Written by Lacewing and Katerot
Based off of the Devil May Cry video game series, copyrighted to Capcom
Ba'al and all other original characters copyrighted to Lacewing and Katerot
Song lyrics by Lacewing, Katerot, and Voodoochile (and likely others)
Disclaimers: besides copyrights of various things (it's 'fan' fiction people! It wouldn't be 'fan' anything if I owned the characters!) This fiction does have some strong language, suggestive themes, and violence.
Enjoy!
Chapter 1
Sins of the Father,
Tears of the Mother.
Something within me,
Wishes to be free.
It was dark, no moon shined in the night sky, no stars, nothing, just a solid wall of cloud and mist which weighed heavily on the city. In a dark alleyway was a single neon sign, which lit the dingy street. The sign read "Devil May Cry" with a woman posed on it and looked remarkably like the welcome mat of a seedy night club.
However, Devil May Cry was no night club, and the person approaching the entrance knew it. Walking calmly down the street was an elderly man. Wrapped in a jacket against the cold, he entered and waited while the single occupant of the room got off the phone. He looked around while he waited, studying the odd trophies that hung on the wall, the slightly abused pool table, the heavily abused set of drums off in another corner, and the young man with his feet on his dinged-up desk talking away like he hadn't a care in the world.
"Yea, so what? I told you I don't want the job- no, throwing more money at me isn't going to make this piss-ant thing anymore appealing." The blond hung up and then turned his attention to the old man dubiously. "You'd better be the pizza guy with my double layer pepperoni, hot sauce and extra cheese. They're already 20 minutes late."
The old man laughed, "I'm afraid my old age isn't the reason for the lateness of your dinner, no, I'm here on a very different errand. I'm looking for a man they call Dante, is it you?"
The young man made a soft sound as he sucked on his teeth and just stared back as if waiting for the rest.
The old man cleared his throat a little nervously as if thrown off his originally planned speech, "Your reputation precedes you demon hunter."
"And?"He cut in rudely. He had a feeling this guy would go over every single exploit,including a few he'd forgotten about, if he let him.
"And, I wish to hire you."
"Look buddy, Whatever you want it's likely not the kinds of jobs I take-"
"Hear me out, please. I only wish your services in protecting someone."
Dante raised one eyebrow and leaned forward. "I don't protect things, want me to kill a ghost, or demon or something like that and then I'm your man, but for 'protection' you're better off with-"
This time the old man cut him off, "There is more to it than just protecting someone. The person I wish for you to protect, there are demons after her. Demons who want the power that lies in her soul. You see, she is more than she appears and not human."
"She a demon?" Despite himself he was listening now.
"No, neither demon nor angel, she is of a race whose powers have been murmured ofthroughout history. Referred to as gods by some, tricksters by others, they have had many names, and many forms. Pieces of their powers have made there way into stories of many mythical beasts, beings, and heroes. They are creatures that can be good or evil. Near immortal they are pretty much impossible to kill."
"Okay, so Why do the demons want her? What I know about that sort of thing are just children's bedtime stories." Dante paused, half-remembering something he was once told as a child, he shook the feeling off and waited for the old man's reply.
"There is a ceremony that one can perform to take the power that these beings can offer freely. But in doing this, it will kill them. Really it's the only way one could kill them. The greed of demon-kind has caused the near extinction of these people. I believe the one that was thought of as the last of the race once helped your father. Likely it was that one's power Sparda used, and it was he who killed it. Keeping it from the demons that wished to take its power to add to their own. Power they themselves took from others like that one."
Dante blinked and absorbed the information, his father had taken the power of one of thecreatures that this old man was talking about? That would have to be put aside to think on later.
"Will you take this job? There really isn't much more time, they are likely attacking her as we speak."
