DISCLAIMER: I do not own Bayonetta or Devil May for those works belongs to Capcom, Nintendo, Sega, Platinum Games, Hideki Kamiya and Hideaki Itsuno, amongst various other staff.

Dante sat at his desk, feet resting on the desktop. Lady stood in front of his desk, hands on the desktop and glaring at him with her mismatched eyes.

"We have a serious situation here, Dante, and you're sitting there eating pizza?"

Dante half-smiled, shuffling his shoulder into a slightly more comfortable position in the chair. "Well, I'm serious about my pizza."

Trish leaned against the wall not far away, looking at herself in a mirror she had brought in. Dante turned away in horror as Trish suddenly removed her corset top, leaving herself briefly topless as she tried on a dress she had gotten from the store that day.

"Ugh, Trish! It looks good, but keep your top on!"
Lady turned in time to see Trish's pants drop down from under the dress, and rolled her eyes.

"There is an upstairs bedroom where you can do that! Or… just an idea… somewhere far away!" Lady exclaimed.
Trish spun around, facing Lady while wearing her revealing black dress, her ample cleavage bulging out the front of it and the deep slit exposing most of the length of her legs.

"Oh, you loved it."

After exchanging a glance with Dante, Lady drew her gun and fired a bullet at Trish, hitting her in the shoulder and avoiding the dress. Trish rapidly dropped the dress, leaving herself wearing only her black underpants and causing Lady and Dante to turn away, Lady rolling her eyes in disgust, while Dante stared blankly at the ceiling out of a mixture of respect and utter disinterest.
Dante reached over his desk without looking and took another slice of pizza, eating it while still not looking at Trish. He briefly considered reading a magazine as well.

"Could you just tell us when you're decent again?" Asked a disinterested Dante.

Trish chuckled, playfully responding, "I'm good now."
Dante and Lady turned back to see she hadn't put anything else on at all and was posing with one of her guns in her hand, still wearing nothing but the same underwear. Dante and Lady exchanged another glance, before they both drew their guns and started shooting at Trish, while she shot back albeit only at Dante.

After several minutes of repeated gunshots and the sounds of things breaking, the door to the Devil May Cry opened, and Trish flew out headfirst, her clothes flying after her. A grumpy Trish stood up from the pavement, putting her regular clothes back on and peeking through the open door to the shop briefly, before nodding with relief to see Dante hanging her dress up in the original cover she had been keeping it in, though she could see by Lady's expression that the human devil hunter would have preferred to take it and alter it to fit herself.

"Those two really can't take grown-up jokes."

Trish walked through the back alleys to get to the bar she liked to frequent. As she stepped in she headed to the bar and sat down right in front of the barkeep.

"Martini, extra dry."

As Trish started to relax, a deep female voice said from right beside her, "Kicked out of the shop again, were you?"
Trish jumped in shock and turned to see Bayonetta sitting beside her.

"Bayonetta. Good to see you again. How's your boyfriend?"

Bayonetta smirked. "If you mean Cheshire, he's going well. If you mean Enzo, he'd better hope I don't call in the debt he owes me."

Trish's martini arrived, and she took a sip. Bayonetta raised her small glass, filled with a pink drink.
"Here's to intertwined man problems. May they be as funny later when we finally sober up."
Trish raised her martini and toasted with Bayonetta, the two drinking their drinks in an instant. Trish wiped the excess martini from her lips with her tongue, and chuckled.

"You know we'd have to drink everything the barkeep has before either of us would be drunk."

Bayonetta raised her empty glass again, acting a lot more inebriated than she was as she said in a deliberately slurred voice, "Well then here's to ridiculously high alcohol tolerance, may we overcome it tonight by drowning its arse in alcohol."

The two women laughed, ordering another drink. The drinks arrived quickly, served by a youngbargirl who seemed very impressed by the two big flirtatious women in front of her. Seeing the admiration in the girl's face, Bayonetta slid a spare five dollar bill across the bar to her, winking at her encouragingly.

Trish leaned over the bar slightly as the girl left, acting as if Bayonetta's generosity struck her as plain stupidity. Seeing Trish do this, Bayonetta decided to distract Trish before the lightning she-devilasked why she'd given the bargirl anything. Thinking quickly, Bayonetta asked, "Why did he kick you out?"

Trish smirked, forgetting the bargirl. "I was posing naked in front of his other girlfriend."
Bayonetta clenched her jaw to restrain her laughter at the thought of what Trish was describing, and instead drummed her fingers on one of the guns from the pistol set Love is Blue, drawing Trish's attention to it.

"How about we give him something to really worry about?"

Trish chuckled at what Bayonetta was suggesting. "I don't know if that'll work for you."

Bayonetta smirked. "Oh, I won't hurt him… Much. I will destroy his office though. And then I'll see if I can't make Enzo pay for the damages afterwards. It's win-win."

Dante finished his pizza, standing up and turning to Lady.

"I'm gonna go find Trish."
Lady smirked, placing her hands on her hips and leaning forward in a condescending posture.

"Oh, how sweet. If I didn't know better I'd swear you were worried about her."

Dante stepped past her. "Shut up."

As he stepped closer to the door, Lady said, "The bitch can shoot lightning from her hands. I think she can take care of herself."

Without turning around Dante said, "Whatever. Maybe it's not her we should worry about."
Lady quietly shook her head at this obvious lie; she knew Dante well enough to know he was worried about Trish. She stood and watched with a condescending smugness in her eyes as he gripped the door handle.

Dante was about to open the door when he picked up a familiar scent, and quickly dived back as the door to the Devil May Cry was shattered into a million pieces, admitting a large woman with short dark hair, dressed in tight black leather, with large blue guns attached to her feet.

"Hello, Dante. Last time I saw you Enzo was taking money from you. We have that much in common, at least."

Dante folded his arms. "Enzo? That guy's a complete slime. Morrison's a lot more honest."

Bayonetta smirked. "Yes, I find Rodin is more honest, fallen angel status notwithstanding. It seems Enzo's unpopularity is universal."

Dante stepped closer to Bayonetta, looking closely at her with a slightly curious look in his eyes. "You're Bayonetta, right? I think you gave me that name when we met a few years back."

Bayonetta nodded. "That's me, but you could also choose to call me Cereza if you like."

Dante huffed softly, a slightly amused look on his face. "You do look like a Bayonetta, but I guess Cereza works too in some ways. I guess that means I'll call you whatever I feel like at the time."

At this, Bayonetta chuckled with genuine humour but also with a slight hint of hostility. "One of those fickle customers who always changes their mind, I see."

Dante huffed in response, with a clear note of amusement at her annoyance about his disregard for her names. "Hey, you're the one with two names. And remember the customer's always right."

Bayonetta smirked at this. "Oh really? So you don't have two names, Mister Tony Redgrave?"

Dante narrowed his eyes. "Where'd you hear that name?"

Chuckling playfully at the banter she had exchanged with Dante, Bayonetta raised one of her guns above her head and said, "Let's just say I heard from a friend that you were in need of a little punishment. If you're lucky I may make it a naughty punishment for you."

Dante's mood changed in an instant, and he looked at her more seriously, leaping back several metres to stand beside his desk. "Demons sent you?"

Bayonetta smirked. "A demon. A beautiful one called Trish. Though I don't know if I'd say she sent me so much as asked a favour that involved a light arse whipping. And I must say I was happy to accept the job of whipping your arse…"

Dante folded his arms, chuckling with slight annoyance albeit with hidden undertones of relief. "Ah, great. Good ol' Trish again."

