Chapter 7 – Wrong Place, Wrong Time.

Dante felt as though he'd just been bitch slapped. After coming tantalizingly close to getting kissed by his pretty date (who had made it very clear that she'd had the hots for him from the moment he'd met her,) Dante could not understand why Nico had suddenly recoiled from him with what he could only describe as undisputed disgust.

"Don't just sit there staring at me like an idiot!" Nico stammered in a shrill, panicky voice. Her eyes searched his face with mounting desperation before she pulled another sneer of absolute repulsion and blurted out, "Kill it!"

"Kill what?" Dante ventured uncertainly, throwing a quick glance behind him but detecting nothing out of the ordinary. He reached out and placed a hand on Nico's arm in an attempt to reassure her. "What's gotten into you all of a sudden, babe? You look like you've just seen a ghost or something!"

"Oh, I would prefer to see a ghost over those disgusting, hideous abominations hovering right over there!" Nico exclaimed contemptuously. She shrugged off Dante's hand roughly and pointed to a cluster of graves to their left. Dante turned his head in that direction just in time to see what looked like two giant, demonic blowflies, their swollen abdomens filled with a sparkly, bright green fluid fly out from behind some bushes at the edge of the clearing. Dante heard their wings beating the air noisily as the Green Empusas hovered nearby, their large compound eyes watching the devil hunter with calculating coldness as though contemplating whether they should risk an attack or not.

Dante turned back to Nico with a softly teasing smile. "What? You're not afraid of those little insects, are you? They're virtually harmless!"

"I don't care! They're disgusting and I HATE them!" Nico screeched explosively, kicking Dante in the shin with the toe of her boot for motivation. "Kill them! What are you waiting for?!"

Dante grunted and got to his feet with a reluctant sigh. He proceeded to summon the devil sword that shared his name with a simple command of his mind before turning to face his buzzing opponents imposingly.

"Just sit back and enjoy the show, babe. This will be over in no time at all…"

With that, Dante assumed a crouching posture, the length of his sword glowing a menacing red as he charged it up quickly. Before either of the Empusas could react, he unleashed the power he'd built up in his weapon with a succession of blisteringly fast sword swings, the resulting shockwaves ripping through the hapless demons and knocking them both out of the air instantly.

Dante threw a cocky smirk over his shoulder at Nico, then rushed toward the fallen Empusas as they struggled to get airborne again, their translucent wings fluttering weakly and their spiny chitinous legs scrabbling at the ground in a desperate attempt to gain traction. The devil hunter raised his sword high and brought it down onto the smaller Empusa's head, cleaving its skull in two with one decisive blow.

Nico watched in mortified silence as the defeated demon's body turned into a charred husk before dissipating in the night wind, its shrill death shriek ringing in her ears and making her flesh crawl with absolute abhorrence. Dante meanwhile, was looking extremely pleased with himself. He exuded an air of confidence as he turned his attention to the remaining Empusa, which had finally managed to regain its footing and launched itself into the air with a few powerful thrusts of its wings.

"Come and get me, you overgrown housefly!" Dante taunted, his blade glistening with the blood of the larger demon's slain companion as he pointed the tip at his opponent mockingly. The Empusa shrieked in outrage and flew at the devil hunter, squirting a stream of noxious green liquid at its target as it hovered high above him. Its bulbous eyes tracked his every move as Dante dodged the poisonous fluid with a well-timed sidestep.

"I'm bored..." Dante remarked with an exaggerated yawn. His expression was full of mockery as he leapt up to intercept the demon before it could reposition itself or try to evade him.

With a few rapid slashes of his sword, the Empusa was sent plummeting out of the air again. But this time, Dante didn't let it hit the ground. He got beneath the falling demon and spun his sword like a propeller. The blade sliced into the Empusa's body repeatedly, shredding its fragile wings and spraying the devil hunter with a coating of green slime as though the demon were a bird that had just gotten sucked into an airplane engine. When it was all over, Dante looked down at his slime-covered coat and frowned disapprovingly.