Dante stood and took his sword down from the wall "You know, you could have talked faster, or less, if you wanted me out there really quick"
The old man only smiled and said no more as he waited for Dante to holster his guns and then lead the way, towards the direction of a real seedy bar. It claimed live music and topless dancers, as well as the vocal talents of someone called "Babylon's Goddess"
The old man went to the back entrance and paused in the ally way. When Dante came upbehind him, he saw why. There, crumpled against a dirty brick wall, framed by smears of blood, hair dyed in wild array of colors, was a girl and all around her were demons, lesser demons, and all very dead.
Dante leaned over one and blinked, "Who did this?" He said aloud, mostly talking to himself. "These demons where killed with a single blow each."
The old man leaned in and plucked out a set of keys from the torso of one demon, it looked like the one that had landed the last blow on the girl, "I believe these did the deed." He said.
"Car keys?" Dante laughed, "You can't kill demons with keys!"
"No, you can't, she just turned them mortal, it was the fact she punched them through the chest with the keys after she turned them mortal that killed them."
Dante blinked and took a very long moment to absorb what the man said "She turned them What?"
"Mortal, that's what she does, demon hunter. She gives demons mortality. Makes them something closer to human if you will. It's really quite an ingenious defensive strategy."
"Load of help it was! She's dead!" Obviously this was his job, this woman who was already lying in a pool of her own blood. Well if she was so dangerous maybe that was a good thing.
"She's not, well, I mean she was, she's not now." The old man pointed out.
Dante leaned over the prone form. "That chick is missing half a lung! She looks pretty dead to-" He broke off with audible surprise when she suddenly arched up, legs braced, pushing herself half up the wall, eyes opened wide and staring and of the brightest silversheen imaginable. She crumpled back again, breathing, healed and very much alive.
"Well damn..." He muttered and turned to speak to the old man, and frowned at the empty ally way. His client was gone. "Shit." He muttered and, seeing no alternative, picked up the girl and took her back to his shop. Laying her on the couch he half-heartedly hoped the blood wouldn't stain the thing anymore than it already was.
"This sucks really, don't even know what that old guy plans on paying me." He shook his head and went to answer the door as someone else knocked. His pizza was there.
She opened her eyes to something unfamiliar. It was big and dark and it took her a long moment to figure out what it was. With a sudden shout she sprang up and fell over the arm of the couch she'd been laying on.
The demon's head didn't move, it was only a rather morbid trophy on the wall above the couch she had been lying on.
"You're awake, good, I was beginning to wonder if you ever would Sleeping Beauty." A voice startled her suddenly and she all but snapped her neck around to spot the man who the voice belonged to. The man in question approached her with a pizza box in one hand and a long red coat over one shoulder and was turned slightly away from her as he moved to drop the coat over the back of a chair.
She spun the rest of her body on her heel and lashed out with one foot out to knock his out from under him. Dante jumped back, hitting the wall as he barely avoided the move. She was fast! "Whoa babe! Calm down," He didn't know why he was bothering, he didn't even know how he was going to get paid and it seemed like this girl could take care of herself. In the middle of thinking all that he felt another strike land on him, she'd thrown something. Dropping the pizza box he hardly saw her move before she was right in his face, so close he could make out every crystalline facet of her green eyes. 'So they really weren't silver after all.' He thought absently before the pain hit him.
She drove his sword through his chest. Last he'd seen, the sword that had been on his desk was now digging into the wall behind him as the girl used her weight to give the blade the momentum to drive it deeper into the wall through him.
She backed up, and he could make out the bewildered look, as she cast her eyes about, as though she didn't know where she was or what to do next. Then in a loping, cat-like stride she ran out his front door and into the night.
Dante grunted as he moved forward a little and found himself stopped by the sword's hilt. She really did push that sword in good. But he could never be hurt by this sword, it was his father's, after all. Gripping the hilt firmly, he shoved his body forward to pull the blade out from the wall and then pulled it free of his body, there wasn't even a sign of hisblood on the blade to say he'd been impaled.