Bayonetta chuckled as well, winking enticingly at Lady before she suddenly started firing her guns at Dante, but he immediately started firing back, the bullets bouncing off each other by the dozens in the space of a mere second. Lady watched from the back of the office as the bullets and casings literally started to pile up on the floor, to the extent Dante and Bayonetta were knee deep in the casings piled up around Lady's boots, she sat up on Dante's desk. The two gun-wielding monster hunters started jumping around the room, exchanging bullets by the thousands, but neither found success in hitting the other even once.

After a few minutes the two landed on higher ground, Dante landing on the metal staircase with his left foot on a higher step while his right foot was on the step below, while Bayonetta landed on Dante's desk with her left foot planted right next to where Lady's backside was on the table. With an exchanged nod of mutual congratulations the two superhuman hunters put their guns away. Bayonetta then readied the Onyx Roses, while Dante held out his hand, calling Lucifer to him. After they each acknowledged that the other was ready, Bayonetta jumped up and started shooting, while Dante drew a huge number of blades from the apparatus on his back and flung them at her. The blades exploded and left scorch marks all over the shop, while the shotgun rounds left buckshot all over the floor, mixed in with the heavy calibre bullets.

Finally, Dante vanished from Bayonetta's view, appearing behind her and swiping at her with a blade, leaving a shallow cut in her shoulder. Bayonetta launched herself away, storing the Onyx Roses and readying the Lt. Col. Kilgore. Dante saw this gun and vanished, appearing beside Lady where she still sat on his desk and taking the Kalina Ann from where it rested in her lap, easily removing it from her hands which she had placed over the weapon and ignoring her objections as he did so. Bayonetta and Dante fired a barrage of rockets at each other, until Dante dropped the Kalina Ann back onto Lady's lap and appeared in front of Bayonetta, punching her hard enough to launch her back. As she started to fire the Lt. Col. Kilgore again, Dante summoned Pandora, already in its missile battery form, and fired a barrage of rockets from the missile battery, changing it back to its briefcase form and opening it.

The resulting explosion blew out the entire front of the shop, launching Bayonetta out onto the street, where she landed casually on her feet. Dante stepped out after her. Seeing the sort of damage that was going on around her, Lady, having barely managed to catch the Kalina Ann when Dante dropped it in her lap, ran out the huge hole where the front wall of the shop had been and got on her motorcycle, riding quickly out of the immediate area to reach a safe distance from what she now knew was two supernatural freaks enjoying smashing everything around them in what to them somehow passed for a spot of fun. Bayonetta saw Lady leave, and stored the Lt. Col. Kilgore, readying the Shuraba and charging with a mischievous chuckle, while Dante held out his hand and called Rebellion, the demonic blade landing in his hand just as Bayonetta reached him, and with a resounding crash the two warriors locked blades. Dante and Bayonetta strained against each other, the force of their clashing strengths causing the ground under the entire city to shudder like it would in an earthquake.

Finally, the two forced each other back, deciding that neither was going to win with sheer strength. The two then charged, the demonic blades slamming against each other repeatedly at massive speeds, the shockwaves from the blows causing the surrounding buildings to sway like grass. Dante dived back and landed on his feet, drawing Ivory and firing a charged bullet at Bayonetta, hitting the blade of the Shuraba and smashing it.

Bayonetta glared in horror at the shattered blade, and turned to regard Dante, who said, "That sword of yours was cute, but I know an average Devil Arm when I see one. It's got nothing on Rebellion."

Bayonetta tossed the broken blade aside, drawing the Kulshedra whip and lashing it at Dante, who dodged it and dashed at her, forcing her to block his sword with one of the guns that composed thepistol set Love is Blue. The two forced each other back, Dante's sword swiping the Kulshedra hard enough to leave a deep scar on the whip. Seeing that the Kulshedra wasn't going to take another hit from Rebellion, Bayonetta put the whip away, preparing to attack with Love is Blue, planning to bring all her abilities to this final bout. Dante stood with his sword, storing the Pandora and readying to fight with his sword and guns.

After a second to compose themselves, Dante and Bayonetta charged, exchanging blows at high speeds. Bayonetta was expert enough to know that in a battle of high speed blows she wasn't going to win, so she jumped back, summoning a barrage of Wicked Weaves around Dante, who rapidly started slashing them, while Bayonetta charged in with her guns, punching him in the chest and shooting him at the same time, launching him into a Wicked Weave's hand. The Weave closed its hand, trying to crush Dante, but he forced the fingers open and spun around, slashing the hand apart.

Bayonetta collided with him again, and the two proceeded with their exchange of blows, until Bayonetta jumped back, glaring at a deep cut in her stomach. Dante also had an injury in his stomach, but it had already vanished. Bayonetta realised that Dante could have slashed her across the chest instead of the stomach had he chosen was glad her hadn't; the thought of having her womanly assets bisected didn't exactly fill her with warm fuzzy feelings. Now she was glad she had fired at his chest instead of his crotch.

Bayonetta dashed forward again, activating Witch Time and punching Dante in the face. Dante staggered back, but instantly recovered, charging at her and punching her back, sending a surprised Bayonetta reeling. Bayonetta didn't know how, but somehow Dante had resisted Witch Time. As she watched, Dante charged again, swinging his sword at her, a wave of grey coming from him and spreading out. Dante's Quicksilver power hit Bayonetta, slowing her down, but she simply put more focus into the Witch Time, managing to free herself from the effects of Quicksilver. This returned her speed to normal just in time to avoid being cut again, though she doubted it would have been fatal.

Bayonetta glared at Dante, breathing hard. "You've grown a great deal since we last met."

Dante shrugged. "I'll bet you have too though. I'm kinda looking forward to seeing how you look fighting on my side. Those dickheads literally won't know what hit 'em."

Bayonetta nodded in appreciation of this compliment and Dante's invitation to fight together in future, and then she suddenlyjumped into the air and summoned a portal in mid-air, through which poked the head ofthe giant dragon demon Gomorrah, which charged at Dante with its giant teeth snapping viciously. Dante blocked the demon's teeth with his sword, swinging his foot up to kick the charging Bayonetta in the face to send her staggering back. Dante then vanished from view, appearing above Gomorrah and slamming Rebellion down on the monster's head, cutting its head in half and killing it.

Seeing Gomorrah fall, Bayonetta readied her strongest close range weapon, nicknamed Pillow Talk, and charged, changing into her panther form to increase her speed, watching as Witch Time ceased function, and Dante sighed, having obviously needed some of his energy to resist the time slow. Bayonetta charged Dante at her top speed, changing into her human form just as she reached him and immediately swinging her laser sword at him, gasping in horror as he blocked it with his hand, the laser cutting his skin and grinding on his bone. His glove burned away in an instant, but his skin wasn't burning.

Dante then activated the Bangle of Time, causing Bayonetta to briefly freeze as he punched her in the upper chest, her witch power resisting the time stop the instant his blow landed, leaving a stunned Bayonetta to land on her feet having been launched by the punch. Bayonetta now knew that Dante's time control was quite a threat to her should he choose to use it with deadly intentions, but otherwise it was useful but not a big threat provided he didn't become too violent while time was stopped, which she suspected he wouldn't. By comparison, her own Witch Time was almost useless since it seemed Dante could easily keep attacking virtually unhindered while Witch Time was active. Bayonetta glared at Pillow Talk, realising a laser weapon wasn't going to work against his clearly freakish anatomy. Storing it, she summoned the Durga, charging at Dante with the gauntlet and greave set, swinging fire-imbued blows at him. Dante summoned the Beowulf gauntlets and greaves and started trading blows with her, each of them hitting the other several times in a quick exchange of expertly executed strikes.

