Devil May Cry - Volume 2 - Chapter 1.2

Phase 1 
Part 2 

It began with a single gunshot.

Or at least that's what it sounded like.

Scores of bullets had erupted almost simultaneously.

Dante coaxed a blistering barrage out of his massive guns, felling the nearest figure.

"No falling down on the job," Dante quipped.

"We're just getting started." 
The shadow slowly rose to its feet.

Its body showed no signs of damage.

"I knew there was something strange about you guys." Dante leveled Ebony and Ivory at the man and pulled the triggers.

Each pistol answered his request faithfully and spat out custom bullets with the force of a machine gun.

This time, the creature calmly allowed the barrage to sink into its flesh harmlessly while he strode toward Dante.

The figure gripped the barrel of the rifle like a club and swiftly carved it through the air.

Dante sprang backward in surprise as the weapon slashed through the space he had been standing in a moment before.

The demon seemed to have crossed several meters in the space of a moment.

You're not the only one here with superhuman speed.

Dante leapt to one side and unleashed another swarm of bullets, knocking the figure to the ground once more.

The black creature wasn't inhumanly fast after all.

Instead, it had somehow extended its arms like rubbery tentacles.

Its elbows stretched unnaturally, shooting across the battlefield within striking distance of Dante while keeping their host safely in the distance.

"What the hell are you?" 
Dante ripped the massive sword Rebellion from his back and sped across the riverbed toward his opponent.

"Show me your face!" He swung the blade, shearing the creature's black mask in two.

The figure stumbled to the ground.

Dante gasped at the creature's true face.

It was unmistakably human.

His opponent appeared to be an expressionless boy in his late teens, young enough to have something childlike left about him.

His eyes and mouth were slamped tightly shut.

But Dante's attention was fixed on a plate embedded in the boy's forehead.

Complicated etchings spiraled outward from a huge, unblinking eye centered on the plate.

The eyes was neither artificial nor organic, although it felt like a living thing.

It swung its baleful gaze toward Dante, radiating a sickly wickedness.

"Don't stare at me like that, I'm shy!" Dante smashed the hilt of his sword into the orb.

The boy immediately went limp.

The demonic aura Dante had sensed earlier drained away.

"Just a coarse imitation of life," he muttered.

Without the power of the strange eye, the boy's body began quickly decomposing.

Blood poured from the bullet holes Dante had peppered across his body.

His limbs grew dark and brittle with necrosis as the last of his life faded.

Possession.

Dante grimaced.

The mercenary whirled to face the remaining figures, which had kept their distance during his skirmish with the boy.

Each aimed a rifle at Dante and exuded a malevolent bloodlust.

But for whatever reason, they made no signs of movement.

"If you're not gonna come to me, I guess I'll have to go to you!" 
Dante kicked off the ground with both legs, his long red coat flapping wildly behind him like a tail.

Rebellion snaked through the air toward its prey before the black figures loosed the first volley.

"Argh!" The first swing tore through the nearest demon from shoulder to hip.

Dante deftly altered the upswing.

Some unearthly power might be animating the warriors, but Rebellion sliced through them as easily as any human.

Whatever force controlled the throbbing eyes had no concern for the safety of its hosts.

Dante spun through the crowd like a bloody cyclone, but the unfolding horror had no effect on the survivors.

His remaining adversaries simply crushed their fallen comrades underfoot as they pressed their attack.

Each demon sprayed bullets indiscriminately, then switched to knives.

Dante was growing frustrated.

No matter how many assailants he sliced open or crippled, another rose up o replace it.

"Don't be so stubborn! Be good little boys and go to sleep!" 
Realization washed over Dante and his eyes rolled upward.

These aren't the ones I've after, either.

He'd been wasting his time with two warring demon clans.

There's a third party.

Something different.

Something more powerful.

Dante thought back to the message he had received at his shop.

"Your enemies are devils." The message had sent him dashing to the temple ruins.

He hadn't anticipated more than one faction.

Dante grumpily finished off the remaining attackers with a few choice strokes.

The ravine was silent aside from the reassuring whup whup whup of the black helicopter.

"I'd forgotten about you," Dante murmured.

The chopper's myterious pilot hadn't forgotten about Dante.