He looked at the tip of his sword, then he looked at the open doorway, into the rain that finally decided to fall from the dark clouds above and then to the box of pizza.
"I'm hungry dammit." He muttered and growled softly as he took off the now-ruined shirt. "I just got this thing dry-cleaned, shit. "He tossed it aside and, flopping onto his couch, he flipped the box lid open and began to eat.
Though the rain, towards home, she ran. She dodged traffic, and ran through back alleys as if she'd taken the route many times before. With half of her top missing, she'd wrappedher arms around herself, trying to keep warm even as she panted in exhaustion, eyes wide, like a frighten doe's. Finally, she reached a fire escape and, pulling it down, she crawled up it as nimbly as a monkey. At the top she banged her window in several spots, opened it, and crawled in. She closed it behind her and this time shoved a section of metal bar at the top to keep it from being opened the same way she had.
Stripping off what was left of her torn and bloody shirt she flung it as far from herself as she could, then stripping along the way, quickly made her way down a short hall where the decor on the wall wildly varied in a collage of musical instruments and weapons.
Once in the bathroom she crawled into the tub and turned on the shower. Hot watercascaded instantly down onto her shaking body. After a long while, finally the shock and pain kicked in and she rocked in the corner of her tub, taking deep gasping breaths like someone recovering from a near-drowning, as she tried to sort through the events in her mind. It felt as if something in her had died, but she didn't know what it was or how it had died. Slowly her small hiccupping sobs grew into full-throated wails, and beneath the shower-head, she cried until she couldn't cry anymore.
Dante stood outside the building that he'd finally tracked the girl down to. If he had known she would be this difficult to find he would have followed her earlier from when she first ran. Check that, he would have just said 'Screw it', and returned to going about his own business. But since he was here; With a leap, he bounced off of the side of one building and managed to land on the fire escape without a sound. Taking the same route she had, he followed the path until he was stopped by something. Not that bar in her window, that wasn't a big deal, no, her home had a field around it.
Frowning, he studied it. He could feel the energy, he could even touch it, in a fashion. It was odd, almost like the demon aura fields he ran into, only this wasn't set to keep everything out, just demons. Odd, well, he wouldn't be getting in this way without making a lot of noise.
Tossing a set of keys in the air he grinned and caught them before hopping off the fire escape and landing in the alley below.
She sighed, having finally gotten her hysteria under control, just as someone pushed her shower curtain aside.
"You know you have a fine lunge but your repulse, tsk tsk tsk. "It's just pathetic." Dante gave her a cocky grin as he kept talking, oblivious to the look of lessening surprise, and growing anger and fear on the girl's face.
"You know, you shouldn't stab the guy that's just trying to help you. Shit, if you kill the good guys, I'd hate to see what you'd do to the little old lady you have to help cross the street. Key her to death, maybe?" He tossed her the keys then. She caught them, and looked back up at him.
He stepped back a little and turned, "Oh yeah, your security on this place? Not bad, it really was something to get through." He turned around again just in time to get hit, fully in the face, with a spray of hot water as the girl yanked the shower curtain off of it's bar and wrapped it around herself. She then shoved him and thanks to being half blinded with scalding water and slipping on a water-slicked tile floor, he landed on his back and spent some time contemplating the ceiling while he tried to get his breath back.
As he did, he found his vision clearing and felt the sharp point of a short sword pressedagainst his forehead.
The girl frowned down at him, still holding the curtain around herself. "Who the hell are you?"
He looked up the length of the blade, his vision finally coming back into perfect focus at the same time. He didn't immediately answer, but instead he grunted as he pulled himself up into a sitting position carefully so he wouldn't impale his head on any blade that glowed as fiercely as the one right in his face. "Someone who found you dead and brought you back to his place to rest and then gets stabbed through chest by you for his trouble." He said plainly, rubbing the back of his head where he'd cracked it on the floor. He looked up at her and noted she really wasn't that tall, even sitting on the floor, his head came nearly to her chest. She was a tiny, little thing who was shockingly fast. Likely the demons made the same mistake of underestimating her when they attacked her because of her height.