Bayonetta dived back, having seen that the fire of Durga wasn't affecting Dante at all. Resisting the urge to make a pun about his immunity to her hotness, Bayonetta altered Durga to its electric setting and charged again, while Dante swapped the Beowulf gauntlets for the Ifrit electricity and hellfire gauntlet sets slammed into each other, and the results were notable. Bayonetta cried out from the pain of the heat hitting her, while Dante convulsed violently from the electricity hitting him. After the two had each been hit several times, Dante jumped back and swapped the Ifrit gauntlets for Rebellion, charging and slashing Bayonetta's shoulder, before kicking her in the chest and launching her onto her back. Bayonetta was on her feet in an instant, but looked up to see a charging red devil, which slammed into her with such force as to shake her to the core. Dante flew above her and flew down, slamming into her repeatedly.

Bayonetta was actually scared now. Now that Dante had changed into his demon form she could no longer react to his attacks, and if Witch Time hadn't worked before it certainly wasn't going to work now. Seeing her last option, Bayonetta dropped out of the air and back onto her feet,holding up her hands in front of herself to ask for a pause, which the red devil granted her with a gracious nod, reverting back into his human form and folding his arms across his chest. With that favour grantedBayonetta performed a long, complicated summoning dance, and summoned her best weapon, the great Queen Sheba, which appeared in space above the Earth. Bayonetta then stepped away from Dante, who turned back into his demon form and flew up into space to confront Queen Sheba.

As he reached her Queen Sheba swung her giant fist at Dante, but he flew past the fist by accelerating to speeds even Queen Sheba seemed unable to keep up with, changing into his Majin Form just as he flew past the giant demon's elbow, and slamming into Queen Sheba's face, sending her reeling. The shockwave from his speed caused the Earth to shake on its axis, and it only shook more as Dante started slamming into Queen Sheba repeatedly. Queen Sheba swung her fists at him repeatedly in an attempt to defend herself, but the speed of his demonic form was well beyond that of Queen Sheba, and in retrospect Bayonetta realised the speed and power of his demon form was so far beyond that of his human form that it was hard for Bayonetta to believe he was still the same person. She hoped his demonic form wasn't partially evil in some way.

Finally, Queen Sheba sagged, having taken literally hundreds of hits from Dante's Majin Form. Dante then flew down to the Earth, reaching Bayonetta in an instant and slamming his huge clawed fist into her face, sending her flying onto the air with such force the dark rain clouds in the sky behind her all cleared in an instant, the shockwave instantly blasting all the rain clouds out of the sky for several thousand kilometres to the East of the Devil May Cry, something which would result in clear skies in thatside of the state when the forecast had been for rain in the morning. Bayonetta landed heavily on her back, but struggled to her feet just as Dante returned to his human form, leaning on his sword for support and breathing a deep sigh. Staying in Majin Form was obviously taxing to Dante although Bayonetta had to admit she was exhausted too after summoning Queen Sheba, and she was secretly glad he had injured Queen Sheba; there had been an extremelyhigh chance that Queen Sheba would have eaten Bayonetta and she had in fact been counting on Dante to save her if that had started to happen, though she knew he would. Bayonetta stood and readied Love is Blue for a final exchange, while Dante readied Rebellion.

The two charged, but Dante reached Bayonetta in an instant, slashing at her while she struggled to fight back. With both of them having used their best tricks and somewhat tired themselves doing so, it now fell to an exchange of blows, in which it was no contest. Dante was hit with multiple bullets and punches which shredded his coat and sent his blood spraying in several directions, and Bayonetta was slashed repeatedly until she was bleeding even more badly than he was. As the two staggered back, Bayonetta sagged under her own weight as she struggled to stay standing, while Dante cracked his neck and lifted his jacket to show that his wounds had completely vanished. Bayonetta groaned with a mixture of pain and annoyance while Dante smirked, and the Umbra Witch staggered back several paces before finally falling backwards with a sigh of exhaustion.

To her surprise, Dante appeared behind her and gently caught her, brushing the hair from her eyes and picking her up in his arms. Bayonetta felt as if she was fading in and out of consciousness, but she stayed alert long enough to feel her back touch the couch in the Devil May Cry. She looked up as Dante sat at his desk, resting his feet on the desktop and reaching for the empty pizza box to feel for a pizza slice he had obviously forgotten wasn't there. Bayonetta relaxed, realising her wounds weren't going to be fatal, and Dante wasn't going to hurt her. Now that she thought about it, he was a handsome man…

…

Trish stepped back into the Devil May Cry, noticing the destroyed buildings and the shop's missing front wall. She stepped over to the sleeping Bayonetta first, seeing her wounds were dressed and had been cared for, presumably by Dante. She then headed over to the sleeping Dante, who still lay with his feet on the desk. As she approached, Bayonetta and Dante both jumped up and seized her. Trish cried out as Dante spun her around and gripped her arms, holding them in place, while Bayonetta rapidly wrapped Trish in police crime scene tape, leaving only her head uncovered. Trish struggled to break the tape, but Dante held her arms still, and so short of using her lightning she could do nothing but stand there wrapped in police tape while Bayonetta brought out a camera.

Deciding what to do, Trish fired her lightning, but gasped as Bayonetta suddenly sped up. The camera flashes melded together into one big one, and when Bayonetta released Trish from Witch Time, Bayonetta and Dante were standing a few feet from her, laughing at her. She glared down at herself and saw that her pants and corset were filled with pictures of her wrapped in police tape, and to add to the humiliation she was still wrapped in the police tape, and now had Bayonetta's Kulshedra whip wrapped around her arms holding them to her sides.

Dante held up Bayonetta's auto-developing camera for one final picture, and Trish realised her clothes were so full of pictures it almost made her look fat. She cried out in embarrassment and annoyance as the last picture was taken. As the picture was taken, Lady stepped into the shop, laughing quietly at Trish's predicament, wincing at Bayonetta's wounds, and finally walking up behind a distracted Dante and kicking him in the backside, ignoring the pain that shot up her entire leg as her foot connected with the unyielding surface.

"That's for taking my gun, you deadbeat!"

Dante turned to regard Lady, and half-smiled. "Yeah, sorry about that."
Lady glared at Dante briefly, but then turned to regard Trish, and held up her cellular phone.

"Trish wrapped in crime scene tape and stuffed with pictures? This is going straight to the Internet…"

As Trish struggled, Dante chuckled. "We already put some in every mailbox in the city. Including the newspapers and the mayor's office. You could call it panther n' redcoat delivery service."
Trish scowled in protest as her friends had fun at her expense.

Lady went close to Trish, smirking straight into the blonde demon's face.
"Don't give us that look. You should've thought about consequences before you streaked across Dante's office with blazing guns in your hands."

Trish glared at Bayonetta. "I thought you and I were messing with him!"

Bayonetta smirked. "Consider this punishment for not telling me how ridiculously powerful he's become in his… old age, if you will?"

"Hey!" Snapped Dante with a light-hearted chuckle.

Waving his objection aside with a wave of her fingertips, Bayonetta continued.
"You could have at least mentioned that he could shrug off being filled with holes! And let's not even talk about that hideous demon creature he can turn into!"

Trish smirked. "I told you it wouldn't go well for you."
Bayonetta gestured authoritatively at Trish with her finger while using her other hand to lower her glasses so she could leer over them, lookinglike a teacher lecturing a difficult student.

"Jeanne used that exact wording when I decided to ride my bike on Enzo's ceiling! You could be a bit more specific! Perhaps something like "Oh, before you mess with this guy, you should know that he can completely stop time and isn't even fazed when someone sticks a sword in him". That sort of information would have been bloody nice to have!"

Trish shrugged, finally ripping away the police tape and walking away.

"It's not my fault you couldn't handle it. It was your idea after all."

Bayonetta levelled her gun at Trish's back, causing Trish to stop. "You asked me to kick someone's arse tonight. I believe your exact words were "kick his ass", were they not?" Bayonetta imitated Trish's American accent as she quoted Trish's own words to her.

