Thanks Reviewers:

lost son of sparda AND Silentdeath Bringer: Thanks... I'd thought I would get a laugh or two for that nod to Naruto.

Lady Luce: It's ok, we're cool... I think that Dante deserves to be thrashed by a girl, well... sometimes.

For everyone else (I guess): To refresh your memories before we begin... a Frost, is a Blade that controls ice.

Enjoy the chapter and please review!


Chapter Four: Chimera, Chameleon, and the Wizard

"Her brother," Dante questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah! Don't you see the resemblance," the boy joked as he turned his face to the side while stoking his chin. "I see that Kayleigh has done a number on you," the boy continued regarding the deep gashes slowly closing on Dante's face.

The boy's words lilted lightly and gracefully on his lips. Dante could clearly see that he was a truly warm person, or very good at playing the part, but to him, there was something rather off-putting in the way the boy spoke. It was polite and cordial, but the prim and properness of it all disturbed him. It reminded him of Vergil.

"You say that you are her brother," Dante began, "but who are you... really? Why are you here?"

Dante was relieved and at the same time bothered by the boy's presence. God only knows what kind of rampage that Chimera would have went on if she were left conscious. What upset Dante more, was that the boy appeared out of out of nowhere, like a ninja and was able to take out the girl so easily.

He was very thin, but not to the point of being a skeletal figure. He probably weighed less than one hundred twenty pounds and he looked like he could be blown away by the slightest breeze.

From what Dante learned tonight, judging a book by its cover may not be so prudent. He wasn't so hasty to pick a fight with this boy.

"Do you mean in the philosophical sense," the boy chuckled.

When he saw that Dante didn't even crack a smile, he decided to begin again, "Well, my name is Gabriel and from the looks of things, I'm saving your ass."

Dante held back the urge to punch Gabriel in his smug face.

"I must say," the raven-haired boy said turning to walk towards Chimera, "you did a bang up job with a quarter. She was right, you are good."

"A quarter? She's a quarter demon," Dante asked in disbelief. He looked absolutely crestfallen and he was somewhat embarrassed that he was nearly done in by someone who had less demonic blood than he.

"I didn't say demon," Gabriel said turning his head back to Dante. A knowing smile crept across his face. "No... Kayleigh is a quarter human."

A chill went down Dante's spine as he began to realize that his opponent held back this entire time. Speechless for the first time in a long while, Dante watched as Gabriel bent down, sheathed the tantō, and gently removed the syringe. Despite the fact that she was much heavier than he, Gabriel picked Chimera up as if she weighed nothing.

He carried her back to the building princess style. His barefooted steps were elegant and exquisite, the same as his manner of speech.

"Come on inside Dante, or else you'll catch a cold. Besides, we have much to talk about."

Gabriel continued on into the building past the hole in the wall created by Dante and Chimera's battle. Dante decided to follow... cautiously. "Dante," Brown said stopping him just shy of the door, "I don't trust that kid. Be careful and don't let yourself get cornered."

Dante nodded in concurrence. "I'll be in touch," Brown said tossing a black cell phone to the silver-haired teen.

With that, the two parted ways and Dante gathered his weapons and "holstered" them. He followed Gabriel inside.

Gabriel led Dante down a series of winding corridors. Gabriel came to a stop at a grey steel door. In an amazing feat of balance and strength, he supported the girl with one arm as he fished a cardkey from his pants pocket. He waved the card in front of the console and the door unlatched.

Gabriel kicked the door open, softly and flipped on the light switch. He continued on inside, possibly to the bedroom and Dante stood at the doorway, slightly taken aback by how nice the room was.

Chimera could kill without a thought and yet surprisingly her room was decidedly girly. The room was a mirror image of Dante's room, yet everything was painted and furnished in pastel hues.

The stark white couch in the living/dining area was facing the television to the right. It was covered in an army of plush animals and cartoon characters. Just above the TV was a rack that held many anime DVDs. Dante broke off from his visual tour and wandered in the bedroom where Gabriel had taken Chimera.

Once inside, Dante saw that Gabriel was already wearing pair of tan suede boots and a grey zip-down, hooded sweat jacket.

Dante had also noticed that the girl's half wet and frozen clothes were halfway in a hamper near the bathroom and that she had been redressed in baby blue pajamas. She laid there peacefully in her pink and white canopy bed.