Pure numbers was the only thing that got to the girl. It was a credit to her abilities though that she took out the last demon before it had gotten her. He hoped his own death was half so poetic.
Her sword lowered slowly. "Name?" She asked.
"Dante."
She blinked, "Traveler classical literature. A comedy called Dante's Inferno, which is the first part. Also a common name during the Renaissance era."
"Know your history, good for you. What then should I call you besides "Lady"?"
"Ba'al"
"Babylonian god of storms and fertility. Only proves both our parents where demented in naming their kids."
She didn't answer, but stepped back a bit, so the sword tip wasn't right against Dante's forehead anymore. "You said I was dead? Not just passed out, right?"
"Deader than the Christmas ghosts." He confirmed.
She sank down to the ground, not quite letting go of her sword and not taking her eyes off him, but she looked like she was going to crumple to pieces.
Dante might have shown the girl some sympathy, but then that was out of the question considering she had impaled him with his own sword. That had just been plain embarrassing, and he wasn't one to quickly forgive being embarrassed. God forgive anyone who managed to actually get him to being emotional. He was a half-demon bounty hunter, he had a reputation to maintain after all.
"For someone as good as you, you sure fall to pieces quickly enough." He commented and ignored the sudden hardening of her eyes as her gaze snapped to him "I save you from certain death and this is the thanks I get? Some people are just ungrateful!" And with that,he turned to walk out of the bathroom.
And felt the impact of a cup to the back of his head with enough force to make him stumble forward. "OW! HEY!" He turned to see her standing in the doorway, her eyesglittered in the brightest shade of emerald he'd ever seen and so busy glaring she'd let her covering slip, he decided to ignore that punch line for a different one. "What's with you and household appliances?"
She slammed the door in his face and through the door he could hear her muttering andmoving around.
Smirking, he turned and wandered down the hall and into the living room. He glanced about, this wasn't anything like he expected really. Weapons and music took up a bulk of her decorations. The furniture was sparse and didn't match. She had a couple of worn couches that were still good but far past looking their best. There was an end table that served as a base for the TV to sit on, a game system near that and a couple of gamesbeside it. An old stereo that looked like she had cobbled together some make shift wiring to hook up the speakers was connected to the TV and beside that was a VCR and a half- dozen videos that likely came from a pawn shop. The coffee table was a little more interesting, mail, a few unpaid bills, and a couple magazines. She had a few photos on the walls, but they were nothing personal. Shots of buildings, various people that just happened to be in her shot, but nothing to show friends or family. Just showing she had another hobby besides hitting strangers with blunt objects.
A girl who was alone, with nothing to loose, and nothing she couldn't leave behind.
"Talk about a shut-in life." He muttered. Really though, from all appearances this girl wasperfectly capable of taking care of herself. Dante had no clue why he was here. Not like he even knew what his pay was. She had better protections on herself than he could ever provide. The only reason she got caught by those demons outside her employment was because that was the only place she wasn't protected, and she proved she could do very well with the minimal amount of weapons.
If there was one thing he disliked more than demons, it was having his time wasted.
She came into the room and looked at him as if she was going to ask what he was still doing there. Her hair was wet still from her bath, and most of the extra colors she put into it was gone, leaving only a reddish tint clinging to roots that were as white as his showed, an obvious dye job.
Just then they both froze as the feeling of demons surrounded the apartment from all angles reached them. "SHIT!" Dante shouted. "How'd the buggers sneak up on me?"
Ba'al sank to her knees, her entire form shaking. Dante blinked down at her, having already drawn his sword and given what he'd gone through with her already, had been expecting her to do the same, this wasn't in the plan at all.
"What's wrong with you?" He demanded.
He could feel the shielding pulse and dim.
