DISCLAIMER: I do not own Dragon Ball or Devil May Cry. Dragon Ball is the property of Akira Toriyama, and Devil May Cry is the property of Capcom.
Dante stood over the corpse of an insectoid demon. It had been destroying small towns throughout the area, using a strange power that could somehow make people kill each other, which had resulted in total anarchy within days of the creature's arrival. Dante had heard about it and come to destroy it, and was looking forward to the paycheque he was getting from the government agency that had hired him. Just as he was about to leave, he sensed someone watching him.
He turned to see that a dark haired man wearing an orange martial arts outfit had just appeared from a nearby ravine. Dante decided to leave, disinterested in the man. Just as he was about to leave, the man held back his hands, and began screaming with rage, the air around him swirling and turning slightly blue.
"Kaaaa… Meeee… Haaaa… Meeee… Haaaa!"
The man released a burst of blue energy at the surprised Dante, which Dante recognised as being Ki rather than magic by the fact he couldn't sense it. At the last split second before the blast hit him in the face, Dante stepped easily to the side, watching with interest as the blast, which he suspected was called a Kamehameha, flew harmlessly past him, blasting a hole clean through a mountain in the distance.
"Nice. Probably better that didn't hit me."
He then turned to see the man fly towards him, now sporting spiky blue hair rather than messy black, and swing his fist at Dante, while Dante casually sidestepped before punching the man in the ribcage. The man grunted from the pain, and Dante ascertained that the man was vulnerable to injury.
The man then snarled, powering up more and filling the air with blue energy. Dante stood in the middle of the blast that resulted, not bothered in the slightest. When the explosion was done, the man was unchanged, other than the dozens of sparks arcing across his body and an aura that made the air feel heavier.
Dante folded his arms. "So, if I'm gonna fight you, what's your name?"
The man cracked his knuckles, looking both angry and determined. "You can call me Goku. I guess trying to reason with you would be a waste of time?"
Without waiting for an answer, Goku fired another Ki blast at Dante, but Dante easily dodged it, before firing a bullet into Goku, which bounced harmlessly off his forehead, not even leaving a dent. Goku charged, swinging his fists at Dante. Dante readied his sword, and the two started exchanging blows, each blocking or dodging every attack the other threw their way. Finally, Goku landed a punch on Dante's jaw, sending him skidding back. Dante skidded to a stop several hundred feet away, standing casually, looking smug.
Goku was confused at Dante's reaction until he realised that his shoulder had a deep gash in it, presumably inflicted by Dante's sword. He didn't understand how Dante had done it seeing as he knew Dante hadn't been fast enough to land such a blow on Goku. Pushing this question from his mind, Goku then charged more energy, powering up even further into his mighty Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan form, his aura making the air so much heavier Dante's coat stopped flapping in the breeze. For a brief second the Earth itself shuddered under the force of the aura that Goku's Ki gave off, and the slightly slowed rotation would result in the day being several minutes longer than the meteorologists had predicted.
Goku then used Instant Transmission to reach Dante in an instant, raining blows on the dark knight. Dante blocked each strike with his sword, counterattacking every now and then, but Goku blocked his sword strikes, gripping the sword by the flat, as the gash on his shoulder had proved to him that blocking the edge would be impossible, and that the blade was somehow able to cut him despite the fact Dante clearly didn't have the striking strength to do such a thing.
Finally, Goku landed a heavy punch on Dante's jaw, launching him back several hundred metres. In an instant, Dante already stood in front of Goku again, a feat Goku couldn't explain seeing as how he hadn't seen Dante move, yet he knew Dante was nowhere near fast enough to vanish from Goku's view. Dante's unexplained bursts of speed bothered Goku, and he made a mental note to account for them. Goku made this note in the tiniest fraction of a second, and without any interruption the two continued their battle.
Finally, Goku hovered up into the air, meditating as he tried to regain composure of his Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan form. In a few seconds he seemed calmer, and generally less intimidating due to his eyes softening. The aura of energy was much gentler now, and the ground was not shaking at all. Dante stood a few feet from this newly calmed Goku, unimpressed by his appearance but knowing better than to judge him harmless by that. Goku lowered himself back to the ground and folded his arms.
"So I can't convince you to stop what you're doing?"
Dante nodded, realizing what was happening. "You're really good. That sack of crap was controlling whole cities and you're almost back just after a little light breathing. I hope we can be friends someday."
Taking this seemingly nonsensical answer as a no, Goku flew forward, his speed noticeably higher, and started attacking Dante with unrivalled force and aggression, though despite the aggression he was no longer angry. This force and aggression was fuelled by nothing but determination.
Dante dodged and blocked almost everything that was sent his way, but was no longer countering, and the hits that did land were quite painful. Finally, Goku kicked Dante across the face, staggering him, before attacking with his Dragon Fist technique, a devastating move to say the least. Goku slammed his Dragon Fist into Dante's stomach, putting a hole in the Devil Hunter's stomach which stopped at his unyielding, seemingly unbreakable spine, the devastating strike causing a large dragon made of Ki to circle around a stricken looking Dante.
Just as it looked as if Goku had won, Dante gripped the dragon's head, destroying it with a burst of his magic power, the blast also sending Goku back a few feet. Goku looked down to see that a red monster stood where Dante had been, and the hole in Dante was already healed completely, displaying an even greater form of regeneration than Piccolo. Possibly even on par with that of Cell or Majin Buu, but Goku hoped not.
The red devil that was Dante flew forward, as did Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku. The two warriors collided, creating a shockwave that caused the ground below them to splinter and distant mountains to fill with cracks, and that collateral damage was nothing compared to the force that had hit the two warriors. Both floated back, before they charged again. Dante collected Goku and slammed him through a mountain, but Goku used Instant Transmission to teleport below Dante, firing an instant Kamehameha into the surprised devil and launching it upwards into space. Goku had established that Dante possessed greater physical strength than him, and that Dante could take a great deal of damage, so he knew he needed to rely on his speed and Ki to keep Dante at a distance.
