Devil May Cry—Interference
Chapter 2

Ellynore, Nero, Kyrie and Credo headed outside, going down the wide stairs when they suddenly heard the sound of a civilian calling for help. The civilian was walking limply and felt to the ground.

Without warning, a demon in the form of a live scarecrow came and sliced the civilian at his back, leaving him where he collapsed.

The sight of a demon killing a helpless civilian frightened Kyrie and hid her face behind Nero. Ellyn saw how scared she was and looked to her brother and Nero to see how they felt about the situation.

Soon, dozens of civilians came rushing for safety in multiple directions as more demons came to massacre the townsfolk from above. Most of demons were like scarecrows, just like the first one, but some of them had differing weapons and some of their body parts were in different colours. Other demons had knives or enormous, curved swords that were nearly confused with large axes.

"The man in red is not among them," Credo commented, looking closely at the ravaging town district.

Nero had his left hand ready to use Red Queen and said, "Credo, take care of Kyrie and Ellyn. I've got this."

Credo looked over to his sister and Ellynore, the redhead scared and the brunette confused. "Girls, I need to get you two to safety," he then said to them. "You may not make it out of here alive without me."

Ellynore heard what he'd said but wondered about some other possibilities. "Hang on," she said to Credo. "Those demons don't look very strong. I bet I could take down some of them."

"No, you could get killed," he objected. "You may have survived against the assassin in red, but this is a squadron of lesser demons."

"They're not as fast or strong as him," Ellynore persuaded him. "Look, Nero's taking them out easily. The demons are only moving at a slow pace, and most of them aren't moving very stably."
"You don't have a weapon."

"No, but I can distract them while Nero fights them. It'll be like teamwork." Ellynore then ran into the battlefield and performed a lower sliding move to avoid a few of the demons' sharp weapons. Nero had stabbed a few of them and revved up Red Queen to deal extra damage. He then saw that Ellynore was running only at short distances and sliding down to distract them from behind.

He then understood what she was trying to do and quickly ran to some of the dumbfounded demons and revved up Red Queen, taking out three at a time and whirling the powered-up blade to strike a dozen more that surrounded him while Ellynore jumped back to keep away, making sure she didn't get hit.

Meanwhile, Credo and Kyrie were helping the civilians escape the area, in turn calling out to the demon-slaying duo and watching them if they ever got injured. "We must evacuate the civilians back to Headquarters!" Credo yelled out to them, his voice strong and commanding. "Complete whatever task you need to finish; this goes for the both of you! Report back as soon as you can, and be careful!"

"I got it already!" Nero called out in return, still busy from taking down all the lesser demons that were in the area with the help of Ellynore to distract them from Nero. Eventually, Credo and Kyrie were gone and safe. Nero was finally able to use his Devil Bringer, now that he didn't need to keep hiding it from his trench-coat's sleeve. Ellynore saw what he was about to do—he was about to unleash some of his strongest attacks to eliminate the horde of demons and drive them out from the district.
It only took him one minute to get rid of all the demons. "This baby sure can pack a punch," he commented to himself when he was done.

"No kidding," Ellyn replied. She got back to Nero and was wiping sweat from her forehead, making her auburn fringe sticky and her eyelids watery. "You're a really good fighter, Nero." At that moment, she remembered that she'd called him by his name, shading her eyes which showed shock.

"Wait, how do you know my name?" Nero asked. "We barely even know each other." His tone of voice was showing confusion, but his mind also held suspicion.

"Oh, one of the guards told me what your name was," she lied.

"Right, I see… Well, I'd better head my way over to Fortuna Castle; I gotta catch that guy in red we came across from before. It was nice to see you, Ellyn. Stay safe!" By that moment he was gone, running through the streets and heading out to do his mission, leaving Ellynore alone in the City of Fortuna, and with no one else.