"Oh, that's just great! This stuff is such a pain in the ass to get rid of…" Sighing, he willed his sword to revert to its dormant state and it disappeared from his hand in a flash. Then he began fussing over the Empusa gore spattered on his clothes, kicking his leg out to dislodge a particularly large glob of demon guts that clung to his boot. Unfortunately, Dante was so engrossed in his task, that he momentarily forgot all about Nico, who cringed as the slimy projectile from the devil hunter's shoe landed on her right thigh with a disgusting slap.

"Oh, hell no! That's the grossest thing ever!" Nico jumped to her feet and fixed Dante with a horrified expression as she swatted the Empusa slime off her leg feverishly.

"Hey! Watch where you're flinging that shit, you jackass…" The mechanic started to protest angrily. But her complaint was cut short when Dante flicked out his sleeve and sent a blob of green slime hurtling through the air, its trajectory taking it on a collision course with Nico's face. Before she could react, it hit her right in the middle of the forehead and slid down her nose, landing on the front of her welder's jacket with a wet 'plop.'

The mechanic let out an earsplitting scream. "Dante! Look at what you've done!"

The devil hunter stopped trying to shake the Empusa slime off his coat and turned to Nico with a startled expression. She glared back at him reproachfully, green slime still dripping from the tip of her nose onto her yellow jacket. "I told you that I can't stand those goddamn things and now you've gone and splattered me with Empusa guts!"

"Ah, come on, babe! It's not the end of the world! You can just wipe it off…" Dante started to say in his typical laid-back manner. But Nico was having none of it. She threw her hands into the air in exasperation and turned away from him in frustration. "You know what? I'm done with this bullshit! I'm going home!"

The seething mechanic started walking along the narrow trail that she hoped would lead her back to town, muttering curses under her breath angrily.

"Aw, don't be like that, Sweetcake! What about me- I mean us?" Dante called out to the ranting woman imploringly, his tone filled with genuine remorse as he watched her stop in her tracks and look back at him with contempt in her eyes.

"There is no us!" Nico jabbed a finger at him furiously and exclaimed, "You do whatever you want! I'm going back to my van to wash up!" She paused, gesturing at her surroundings dramatically before continuing in an angry, shouting voice. "Who the hell brings a girl to a graveyard in the middle of the night anyway?! I should have stayed in my van, reading about engine oil and machine lubricants instead of going on this fiasco of a date with you!"

With that, Nico turned her back to Dante and took off running down the trail before he could try to stop her, yelling over her shoulder as she went. "Those rumors I heard about you were right! No wonder you're still single after all this time!"

Dante stood staring into the distance long after Nico had disappeared from view, replaying the events of this evening in his mind and trying to decide where he should go from here. Finally, he gave a small shrug of dismissal and thought, "Oh well. It looks like I still have rotten luck when it comes to women…"

A smile suddenly appeared on his lips as he remembered something Morrison had told him once after hearing about the devil hunter's notorious track record with the ladies:

"The nail that sticks out, gets hammered down…"

With those inspiring words ringing in his mind, Dante started making his way back along the winding trail that would take him back to the street where he'd left Cavaliere at a leisurely pace. Even though it was late and the trees lining the path blocked out the moonlight, he knew that Nico would find her way back in the dark just fine. The garage where her van was parked at was only about a ten-minute walk from Papa Giuseppe's restaurant. He'd just taken her on a longer detour during their ride on Cavaliere earlier purely to impress her.

The trail Dante was walking along slowly gave way to pavement and a few minutes later, he found himself entering one of the quiet side streets a couple of blocks away from Giuseppe's pizzeria. As he rounded a corner, he saw someone coming towards him from the opposite direction and he felt a twinge of excitement, thinking that perhaps Nico had had a change of heart and was coming back to see him. But as the figure came closer, Dante realized that it was just some old man out for a late-night stroll and he sighed with disappointment.