Sensing Dante was still very much alive, Goku started firing blasts into space, sensing the surges in Ki as several of them connected with Dante. Suddenly, there was a flash of movement, and Dante hovered in front of him again, and was firing energy projectiles at him. Goku blocked the projectiles, before hitting Dante with a Ki projectile that made everything Dante had thrown look like a bee sting by comparison.
Dante was collected by the beam and slammed straight through a mountain, the blast detonating the mountain around him, leaving the red devil lying among the rubble of a completely shattered mountain. Dante slowly rose, groaning. He gasped to see Goku already standing over him, but lying on the ground he wasn't fast enough to dodge the blast which Goku had already fired into his chest, launching him straight down into the ground, forming a large crater that somewhat resembled a meteor crash site.
Goku dropped into the crater, dragging the tired, lightly cooked red devil to its feet before kicking it straight out of the crater and across the field above them. As Dante landed, Goku already stood over him, and kicked him down into the ground, leaving a human sized indent around him. Goku folded his arms, glaring at the red devil that lay lodged in the ground at his feet.
"You're pretty good, guy. This ain't boring, lemme tell ya. What does a guy like you wanna hurt the Earth for anyway? You don't seem the mass killing type."
Dante started to stand, but Goku kicked him in the face, knocking him onto his back again and deepening the indent around him. Dante looked up and spoke, his voice echoing and much deeper due to his demonic visage.
"Good to see you're fighting it more and more, big guy. Don't worry about a thing. I'll have you back to your good old self in no time. You must be a pretty friggin' cool dude to be more yourself so quickly. I'd even say I underestimated you. Andyou hit pretty damn hard. No one's come this close to killing me in years. Not since Mundus, in fact. If you see a piece of my head or my ass lying around somewhere, try not to step on it, eh?"
Goku picked Dante up by the neck, holding him up.
"Don't mock me. We both know you've got a lot of fight left in ya. I can sense some of your energy, and you're still able to fight just fine. Back when we first started, back before you transformed, I could sense you had a hidden power, which is why I held back. Now you've transformed, so we can both fight properly at our best."
Goku tossed Dante a few metres away, and Dante landed on his feet. After each warrior allowed the other a second to compose himself, round two began. Goku fired a Kamehameha at Dante, but Dante dodged, before appearing behind Goku, slamming into him from behind and forcing him into the ground and across the surface, leaving a long trail of shredded stone as the two slid along the stone ground. Goku used Instant Transmission to teleport above Dante, firing a Ki blast into him and slamming him into the ground, the shockwave from the blast ripping the side off a mountain that stood nearby.
Goku then readied a Destructo Disk and flung it at Dante, watching with a feeling of admiration as Dante struck the Disk aside with his sword, sending the Disk into the same mountain and cutting a sizable piece from it. Goku then flew at Dante, and the two began rapidly exchanging blows. Finally, Dante flew back, shooting a beam of electricity at Goku, shaking him up a bit, before flying into Goku at speeds even Goku couldn't follow, launching him down to the ground.
Dante started to charge, but Goku quickly used Instant Transmission to teleport above Dante, allowing the fast moving devil to slam into the ground without hitting him. Goku then fired a Destructo Disk at Dante, hitting him in the back between the shoulders and cutting clean through him. Goku was shocked to see that Dante was still whole. It was easy to tell that Dante's regeneration was so fast it held him together, which was why he still had no visible injuries even after all Goku had done to him, and why he still had energy to fight.
Goku fired another Destructo Disk as Dante turned to face him, this time aiming the Disk for the red devil's neck. Just before the Disk hit Dante, he vanished, moving faster than Goku could follow. The Disk slammed into the ground, missing the red devil. Goku sensed Dante behind him and turned to face him. Dante slammed into Goku at incredible speed, causing Goku to fly back. Dante then flew forward, spinning at high speeds and slamming into Goku, boring at him like a large, energised drill bit. Dante then moved slightly to the side and slammed his clawed foot into Goku, launching him through a nearby mountain and shattering a large part of that mountain.
Dante flew down to the rubble, standing in front of a bruised and bleeding Goku. He now knew Goku didn't have regeneration. That would make the fight easier, but the mission potentially harder. As Goku reared up, Dante matched Goku's speed, slamming him down to the ground again. Goku then stood, before slamming his foot on the ground and raising his power. Goku then charged and swung his fist at Dante's face again, but Dante caught his hand, holding off the punch with little effort, easily forcing Goku's fist away from himself before releasing it.
An irritated Goku then shoved the casually stationary Dante back several hundred feet, before launching a mighty Kamehameha at the legendary Devil Hunter. The blast slammed into Dante, tearing up the ground around him and completely obscuring him from view. The surrounding mountains started to fall down around the blast. Goku held the blast for several minutes, before finally letting go, breathing in a huge breath.
Suddenly, there was a flash of movement, and Dante, still in Devil form, appeared in front of the tired Goku, flinging his sword point-first past Goku's shoulder, grazing his shoulder deeply,before launching himself, spinning, into Goku and sending him flying back. Goku landed uncomfortably on his feet, skidding for several hundred metres, before finally stopping, and then dropping onto his hands and knees, powering down and returning to his base form.
As Dante recalled his sword, Rebellion, Goku powered back up to Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, exhaling as he felt the immense power he now controlled.
Goku shook the ground with his Ki. "That was a pretty cheap move. I suppose you thought cutting me would make me go down, or maybe you thought it'd make me lose my Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan transformation?"
Dante reverted to human form, chuckling. "Ididn't think either of those things. No way someone like you would go down because of one little cut. I just thought it would be a good way to get your attention, and I knew I felt like hitting you anyway. Think of it as payback for kicking me through a mountain and shooting me into orbit. I'm gonna be picking rubble outta my hair for weeks. And I got my head stuck in a satellite up there, but then one of your blasts launched me straight through the damn thing. If your TV doesn't work tonight, you got no one to blame but yourself."
