City of Devils

So I finally conjured up enough time to write one of those serious fanfics. This is a fanfic which relies on introducing new elements to the series. The prologue section has no main DMC characters, but they'll appear in the next. Honest!!! If you don't feel like being introduced to new characters, just skip to the second chapter, and the following chapters basically recaps those events through dialogue eventually.

And secondly, I divided the story on sections throughout the story. Each section follows one main character and their perspective on the events. I'll toggle between sections throughout the story so that we don't have Dante or anyone else as a main character once. It's a weird style on writing but still.

Prologue Section: Path of Corruption

Chapter One: Welcome to Hell.

An American controlled base in the middle of Africa stands tall against enemy countries, victimized by dictators, armed with fear and corruption. Corruption. A word that will be very familiar with a man, standing with an assault rifle in his hands, bullet protecting suits on his body and the words 'Property of Private Wendell Evans' printed on his helmet. Fear is a word he'll never know. But corruption is a word to describe those who have once been great, have descended to lower standard and a word that will surround his life.

'EVANS!!! You god damn maggot, stop day dreaming about screwing your boyfriend and report to duty'. Wendell's heart sank. He may not know fear, but the sinking intimidating feeling that Lieutenant Jacob Stanley's bark naturally makes, made him shrivel in hatred of his commanding officer. Jacob Stanley beat anyone that defied him just with the rear of his trusty assault rifle. He punished one private with it until his skull broke for cowardice, while he slowly tortured another to death for insubordination. He was a normal higher ranking officer combined with the brutality of a criminal.

Wendell began to turn around and to his surprise, he saw an African American standing before him. Private Cory Hawking, Wendell's close friend, stood imitating Jacob's stance, with a strong frown. 'Stand to attention!!!' Cory shouted, still imitating Jacob's deep, strong voice. If Jacob saw this, Cory would be mincemeat. Wendell sighed in relief. 'Are you ready?' Cory said in his normal, less deep voice. Before them stood a risky operation, where he is supposed to pick up American POW's for the exchange of African hostages in a very small village and snipers would cover him if they decided to break the agreement. Wendell didn't know fear but he was incredibly nervous.

The real Jacob Stanley appeared. His army cap covered by his helmet and a suit of bullet proof armor covered him. And his black eyes struck Wendell like a dagger. Wendell stared back, apathetically as if his eyes didn't disturb him at all.

Wendell wanted to beat the shit out of him. His strong stare didn't scare him at all, only annoyed him that he thinks its fun to intimidate people. 'What the fuck are you looking at, Hawking?'. Cory looked at him, confused that he said that. 'Piss off, I want to talk to Evans.' Cory began to motion back slowly but then Jacob's small portion of patience ran out before then. 'I said PISS OFF!!!', the Lieutenant shouted, before Cory finally turned back and walked away. 'Are you ready?' Stanley asked Wendell. 'Ready?' Wendell thought, 'Oh yeah, I am ready to kick your ass!' 'Yeah' Wendell said quietly, suppressing his thoughts. They then left to their assignment.

A few hours later, at least fifty miles away the base, Wendell is at the exchange point with a truck full of African POW's. However, he only finds the corpse of dead Africans and Americans. 'What the fuck happened here?' he muttered to himself. One man was disemboweled and another was decapitated. Blood and guts everywhere. The faces of all the victims spelt pain and fear. Their eyes crying with blood. Mouths full of blood. 'Hey! What the fuck is going on with the trade.' Jacob shouted into Wendell's ear piece. 'I don't know…', Wendell replied, '…but whatever it is, it's going to be bad.

'Look, whatever it is…' Wendell said while touching the still warm blood of the victims, 'It can't be far. I'll search the perimeter'.

'Yeah, whatever,' The Lieutenant replied, 'but cut the fucking detective jargon shit.'

'Sure, sir', Wendell muttered and cut him off saying only three words after that. 'What an asshole.'