After a split second of pause, Bayonetta continued. "Well, I think I will kick someone's arse tonight. Just swap the word "his" for the word "my" and what I'm about to do is follow your request to the letter."

Trish smirked, turning to leer into Bayonetta's eyes. "With those injuries? Please! Sit down, before you get hurt. If you can't take him what makes you think you can take me?"

Lady laughed. "Did you really just imply you're harder to beat than Dante? The time Abigail laughed at your best efforts then went down like a bitch the instant Dante hit him leaps to mind!"

Trish ground her teeth, but at that moment Witch Time was activated, and Trish was slowed down to a drastic extent. Dante and Lady, who were standing outside the small area Bayonetta had slowed down, watched with amusement as Bayonetta ran up to the slow-moving Trish and swung the palm of her hand into Trish's backside, sending out a resounding smacking sound borne of Bayonetta's silk gloves impacting on the seat of Trish's leather pants. As Witch Time ceased function, Trish staggered forward under the impact, gripping her sore backside, while Bayonetta chuckled.

"I've taken off angel's headswith weaker slaps than that one. I believe I just did more or less what I set out to do, though I may have to apologise when your arse still hurts in a week. You can thank me later for not using my foot."

As Trish glared up at Bayonetta, the witch chuckled and said, "Be grateful I didn't hit you with the barrel of one ofmy guns. It's basically become habit to swing them instead of just my hands, so you actually are rather fortunate."

Trish stood back up, her brief moment of anger quickly turning into a desire for a ruthless retribution. "When your injuries heal you and I are going to have our little spat. That way you can't blame it on your injuries when I beat you senseless."

Bayonetta chuckled. "It's a double date. In two weeksmy left andright foot will meet rather abruptlywith your left and right arse cheek."

Without responding to Bayonetta's quip beyond eliciting a final chuckle, Trish headed through the door on the right-hand side of Dante's desk which led up a long set of stairs to the upstairs bedroom. Dante watched this and rolled his eyes, noting the deftness with which Trish claimed the only sleeping area that wasn't in a draughty room with only three walls.

…

The next day, Dante opened his eyes to see the Sun leering into his shop through the hole where the front wall had been. Without rising from his chair or even taking his feet off the desk, he quickly looked at the small watch he kept in one of the desk drawers to see that it was only half past six in the morning.

"Great, an early morning all because I haven't got a wall at the front now. What a pain…"
As he held up a book he kept in the top desk drawer, he heard a woman clear her throat. Since he could tell who it was by her voice and scent, he didn't even need to lower the book and simply answered while still reading.

"You're still here, Cereza?"

Bayonetta walked over and sat on his desk. "Yes. I came back to give you some good news, but you were asleep and I already knew the couch is comfortable, so I crashed here. I'd suggest you sue me but we both know that with no wall at the front it's pretty difficult to get me for trespassing or breaking and entering. You could try getting me for vandalism, but only if you're willing to explain why their weather forecast was wrong, which I rather doubt."

Dante yawned, not fully understanding her joke about the weather and not really caring enough to ask.

"You said something about good news?"

Bayonetta smirked slightly. "Indeed. I went to Enzo's after I left here, and I… persuaded him to pay for the damages. I tried to persuade him to pay back what he owes you, but that little prick's too tight-fisted even when large guns are involved."

Dante yawned again. "Why would you do that? What do you have to gain?"

Bayonetta chuckled. "Just the satisfaction of making Enzo squirm. Besides, he had a nice looking cake in his refrigerator and I rather felt like taking a piece. I would say everyone wins here except Enzo, wouldn't you agree?"

Dante chuckled, finally placing the book over his face and closing his eyes to go back to sleep."Thanks, Cereza. Almost makes getting shot a whole lot o' times worth it."

Bayonetta raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. "Who, me? A fine lady like myself would never shoot someone… It appears you're starting to get a bit stupid in your old age, my friend."

Dante chuckled lightly, and then Bayonetta joined in, and before long they were both laughing at the absurdity of the previous night's events. As the two of them laughed, both of them realised that they had already started to regard the other as a friend.

When the laughter stopped, Bayonetta tossed a lollipop in her mouth and satback on the couch. As she did so, Dante said, "Could you do me one little favour?"

Bayonetta leaned forward, lifting the lollipop off her tongue.
"Another favour? I'm not Santa Clause, you know. You're the one wearing a funny red suit; maybe you should be the generous one."

Dante chuckled. "Yeah sorry, but it's an easy one."

Bayonetta nodded slightly, sitting on the edge of the couch and crossing her legs, tossing the lollipop back into her mouth.

"What's this favour, then?" She asked.

With that Dante lifted the book off his face and looked at Bayonetta directly, giving her a more serious look than she had grown to expect from him.

"When you and Trish have your little spat in two weeks, be nice to her, okay?"

Bayonetta chuckled. "You'll still have your beloved business partner after I'm done with her. I promise she'll be fine. One or two foot-shaped bruises on her backside, that's it."

Upon hearing this Dante placed the book back on his face and closed his eyes once again. "Thanks."

With that Bayonetta turned to leave, and Dante, still with the hardcover book resting on his face, said, "Take care of yourself, Cereza. If you ever need anything just call."

Bayonetta stopped, turning her head to look over her shoulder at Dante and saying, "You as well. Maybe we can go kick some arse together, like you suggested."

Analysis:

Dante and Bayonetta are very similar characters, with some very impressive powers. In order to explain the result, I need to walk through how each of Bayonetta's and Dante's abilities affect the fight.

Strength:

This is the one area where Bayonetta holds the edge. However it isn't really a gross mismatch. 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.

By comparison Bayonetta can throw a satellite which would have weighed about 825,450,000,000 tons although she did it in space, but this still amounts to higher than the Saviour's punch. One easy assessment is the fact that a QTE prompt appears and says that she's exerting 2400 gigatons, 2.4 teratons, force sufficient to destroy a very small country, and this is with her strength alone; no impact, just raw lifting strength. If the TNT measurement can be counted, then Bayonetta has to be able to lift countries which weigh billions of tons too. Either way Bayonetta is physically stronger than Dante. However, while this would make her win an arm wrestle or be able to force herself on top during a make out session which we all know would amuse both of them and somewhat embarrass him, that 2.4 teratons, or 825,450,000,000 tons is still not sufficient to really do him any real damage, since Dante shrugged off hits from a demon who performed a feat calculated at 172 petatons or enough force to destroy a continent more than 100 times over, as well as taking stronger attacks than that from Mundus. Details are outlined below in the section dedicated to attacks vs durability.

Speed:

Even most Bayonetta fans must agree on this one going to Dante. Bayonetta not only has no quantifiably supersonic speed feats, but was shown to struggle to catch up to Luka's speeding car. If we assume his car was moving at 100km/h, which is a fairly safe bet since the car is large and armoured and thus likely can't go any faster, catching up to it would require her to exceed its speed by some margin but not by much. Bayonetta is seen easily overtaking cars and trucks on the bridge which would have been driving casually which makes her able to run as fast as a car, or a comfortable 80km/h. However In her panther form she visibly isn't running all that much faster than Luka's car which means her panther form likely runs around 120km/h, but can jump around 150km/h since she jumps ahead of the car quite quickly. Dante in DMC3 outpaces his sword after it hits re-entry friction from him throwing it. Re-entry friction is hit when an object starts moving at around Mach 20. Considering his sword was still speeding up and he casually caught up to it after it hit the friction we can soundly say he's faster than Mach 25, but we'll say Mach 20, which is twenty times the speed of sound, which is 760mph.
Bayonetta in panther form is 150-200km/h, Dante in base in DMC3 is over 27,000km/h.