"You'll have to excuse my little sister," Gabriel said, pulling the covers up to her chest, "Kayleigh..." He paused with a smile that told his love and pride for the girl before him.

"... She comes off as aloof sometimes, maybe a little crazy, but she is a sweet, sweet girl. It's not her fault that she is the way she is." He brushed her hair back revealing that her cuts were healed and the blood was cleaned off. He kissed her on the forehead gently.

Dante picked up an oak picture frame from her white wicker night table. There was Gabriel on the left clad in black and Chimera dressed in the same way on the right, but there was someone else there, in the middle.

It was a boy with curly brown hair and hazel eyes that were a perfect mix of brown and green. His skin was a light tan, a little paler than Chimera's complexion. The boy was also dressed in black.

He appeared to be much younger that the two that flanked him.

"Who's the kid," Dante asked.

"That's Jason. He used to be in our team a while back," Gabriel said without glancing at Dante, "I think he was fourteen in that picture."

"Used to be on your team? Do you mean that he was transferred?"

"You could say that." Dante wasn't satisfied with the comment.

"We'd better get going," Gabriel said, "She'll be out of it for a while."

"Where to?"

"Somewhere to talk... away from eyes and ears."

They left the girl's room and snaked through the halls, out the door and into a parking lot sparsely populated by snow covered cars.

Gabriel produced a set of keys and proceeded to unlock a car and brush off the snow that blanketed it. He started the black Government Issue sedan and they were off.

As Gabriel drove, Dante gaze out the window and slowly realized where he was. He could see the silhouette of decommissioned battle ships on the grey night skies. He could smell sewage wafting faintly on the air. They soon passed by well-illuminated tall metal frames, molded into stadium seats.

Dante broke the long silence, speaking to no one in particular, "We were at the Navy Yard this entire time? Huh. So I guess that means that I kidnapped less than ten miles from here."

"They don't like to call it kidnapping," Gabriel corrected, "They think of it more as a draft."

"So… How exactly did you and Chimera come into all this?"

"Eyes and ears, Dante," Gabriel said glancing into his rearview mirror and making a left turn all at once, "eyes and ears."

Gabriel was calm, but his paranoia was beginning to get to Dante. Soon the two were in the downtown area near Chinatown. After some tricky maneuvering, Gabriel found an underground parking space.

He locked up the car and Dante went to grab Rebellion, which lay on the backseat floor. "Leave it," Gabriel said stepping out of the car, "bring the guns and make sure they are well hidden." Dante tucked them in the back of his jeans. I don't need you to tell me that. I'm not an idiot.

"Leave the cell phone, too," Gabriel called to Dante, "They may be tracking that too."

The two made their way back to surface level. Once on the street, Gabriel turned his hood over his head. It wasn't because of the cold… no… Dante had seen him walk through the snow shoeless. Gabriel did it because he knew something that Dante didn't. Figuring this, Dante followed suit.

The hooded boys walked side by side down the sidewalk, passing a myriad of frenzied basketball fan with every other one wearing jerseys featuring the names of their favorite players. "There's a game tonight," Gabriel suddenly said, motioning his head to the sports venue to the left, "they won't try anything with so many civilians around."

Dante only nodded in response. This kid's insane. Who is this paranoid? "See the ticket scalper on the corner," Gabriel didn't wait for a response, "He's one of 'em." He jerked Dante's arm harshly, pulling him to the right to cross the street.

They practically speed-walked another block and a half before sharply turning into what appeared to be a cheerfully lit coffeehouse. A woman in black greeted them at the door, "Hello, welcome to COSI, follow me this way." She seated them in ultra-modern, upholstered chairs near the back of the café, as per Gabriel's request.

Seconds later, an African-American woman greeted the boys and announced to them that she was their waitress.

"Pick your poison," Gabriel mumbled while keeping an eye on the door.

"A strawberry mint mocha frappuccino, with extra whipped cream, please," Dante said quickly, adding a grin at the end.

"You're weird," Gabriel replied with a smile.

"Fine," Dante feigned disappointment, "a strawberry shake."

"An earl gray tea, please."

The woman took their drink orders and walked away.

"Whoa… dude, they have pizza here? I am totally ordering this meat trio thing," Dante said from behind his menu.

