Devil's Advocates' HQ

[Rino]

The reactions were mixed. Some stood ready to fight. Others fled.

Only one laughed.

"Miss Mêler," Rino was sarcastically clapping as he approached her. "Nice show. But you lose marks for stupidity." Rino paused for a moment, probing her mind. "You only thought I'd 'probably' kill you? I'm disappointed."

Rino began to pull his white gloves on tightly, and casually spoke aside to his various clients and staff.
"There's no need for alarm. This won't take long." He smiled.

"So, Hope, you have courage, I'll give you that. Now, let's see if you have skill..."

[Hope Mêler]

Hope smiled. "Couldn't I have some vampires first? For starters?" She paused. "No? Well, darn." She jumped down and looked at everyone. This'd be about as difficult as she'd thought. About as impossible, more like. At the thought of that her smile widened into a grin.

"I hope you're not too fond of those gloves," she commented. "There might be some blood. My blood, obviously - but who cares about that?"
I do, a voice said in her head. Shut up, another replied. Don't go insane too now, Hope thought.

"Ladies first," she said loudly and inclined her head such that it suggested it was Rino she was talking about.

[Rino]

"I hope you don't mind..." In a flash Rino was in front of Hope, and hitting her with a high powered kick to the chest, knocking her clean out of the building by smashing through the glass entrance and into the street. "...if we take this outside."

Rino walked through the crumbling glass, throwing a passing glance to an employee.
"Get this cleaned up would you? And call someone to replace it. Presentation is everything, after all."

He continued into the street, and smiled.

"Now, that's better, we can do this properly now, can't we?" He said patronisingly, waiting for Hope to get up.

"Of course, I am fond of these gloves. White is such a wonderful colour. White gloves mean that I can see every drop of your blood that lands on them. Revel in every injury I inflict. Every wound becomes personal. Every drop of blood tells a story. The story."

Rino's grin grew more sadistic.

"The story of your death."

[Hope Mêler]

"Oh please!" Hope got up and touched her chest, trying to figure out if she'd broken anything. "Can you be any more cheesy anyw--, aah! Everything is still intact. Good."

She took up a dagger from her boots and looked at it, lovingly. "Mind if I use this?" She asked casually. "Maybe we'll see some of your blood too. If you have any."

She stepped back and threw the dagger at him with all the power she had. If it got as far as to his eye he'd be hurt, but Hope expected Rino to catch it while it was flying in the air - yet fighting from a distance was the best shot she'd got. If she had any.

[Rino]

Rino met the dagger in the air with a fireball, and blasted it with a continious strain of flames, stepping aside and allowing the melted dagger to crash to the ground in a molten heap of goo.

"Aw, I hope you weren't too fond of that dagger." Rino laughed, plucking up cars in both hands and flinging them behind Hope, blasting them with a fireball as they flew, causing two flaming wreckages to block off the road behind her. "Now, we can't have you running away."

Rino walked over, and hauled up a third car, wielding it like a giant baseball bat.
"I apologise, of course, for sounding even more cheesy, but it's hard to resist..." He grinned again. "What I mean to say, is:"

He swung the car in.

"Dodge this!"

[Hope Mêler]

"Yes miss!" She ducked and rolled away from the car. It flew over her and joined the two that were burning in the back, blocking the street.

"Playing with me, huh?" She grinned. "Don't you think a slayer can be useful for anything but being killed?"

She paused.

"In a not dodgy way, of course."

[Rino]

"To be frank," Rino plucked up the top of a sewer and hurled it at Hope like a frisbee, before blasting two fireballs on either side, so whereever she tried to dodge, something would hit her. "No."

He began to walk towards her, pulling a lamp post up out of the ground.

"You think you're strong. Powerful. Unbeatable. You come here, you dust a few vamps, suddenly you think you're a god." He swung the lamppost at her, this time on an arc to make it harder to duck. "But you're nothing. In this world, your pitiful slayer strength amounts to.....what, exactly?" He lifted up the lamppost and slammed it down at her.

"Nothing. You're nothing. In this world of demons and angels, you're just another lost little girl."

Rino smiled.

"You're hopeless."

[Hope Mêler]

"Ow!" Hope groaned as she slowly got up on her feet. "No puns on my name!" She yelled.

"And for your information you idiot, I never said I was going to beat you or that I had a chance of doing it." She pulled out another dagger from her boot. "But I'm not going to just stand here and do nothing because I'm bound to lose this fight anyway." She wiped some blood away from her face and continued, "And I'm not lost."

"If the only thing I can do is take your pleasure of thinking that I thought I'd actually survive this, then - there you go. I'm know I'm going to die."

Hope grinned.

"So, bring it on, bitch. Stop playing around and show me some of your real power."

[Rino]

"Oh, and what makes you think you've earnt that?" Rino smiled sinisterly. "My real power isn't something I give mortals like you." He walked over and picked up another car, slamming it down on Hope.

"So, tell me, Hope, why did you start this fight? You knew I ran Devil's Advocates. You knew you couldn't beat me. So why did you want to fight? Do you want to die?" Rino picked up two of the doors from the now smashed car, and held them like two symbols, smashing them together on Hope.

"Because that's a wish I can grant."

[Hope Mêler]

"Poor cars," Hope whispered as she tried to get up. The last two blows had broken something, but she wasn't sure exactly what.

"I was bored," she retorted. "This will keep me entertained." Hope barely got up, walked to the closest building and leaned against it. Unofortunately, she couldn't stay up for much longer.

[Rino]

Rino leapt into the air, and kicked downwards, slamming Hope into the ground.

"Now..." He began to walk over her, and put his hand on her throat. "Tell me."

He grinned.

"Who do you work for?"

[Hope Mêler]

"Eh," Hope found it hard to speak with Rino almost suffocating her at the same time.

"Justice and freedom," she managed to say (jokingly) and grinned.

[Rino]

Rino grabbed one of Hope's arms and twisted it, rotating it around the shoulder point until he heard an incredibly statisfying sickening snap.

"Wrong answer!" He replied.

"Who do you work for?" He repeated, placing his hand firmly on Hope's other arm.

[Hope Mêler]

Hope swallowed a scream and tried not to look at her arm.

"No one," she said. It was the truth, at least.

[Rino]

"Wrong."

Rino snapped her other arm, and smiled to himself at her facial expression.

"Who do you work for?" He repeated again, this time smiling, and taking far too much pleasure from having to ask.