Hsien-Ko (Darkstalkers, HTF Version)

Hsien-Ko (Lei-Lei in Japan) is a video game character from Capcom's fighting game series Darkstalkers (Vampire in Japan). She is a Jiāng Shī, a type of zombie from Chinese folklore.

Backstory
Hsien-Ko (pronounced Shen ko) was born around the 1730s with a twin named Mei-Ling (Lin-Lin in Japan). During this time, ghosts and spirits of the dead arose from their resting places and attacked a rural Chinese village.

After their mother was killed by a powerful demon (said to be Pyron), she and her sister decided to use Tensei-no-Jutsu to save her, but they used a prohibited sub-division of this technique, Igyo Tenshin-no-Jutsu, and fought to release their mother's soul from the dark. This turned the twins into a jiāngshī (僵屍 "stiff corpse"), a type of Chinese vampire. This, however, also gave the two unusual abilities which the two use to fight for their purposes. Mei-Ling is actually the ward-paper (fú) on Hsien-ko's hat.

Hsien-ko's powers cannot be fully controlled unless Mei-Ling does so herself when she becomes the ward-paper. If she separates from Hsien-ko, many of Hsien-Ko's abilities no longer work (other times it is said that she loses control of herself), so they essentially fight as one. Hsien-Ko is the "body", and Mei-Ling the "mind". Once in a while, Mei-Ling does come out to team up with Hsien-Ko (as seen by their Dark Force ability in Darkstalkers 3). In the anime, Hsien-Ko seems to be more in control of her body, as she is warned by her sister not to kill their assailiants when they are attacked by a group of drunk humans. The two fight many battles during Night Warriors, and eventually win the freedom of their mother's soul, but at the cost of their own lives. Yet, before their death, the spirit of their mother claims she will not let oblivion become their reward, and the twins' souls are reborn as infants in a new life.

In Vampire Savior, the reincarnated sisters live a happy, normal life. However, on their sixteenth birthday, weird things begin to happen to them. They have the same dreams, and the next night, they fall into a coma, and their souls were transported to the Dark Realm, which called to them. They found themselves in weird costumes, and although their memories of their past life are sketchy, things begin to slowly come back to them. They regained their unique power of transformation they had lost during the death of the life preceding this one. Now as saviors and hunters once more, they must find their way home to Earth Realm.

After the events of Vampire Savior, the sisters are engulfed by darkness, but their mother's spirit saves them, and they return back home as humans once more.

HTF Universe
In the HTF universe, Hsien-Ko is a cat. She has the same abilities from the Darkstalkers series and she retains her clothing. She basically keeps all of her characteristics from the Darkstalkers universe.

Appearance
Hsien-Ko has many weapons in her sleeves (literally), but she primarily uses clawed gauntlets. She wears a pink and purple kimono with a yellow bow around the waist and yellow on the insides of the kimono. She has dark purple hair and a VERY bright lavender shade. Her shoes are the same color of part of her kimono.

About real Jiang Shi
Geong Si, Jiang Shi (Putonghua) or Kuang Shi (Cantonese) are the zombies of Chinese myth. They are caused by the demonic possession of a recently deceased corpse and said to have a terrifying appearance. They have physical bodies, but they are not alive, nor have will or thought. They are closer to Haitian zombies than to anything else in widely-known Western folklore. As it matures, it gains new skills with the older among them rumored to have the ability to fly.

Before the Civil War and before World War II, it was said that the dead still walked the roads of rural China in parades marching toward their ancestral villages. Buried away from the family, a dead Chinese had no feasts, no paper clothes, slaves, boats, food, or incense burnt to him, since all these things are in the hands of his descendants. Such is the spiritual importance of the Chinese ancestral village.

When a Chinese person dies away from home, there are several ways to return his body to native earth, but the less-than-rich rural Chinese once used this form of underground railway. A medium or priest, especially a Taoist priest who had toiled in a specialized apprenticeship, would be hired by the village to bring their dead home, walking them along the roads, perhaps as one still sees geese herded down multi-lane highways in modern China.

Spells had a part in this ritual and in controlling the dead when they were made to walk, but there is nothing special or extraordinary about spells in the Chinese world. A wide variety of spells were usually written out on red paper called Dzi Dzat, the generic name given for the paper grave goods and ancestral sacrifices burnt to make a comfortable life for the dead.

Paper and bamboo mansions were burnt at funerals and at regular festivals. These dwellings for the spirits of the dead were filled with paper representations of everything the ancestors knew or had wanted in life: favorite food, books, signs of rank, a pleasure boat or a young mistress, all in painted and folded paper.

In some accounts of the Kuang Shi, a spell glued to the face of the body is the medicine that makes it move. This method is favored in popular film, since it is visible to the camera, and the viewer can always tell a Kuang Shi by his label. Traditional accounts do not agree on this point. In modern Hong Kong film, the Kuang Shi is the slave of the character of an evil Taoist priest, who launches platoons of these animated corpses at heroes of kung fu and even gangster movies. This picture of Kuang Shi in current film does not represent their old form. Nevertheless, the Kuang Shi remains one of the current, tangible, commonly believed myths of old China.

Powers
"You're going to get hurt! Tenraiha!"
 * Anki Hou (Dark Arms Cannon): Projectile attack that has a chance to stun or throw a time bomb.


 * Henkyou Ki (Echoing Weapon): Hsien-Ko/Lei-Lei bangs a gong to shoot a slow moving projectile that can reflect or absorb a projectile. Can be done in the air.


 * Senpuu Bu (Whirlwind Dance): Hsien-Ko suspends herself on a chain and acts as a spinning blade.


 * Houten Geki (Banishing Heaven Attack): Hsien-Ko throws someone into the air and spins as that someone falls where she is spinning.


 * Chireitou (Earth Spirit Blades): Hsien-Ko impales the ground with her arms, causing blades to come ut of the ground.


 * Tenraiha (Heaven Thunder Crusher): Hsien-Ko drops an anvil, raining down spiked balls all over the victim as well.


 * Daibakusou: Rimoukon (Great Exploding Dash: Detaching Fierce Soul): Mei-ling comes off Hsien-ko's hat as the ward. Hsien-Ko gains a glowing aura, which protects her from flinching.

Quotes

 * "Nǐ hǎo!"
 * "*To any villian she's fighting to save someone* You should run while you can!"
 * "*To Nutty* You're annoying, but not nearly as annoying as Lord Raptor. Him an his stupid guitar!"
 * "*After killing a villian* Gomen ne (Sorry)... Just kidding."

Fates
She has no deaths as of yet, but deaths will include anything fatal.

Trivia

 * The reason why Hsien-Ko is a cat in the HTF universe is because of the myth that cats have nine lives. This is fitting, as Hsien-ko came back to life after she died.
 * Hsien-Ko is the first zombie to control herself from killing the innocent.
 * In English, she is portrayed by Hunter Austin.