Goku glared at Dante, growing angrier again, reminding himselfmore of Vegeta than himself. He didn't know why this man annoyed him so much, but somehow he did. It almost felt like a primal, natural hatred, like that which forms between natural enemies like a cobra and a mongoose. Goku was starting to wonder just what was going on, and why someone like Dante wanted to kill people.
"Did any of those blast attacks even hit you?"
Dante twirled his gun thoughtfully, before answering, "Most of them did. They all hurt like a bitch too. Why does everyone like shooting me so much?"
Goku narrowed his eyes, still feeling uncharacteristically high levels of aggression and an equally uncharacteristic desire to figure out a way to destroy his enemy. This feeling filled Goku with more questions.
"Then why are your clothes fine too? You regenerate, but your clothes outta be literally missing after all I've done to you."
Dante smirked, returning his gun to its holster. "What do ya want me to say? My devil form's a glowing red streaker, so it does more than just make me look like some giant asshole. Happy?"
Shaking his head to clear the conflicting feelings, Goku charged forward, swinging his fists at Dante. Dante blocked every strike, almost as fresh as he had been at the start of the fight. Finally, Goku gripped Dante, preparing to attack him up close and personal. Goku's fists slammed into Dante's face repeatedly, staggering him with each hit. Now that he was back in human form, Dante was much slower and significantly less durable, but Goku knew Dante was still stronger than he was physically, which meant Goku needed to use his speed to keep Dante on the ropes. Goku's foot then connected with the back of Dante's head, striking him off balance so Goku could kick him from the front, causing him to cough and splutter. Goku then wrapped his hand around Dante's neck, pulling him forward and delivering a Ki blast to his face at point blank range, causing the half devil to cry out.
Before Goku could attack further, Dante activated his Devil Trigger again, only this time, he morphed into a larger, black devil, and in doing so, released a burst of red demonic energy from his body. Goku staggered back, having been badly damaged and taken off guard by the spontaneous blast of demonic power that had just struck him. Devil Trigger Dante now seemed weak compared to this new form. Majin form Dantethen flew forward at speeds that baffled even the lightning fast Goku, and slammed his clawed, energised fist into Goku's face, sending him staggering back, and Goku was sure he felt something in his face break. He suspected it might be part of his skull, but he hoped it was only a tooth. Either way, it hurt.
During the split second that Goku would need to recover his composure, Dante activated Quicksilver, speeding himself up even more. Dante then used the power taken from Doppelganger to make a shadow clone of himself to distract Goku by charging from the front, and hevanished, appearing in the air directly behind Goku, who was preparing to attack the shadow clone, but had already turned to face the real Dante having immediately sensed the vast difference between the power level of the Doppelganger and that of the real Dante.
Seeing that the distraction method was useless against Goku, Dante rapidly activated the Bangle of Time, stopping time and freezing Goku on the spot. As the Doppelganger faded away so Dante could conserve energy, Dante slammed his sword down on Goku's head, the blade passing harmlessly through the Saiyan warrior downwards from his head, with a squirt of strange purple blood flying from Goku's back despite the lack of any visible wound. As the flow of time resumed, Goku yelped with shock, blinking in confusion asthe two halves of a large human-shapedinsect creature in an orange outfit fell out of him in two separate directions, and Dante reverted to his human form and collapsed on his hands and knees, sighing with a mixture of displeasure and exhaustion. Goku instantly realized that the animosity he had felt towards Dante was gone, and looked down to see that he stood with a piece of an insectoid creaturewith a striking resemblance to him lying on the ground on either side of him.
Goku looked around, confused, examining the two halves of a body that looked like a less human version of himself, trying to figure out what kind of parasite this was. The body halves started twitching and straining to bite him, and Goku instinctively jumped into the air and launched himself back down, stamping on the two halves of the body's head and killing the creature instantly.
"What was that thing?" Goku asked, his composure regained.
Still on his hands and knees, Dante answered. "The demon I killed just before you got here. It must have partially possessed you with its last life. No real effects other than an obsession with violence, and a bit of a murderous nature, and I bet you would have kicked its ugly ass outta your body in an hour, probably less. You got that angry because the demon was frustrated trying to fully possess you when it couldn't. You may have noticed its power over you lessened when you calmed yourself down, and I noticed you got angry faster in that blue hair dye advertisement form… Super Sayin' God, Super Sayin', I think you called it?"
Goku nodded thoughtfully, remembering his mood swings and how they had become more erratic when he had changed into a Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan.
"Yeah. It's Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, by the way."
Dante chuckled softly. "Whatever. Just sayin' or Saiyan or whatever. Whatever."
Goku smiled at Dante's unusual humour. "How'd you kill it without killing me? Or hurting me at all, for that matter?"
Dante glanced over his shoulder at Goku.
"My sword can kill the possessing demon without even scratching the host, even if I put the sword straight through the host in the process. I'm Dante, by the way."
Goku nodded, partially understanding. "I already knew your name. I guess I learned it from that demon, but it's good to meet you for real. Sorry for attacking you. I hope I ain't hurt you too bad. I did beat on you a bit. How's your head? I think you said something about not stepping on a piece o' your head, or your ass, if I see one."
Dante sat up and turned around to properly face Goku, half-smiling. "Don't worry about it, man. Some demons are real good at that possession crap. It's impressive you were still you at all. That asshole was making whole cities kill each other for fun, and it had to focus all its attention on you just to get you to do that much. Besides, you got a bit smashed up yourself."
Goku shrugged. "Yeah. We both took a bit of a beating. Are we good?"
Dante chuckled. "Of course, man. Shit happens. If you saw what some of the women in my life do to me when they're angry, this wouldn't seem so big. Still, I do feel like going for a drink. After you cut me in half with that round thing and kicked my head in until it was a brand new shape, my stomach could use the relaxation. You up for a whiskey shot? I'll drink your ass under the table. There's not enough booze in the country to put me under."