In DMC1 Dante is able to avoid and outpace Griffon's cloud to ground lightning, and is far faster than the Plasma which is seen to travel as lightning, is stated to literally embody lightning, and has an attack referred to as a plasma particle beam. This makes Dante faster than lightning in DMC1, and his ability to dodge the particle beam indicates near-light speed reactions. To support this Trish is seen to appear very quickly in the opening cutscene 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 crossed more than two kilometres in roughly a thirtieth of a second, and based on how far away a source of light, or an 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.

Bayonetta may have reactions in the Mach triple digits range, as Jeanne reacted to lightning in the movie albeit in the game it was an air strike, and she never actually outpaced it. By the same token, in DMC3 Dante and Vergil can react to and block attacks stated to be lasers from Artemis and Damned Rooks. Incidentally the lasers from Nightmare-B which is almost the same as Artemis are literally stated to be light in both the Plasma and Nightmare description. Dante can also block and dodge the very obvious blasts of light from Beowulf the Lightbeast, whose attacks do special damage to Doppelganger whose only vulnerability is light, and whose attacks are stated to be light in his description. However, much like Bayonetta with the lightning bolts and bullets, Dante and Vergil aren't actually faster than lightning or light at the time of DMC3. That basically makes Bayonetta subsonic with massively hypersonic to sub-relativistic reactions, while making base DMC1 Dante massively hypersonic with light speed reactions. There is a rumour about Bayonetta outpacing the Irenics in gameplay, and the fact it's stated Irenics cross Paradiso in a day is used to try to say Bayonetta is faster than light, but in the cutscene the Irenic is moving at a similar speed to that of the falling truck, and in gameplay the Irenics are moving at exactly the same speed as the regular cars and trucks on the road, and there is even an on-screen speedometer that indicates the Irenics and cars are moving at normal vehicular speed, so the Irenics definitely weren't moving faster than light when Bayonetta outpaced them.

This is also shown in the movie Bloody Fate; in the scene where Bayonetta fights Irenic there are several scenes proving they aren't travelling very fast at all. There's a scene where Bayonetta and Irenic are driving through a barrier with two exploding cars flying through the air due to Irenic slamming into them. Irenic appears to be a few metres from the screen when the cars explode and it doesn't get any closer, and nor does the screen move further away from the explosion, while the explosions travel a distance somewhat greater than the cars' length of roughly 15 feet, travelling roughly 20 feet. This means that the explosions travelled 20 feet while the Irenic travelled an absolute maximum of one foot, and it would have actually been quite a bit less. This means the Irenic and Bayonetta were both moving at least 20 times slower than the explosion which is at most Mach 6, or 7350km/h, making the Irenic's speed an absolute maximum of 368km/h in that scene, and it would actually be significantly slower since it was less than a foot. Also bear in mind the Irenic was catching up to Bayonetta at that point meaning it was moving faster than her. This is supported by the fact that immediately afterwards when Bayonetta lands and rides away with the Irenic chasing her, they appear to be moving at regular vehicular speed while the fire behind them which resulted from the explosions is clearly moving at normal speed with the smoke rising quickly and the flames flickering at fast speeds, thus proving this scene wasn't in slow motion. Afterwards in the tunnel they still appear to be going at regular car speed since the patterns on the tunnel walls are moving past them at easily visible speeds indicating very typical vehicle speed. In one scene Bayonetta's bike traverses roughly two metres in one frame on a 29 fps video, making her bike 58 metres per second there. This remains consistent throughout the scene. This would mean her bike can travel at 208km/h. This is even further supported by the fact Luka appears at the entrance to the tunnel while she's inside even though he was nowhere near the tunnel entrance to begin with, thus telling us that quite a lot of time passed since Bayonetta and Irenic entered the tunnel.

In addition it's supported by the fact that when Bayonetta and the Irenic are approaching the tunnel the soldiers hear them coming thus proving they're moving slower than sound, and are able to cry out when Bayonetta is riding over the car, and one even dodges out of the way when the Irenic slams into the car meaning they were moving slowly enough that humans could react to their speed even though they were invisible. With all this, it's quite clear Bayonetta's bike and the Irenics were not faster than light.

There is another about her being faster than the Fearless angels which are stated to "control the lightning feared by many", with the statement that "almost all the naturally occurring lightning in the world is the result of the actions of these angels". While this does mean the Fearless control lightning, nothing in the description really indicates Fearless themselves can move as fast as lightning; it's not even remotely implied. There is also the fact that it talks about them as a species rather than ever individualizing them which may mean it takes several of them to generate any lightning. Even if they are as fast as lightning, Bayonetta's ability to fight them doesn't so much say that she is as fast as them anyway, but rather that she can defend herself and kill them. Since she actually most likely does have lightning timing reactions and then of course she has Witch Time, while also being significantly more powerful than Fearless, she wouldn't actually need to be as fast as them. There is also Glory of the Grace and Glory twin angel duo, which is stated to control lightning, but nothing is said regarding its speed.

Some people also say that Bayonetta is faster than light due to flying back to Earth from Pluto. The problem is that the distance in that minigame is inconsistent with the cutscenes, since in the minigame Jubileus and obviously Bayonetta fly from Pluto to Earth, with the Earth being between them and the Sun. This would mean Bayonetta and the body would land on Earth in a place where it's night, and yet we see that the Earth below them is lit up by the Sun when Bayonetta and Jeanne are falling, and the meteor shower that results is happening not far from Vigrid, where it's morning. That means the place they landed in was facing the Sun more or less, which is obviously inconsistent with the minigame where they flew from Pluto towards Earth and the Sun. It's also inconsistent with the fact the body is clearly seen going flat against Queen Sheba's fist while the soul is sent flying, indicating that the body didn't go anywhere after being punched, and this is supported by the fact that Aesir's body wasn't even budged when Omne slammed into him while his soul was launched out. It's also supported by the fact that the body is seen falling backwards towards the Earth with her head and feet both leaned back, while the soul was launched backwards by the punch which would result in its arms and head pointed forward and its back arched, and the body would have been falling the same way, meaning it would not have fallen with its limbs and head hanging down and its back bent backwards towards the ground. Overall the evidence indicates that the minigame isn't canon and that Jubileus stayed near Earth the entire time Bayonetta fought her, which is consistent since she did make a force field around them and was never seen moving it. Even if we assume the minigame is canon Bayonetta could have very easily clung to the body as it flew back which is exactly where she is when the credits start, so there isn't really any basis to the claim that Bayonetta dashed across the solar system.

Speed X-Factors, i.e. Witch Time:

With Witch Time Bayonetta slows time down by a little less than 60,000 times since she slowed rocks that fell from thousands of feet up and thus were definitely falling at terminal velocity, meaning they were falling a maximum of 320km/h or 88,890mm/sec, down to the point they weren't visibly moving which means they were slowed to about 1mm/sec. However, the rocks were shaped more like chunks and thus their terminal velocity would actually be more like 200km/h or 55,556mm/sec. This means Witch Time slowed time down by at least 55,556 times and at most 88,890 times. However, far weaker demons than Dante are immune to the Bangle of Time, including Nelo Angelo AKA Vergil, and several angels and demons in Bayonetta can resist Witch Time including a group of Affinity's in the final stage of the prologue level "The Vestibule", and Affinity is the weakest class of angel in the whole series, so it isn't at all a stretch to say Dante can resist Witch Time. What's more, with light speed reactions he will still be able to defend himself even if it does work on him, he has time slow and time stop of his own which between them can counter and even bypass Witch Time, since the Bangle of Time freezes time completely and thus outpaces Witch Time's speed boost, while Quicksilver slows it down by more than 2,222 times since when he activated it, rocks that had been falling at at least 80km/h having fallen from more than 30 metres up, slowed to the point they weren't visibly moving which is 1cm/sec. To top it off Dante while enhanced by the sword Sparda has feats of surpassing the speed of light in the battle with Mundus, as he flies towards distant stars and then the light from those stars has completely vanished when he stops a second later, which not only means flying to the distant stars and flying past them, but clearly indicates outrunning the light as it can no longer be seen, something which requires him to have been flying literally millions of times faster than the speed of light, since in the real world most stars visible from Earth are several hundred light years away. This speed feat is supported by the fact one of Mundus' attacks is stated in the official guide to be a particle beam, which is a real-life scientific achievement, and is a beam that travels at velocities close to the speed of light, 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 too. One of the attacks used by Plasma is similarly stated to be a plasma particle beam, which is different but still similar. 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.