As Nero headed out through the streets of Fortuna, Ellynore had to find a way to catch up to him and find Dante along the way. She wouldn't take the same route as Nero took, so she'll have to find another way to Fortuna Castle. Although, how was she going to fight the demons that ran amok in the streets?

All she knew was that there are many possibilities in this new reality; she now had Runner vision and could throw objects at remarkable distances. There may be some other abilities she might have, but she'll have to discover them as she moves on through this nostalgic environment.
As Ellynore turned to look for a way to proceed, she found the huge ornate gate near the fountain in the Opera House district light up in fluorescent red, giving her a hint on where to go. She thought about what she was going to do, and then suggested on climbing up the gate, turning on the other side, and then getting down to head further in the streets to find a good route.

She performed this with some effort, surprised by how little experience she'd had from past rock-climbing activities. If she didn't realise about how her strength was better than at home, it would have taken her hours just to get halfway up, let alone the very top.

Dropping down, Ellynore turned around to see if anything else lit up red in her sight. She eventually found a run-over truck with some crates near its hood that she could jump up to and reach out for the balcony off a tall building nearby. She jogged her way to the truck, took a few steps back for preparation and started running as fast as she could, perform a springboard jump in success, landing safely on the truck, almost at a wheel that spun idly when she put her foot on the rubbery material.

The balcony wasn't too high, but Ellynore was wondering how far and high she could jump now. She got her answer when she leaped from the truck and raised her arms out high to catch the metal bars of the balcony, pulling herself up and setting her feet on the carpet that decorated the walkway to another building at the side.

On the other side were half a dozen demons moving idly near some wreckage at some streets, laughing in a menacing mocking tone. Ellynore also noticed that there was a zip-line that led to a certain part of the streets; that part of the area had a square of shallow water in the centre with a pair of double-doors that led somewhere out of the main part of the city. This could be her short-cut to the city port.

Ellynore thought about taking the zip-line but reconsidered and looked at her hands in frustration. She had no gloves, and if she took the zip-line without them on, she could suffer rope-burn. But how was she going to get to the port without gloves for protection? Where would she find gloves this high up in the city while there were demons infesting the lower ground?

Ellyn looked around and found something small and fluorescent-red at the end of the colonnade. She headed her way there and examined what she'd found, and soon discovered—although they appeared red at a distance—a pair of light gray, leather gloves, with cut-outs at the back of the palm and at the knuckles, but the fingers were fully covered.

Now I can take the zip-line without suffering any damage. I can never find something this awesome at Sydney! This city among others, back home, was known to be the largest around the entire country, and also their main import/export location. Ironically, Sydney is not known to be the Australian capital.

Ellynore slipped the gloves on, surprised that they matched her casual outfit and ran back to where the zip-line was positioned at the colonnade. Seeing how high it would be when the line reached the end, she took a deep breath to prepare herself for the ironically biggest jump she was about to make, carefully positioning her newly gloved hands on the zip-line and vaulting herself off the colonnade's gated barrier and leaping off to ride the zip-line.

She felt more alive and energetic to be riding on the zip-line with the wind blowing a fierce breeze against her arms, face and hair. She then tried to lift her legs up to safely prevent her from crashing on the wall at the other side, and dropping down on the ground. There was some pressure on her heels when she landed and nearly lost her balance from the zip-line ride.
As she looked behind her back, the demons roaming the streets didn't take much attention to what had just happened and decided to lay more destruction to the city. Ellynore turned to the double-doors she found from before she took the zip-line and headed her way to the city port.
The small buildings were lined up along the steep hill descending to the port, but it didn't mean that this part of the harbour was clean of demons. Ellynore didn't see them yet, but she sensed that they may be lurking nearby. Carefully walking down the steep hill, preventing herself from tripping over and possibly spraining her knees, she reached the harbour, looking around to see where she had to go next.