Gabriel shrugged. For the first time since they met, Dante could see that the boy across from him beginning to become at ease. He pulled his hood off and rubbed his temples. Gabriel looked like he was about to be sick.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," he looked up at Dante, "just a little headache."

The waitress reappeared with their drinks and Gabriel ordered for both of them, "He'll have the meat trio pizza and I'll have the soup of the day." With that, she was gone again.

Dante tugged at his hood wanting to pull it off. "I wouldn't if I were you. White hair isn't exactly a common thing around here. Give me your hand."

"What?"

"Look, I'm not gay or anything. Just give me your hand."

Dante hesitantly laid his hand on the table.

Gabriel pulled it closer and grabbed it tightly. He closed his eyes and began mumbling to himself. As far as Dante could tell, the boy was speaking in Latin.

He let go of Dante's hand and rubbed his temples again. "It's not my best work," he said with a pained expression on his face, "but, at least you'll less conspicuous. It only lasts a few hours in case you were wondering." He hand Dante his teaspoon.

Dante took it, pulled off his hood, and looked at his slightly distorted reflection. Nothing major changed. Gabriel managed to trade in Dante's platinum locks for a more "natural" pale blonde. Dante handed Gabriel his spoon back and looked at him as if to say, I hope you have a damn good explanation for this.

"Don't get me wrong, I could make it last longer, but blood seals are soooo disgusting," Gabriel shuddered.

Gabriel straightened up and sipped his tea. The food was brought to the table. Dante bit into his gourmet pizza and Gabriel tasted his vegetable and lentil soup.

"I suppose you want to know about everything, Dante. Why you have been chosen and all that good stuff. I guess I should start at the beginning."

Gabriel sipped his tea again and continued, "In the '50s the CIA began a project called MK-ULTRA. It was a series of studies in mind control. They would inject unsuspecting subjects with psychotropic drugs. Some ended up with real tripy hallucinations, some went insane, and some died while others killed themselves due to the trips."

Gabriel went for his soup and continued, "By the '70s, one of the scientists on the project went into another direction. He proposed that it was possible to create super-soldiers with the drugs. He believed that his "soldiers" could have psychokinetic powers as well as be physically superior. They wouldn't need to eat or sleep and they would have rapid regenerative abilities."

"Needless to say, it didn't work."

"Correct. Another scientist followed in those footsteps in the '80s up until 1991 and dubbed this endeavor the CHIMERA project. This time he started from scratch when he found lesser demons, thinking they were a rare breed of animal. He created human embryos using male and female donors. He then injected the embryos with this 'animal' DNA. The embryos were implanted into surrogate mothers."

Gabriel pushed his unfinished soup aside and looked up at the door. There was no one, so he continued, "The surrogates died shortly after childbirth and very few infants survived. If they did and didn't look human enough, they were terminated. The human-looking babies were adopted out to families, but still remained as government property, meaning the children could be taken back at anytime."

The woman brought a refill on tea as Dante finished his shake. "We were brought up and trained as soldiers; Jason, Kayleigh and me. We trained and fought as a three man cell, based on our relativity. I guess you could say we were triplets; all conceived at the same time with the same human DNA, just born on different dates."

That would explain why this Jason kid looked like a cross between Chimera and Gabriel.

"They gave us codenames based on the abilities we retained from different devils. Kayleigh received Chimera, because she really did embody what they wanted in these experiments. She was infused with at least two demons, the main part being a Shadow, which you already know about. Jason was called Wizard because of the Auromancer in him. He also had telepathy, telekinesis, and some remote viewing. Then there's me… the chameleon. I guess that I am from a genetically enhanced Frost."

"Auromancers aren't demons," Dante cut in.

"They are and they aren't. Auromancers were humans that dabbled into magic to the point where they became partially demonic; considered to be the lowest of the low, even worst than vampires."

"I noticed... that you talk about Jason in the past tense. What really happened to him?"

"He was killed in action," Gabriel simply put it; "He was only fifteen. Since he died, our handlers have been scrambling for a replacement. When they heard that there were hybrids born naturally, they jumped at the chance to find them. First there was another with white hair. I never saw him, but I'm guessing he was your brother."

Vergil.