It should also be considered that Witch Time's 89,000 times increase is only 41 times greater than Quicksilver's 2,222 times increase, and if we use the exact numbers it's closer to 40, and yet DMC3 Dante at 27,000km/h is 180 times faster than Bayonetta's 150km/h jumping speed in panther form meaning with both Quicksilver and Witch Time activated Dante is still faster by more than 4 times. This is Dante's weakest incarnation in base as compared to Bayonetta's panther form which is faster than her human form, literally Bayonetta at her fastest compared to Dante at his slowest, and he's still faster when all is said and done. No matter how we look at it, Dante is far from helpless against Bayonetta's Witch Time, and is able to fight back against it in three different ways, be it by being outright immune to it, still being much faster by simply transforming into his demon form, countering with a combination of the Bangle of Time and Quicksilver, or mixing the three options together.

Some claim that Witch Time can be used twice on the same target, but this is based on the fact that she activates it against Balder and is revealed to have been using it already on Luka. The problem is that we've seen that Bayonetta's Witch Time doesn't work like that. We've seen that she activates it in certain target areas, such as the times she froze the rocks and flying debris around her but the Witch Time doesn't affect Fortitudo, and the time when she froze a set of rocks one by one. This means that she can warp time in limited areas rather than it having a universal range, and that's why she can use it on Luka and then use it on Balder, but in addition to a lack of evidence suggesting she can use it multiple times on the same target, there are also events that show that she can't use it multiple times on the same target, such as the end of the level "The Vestibule" where Bayonetta uses Witch Time on Enzo and his car as well as a plane, and then afterwards either she or Jeanne uses Witch Time to slow down the attacking angels. Afterwards in gameplay, even if you dodge at exactly the right time resulting in Bayonetta yelling out one of the taunts she yells out while activating Witch Time, Witch Time does not activate. The same is true of the end of the level "Route 666", where Bayonetta fights three Braves with Witch Time already activated in the gameplay, and again even if you dodge at exactly the right moment resulting in her yelling out one of the taunts she yells when she activates Witch Time, Witch Time doesn't activate.

It is also notable that an ability to use it multiple times at once on the same target would result in enemies like Jubileus and even Aesir being easy to beat which they clearly are not. While it's true they can logically resist Witch Time making that ability less insurmountable than it could be, the fact is Dante can resist time control too which means no matter how you look at it Bayonetta cannot just freeze him by using Witch Time on him repeatedly, and even if she could the Bangle of Time is stated in its description and shown in gameplay to completely stop time rather than just slow it down, which would make its speed boost greater than any number of Witch Time activations. No matter how we look at it Witch Time is not going to stop Dante.

Surviving the Other's Attacks:

As much as people love to pretend Bayonetta has all the advantages, anyone who cares to study both knows that Dante is much harder to kill.

Bayonetta's Attacks vs Dante's Durability:

Bayonetta's strikes: In order to survive the Saviour's punch when he blocked it Dante needed to be able to take that level of force which instantly makes him able to withstand mountain busting strikes. What's more important is that Dante tanks hits from Abigail who was able to generate the kind of energy that could blow billions of tons of cloud matter at speeds exceeding Mach 2000. Dante also takes a string of meteors from Mundus, which seem to have been moving faster than light as when they send Dante down there is no light below and yet Dante lands a second later next to lava which has hazed the sky around it red. Combined with the fact Dante and Mundus were both moving faster than light at the start it is very likely if not certain that the meteors were too. Then of course we have the fact Mundus created a dimension full of thousands of visible stars which has been repeatedly stated by DMC1 director Hideki Kamiya to have been a universe. Mundus also created the Mirror World which contains a copy of the Sun. There is the fact Bayonetta can damage Jubileus who can survive an exploding planet, but truthfully Bayonetta never displayed any ability to deal any serious damage to Jubileus until Queen Sheba became involved; Bayonetta only damaged Jubileus' face and extremities, and it should be considered Bayonetta has bladed weapons, which it's been consistently shown that basically everything in the Bayonetta series is very vulnerable to, so Bayonetta's punches are not planet busting regardless of that. Bayonetta's strikes are not powerful enough to destroy Dante.

Scarborough Fair/Love is Blue: Dante gets shot all the time with no real damage and can shoot just as fast himself. These guns were once measured in megatons, which doesn't stack up to Abigail's feat, let alone Mundus'. So neither the raw power nor piercing power of the guns can stop Dante.

Lt. Col Kilgore: Abigail tanked a missile to the face from Kalina Ann, and Dante was stronger. Lt. Col Kilgore has no feats beyond being stronger than the Scarborough Fair.

Pillow Talk: Lasers cut using speed and heat. Dante can calmly sit in fire hotter than lightning, and will regenerate from any cuts before they cut him apart even if it can cut him.

Shuraba: Dante can stay whole after being cut in half, and has resistance to soul attacks. Shuraba's soul attacking power is unquantified, and it is shown to break in the movie Bayonetta: Bloody Fate.

Kulshedra: Kulshedra can only trap or impale. Neither of these will best Dante, unless we assume it functions like Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth which obviously it doesn't.

Onyx Roses: Same as Scarborough Fair and Love is Blue. It's true that the bullets are fairy souls, but that only means they're stronger than normal while meaning little else.

Odette: Dante can handle being encased in ice colder than absolute zero. The air around the Frosts' claws is stated in the official description to be colder than absolute zero.

Bazillions: This weapon is stated to destroy the target's molecular bonds. This may sound devastating, but against Dante any holes it was able to put in him would still heal just as quickly as any other, and Dante can shrug off being encased in ice colder than absolute zero, the temperature at which molecules and even atoms freeze completely and could in theory lose their cohesiveness, meaning something cooled down to absolute zero literally either freezes on an atomic level or falls apart under its own mass at an atomic level. This proves his durability can save him from things that should destroy him on a molecular and even atomic level. This is further supported by the fact Mundus and the Plasma both have an energy beam attack that is stated in the official guide to be a particle beam, which is a beam of vibrating particles/plasma which could destroy targets on the molecular and perhaps even atomic level. This brings us back to the basic rules of power vs durability; how well his durability holds up against the power of Bazillions, ranging from its heat to its power, both of which he's able to deal with. Truthfully even if we assume he's helpless against the molecular attack, Bazillions attacks using beams, which would simply put holes in him which he'll easily shrug off.