Goku smiled and accepted, though he didn't drink alcohol and he planned on just drinking tea or water. "Sure. I ain't seein' no reason why not, but only after I get me something to eat. I'm starved. That was a pretty good fight. We should try again sometime. Some time when I ain't tryin 'a do you in. Anyway, why don't you join me for lunch? Chichi's a wonderful lady, and she makes great chow, but just be careful around her. And don't tell her about the mountains and stuff either. She'll kill us both for sure if she knows we destroyed all those mountains. She's one scary lady when she's angry. I just hope that satellite you brought down wasn't anything to do with any of her favourite programs. We're both dead if it was. Especially me…"
Dante nodded, noticing the damage for the first time.
"Yeah, something tells me I'm not getting payed for this job. I'll probably be getting booked for destruction of natural habitat and private property within a few days. How much you reckon it costs to replace a few mountains and a satellite? Guess fixing mountains is nothing like filling teeth. I did down a satellite for a big TV news station once. The local newspaper's been sending me calendars ever since. Hey, wait a minute! What do you mean, the satellite I brought down? I'm not the one who fired a friggin' blast through it! With the stuff you were shooting around you're lucky you didn't blow up the moon!"
Goku scratched his head innocently, before holding out his hand to Dante and helping him to his feet. Dante staggered slightly, but Goku caught him before he fell. "Gee, you really are exhausted, huh?"
Dante sighed. "The Majin form really takes it outta me. I didn't want to have to use it but I really had to pull the stops."
Goku put his arm over Dante's shoulder and allowed the hunter to lean on him.
"I'll get ya a Senzu bean if you like."
Dante chuckled. "I'd prefer pizza."
Goku blinked twice at this. "Senzu beans are to restore your energy."
Dante shook his head again. "My energy always comes back by itself pretty much right away. I guess it's my fast metabolism…"
After a few minutes of discussion between the two new allies, Dante's vitality returned almost completely, and he gladly agreed to go to Goku's house and meet his family, including Goku's wife Chichi who was starting to sound to him an awful lot like an older version of Patty, which he had to admit interested him. Dante was already starting to like Goku a lot, finding his happy, honest, decent personality impossible to not like, regardless of the fact Goku had just finished using him as a bowling ball to smash down some mountains. To go with that, he certainly didn't mind the idea of a free meal either. He hoped Chichi was as good a cook as Goku said she was. He was interested in the idea of eating a pizza that didn't have olives on it for once.
Dante went with Goku to join him and his family for lunch time, not having the slightest idea that he would be literally waiting for hours for the ever-hungry Goku to finish his two course appetiser consisting of Dim Sim and a lettuce dish Dante didn't recognise, his fiftycourse lunch consisting of rice, meat and vegetables spread into literally fifty bowls, and his ten course desert consisting of some sort of rice cake. Goku ate quickly and ravenously, reminding Dante of a garbage disposal unit or a vacuum cleaner, and literally cleaning off the entire table more than ten times, as well as leaving several piles of used yet remarkably clean bowls that stacked up almost to the roof, sparking a fit of rage from Chichi, who expressed irritationwith Goku while he continued to eat, albeit looking very sheepish.
The fact Goku could eat so quickly and pick every last piece with chopsticks amazed Dante. Dante would be seeing no whiskey that day, but at least he could have pizza provided he could eat it before Goku noticed it. Ironically, Dante had no idea that the eating habits at the table would soon get much worse with the arrival of Goku's guest, Vegeta. Dante was not getting his pizza either. He was instead being unintentionally set up to be the unofficial judge of an eating contest between two walking vacuum cleaners.
Analysis:
Dante and Goku both have high feats in all categories that are very impressive. This compares them.
Speed:
Dante:
If you look closely at the fight between Dante and Mundus, they were actually moving at faster than light speeds. At the start, they were surrounded on all sides, as well as above and below, by stars, and when they flew higher, the stars were instantly nowhere to be seen. This is supported by the fact that when Mundus flew upwards, the stars in the background rapidly rolled down the screen, indicating he was moving fast enough to change his position greatly in relation to the stars, which would require him to have covered distance at least comparable to the distance separating him from the stars, which is something that would require faster than light speed, though we can't get a specific number from it. It's also further supported by the fact Mundus' beam attack is stated in the official guide to be a particle beam, which is a beam of atomic particles moving close to light speed, with the particle beams in the Large Hadron Collider considered and calculated to move at 299792455 metres per second, only 3 metres per second slower than the speed of light. This attack is one of the easiest to dodge, with Mundus' energy javelins consistently proving harder to dodge in gameplay and being the attack that manages to hit Sparda-enhanced Dante in cutscene. This shows that the energy javelins are less powerful but a good deal faster than the particle beam. One of the attacks used by Plasma is similarly stated to be a plasma particle beam, which is a different kind of particle beam but still very similar. Dante can dodge this as well.
Back to the space flight feats, let's say the stars above them were only 1 light year away, which is less than a quarter of the distance to the Earth's nearest star, and thus a drastic understatement of the distance. Dante and Mundus flew past them in a second, so far past them that their light was no longer visible below. That means they travelled at least double the distance to the stars in one second. Let's say that's only two light years in a second, even though it was most likely much higher.
1 light year per second means:
365 X 24 X 60 X 60 = 31,536,000 X the speed of light.
Double that for the distance they went past the stars. 31536000 X 2 = 63072000
Even if the stars above them were only 1 light year away, the speed they travelled to reach the stars would still be 31,536,000 X the speed of light, and therefore the actual speed they travelled at would be 63,072,000 X the speed of light. Seeing as stars were visible on all sides, the chance that all the stars above were within a light year away is almost non-existent, since in the real world's outer space most of the stars visible from Earth are between 100 and 1000 light years away, which would mean Dante and Mundus travelled more than 200 light years in a second, and let's also not forget that the light not being visible below them means that is a substantially greater distance than the distance that had been separating them from the stars above them. The most distant star which is visible from Earth is over 4000 light years away, and there are other stars beyond it. Even if we ignore that, 200 light years per second is 6,307,200,000 X the speed of light.