"OK," she said to herself, wondering around every possible passage. "This lane goes all the way to the left side, but the gap is too far apart for me to cross. If I go the other way when I reach the end of the lane, that would take me over to the bridge, but that hadn't been lowered down yet and it leads to the mines below, taking me over to the small town outside Fortuna's walls. Maybe there's another way to get across…"

Finding an alternate route from the main one in the game would be difficult—Ellyn's eyes weren't made for environmental examinations, mostly reading. Although, considering how she now has Runner Vision, there might be a way to speed things up.

There were ways to get to the city mines ahead, but which one was best? Since the place was a port, Ellynore may consider swimming across, but the encumbrance of her clothes may make her slower, and she would have to put in extra strength in her arms and feet; stroking and kicking across to the other side of the port would be easier if her clothes weren't suitable for cooler climate.

Soon, when walking along the main walkway, her red-highlighted path came into view with some narrow platforms that went around the front side of the lifted bridge. As she went to see where the path ended, it went under the bridge, where there were bars, highlighted in the same fluorescent red colour, that were good for climbing.

"Damn," cursed Ellynore. "How am I gonna shift over those bars?" She now had a feeling that she might lose her grip on the bars and fall in the water.

* * *

Meanwhile, Nero had been putting up multiple fights against lesser demons on his way out of the City of Fortuna. He had made his way down to the city port, following the path to some floating boats anchored on the left. A distinctive blue light appeared in midair, halfway across the water, indicating that this was where Nero had to go.

He gazed at his right arm, thinking that he was on the right track, but also had doubts as to what lied on the other side. Putting that thought aside, he engaged as his arm powered up and launched at the azure blue with its power, pulling the rest of Nero's body over to the end of the gap, landing perfectly on the concrete ground.

"Huh?" Nero turned back, thinking he'd heard something from where he'd left just recently. There were very faint sounds of footsteps, along with the sound of skin clasping on metal. Thankfully, this wasn't enough to make the young half-demon curious about the city port's entire environment. "Must've been some people hiding in their boats," he said quietly to himself, pressing on with his journey to find Dante. Of course, for Nero however, it didn't mean that he'd seen the last of the Scarecrow demons that have been lurking around the residential area of Fortuna.

Ellynore nearly lost her grip against the bars, but managed to vault her legs back to help make her more stable as she traversed to the other side under the bridge. Thank God for those gloves I found, she thought to herself in relief. After a few frustrating attempts to reach out for the next bar with one hand and quickly shifting her other hand for the next one, she made it to the top of the first half of the raised bridge, but stopped to think before she made another move.

There was a gap that prevented her from reaching the other half of the bridge; the first question that came into her mind was: "How would I be able to cross the gap without falling into the water?"

Just then, the sound of metal slashing came to her ears, along with faint growls and laughs of mockery. From what she could suspect, the distant noises may be from Nero's battle against another horde of lesser demons. While feeling slightly proud for getting ahead of him, dread also flooded through Ellynore's mind—if Nero found a way to lower the bridge she was under, how would she be able to continue from there whilst still trying to keep her head above water?
Sink or swim…? Great…

Still hanging, a new idea came to Ellynore, but also concentrated on what was still in front of her. Carefully, she raised one foot from behind her and reached out for one of the bars held on the opposite side of the bridge, turning it around so that it was held firmly in the gap between two of the metal bars. Switching her hands over, she then gave way for her other foot, performing the same procedure as her most recent attempt. Once both feet were at the other side, she slid them down to a lower set of bars and using her hands to grab on the edge.

The next part was going to be frightening for Ellyn. Now that her lower legs were placed behind the bars on the other side, she shut her eyes tight while letting her hands release the edge of the bridge. The loose part of her body fell down as he hands went past her feet and almost touch the water's surface, nearly letting out a scream from falling down. Once she came back to her senses, she vaulted herself up while she let her hands rise up for the higher bars—on the new half of the bridge.

Back to her usual position, Ellynore resumed shifting herself to the other side. It became easier as she progressed even further and reached the end of her path on the bridge—and Nero hasn't even reached the control room to lower it down.