The devil hunter dipped his head towards the stranger and muttered a polite greeting as they passed each other on the sidewalk. All of a sudden, he heard a low growl followed by a tugging sensation at his left boot. That's when he realized that the elderly gentleman was holding leash and as he looked down at his feet, he saw that a small white dog had latched itself onto his shoe. It was wearing a red canine jacket with a tartan pattern and as Dante looked on in bemusement, the little dog shook its head from side to side and growled furiously, doing its best to defend its owner from the foul-smelling man in the red coat.

As Dante tried to shake the pesky pooch off his boot, the old man began pulling back on the leash roughly. "Dante! Stop it! Sit boy!" He commanded in a stern voice.

The devil hunter froze and regarded the old fart with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. "I beg your pardon?"

The old man finally succeeded in pulling his dog away from Dante's boot, his voice sounding apologetic as he said, "I'm terribly sorry about that, mister. My dog has never acted like that before." He glanced down at his pooch, which was yapping and straining determinedly at the end of its leash in a hellbent frenzy to get back within biting range of Dante's leg. The old man shook his head in disapproval. "I don't know what's gotten into him all of a sudden…"

Dante began laughing heartily as the realization suddenly dawned on him and he waved his hand at the flustered dog owner in a reassuring gesture. "What a feisty little fellow!"

He couldn't help smiling proudly as he looked up at the old man thoughtfully. "Did you say this little warrior's name is Dante?"

The old man nodded in confirmation and Dante glanced down at the little dog admirably. "What breed is he?"

"He's a West Highland White Terrier." The dog owner replied amicably.

Dante stooped down to pet the yapping ball of white fluff on the head, only for the little dog to issue a low warning growl and nip at his finger defiantly. Dante drew his hand back quickly and looked at the dog's owner with respect. "I think that's a perfect name for such a magnificent animal!"

With that, Dante bid the old man farewell and gave a final admiring glance at the yappy little terrier, before stepping past them and continuing on his way with a confident swagger in his stride. The old man stood watching the red-coated figure walk down the street as though he were transfixed. Finally, he bent down to stroke his dog and whispered to him nervously. "You know what, Dante? We're never going for midnight walks around here from now on! That man seriously creeped me out with his white hair and those intense blue eyes…"

All of a sudden, the old man heard the strange fellow in the red coat singing to himself as he made his way up the street, the words carrying clearly on the night breeze:

"We are the heroes of our time,

But we're dancing with the demons in our minds,

We are the heroes of our time,

Hero-oes…"

Dante pronounced that last word in a long-drawn-out howl. As if on que, the little terrier started howling back in response. The old man began tugging at his dog's leash forcefully as he tried to drag him in the opposite direction. He was well and truly freaked out by now and wanted to get as far away from that weird man as possible! But the little dog stubbornly ignored his master's urging and refused to budge, his claws digging into the pavement as he threw back his head and gave a long, high-pitched howl.

"Come on, you wee son of a bitch! We're getting out of here!" The old man scooped his dog into his arms and started walking away from the mysterious stranger as fast as he could. He suddenly felt convinced that the white-haired figure was not quite what he appeared and he threw one last nervous glance over his shoulder at what he began mentally referring to as the devil man. He saw the red-coated figure throw his arms into the air passionately and moments later, a single word echoed through the night air loud and clear:

"HOT!"

The End.

A/N: There you have it, folks! My first DMC story is done and dusted! I'll admit, it was challenging at times. But I also found it quite enjoyable to write this short story and discovered many new things about my writing style along the way :)

I hope you all enjoyed it and thanks again to all the readers and wonderful reviewers whose support kept me motivated throughout this project! I have more exciting ideas for other Devil May Cry fan fics that I'm looking forward to starting soon…

Just one more thing I need to mention before wrapping up this note: the disclaimer for the song Dante was singing near the end of the chapter! For those of you who are familiar with the "Eurovision Song Contest," that particular tune was the chorus of the 2015 winner – "Heroes" by Måns Zelmerlöw from Sweden. I just want to make it clear that I do not own that song and I quote those lines purely for entertainment purposes :)

That's all for now! See you in the next story, xD.

- Svinorita.