Fifteen minutes later, Wendell has gone through most of the village, with the same result. Death. Blood. Tortured faces. Over this period, Wendell hasn't said a word besides, 'Holy shit' and '…Fuck…'

In his entire experience as a soldier, he has never half the bloodshed in these fifteen minutes. Half of him was nervous. In Operation Depredation, he hardly got out alive and this made it look like a walk in the park. The rest of him was excited. He just hoped he'd get a promotion for this or at least a badge. As he thought of this, he passed a mural of blood on a small building. 'The closest escape exit is to Hell…' it wrote in blood with a demon holding a flaming globe in its hand. A man lied under it, covered in blood, disemboweled. Wendell made a picture in his mind of a man using his guts as a paint brush. Wendell rushed the thought out before he vomited. His eyes still stuck on the mural. The closest escape exit is to Hell. He repeated that in his head.

He began to hear a noise. Sobbing perhaps? Wendell wasted no time and followed the noise, passing another mural without looking. 'Welcome to Hell'….

An American man is in a corner, almost crying shivering in fear of something. Covering his eyes, almost as if he's touching and prodding it. He sounded as if he struggled to breath. Wendell didn't understand at all. 'What is he doing?' he thought. He decided that he must be stressed from the war.

'Soldier,' Wendell shouted, 'Identify yourself!'. The man stopped crying. In fact he began to laugh. He uncovered his eyes, although still closed. Blood stains seeped from his eyes and poured to his whole face. 'Soldier?', he replied, almost whispering 'Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I am no soldier. I am the herald of your death!', he cried. 'What a lame bastard' Wendell thought to himself. The man opened his eyelids and revealed completely black eyes. His eyes no longer poured blood but now a black inky substance. He grabbed his long knife and it slowly warped into a gothic edgy sword. He leapt at Wendell, swinging his sword wildly, with blood pouring out of his mouth. Wendell side stepped and shot at least five rounds at his torso. The man looked, surprised at how little they affected him.

Now confident, he threw his arm at Wendell, tossing him back a few feet and leapt to stab him in the guts before he landed, so he'd give no time to recover. He also stabbed through his arms while Wendell attempted to defend himself. Then….The man collapsed. He began to suffocate for no apparent reason. Perhaps he was tortured by the Africans with gas and succumbed to the poison. All of a sudden, a weird figure began to emit itself out of the man. The figure was at least six feet tall and although he looked to have weighted about 250 pounds, in reality, kilograms would be more accurate. He had distorted, black and red skin and look roughly shaped, spikes on his spine and shoulder. His body seemed like it was chiseled from the hardest material known. 'What the fuck are you?' Wendell muttered, clutching his deep stomach wound.

'Me?' the figure replied, 'I'm Jericho.'

Within seconds, he leapt at Wendell.

Chapter Two: Discharged.

Wendell woke up in the middle of a hospital that he was too familiar with. He was back in Fernal, the American base. He didn't remember why he was there and felt very dizzy. There stood a woman in her early twenties, reading a paper with Wendell's medical details all over it. 'Morning, Wendell.' she said. 'Hey there, Kathy…' Wendell said with a smirk. She frowned and smacked him in the head. 'Call me Dr Connors, Wendell!', she growled. Wendell loved harassing Katherine. She's just so cute when she tries to look scary with her blue eyes narrowing down on him.

'So, what happened?' he asked.

'Your stomach needed treatment for your wound. If we didn't come to you in time…'

'Wait, no. I meant what happened?'

Katherine scratched her blond hair. 'You mean you don't remember?'

'No, I remember, I just wanted to ask you.' he replied, sarcastically.

'Lose the attitude.'

'Yes, mother.'

'Okay, we found you in the middle of the village. You were extremely injured. There was a wound that penetrated your stomach which means you'll be discharged in a few days because of it. There were also wounds on both hands.'

At this moment, he lifted his arms and found his arms were black and red, roughed shaped and distorted into an inhuman design. It reminded him of something he recently saw but couldn't remember.

'We can't specifically identify what it is but we assume it could be a fire burn.' the Doctor said. 'Now can you please stop acting like a child?'

'Yes, mother…' he replied, trying to restrain from laughing.

Katherine, annoyed punched him in the nuts.

Later on the day, Cory visited Wendell.

'Man, lot a people talking about that shit you pulled before' Cory told Wendell.