"Anyways, he didn't work out because I'm thinkin' he got away somehow. Then they found you. I heard that they tried to make contact in the past, but decided to bring you in when my brother died."

Gabriel glanced down at his watch, "We've got to get going." Gabriel placed a hundred dollar bill in the small leather folder that contained their bill of less than thirty dollars. He and Dante left the café.

They didn't get five steps before Gabriel practically ran to expel his soup and tea into some azalea bushes.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine... I just...B—" He was bent over the bushes again. When all was clear, Dante helped the boy to a patio chair under an awning.

"I'm gonna get you some water."

"Thanks." Gabriel's headache came back.

Dante returned with a plastic cup filled with water. Gabriel took a few sips and sat the cup down. Dante leaned against the wall next to Gabriel.

"I wasn't completely honest with you, Dante. There are a couple cells around, but I think most of them are dead. You see, what these people didn't count on was that playing God has its drawbacks. We are all starting to fall apart. Kayleigh is three quarters demon. She has her lucid moments, but she is prone to psychotic breaks. Me... Well, I'm a half like you, yet I don't stay healthy for long. Jason was considered a failure because he was less than a quarter demon, somewhere near a fifth. He couldn't heal like us, but he was a helluva fighter. I don't see where he's a failure."

Gabriel chuckled a little before saying, "He was the coolest, goofy little kid, yet he was strong enough to tear something limb from limb and summon a demon without much thought. You kinda remind me of him." Gabriel smiled at the last part.

"I guess I was their greatest failure of all... bred to hunt and fight and I won't do it at all," Gabriel stood up, drank the rest of the water and trashed the cup.

Gabriel's back was to Dante when he saw a small, silver cross fall from Gabriel's sleeve and hang there. He could see that it connected to smooth, black beads.

Dante decided to ignore the fact that the black-haired half demon had a rosary in his possession, just as he ignored that he was named after an angel. He decided to keep the blaring irony to himself.

Gabriel headed back down the street and Dante followed. The short trip back was a quiet one. Neither spoke a word. The city was just as still. There were no more crazed fans on the sidewalks and few cars traversed to the slick streets.

Dante was still digesting that he was dropped in group of demons that were created in a Petri dish.

The two entered the underground garage and walked down the ramps to their car. Without warning, Dante drew his guns and held them out as he began to circumspect the area. "Something's here."

Two Hellenvies appeared from nowhere to attack the two teens.

Dante unleashed a torrent of bullets into his opponent, turning him into nothing more than hamburger meat. The Hellenvy was not standing for long, because Dante decapitated it with a spinning heel kick to the face. It exploded into a cloud of sand.

After he made quick work of the demon, he turned to see his counterpart being held in the air by his neck. Gabriel's legs were dangling helplessly as his skin began turning to a shade of blue. He gripped his captor at the wrist.

"Please, no," he whispered breathlessly. Gabriel didn't seem to be pleading with the demon. He seemed to be begging to himself. His aura began to grow as cold as the snow outside.

Gabriel's eye glowed blue as he thrust his legs upwards and wrapped it around the envy's arm. It let go of the boy's neck in surprise. A set of trench knives appeared in his hands. The six-inch long blades protruded from his closed fists, near his pinkies. The blade's hilt continued around Gabriel's fingers like a set of sharpened brass knuckles.

Dante's fingers tensed near the trigger, ready to squeeze off some shots, just in case. Gabriel hung there with his arms dangling. In one fluid motion, he pulled himself up and slashed the thing from stem to sternum, if it had a stem. He dropped to his feet into a crouched position and slashed it at its ankles before its torn torso hit the ground.

Dante watched in awe as the boy rapidly hacked and slashed the demon into smaller pieces. The boy rose to his feet, panting. His hands, blades, and the rosary wrapped around his wrist were dripping in black demonic blood. He stared down at the demon chunks as it transformed into dust and sand saying, "This is why I choose not to fight."


Eh... an extended, so-so chapter. Freaking long monologue, Gabe!

Gabriel: Hey! You write the script... I act it out. It's your own damn fault!

Eric: Did I just get PWND by my own OC::cries::

::sigh:: It finally snowed yesterday and guess what? It all melted by this morning! BTW: The MK-ULTRA thing is true... just wiki it if you don't believe me.

Gotta go... Review!