The helicopter spewed a barrage of machine gun fire in his direction, but Dante easily evaded the onslaught.

"Points for style, but I'm not in the mood to appreciate it." Dante coaxed Ebony and Ivory into action.

The riverbed achoed with the tumultuous conversation of bullets as each opponent clarified his stance.

The helicopter soon emptied its magazines and switched to napalm.

Dante danced around the attacks and focused on his real problem.

Something was interfering with his senses.

Something more than the helicopter; something more explicitly evil.

A palpable atmosphere swelled around him like a balloon near to bursting.

He had felt similar sensations before, in the presence of the demonic Underworld.

Without warning, the helicopter burst into flames.

Wreckage arced across the black sky as its remaining weapon stores exploded in an impressive chain reaction.

A wave of heat slammed into the riverbed, hollowing out the ground and reducing the vegetation to ash.

Dante struck a dynamite pose on the scarred earth.

He had emerged from the explosion unscathed, Ebony and Ivory at the ready.

He fixed his gaze on the spot where the helicopter had been-an empty patch of air that seemed to ooze nothingness.

"As far as greetings go, that one might have been over the top," Dante said aloud.

"And on top of making me wait, you give me unnecessary warm-up excercises.

I'm gonna make you pay for that." 
Enormous black wings unfolded from the nothing above him.

Twin eyes peered out unsympathetically from between them.

A female form grew in the space below, anchored by a pair of sharp talons.

Dante pulled himself up to his full height.

It's going to be a long night.

His guns roared to life as he and the succubus flung themselves at each other.

"Bring it on!" 
"Stop the car! Stop!" 
Enzo slammed on the brakes at the unexpected command.

He had been careening down the dark mountain road at breakneck speed, familiar enough with Dante's lifestyle to know that he'd be better off in the relative safety of the city.

But the scream threw him.

It was a woman's voice, startling enough that his reaction had thrown the car into an uncontrolled spin as the wheels locked.

Enzo gripped the steering wheel tightly, and finally the vehicle came to a stop.

The livid little middleman crawled out of the car and wandered into the floodlit space provided by its headlights.

"Wh-Who's there?" he stammered.

"It was me," a smooth voice responded.

"If you're well enough to complain, then you must be all right." A tall woman emerged 
from the moonless night, her odd form illuminated by the headlights.

Enzo didn't know whether to be more taken aback by her presence or her fashion sense.

The woman wore a black leather suit strategically covered with protective steel plates.

A huge rifle the size of a vacuum cleaner nestled on her back.

In short, she looked like a mercenary.

"You just came from the top of the mountain, right? What's happening up there?" 
Enzo had been in the game far too long to let a little near-death experience get the better of his natural instincts.

"Information, huh? Let's talk price," he said with a grin.

"Let me guess; you're interested in the temple." 
"Something like that.

What's going on up there?" 
"Why should I tell you?" Enzo had to tilt his head back to look the woman in the eye.

Finally, she caught on.

The newcomer fished a leather coin purse from a bag hanging at her waist and handed it to him.

"That's a deposit.

When I know how much your information is worth, I'll pay you the rest." 
Enzo pocketed the purse with a wide smile.

"Why don't we start with names? I'm Enzo." 
"I'm Beryl.

I'm a Devil Hunter." 
Enzo's smile evaporated.

"Devil Hunter?" 
"Yep.

Don't laugh; it's not unusual in this day and age." 
Enzo regarded Beryl uncertainly.

She didn't look like somebody on Dante's level.

Their gazes locked for a few moments as Enzo considered this new information.

"What's the matter? I already paid you a deposit." 
The woman had the same scintilla of patience as Dante, at any rate.

"Well..." 
Enzo's hesitation was cut off by a blinding light that stabbed the sky near the mountaintop.

An explosion soon followed along with a thunderous heat wave.

Enzo and Beryl dove into the car in unison as the shockwave from the exploding helicopter raced down the mountainside.

"Dante, you nimrod!" Enzo bellowed.

Beryl's eyes widened.

"Dante? Did you just say Dante? As in Dante the Devil Hunter?" 
"Uh..." 
Beryl urgently gripped the little man by the lapels.

"Where is Dante now? Tell me!" 
"What?" 
"I commissioned him for this job! I'm the person who summoned Dante to the mountain!"