In km/h, that means:
Light speed is 1,079,251,200 km/h. Effectively 1,080,000,000.
1,080,000,000 X 63,072,000 = 68,117,760,000,000,000 km/h. 68 quadrillion km/h if the stars were only one light year away. If they were a hundred light years away 6.8 quintillion km/h. In DMC1 Dante needed his father's power to move that fast, but in DMC2 he is stated to have surpassed his father, and in the novel right before DMC2 Dante kills a parallel universe version of Mundus, meaning DMC2 Dante is that fast and powerful without his father's sword.
In his weaker early DMC1 incarnation Dante is seen to comfortably outpace cloud to ground lightning used by Griffon, as he can literally use the lightning as a set of platforms to jump higher. He also keeps pace with Plasma which is stated in its in-game description to be an embodiment of lightning, and is seen travelling as a lightning bolt. This is also supported by a feat Trish performs at a similar speed where Trish is seen to appear very quickly in the opening cutscene of DMC1 with the moon behind her, and to have been so far away from the camera as to be out of sight but then be only a few metres away from the camera literally a frame later, Trish had to have crossed more than two kilometres in roughly a thirtieth of a second, and based on how far away a source of light, or a human-sized object in front of a big source of light like the full moon, has to be in order to vanish from view, it added up to her being at least Mach 220, and she actually was visibly approaching from the moon's direction too, so the feat is legitimate. It should also be noted some scientific theories say that the distance at which one can perceive such a point of light is actually 48km, which would make that feat in excess of Mach 4,000, but that theory has little validity though it is the more popularly held belief, which is why there are two sets of numbers.
Natural lightning has varying levels of speed, with a stepped leader being 224,000mph, which is Mach 294, but the lesser known return stroke is only three times slower than light, and with Plasma literally being an embodiment of lightning as an element it probably is capable of moving as fast as a return stroke. While this wouldn't be the case for any character who controls lightning, an entity that actually embodies or in simple terms IS lightning is actually made of the charge that composes lightning which is why it's shown to move AS lightning. With that factored in it stands to reason Plasma can travel as that charge and move like the return stroke of lightning too. In addition Dante already has light speed reactions even as far back as DMC3 as he can dodge and even block lasers from Damned Rooks, and more obvious blasts of light from Beowulf the Lightbeast, attacks which inflict greater damage on Doppelganger, an entity composed of shadows whose only vulnerability is light. In addition, in DMC1 he can dodge Nightmare's lasers which are literally stated to be composed of light in the Nightmare and Plasma description. It's also notable that Plasma is immune to Nightmare-Beta, which also fires light, due to being able to manipulate ambient energy to bend the light away as it approaches, as stated in Plasma's official in-game description, which indicates the Plasma also has reactions around light speed. It is also worth noting that Trish dashed to Dante and intercepted Mundus' incoming particle beam, having started to move just as the beam was fired, which indicates she was as fast as the almost light speed particle beam as she crossed a similar distance to the distance it crossed in the same timeframe. When combined with the distinct likelihood that Plasma is able to move as fast as a return stroke, this seems to indicate that Dante and Trish were close to light speed even then.
In addition to this we have Quicksilver, Dante's time-slowing power. Activation of Quicksilver caused rocks that had been moving at at least 80km/h to slow down to the point they weren't visibly moving. We know how fast they were moving because they fell about 30 metres based on how far they are from Dante. To summarise, that means it went from 80km/h to less than 1cm/sec.
80 kilometres=8,000,000cm. So 8,000,000cm an hour
1 hour = 3600 seconds
8,000,000 ÷ 3600 = 2222
2222cm/sec is turned into 1cm/sec.
So Quicksilver slows time by at least 2222 times. Dante also has the Bangle of time, which totally freezes time for up to 20 or even 30 seconds, but we'll say 10. Combine that with light speed reactions and massively hypersonic minimum speed and Dante can compete in the speed category even without the Mundus battle feats.
Goku:
Gotenks circled the Earth 6 times, but he was flying very high up which resulted in the radius of the circles he flew in being roughly double that of the Earth itself, and since radius difference is directly proportional to circumference difference that means he flew double the Earth's circumference six times, essentially circling the Earth's circumference 12 times. The Earth's circumference is 24,901 miles or 40,075 kilometres, which means he flew 298,812 miles or 480,900km.
We do know that he left the palace 29 minutes before Piccolo finds him since Piccolo says he has less than a minute left of fusion and fusion lasts 30 minutes. He states that he took a nap at the end, but exact timeframes are never specified. On one hand Gotenks could have flown for no time at all and then spent the whole 29 minutes napping, but that actually wouldn't be the high assessment of Dragon Ball speed that it sounds like, since napping means Gotenks was staying still, and Piccolo was chasing him, therefore the longer Gotenks napped for the longer Piccolo took to fly to a stationary Gotenks. To explain, if Gotenks flew that distance in a non-existent instant timeframe that would mean Piccolo took 29 minutes to fly to Gotenks, who for the sake of argument we'll assume was on the other side of the Earth, which would mean Piccolo flew 20037.5km in 29 minutes making his speed 690.948275862069km per minute, 41456.89655172414km/h or Mach 33.8. Obviously this can't be the case, especially since it was likely a shorter distance that Piccolo flew thus reducing the speed result.
Another way to look at it is to look for other speed feats. Unfortunately the speed feats throughout the series are less impressive than expected, and so we have these things to look at. One event is the time Buuhan flew to Goku and Vegeta in the time it took Hercule and Dende to say two sentences. The words Dende and Hercule spoke would have taken about 15 second to say. We'll assume Buu flew halfway around the world since that's the maximum distance he could have travelled to Goku and Vegeta, and it's quite possible since Baba didn't want to get too close to Buu. Goku and Vegeta had a discussion roughly a minute long as well, including an argument while he was able to see them in the distance meaning he was within 5 kilometres of them, meaning Buu takes realistically about a minute to fly at most halfway around the world.