"Too many, too many, I can't keep it up!" Ba'al ground out through her teeth.
"You tied those shields to yourself? Are you fuckin' crazy!"
She didn't answer, instead she passed out, and in that instant the field came down letting the hordes of hell, come right into the living room.
Dante darted to the girl and picked her up. It was just like fate decided to call his bluff and play with a full house at the same time to prove to him just how wrong his previous assessments of the situation where. He dodged the demons. Normally this would not be that big of a problem. After all he made a living killing these things and no matter how high powered they were he was stronger.
This time the girl was his priority. He couldn't carry her and fight this pack at the same time. Sword swinging just enough to clear a path, he pulled his jacket around his chargebundle and leapt out of the nearest window to land on the street below, in a shower of broken glass. Luckily, it didn't look like there were any pedestrians or cars around at thatmoment. The fewer people the better he always figured. Since more demons where coming down from the side streets he ran into the park ahead. The shrubs and statuary would give him a bit of cover to dodge in.
Which, of course, meant that something nasty would pop out of the one place he had to run to.
Pausing by a statue, he felt the earth shake, and the water in the fountain on the other side of him shook with the impact of something big.
"I'm in a Jurassic Park movie." He muttered to himself as he turned and found himself face to face with a very large lizard thing. Built like a dragon without wings, the beast rose up on hind legs and let out a deafening scream.
"Yo, Godzilla, I don't have time to play with you now, so how about we make an appointment. Next Friday sound good to you?"
Glancing to one side he could see the construction yard on the other side of the park, with the building that was scheduled to come down. Behind him was the gibbering demonhorde and before him the Godzilla beast.
Dante was in a really tight spot, "Think fate could cut me a little slack!" He yelled to the air, to which, fate being the bitch she was, would only make things worse for him forsaying that. After all, in the space of about three hours: he'd been stabbed by his own sword, knocked over several times by a slip of a girl who was hardly half his size and weight, found himself on his back with the same girl in the dominate position, and now he was running from the demon hordes and then Godzilla just jumps out of nowhere toattack him. He looked up at the lizard thing, then at the horde behind him.
"In a situation like this there is only one thing a guy can do."
Hitching the girl around his back he securely tied her there with the ends of his coat.
Then he ran.
Behind him the horde ran into the giant lizard and it gave him some badly needed time as he made his way for a construction yard near the park. While the demons sorted out their traffic jam, he was putting together a plan, it didn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of succeeding but tactical thinking had never been his strongest suit anyway. Fighting he was good at. Pull out the guns, swords, transform, save the day, go back to office, have a cup of coffee, maybe watch some Leno. No, this time he actually had to come up with a strategy. He was going to charge the old man double for this.
Daring a brief glance behind himself he checked to see how much of the horde were still behind him. And found that the smaller ones where having a time with the big monster. Who stomped and chomped everything in its path.
Good, fewer for him to deal with.
He slowed just enough to make sure the creatures saw him as he dove into the old building. Running up the stairs he made the best time he could as the demons swarmed the old building, using every claw-hold they could reach. Even Godzilla was trying to push it's way in through a truck entrance on the first floor.
Dante reached the floor he wanted and jumped out the nearest window, twisting in the air to grab the ledge and then hop down the side of the building while the demons hunted inside for him. Once at ground level he ran as fast as he could, before any of them noticedhe was out of the building, and dove behind the barricade. As he'd hoped, the building already wired to be destroyed and the detonation switch was there and looked connected.He prayed that it was.
"Send your boss my love!" He flipped off the demons in the building as he turned the switch.
For a brief moment there was nothing, he began to wonder if he screwed up big time. Suddenly, the first of the explosives went off and slowly the entire building began tocrumble to the ground. The demons inside were too slow to get out in time and werecrushed as the building fell.
He waited until the noise stopped, then slowly looked over the barricade for any left.
Only rubble remained.