Attacking from Purgatorio: There are those who say all Bayonetta needs to do is phase into Purgatorio and kill him with objects in the environment. Problem is this won't work. No random object on the street could be used to kill Dante, and any injury she did inflict would vanish instantly. By contrast as those objects get broken they will inevitably start flying around since when Dante sees objects lift and attack him he will start fighting back in many different ways including smashing the objects. It won't take long for him to try using the objects themselves against her after he figures out his weapons don't work, and the result is inevitably going to be in his favour since Bayonetta can hit and even stab Dante with hundreds of objects and achieve nothing, while all Dante has to do is make some random sharp object from the environment hit Bayonetta and impale her. Inevitably he stands to win that exchange. She wouldn't even be able to use the invisibility to hide from him since citizens of Vigrid and Luka are able to detect her by the sounds she makes such as footsteps and her scent, which is easy to detect because she wears perfume. If Luka and civilians can detect her by scent and sound Dante would definitely be able to seeing as he's been stated to have an enhanced sense of smell and we've seen he often knows someone's coming up behind him even with no warning. Even if we assume he can't see her in Purgatorio he can still detect her, and he actually could see her in Purgatorio since anyone with any magic can see her; the angels and demons all can, as can Rodin the fallen angel, as well as little Cereza who at that time had next to no magic power, and even Luka could see her in Purgatorio simply because little Cereza gave him her glasses with an extremely basic spell on them; basic to the extent the virtually powerless little Cereza was able to do it with a simple kiss. Generally it's obvious that angels and demons can all see someone in Purgatorio, and indeed any magic at all can allow someone to see her since Luka was able to when he wore her glasses. Since Dante is a demon and has magic it's pretty obvious Dante can see her in Purgatorio. Entering Purgatorio may lengthen the fight but really it would make Bayonetta's chances worse.

That's even if we assume he can't hit her, which is a big assumption since Dante has been shown to be capable of hitting things that are intangible such as Mephistos, Fausts, Sin Scythes, and the like, all of which can pass right through walls and floors and even attack through them and from inside them, yet he has no trouble hitting these demons, so he actually wouldn't even have to attack with random objects but could just slash her anyway, especially since that's exactly what angels, Rodin and Infernal Demons can do; angels can hit Bayonetta whether she's in Purgatorio or not, while she has to be in Purgatorio to hit them, and yet Rodin can hit them without entering Purgatorio, and demons are the same as angels; they can attack the angels, and Gomorrah kills Jeanne while she's in Purgatorio. Combine all that together and there is a lot to indicate that Dante can hit her when she's in Purgatorio. Either way Purgatorio is not a winning move for Bayonetta.

Gomorrah, Madama Butterfly and other such summons: Gomorrah died from having its neck broken by Balder, and Dante crushes demons that size and bigger all the time. The only notable feats are the meteor that Madama Butterfly shattered which would have been a likely island buster, and the fact she bested Temperantia whose storms are stated to be able to swallow countries. However, he is seen using a tornado in the game, and the ground and even the hangars which stand nearby are noticeably undamaged even though the hurricane is blowing around pieces of the broken bridge which is further away. There is also the fact that the description specifically refers to people caught in the tornado praying for the storm to stop, which is solid evidence people survived the storms. Collectively it's obvious that swallowing whole countries meant country-wide storms rather than country-busting storms, which means that his tornadoes are more like island busters, possibly lower. Even if we go by the TNT counters that show when the strikes happen, which would be tough since the feats tend to conflict with the given numbers, Abigail released enough energy to generate sparks that arced across the United States, and at the same time generated enough force to blow away all the clouds from over the continent of North America. He also caused the ground to collapse into a deep abyss for hundreds of metres around in the Demon World with his reality warping, again at the same time as the other two things. This would be measured in at least teratons, and that's being very conservative, because it would actually be measured in petatons. Specifically it has been calculated at 170 petatons by someone else, based on the mass of heavy grey rain clouds the size of the USA being blown at speeds exceeding Mach 2,000. One petaton is 1000 teratons, and one teraton is 1000 gigatons. Regardless of whether we go by applied numbers or feats, Gomorrah, Madama Butterfly and the other standard summons Bayonetta has are all weaker than Abigail, who Dante casually defeats in a single strike. This is also why Bayonetta's strikes and raw strength are no match for Abigail's attacks which Dante shrugged off. It should also be noted that Balder kills one of Bayonetta's demons by stabbing it with a spear, so her demons can be quite easily killed by blade wounds.

Queen Sheba/Omne: Bayonetta realistically couldn't have summoned this at all as in the game you can clearly see Queen Sheba is composed of both Bayonetta's dark hair and Jeanne's blond, and it can be seen that Queen Sheba is formed from two weaves, one white and one black, and the two weaves come from two entirely different directions. In addition, in the movie Bloody Fate she outright states she needs Jeanne's help to summon Queen Sheba, and the two are then shown summoning her together. There is a misconception that she can summon Queen Sheba alone in the second game on the basis that she and Balder worked together to summon Omne who looks like a cross between Sheba and Jubileus, which in itself is clearly insufficient evidence that she can summon Sheba alone, but to go with that distinct lack of evidence suggesting she can summon Sheba alone, there is also quite a lot of evidence to the contrary. Not only is Omne stated to be a separate being from Sheba and Jubileus, but by that logic Balder should be able to summon Jubileus alone, since if she summoned Queen Sheba to merge with Jubileus then Jubileus had to have been summoned solely by Balder, especially since he should logically be stronger in the first game than he was then since he's 500 years older in the first game and he was actually inexperienced in the second game since he states he's never killed a witch before, and he can't summon or control Jubileus alone even in the first game. If she summoned Queen Sheba alone and he couldn't summon Jubileus then his involvement would be unnecessary. He needed both her and himself to control Jubileus and when she was removed he had no control over Jubileus even though with only one Eye Jubileus' power was reduced to almost nothing by comparison to how it had been with both Eyes, so assuming he can summon Jubileus alone is pretty stupid, and despite what some may think Bayonetta had not had a great power boost between the games. If you think about it she still struggled against Balder's younger self, and even lost to him, since when they were locking blades he was winning; he forced her down to one knee and you can clearly see in her face that she's struggling to hold him back at all and clearly can't force him back or stand back up. By contrast he shows no real signs of struggling. Therefore it would be dismissing the facts of the series to assume she summoned Sheba while he just added what little he could either since if anything Balder's younger self is still more powerful than Bayonetta.

What's more, Omne clearly wasn't a simple meshing of Sheba and Jubileus otherwise she wouldn't be smaller than both of them, and when they summon her all you see is Bayonetta's black hair merging with Balder's blond and them creating a portal that is literally half-light and half-darkness, and thus Bayonetta couldn't create a portal for such a creature on her own. These creatures are summoned by controlling the portal, and nothing suggests Bayonetta can bring out something that powerful on her own. Even the side of Omne that looks like Queen Sheba is laced with Balder's blond hair and even partly made of it down the bottom, and the description states that Omne is a product of light and dark magic working together through the bond of father and daughter which is the real reason why Omne is equal to or more powerful than Sheba and Jubileus and why she isn't either of them but a separate creature that is halfway in-between light and dark. To summarize the main point though, the elder version of Balder from Bayonetta 1 is if anything stronger than the younger version of Balder in Bayonetta 2, the younger version of Balder was still stronger than Bayonetta in Bayonetta 2, and the elder version of Balder wasn't capable of controlling or summoning Jubileus alone, so assuming Bayonetta can summon Sheba alone when Balder who is stronger than her can't summon Jubileus alone is quite clearly wrong. Even if we assume she can summon it on her own, Queen Sheba is big and somewhat easy to follow for that reason, so Dante's DMC2 incarnation would easily speedblitz her using Devil Trigger. Even if we assume he can't damage Queen Sheba he can always just escape her using the massive speed of his DMC2 incarnation or his Bangle of Time to freeze time, and attack Bayonetta who will be distracted and vulnerable due to summoning this massive summon or outright frozen if he used the Bangle of Time. Queen Sheba isn't a winning move either. Omne is exactly the same.