That would mean travelling 20,035km in a minute, 1,202,100km/h, Mach 981.274. Goku also states that Buu is approaching fast so it's obvious Buu's speed was impressive to Goku.
If that was Buuhan's speed then Gotenks could have perhaps taken 25 minutes to fly that distance, meaning he travelled 480900km in 25 minutes making Gotenks Mach 942 and making Piccolo a maximum of Mach 245. Ultimately Gotenks is most likely slower than this and Piccolo most likely traversed a lesser distance than half the Earth's circumference. This would ultimately make Goku as he is in Revival of F substantially faster than Mach 982, making him likely at least Mach 1,500 though that's more of an estimate via rough scaling. To the people who get angry reading those numbers bear in mind this is based strictly on the original manga which has no cinematic time and almost never defines distance. Truthfully this speed level is believable since it always takes the characters time to fly places, and Goku teleporting 10,000km to Roshi's house and back in the two or more seconds it would take him to teleport twice would make for a maximum flight speed of Mach 30,000 if he flew there and back, and everyone, including Vegeta and even Goku himself, thought of this as an absolutely impossible speed and thus proof he was teleporting. This proves that no one at that point in the story at least was even close to Mach 30,000.
Goku: Mach 900 or more. Higher to unknown extent with God upgrades. Likely Mach 1,500 in ROF.
Base Dante in DMC1: At least Mach 300 with light speed reactions, likely close to light speed already, at least Mach 666,600 with 2,222 times FTL reactions with Quicksilver, can make copies of himself and also outright stop time for ten to thirty seconds.
Sparda-Enhanced or DMC2 Dante: 60,000,000 times light speed at minimum, likely much faster as will be outlined later. Still has Quicksilver and the Bangle of Time.
Strength:
Dante:
Dante blocked the Saviour's punch. The Saviour weighs at least 100,000 tons as it is comparable in size to the Empire State Building which weighs 360,000 tons. The arm came down from 500 metres above the ground, with 200 metres separating the Saviour from Dante, and covered the space in one second, meaning it moved at about 600m/sec. Dante blocked the strike without budging under the impact. The Saviour's height is gathered by the fact Dante is smaller than its smallest fingernail. In short a 100,000 ton object descending at 600 metres per second makes for a 6,118,297 ton-force impact, though the gravity factors in to make it a fair bit more impressive, as does the fact Dante took that impact without moving backwards at all.
Goku:
Goku was carrying 40 tons albeit barely. While it is true that the Super Saiyan forms have a defined extent to which they multiply power, it is never really specified how that translates to strength and speed and the like, so it isn't easy to give a speed stat for Goku.
Via scaling he could be as strong as an 8 million ton strength level in ROF, but this isn't certain since there is a distinct lack of feats.
Some people say that the 40 tons should be increased to 400 on the basis that Grand Kai's planet has the times ten gravity that King Kai's planet does. As it happens, assuming that Grand Kai's planet has that increased gravity may be a problem since it was shown that the world of the Kais didn't have increased gravity seeing as Hercule was able to freely move around, lift Vegeta and generally move unhindered on it.
If we go only by actual feats, he shoves apart a rock formation while in SS1. The formation would be roughly 20,000 tons, as Buu is roughly a 150th of the larger half's front face, and the formation's depth appears to be similar to half its width. That makes Buu a 22,500th of the larger half. An area of stone the size of Buu would be roughly half a ton.
That means Goku would have been shoving 11,250 tons in the form of the larger half with one arm, while shoving less weight in the form of the other half with his other arm. It makes for approximately 20,000 tons. He struggled to do this feat. If scaling can't be used, this is the highest strength feat in DBZ, though it is unfortunately an anime filler scene. If we're being strict to canon then he was able to throw an enlarged Piccolo who would have weighed about 100 tons, pushed a boulder which weighed at least 100 tons and generally can easily be considered to weigh in at the 100 tons range. That is at absolute minimum based on solid feats.
Base Dante: 6 million tons and more. Likely stronger.
Goku: Several hundred tons at absolute minimum, but no higher feats to go by.
Obviously that stat on its own means little since lifting strength is Goku's lowest attribute. Strength is only useful in close quarters or in the event that one person has the strength to dismember or otherwise incapacitate the other.
Attack Power and Durability:
Dante:
Mundus launched Dante down with a stream of meteors. When the camera angles down, there is no light visible below, but Dante lands a second later beside lava which hazes the sky around it red, which means the meteors reached the lava faster than the light reached Dante and Mundus. As for how much faster, the fight had been going on for about 3 minutes, and the light still hadn't reached them, indicating the meteors were at least 180 times faster than light, probably faster; when you factor how fast Dante and Mundus themselves were moving, it's likely thousands or millions of times faster. What's more, there were about twenty of them. We should also consider that the meteors were probably extremely dense, since we know stone from the demon world is far more solid than any material in the real world. A meteor with a 2 metre diameter moving 180 times faster than light would hit with a minimum of continent busting power at 4 teratons, and a meteor moving as fast as Dante himself was moving, which is likely far closer to the actual speed of the meteors, would hit with a power of about 2 tenaterajoules or 500 tenatons; star busting amounts of force. Since Mundus was launching those meteors at Dante in battle the chances are they're at least comparable to Dante's own flight speed, which is vastly higher than the minimum given by the light being outpaced. Considering the dimension is stated to be a universe the meteors and Dante himself are likely immeasurably faster than that which could make those meteors vastly more powerful depending on just how close they are to Dante's own speed. To go with this Mundus is vastly superior to Dante's Devil Trigger, which crushed Abigail, who dispersed a cloud layer over all of North America, completely uncovering the continent, and fired out state-sized lightning bolts, with the cloud feat being enough power to destroy a continent more than 100 times over since it's a mass of billion ton rain clouds the size of the USA being blown at speeds exceeding Mach 2000. To crush that so easily Dante would need to be a lot stronger than multi-continent busting in Devil Trigger. Since the meteors were likely demonic stone which has no confirmed upper limit to its durability we have to use a bare minimum and go with normal stone density but factor in that it's higher at the end.