With a cocky grin he stood up and patted the leg of the girl on his back. "Am I good or what?"
Just as he took his first step towards home, he heard a sound he did NOT like. Turning again he found the big lizard rising from the rubble and shaking it's body to shake off the rest. Slowly it started questing about with it's one remaining eye and its gaze landed on him.
"Fate, you are the biggest, meanest bitch alive." Dante pulled his guns out, it'd be a real trick to get his sword out with the girl over his back and all-, "It's always the big one that gets back up, why not the small, cute and cuddly one?"
The lizard charged at Dante, bearing it's teeth and screaming in his face. He paused for a moment to blink. "Breath mint! PLEASE!" He yelled at the lizard before pulling out his guns and firing at it, that at least gave him a chance to get back a little and get some air. He noticed that the creature was turning with him. He couldn't make any real dents with his guns on that thing's hide, but while it was keeping its good eye on him it was still staying high enough to be out of range.
As long as he kept moving, forcing it to move with him, it wasn't really attacking and that gave him precious moments to try and think up a creative way to kill this thing.
He managed to move just right so that one shot got off close to the thing's good eye and it tossed its head back in pain and annoyance. Dante used the distraction to spin off in the opposite direction. He didn't see the tail coming until it struck him in the midriff and sent him flying. He barely managed to turn so that he didn't land on his client. Coming to a stop on his face, he groaned as he stood and turned back to Godzilla.
"Damn, thing was smarter than it looked." He muttered, gasping for breath and wishing he could just drop the chick and go devil trigger on this thing's ass. As it was, he couldn't risk doing that, there might still a demon lurking about for him to be distracted and nab her.
He wondered yet again why he was even bothering.
When he rose he was in the lizard's direct line of sight again and it charged him. Dantethought for a moment and then ran right at it himself firing off his guns Ebony and Ivory in rapid succession.
The beast stopped short in it's charge, took a deep breath and fired off a huge fireball at him.
"SHIT!"Dante managed to jump to the side as the fireball shot past him, escaping withsinged his hair and the side of one sleeve. It managed to completely miss the girl on his back.
His eyes narrowed dangerously, as he studied his jacket. "Of course it can breathe fire, why not? Makes perfect sense." He complained to himself then had to run as the lizardtook a deep breath for another fireball. Dante then caught the smell of burned hair, one hand reached up to touch his silvery head, and his hand stopped short when he felt the slightly uneven patch that fairly ruined his haircut. This was now personal. "Don't mess with my looks 'Zilla! My reputation isn't the only thing that brings work to my door!"With that, he abandoned the idea of killing the lizard from a distance, and got close enough to the thing to fire directly into it's one good eye. It flung up it's head, screaming in pain and twisted around as if to strike at him with its tail.
This time Dante was ready. He grabbed the end of the lizard's tail and hung on, followingthe beast as it tried to shake him off and face him head on again. Dante noticed it couldn't even see him now. With a wild grin he managed to hop up onto the tail and then run up it's back. As he ran he charged power into his bullets and once he made it up to it's head he gave it a brief look of his grinning face before he fired with both guns into what was left of the thing's eye, planting lead slugs directly into its brain.
Screaming in agony the creature reared up and fell backwards trying, trying to crush him in the process of its final death throws. Dante leapt off of the creature and landed nimblyon the ground as it crashed onto the ground behind him. He turned and watched to make sure that the creature was really dead and stayed that way this time.
Slowly it's body crumbled into the dust it came from and meant it was gone for good. Dante allowed himself a brief sigh of relief. "All in a days work." He said and checked his passenger. She was fine, other than making a soft sound much like a whine when he shifted her from the makeshift sling on his back to a more comfortable carrying positionand he shook his head. "What kind of person can manage to sleep through that thing's bellowing? Let alone the earthquake! Its likely woken up the entire city!" He asked himself.
He headed back to his office muttering about his luck most the way.
Beta by Swifthawk