Hideki Kamiya's Statement Regarding the Fight's Outcome:

This one is infamous. DMC haters and Bayonetta fans, mainly the former, just LOVE to take it out of context and act like it's a decisive statement. However, Hideki Kamiya basically stated that Bayonetta wins because she's female. He said that it's the way of the world that women win. He wasn't taking it seriously at all, and he's well known for giving openly non-serious answers, an example being the fact that when someone asked him who was stronger between Bayonetta and Rosa, his answer was that the woman is weak but the mother is strong, which is an obvious non-answer since neither Bayonetta nor Rosa is weak and technically both have played the role of mother and have clear maternal instincts, though it implies Rosa is stronger which is very unlikely since Bayonetta was able to engage Loptr who casually killed Rosa with a single hit. Another, much more obvious example is that when someone asked him why Alraune hated Madama Butterfly his answer was that he was too afraid to poke his nose into a fight between two women. These two answers both bear a huge amount of resemblance to the answer he gave regarding Dante and Bayonetta; vague and gender-based, and one thing those answers all have in common is that they're Kamiya's way of dismissing questions.

Whether he refers to seductive hold, or to Dante not wanting to hurt women, we don't know, but even if he did mean it seriously, which he almost certainly didn't, Hideki Kamiya is NOT the current owner of Devil May Cry and is only the "word of God" on the first Devil May Cry game, a fact he himself has stated numerous times, whereas at the time he did own Bayonetta, which means if he was biased it would be in Bayonetta's favour, though he probably isn't biased. He has however made it very clear that he doesn't care which one wins the fight since he has dismissed arguments from both sides even when someone tells him they agree with his original statement, which means he probably didn't care about the result when he made that statement any more than he does now, meaning that statement was exactly like the ones about Rosa and Madama Butterfly; a non-serious answer to a question he didn't care about. It should also be noted he's effectively stated that Mundus and Dante fought in space, and he's also stated multiple times that the dimension Mundus created was a universe the same scale as the real life universe, and unlike his statement about Bayonetta winning, these statements show no sign of being a joke, since his straight answers about events in the games tend to be serious answers, while his joke answers tend to be obvious jokes.

Dante's Attacks vs Bayonetta's Durability:

Dante's strikes: His striking power enabled him to lock blades with Abigail, so his punches would be able to hurt her quite badly, though using his fists would be impractical and inflict less damage on her compared to his weapons, though it would be a method he could use since his raw power did easily overwhelm Abigail once he activated his Devil Trigger. There is a prevailing myth that Bayonetta can survive planetary explosions, based on a scene towards the end of the first game where failing to destroy Jubileus' falling remains in time will result in a destroyed world. In the event the player fails the challenge, a cutscene shows the Earth exploding, but the myth told people that Bayonetta and Jeanne still survive in this event. This is an outright fabrication. If you watch the cutscene there is absolutely nothing to indicate that Bayonetta and Jeanne survived, and it is followed by the death scene where the demons drag Bayonetta back to Inferno, so everything there that does pertain to Bayonetta's fate indicates that the explosion killed her. You do not see her after the explosion or anything like that; in fact you see the explosion shoot rubble in all directions and even if you watch it frame by frame there's no sign of her, which suggests she got destroyed too.

There is the fact she can take hits in gameplay from Jubileus who destroyed the moon, but Jubileus had both Eyes of the World when it destroyed the moon and it still had to charge up the blast in order to do so, with Balder noticeably yelling with the effort of making it fire the blast. By contrast Bayonetta took normal hits from an impaired Jubileus which only had the Right Eye, and what's more Jubileus probably wasn't trying to really hurt Bayonetta since it needed her for the Left Eye, which is probably why the barrier Jubileus put up expelled Jeanne but not Bayonetta. The other explanation for that is that being the Left Eye made Bayonetta more resistant to Jubileus' power which would be even more of an advantage against Jubileus' attacks. If that were the case it would also make her ability to hurt Jubileus even less of an indication of her power. There is also the fact Jubileus can survive an exploding planet, and one could assume her power is equal to her durability, but not only do the feats say that even with both Eyes she had to struggle to destroy the moon, but in addition she had lost one of those Eyes, which meant she no longer had the Creator's power, but she still noticeably had her original body which may have a standard level of physical durability regardless of power, even though she was incomplete. That makes it quite conceivable for Jubileus' durability to far exceed her attacking power.

Rebellion: Bayonetta can die from being slashed as she can die from being eaten. She can die that way in several gameplay scenes in both games, and two other Umbra Witches die from being eaten by Fortitudo in her flashback. She can also die from being impaled in the gameplay of Bayonetta 2. Bayonetta also showed some fear of bullets, the other Umbra Witches were killed by 15th century humans using devices like iron maidens which stab holes into the victim, and in the opening title there is a flashback scene where Jeanne stabbed Bayonetta in the chest five hundred years in the past, and Bayonetta gags loudly and sounds as if she's dying. She also spends the next five hundred years after that in what is essentially a coma. This is further supported by the fact Rosa is killed by Loptr using a sharp card which is stained with a very small amount of blood meaning Loptr didn't have to cut Rosa very deeply to kill her, and the fact Balder died when Bayonetta shot a lipstick into his forehead. Blades are consistently a weakness of hers.

Ifrit: Bayonetta has never displayed the heat resistance to take the heat of this weapon's hellfire which is hotter than Trish's lightning as it hurts Dante more. She can stand on somewhat melted stone though. Lightning is 30,000 Kelvins while stone melts at about 1,100 Kelvins.

DMC2 Dante: Using the Sparda to enhance himself Dante fought more or less evenly against and even ultimately overpowered Mundus who created a space dimension full of thousands of visible stars, and before DMC2 Dante kills an alternate universe version of Mundus. Note that assuming that dimension is small with no actual reason to believe it is or any evidence to suggest it is a greatly flawed argument. We have to expect that the makers made that huge deal of putting the final battle into outer space with the idea of it actually being outer space. In short, if there's no evidence to suggest it isn't what it looks like, then there's no reason to believe it isn't what it looks like, especially when it is shown to function like outer space, because it's doubtful the makers would make the dimension look like outer space, play sinister music in the background while rotating the camera around to observe the outer space environment for almost a minute, and make all that noise about Mundus' power in statements, all with the idea of the dimension not being outer space. It was obviously meant to show Mundus' power. There is also the fact Capcom have repeatedly had crossovers involving Dante in which he takes on and defeats characters like Jedah Dohma, Mephisto and Ghost Rider. Mephisto and Ghost Rider were evenly matched by Dante with the approval of Marvel. That means it was agreed by Marvel and Capcom to show Dante beating Mephisto and facing Ghost Rider. Marvel wouldn't have agreed to that if they didn't think it could happen. There is also Viewtiful Joe, where Captain Blue, who created a universe, is possessed by Mundus and defeated by Dante, and Marvel vs Capcom Infinite wherein Dante fights and defeats Jedah Dohma in the story; a fight Capcom itself created between two characters it owns.

We should also consider that the official guide states that Mundus would take over the universe, which means Mundus must be capable of operating at least on an interstellar scale. To back it up further he created the "Mirror World" on Mallet Island, which was a replica of what it reflected right down to having its own Sun, albeit with the world generally in reverse including certain rules of physics, as light is visibly flowing back into the Sun in the Mirror World. Factor in that Mundus' dimension has been stated multiple times by DMC1 director Hideki Kamiya to be a full-sized universe and it is fairly hard to assume the dimension is small.

In closing, Dante is far more capable of killing Bayonetta than Bayonetta is capable of killing him, is faster, similar in strength and in general a far more balanced and capable fighter. Bayonetta's reliance on her Witch Time also makes her vulnerable to enemies who can resist it, as well as making her a bit of a one-trick pony. Bayonetta poses a good challenge, but overall she only has a few weapons that make her as strong as she is, and against someone like Dante they really don't do the job.