As for durability those meteors hit Dante while he had energy javelins in him, and he was only winded. What's more, the ones that followed the first meteors were still hitting him when he landed and reverted to his base form, and he was unaffected. This would mean Dante can survive planet and star busting hits even in human form. And any damage that is done to him heals instantly anyway. It may seem unlikely based on his general showings, but remember his limits are largely unknown because he's almost never serious, and the Mundus fight is the only time he's ever fought seriously at full strength.
That makes planet busting a fairly safe minimum and star busting an extremely likely minimum; in fact Dante's flight speed would allow him to use himself as the equivalent of a star busting meteor if he decided to slam into a target at his top speed which would mean in Devil Trigger Dante is certainly capable of destroying a star with his high speed strikes. However, there is a lot to say he and Mundus are much stronger than that, since Mundus actually created a body of space containing thousands of visible stars, and that dimension has actually been stated multiple times by the DMC1 director Hideki Kamiya to have been a universe the same size as the real life universe. This is also supported by the fact the manga implied that Mundus' ultimate intention was to reassimilate the universe into the Demon World, and by the fact the official guide states Mundus will take over the universe if he's not stopped. It is also further backed up by the fact various crossovers have shown Dante fighting Ghost Rider and not dying, beating the hell lord Mephisto twice, and being presented as a final challenge to Jedah Dohma, which was followed a few years later by another crossover in which Dante actually defeated Jedah in the main story while Jedah was wielding an Infinity Gem. It should also be noted that descriptions on several covers of DMC1 and the official Capcom encyclopaedia refer to Mundus as a god, as a deity and as all-powerful. There is also the fact Mundus created the Mirror World which was a reflection of the world including having its own Sun with various rules of physics reversed such as light visibly flowing back into the Sun, which technically would in itself mean Mundus can create stars and completely disregard and warp the laws of physics. Combine all that together and the evidence is pretty strongly saying that Mundus is able to create and destroy universes.
This isn't surprising considering Kamiya also made Bayonetta and Viewtiful Joe which both have gods who created the universe and Okami which has interstellar powers. It is also a game from Capcom, the same company responsible for Asura's Wrath which has a god who created the universe, Darkstalkers which had a villain, the very same Jedah Dohma who Dante defeated in an official Capcom game, who planned to reset the universe, and of course Okami and Viewtiful Joe again. Capcom also made Mega Man which while lacking the universal reality warping does centre on space, which is at least somewhat relevant to Mundus fighting Dante in space. Capcom also works on some of the games for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure which has had a villain who reset the universe. Capcom also has relations with Marvel Comics which has characters like The One Above All who created all the Marvel universes, and several others who are at least somewhat similar to that, the most famous example being Galactus. In short it is hardly out of character for any of the people involved with Devil May Cry to make the main villain create a universe since Capcom and Kamiya have both had villains who did exactly that, and others who did something similar.
Dante was able to go toe to toe with Mundus and damage him, as well as take hits from him while enhanced by the sword Sparda, and in the novel set before DMC2 Dante kills a parallel universe version of Mundus. This puts him at least in the same range of power as Mundus. As for his ability to damage Mundus it should also be noted that Mundus' dimension/universe is seen fading to white with Mundus in it at the end of the fight with Mundus acting as if he's being crushed, and afterwards Mundus returns with injuries Dante didn't inflict. With that we can say that his dimension or universe most likely came apart with him inside it, which would make his durability universal and then some if we go by Hideki Kamiya's statements, or almost galactic if we just go by the fact it's a space dimension containing thousands of stars. If the dimension was a universe in accordance with Hideki Kamiya's statements that means Mundus can create a universe. This means materializing an entire universe's worth of space and matter. We also know Dante can take hits from Mundus and block his attacks with his own as well as damage Mundus, putting the two of them in the universal range in both offensive power and durability.
Alternatively, if we go by the visible size of the dimension we know Mundus can create thousands of stars and the space containing them; almost the equivalent of a small galaxy, and we know Dante can damage Mundus and take hits from him, which would again make Dante comparable. It would essentially make Dante just under dwarf galaxy level when enhanced by the Sparda or in DMC2.
With those feats we can say DMC2 Dante is more powerful than Goku unless of course we factor either GT or Super, and if Kamiya's statements are treated seriously then DMC2 Dante is stronger regardless of what we treat as canon.
Goku:
Goku has been easily a planet buster since the Namek Saga, and as of Revival of F he can fight Beerus who destroyed two stars, so he's likely capable of destroying stars at this point. There are lots of controversies surrounding him there. First off there are various things that are discussed that suggest he's stronger than star-busting. The most obvious is Cell's infamous statement that he can destroy the solar system. This statement is repeated in several guidebooks. Some people dismiss this statement as pure hyperbole, but more importantly neither Cell nor the guidebooks ever elaborate; we don't know if solar system means the whole solar system or just the planets, since the planets are often what people are referring to when they say solar system; often the Sun isn't factored in. There is also the fact that the method of doing so is never explained. He may have meant that he could simply fire a blast into empty space and the resulting blast would instantly consume the solar system, but since Majin Buu self-detonated and only the Earth explodes with the rest of the solar system seemingly left behind since Dende only needs to wish the Earth back which would have left anything else destroyed, this is unlikely. There is also the possibility that he meant destroying the Sun and thus essentially destroying the solar system, but this isn't really how he made it sound. Alternatively he may have meant that he can shoot multiple blasts at once or in rapid succession and quickly blast away every planet in the solar system. This seems the most likely. Another alternative is that he could fire the Kamehameha through one planet then redirect it to the others, but that would take the same amount of power as the multiple blasts really though it would take a lot of effort. Overall if the statement is true it soundly proves he can blast away multiple planets or more specifically destroy a planet multiple times over. However there is a problem, namely that Cell has no apparent expertise in regards to what it actually takes to bust the solar system. If it had been Frieza who looked at the solar system through the scanners of his ship that would be different, and if it had been Dr Gero who was a brilliant scientist that would also be different, but Cell has never displayed any expertise in astronomy or any interest in other planets or even the one he is currently standing on, so he's not a huge authority on the matter anyway.