'What shit? What 'cha talking about?' Wendell asked.

'So you don't remember? Rumors are saying, you were found in that village, dead.'

'What?'

'And the marines got killed' Cory continued, '; everyone was killed when the marines came to pick you up. They said they had to send another crew to take care of it. But you woke up when they got to the wreckage,'

Wendell fell silent. What the fuck? Why can't he remember?

In the next room, stood a group of people. Most were the snipers involved in the extraction mission and Jacob Stanley. The rest were scientists and a man was Major Tyler Connors, Katherine's father, the man in charge of the campaign. 'What do you mean his hands are 'demonic'?' Major asked. The scientist in charge, Dr Andre Gamble tried to conclude that no scientific conclusion was possible.

'Look, his scars cannot be a burn.' He said,

Whoever came up with that idea is incredibly stupid. There have been many occurrences like this.' Andre passed a handful of files for Tyler to flick through.

'One of them is the marine we found dead yesterday,'

'So what do we do?' Major asked.

'Quarantine him.' Andre replied, 'Analysis proves that his hands may make him too hard to execute. We may even be able to study his mutation and use it as a biological weap…'

A huge explosion outside interrupted his sentence.

'What the fuck!' Jacob Stanley muttered.

And as everyone tried to rush outside, another explosion blew their room to pieces.

Wendell woke up and to his surprise, found his wound healed although it still bore a scar.

Seeing his gear and belongings, he put them on and found his gun.

He got to his feet and ran outside, hearing a siren.

'What the hell is going on?' he thought,

He saw his barracks in flames, with soldiers drowning in their own blood. His mind flashed back to his early details of his mission. He remembered decapitated and disemboweled people with faces of fear. And the puddles of blood. The murals of blood. He snapped out of it, and rushed to his room passing another mural. 'The path of corruption leads to prosperity' with silhouettes of people walking through a trail of flames.

'Hey!' a voice shouted. Wendell turned to see a man holding the door of a building.

'Get in!' the man said.

Wendell ran in, wasting no time at all.

He found Cory, Katherine and Sergeant Arthur Turner, the man who held the door, a bald black man who carried a shotgun and a pistol at the same time and held a cigar in his mouth. His face held a burn on his right cheek.

'Hey, now I want a helicopter to get me and my men out of here' he shouted to his communicator.

Wendell looked at Cory and found he had a stab wound in his right shoulder. Katherine was next to him nursing his wound.

Wendell took a seat listening to the Sergeant ramble to the communicator, clutching his assault rifle. He fitted his ear phones and listened to a playlist of heavy metal, falling asleep.

An hour later, Wendell woke up from a loud bang that overwhelmed the noise of his music. The Sergeant finished talking on the communicator and turns to them.

'Get up, the helicopter should be outside,' he said.

Katherine and Cory grabbed their things and followed Arthur. Wendell, however felt hesitant. And there was a voice that seemed to make him want to stay. It felt like he heard it before but never remembered. 'They're still outside, ya know.' It wasn't his conscience or his instinct or anything that said that to him.

'Wendell!'

Wendell turned to see that the others were waiting impatiently for him.

'Yeah, I'm coming,' he said. The voice inside him then whispered, 'you moron.'

Everything went well until they saw the helicopter.

'Get to dah choppah!' Cory said in an Arnie accent. Wendell would always trust him to pull a joke in the middle of danger. Then it happened. The ground under the helicopter began to glow red. Seconds later, it began to burn. The group stopped and watched what happened. The copter began to take off after the flames came out of nowhere. Then a burst of flames came out of the ground and tore the chopper to pieces.

The voice in Wendell's head said 'Okay, now they're here. Hope you like bloodshed.'

The group stood and watched as their escape route was burned to pieces. As the firestorm calmed, three figures appeared. They were just as strange as the figure Wendell encountered before. They held swords and wore armor over themselves.

Arthur, Cory and Wendell opened fire on them as the demons ran circles around them.

Phew. Man, that took ages and I'm still not finished yet. I'm doing the First Section because I don't want to have my story start off with seemingly no relation with Devil May Cry.