Do you see how far she's fallen, Mynx? This is why she needs you. The elongated knives at the ends of her fingers whistle as she stretches them in front of her face. Whip-crack, the thunderbolt of her tail. One, two. The slow ramping of power that is her trademark. Whip-crack, the warning of her flesh. With every drop of blood spilled she grows faster. Each fresh injury grows into new swords. 

She lashes out at the shield in Mynx's hands, and the air itself cries in pain in her wake. Her claws catch against its gummy surface, sinking where they should tear. She tilts her head in surprise, and a moment later drives the thrust deeper until it carries the pair of them straight into the wall with enough force to shake a hundred tendrils of fresh ivy loose from a badly worn bronze mural. A woman with her face worn down to blurry, anonymous indistinction appears above them, shedding fresh shards of her shoulder, dress, and bust as Demeter's desperate, clutching grasp withers at their feet. The face has no lips, though it must have once. But it seems to be smiling just the same. 

Bella snarls and grunts with every strike; the sound almost more terrifying than the force of the blows. Each strike tears her other hand free from the consequences of the one that came before it. Each strike Rips large chunks of the shield away into sticky blobs of protective mass, necessitating more blood to replace it. Her fingers flex, and with brutish strength she pulls the fibers free and leaves a hole large enough that her eyes have space to meet Mynx's for the first time in a long time. She couldn't see at all, back then. But this time there is no mistaking it. Her sister is not here. She snarls, drooling with evil animal hatred, and raises her fist to strike a deathblow. 

It does not fall. She grunts with surprise, instead. Her head turns to behold Redana's sword buried deep into her chest, the notches on the blade catching against her ribs. 

"Re... Da... Na..."

She does not pull the blade free. Bella drops an elbow like the wrath of Zeus down onto Redana's forearm, and knows before the sound reaches her ears that she has shattered it. A battle of regeneration, then. She twists around and smashes her knee into Redana's stomach over, and over, and over, and over again. Her claws rake down Redana's back and she kicks the Princess into the air before grabbing her by the hair and slamming her against the ground. 

The sword slips free of her body against her will. A knife joins it; Redana has claws aplenty, too. She takes a cut across her face, only barely flinched away from in time to avoid cleaving her demon-red eye. A bloody gouge rips across her thigh all the way down to her knee. She plants her feet and howls her challenge anyway. Something strikes Bella in the head and sends her spiraling to the ground, where her shoulder blades tear open on a nest of fresh thorns. 

Thorns. She sniffs, above all the blood. The honey scent of Beljani's venom. The sweaty reek of battle that should have long since ended. Rising above it all, the perfume of perfect, red roses. Bella chuckles the way the Master of the Kennels used to before whipping her. It is, even now, the most evil sound she can think of. She grabs fistfuls of the gaudy flowers and scatters them like darts. Their scent hangs heavy in the air. Their petals drift across the room like Imperial rain, sensory confusion at defies any attempt at identifying any sort of complex information. 

Her fingers close around a hardened and gnarled root the size of her leg. She pulls, and it struggles against her. Her! Bella screams as she pulls with all her might, spattering blood everywhere as the efforts of her body push the stuff through every wound in terrifying quantity. But roots snap free and soil crumbles under her might. Bella trembles and, with shuddering breaths, snaps free this hymn to the infinite power of Demeter. She hefts it in both hands and lunges high into the air.

Her spear thrust catches Redana full in the stomach. She twists, plants her feet, and lifts. Redana dangles from the end of the root like a doll. But a doll that, even now, has fight in it. Is already grasping at the sharp surface to pull herself free, or even down its length to smash Bella's skull open with cries of [i]Avaunt![/i]

But for a moment, the pair of them simply breath. Sway. They pour their heavy scents into the air, among the roses and death. Eyes over here, Mynx. Your attention is called. What was it you were trained for? What did your heart desire, once? Think! Open your eyes, your true and beautiful eyes!

"MYn...XXX..."

[Keep Them Busy: [b]11[/b]]