There are also the powerscaling methods used by some, which unfortunately tend to lead to results that seriously conflict with feats and canon events. One is that the Supreme Kai stated that each Supreme Kai was one thousand times more powerful than Frieza. This is an alteration to the statement; he actually said each could have felled Frieza with one blow. Since Frieza's power varied depending on his form this is an uncertain statement anyway, but it isn't reliable regardless, since Supreme Kai was not an expert on Frieza at all. More importantly Supreme Kai grossly misjudged everyone's powers, such as the fact he grossly underestimated the Saiyans; he believed Goku, Vegeta and Gohan together were incapable of beating Dabura, he was dumbstruck when Vegeta defeated Pocus, and he believed Goku couldn't defeat Yakon, and when Goku decided to let Yakon keep consuming the light energy from his Super Saiyan form the Supreme Kai thought Goku was being stupid and didn't see Goku's obvious plan. When Buu reaches full power inside his shell and is awakened Supreme Kai even says that he literally miscalculated everything. There is also the fact he thought that as Kibito Kai he could go and assist Goku against Majin Buu, which was very wrong.
Another is that people consult a rather crudely drawn map of the Dragon Ball universe and say that based on it Snake Way is as long as a quarter of the universe. The obvious problem there is that based on that map Snake Way is as wide as the Earth, when we know it is about as wide as a bicycle path. That map is quite clearly unreliable, especially since it's repeatedly stated that Snake Way is one million kilometres long, and even Akira Toriyama has said that Snake Way is one million kilometres long.
There is a scene in Super where Goku's and Beerus' punches are shaking the universe, but Super is made by Toei Animation rather than Akira Toriyama, and has made several clear references to non-canon material such as where Bulma recognises Captain Ginyu as the frog who took her body when that actually never happened in the manga, and the appearance of Pirozhki, Caroni, Miss Piiza, and Gregory, all of which are non-canon characters, meaning it contains several things which clearly follow on from the anime rather than the manga, making its canonicity uncertain, and loose at best, at least if we go by the Dragon Ball manga. It should also be considered that Dragon Ball Super made the fight with Beerus strikingly similar to the fight against Omega Shenron in the infamous GT, what with the threat to the universe and the Kais saying their world will be destroyed too. This is understandable though since Toei did both of them. This is also why Super's portrayal of Beerus is significantly darker than Battle of Gods' portrayal of him. Toei wanted him to be a more traditional villain while Akira Toriyama wanted Battle of Gods to be a cool story of friendship. Factor in that in an interview with Toriyama and Toyotaro who writes the Super manga, Toriyama commented that Toyotaro added very little to Toriyama's original script. This means that the Dragon Ball Super manga is very close to the script, and so if something is in the Super anime but not the manga odds are it's not in the script.
In short, while we can fairly safely say that Goku can bust multiple planets and probably a star, there isn't much evidence suggesting he can do much more.
As for durability he can also take blasts from the likes of Buu who can easily destroy planets. His durability generally seems to be just slightly below the maximum power of his blasts. For those who say that sounds wrong, remember that Vegeta was able to destroy himself with his attack on Majin Buu. People interpret this as Vegeta blowing himself up, but that is clearly not what happens since Vegeta is shown still there afterwards except he falls out of the sky and crumbles. This raises the obvious question of what exactly he did. The easiest thing to say would be that he turned himself to stone but he didn't. What he seems to have done is utilized every bit of energy in his body including the basic fluids and cells in order to pour every piece of his life force out against Buu in a single focused attack. This indicates that Ki users can quite literally pour their vital life force out into an attack, which would mean that technically their destructive power is just that little bit beyond their durability, since it would take far lesser injuries to kill Vegeta than the damage he did to himself in that attack. Far less energy could remain in him before he'd die. The difference is virtually irrelevant except that it means a Ki user can push past their perceived limits at the cost of their life force, which is just one more reason why Frieza's scouters couldn't truly measure what they were capable of.
However, one of a Ki user's most notable weaknesses is that their durability is far lesser when they don't see the attack coming. This was displayed multiple times but only made extremely obvious twice. The most infamous example is in Revival of F where Sorbet mortally wounds Goku with a laser which has virtually no real feats except that someone at least as powerful as Raditz or Nappa considered the weapon useful. The other obvious example is the scene where Vegeta knocks out Goku in one hit and states that Goku can be vulnerable when he's off guard. Another example is the fact that Krillin and Roshi who are easily bulletproof were weakened enough that Bulma's bullets bruised them while they were sleeping, and then there are numerous examples in fights, such as Krillin being stomped on by a Cell Jr and being hurt with no damage to the ground, and all the times we've seen lesser Ki users get taken down by easy strikes from stronger attackers, even though those strikes clearly seem unimpressive compared to what those characters can take. In fact most one hit knockouts and kills in Dragon Ball happen when the one being beaten doesn't see the attack coming. Even when they get directly attacked they don't know when or where the blow will land as shown by the fact Piccolo couldn't tell when Frieza fired on Namek. This weakness actually explains many of the low end feats in Dragon Ball. In this fight it is a problem since Devil Trigger Dante is faster than Goku to the extent he can catch him off guard repeatedly, and if he stops time Goku's guard will obviously be down. This weakness actually leaves Ki users quite poorly matched against a faster enemy.
In closing, Goku is a very powerful character, capable of beating almost anyone, which each calculation of his feats showed, but Dante is either somewhat above him or at least comparable to him in every category. Dante is at an advantage here. It's a close fight still, though.