Nero whirled around, gun raised. "Heh…knew it."

The four white knights were now standing shoulder-to-shoulder, their eyes (or rather, the glowing blue lines in the general area of where their eyes should be) pointed directly at him as they faced him down. The center pedestal was nowhere to be seen; though, if he had to guess, it had sunk into the floor.

"So, you guys stowaways or did he bring you here, too?"

They began to march towards him, bringing their lances to point at him.

"Ah, why bother. Chatting's useless with you guys; your heads are empty, in every sense."

One lunged forward; his Devil Bringer latched onto it and vaulted him over the top, kicking aside the jabs of the other knights' lances.

He landed on the other side of them, holstering Blue Rose and revving Red Queen. "All right, fine. If you're that eager to join the hundreds of others I took apart…" He beckoned with the Devil Bringer. "Then let's dance."

One dropped into a bracing stance, its shield transforming into wings. It shot at him, its brethren rising into the air as their shields also became wings.

Nero leapt straight up, the lance going past him and embedding itself into a wall. "Hah!" He landed on the lance and leapt over the animated armor, giving it a kick in the head in passing. "Without the Order, you're a joke!"

One of the airborne armors flew straight at him, its lance attempting to skewer him. He grabbed the tip and reeled the lance in, kicking its owner in the head with both feet. Readjusting, he jumped off the knight as another swooped in. He managed to duck under the lance's swipe, launching the Devil Bringer in a vicious uppercut. The empty armor flew back, almost as if startled.

He landed on his feet as the final knight swooped in. He stared it down as it drew closer…closer…and then he simply leaned to his right and raised his left arm, letting the stab pass harmlessly. Giving the possessed armor no time to recover, he wrapped his left arm around the lance and punched the knight square in the jaw. "HELL yeah!"


The instant the door had closed behind her, Lady could hear it happening. The demonic seal activating on the door.

Which meant that nothing was going in or out of that room (sound included) until whatever enemies were inside had been killed.

At this point, her mind raced as to what her options were. She couldn't get through until Nero had taken out whatever appeared (it must have been those suits of armor, but why did the seal only activate after they'd left?). Which meant she had three options; she could put on a show of trying to bash the door in, the two of them could continue searching the mansion and hope that Nero caught up, or stand guard at the door and stall Chris long enough that he couldn't figure out that something had gone wrong.

The second wasn't exactly the kind of thing she would do to a comrade, even one she'd barely gotten to know. On a lesser note, it would have involved an in-depth explanation of the nature of a Devil Hunter's work, and Chris didn't seem the fanciful type; even with the walking dead around, this world didn't seem like it had a whole lot of magic at work.

Excluding the demonic seal. Damn it.

"Hmm…" she said, taking care to keep her tone light. "Nero must have found something in there."

Chris gave her a confused look. "We missed something? What, did the non-moving knight suits bother him?"

Hmm…not far off, I'm guessing. "I don't know. We should probably-"

"Well, might as well go back in."

She had to admit it was logical, but all the same… "Wait. Give him some space. If we crowd him, he might miss something."

Chris smirked, though not unkindly. "It wouldn't be the first investigation I've done. More eyes means better searching."

"Don't worry. If he finds something, he's not stupid enough to go off on his own," she supplied. "Besides, if he can't find anything, we can go back through for a second look. And if he gets in trouble, he can call for us." Well…the last part was a lie, but still.

He held up his hands in defeat. "Okay, okay. With all the weird stuff going on around here, it just has me on edge about splitting up. But I guess we can keep him covered out here; I can handle watching out for any of those undead freaks."

She gave a mental sigh of relief. Nero…hang in there.


Nero was hanging on the lance of one of the knights (it had tried to stab him in midair and gotten stuck in the wall when he dodged) as its comrade (the one on the ground that had finally unstuck itself from the wall) revved its own lance. Nero swung himself backwards for leverage, and then let go as he swung the opposite way, launching forward. Before the false knight could attack, it was interrupted by his brutal haymaker; the Devil Bringer struck it so hard that its helmet went flying. A moment later, the rest of it fell to pieces as well.

Nero swiveled, revving up Red Queen. It roared as the three remaining knights landed, marching cautiously towards him with their shields raised. He drew the sword, holding it at an angle in front of him. If he timed it just right…

His enemies all tensed, their heads hunching. The knight closest to him prepared to charge.

Bingo.

He spun forward, flames dancing on Red Queen. The armor's thrust, while powerful, missed him by inches, leaving it unprotected as Nero's first slash sliced into it. His second slash cut straight through the second armor's helmet. And his third-

Stopped dead as it collided with the final knight's shield.

Well, two outta three ain't bad.

The remaining knight, as its two allies fell to pieces, tried to bash the young warrior with its shield. Nero jumped backwards, and then rebounded forwards, slicing with the last of Red Queen's flames.

His strike was blocked again, but at a cost: the false knight's shield, already red-hot from Nero's previous attack, shattered under his second strike. Wasting no time, Nero twisted the knight's lance around, impaling its chest. He gave the handle three revs, and then kicked the trigger, shooting the last knight into the wall and pinning it there like a trapped insect. It twitched once, and then fell apart.

He looked around the room. As expected, the remains of the false knights began to dissolve into blue-white light. What wasn't expected was that the light didn't vanish in an upward direction; rather, it rose from each of the knights' spots about two feet, and then plunged straight into the floor.

He frowned. "Hmm…almost like something's pulling 'em somewhere." He sighed. "Just dandy."

He turned to the door. The red, web-like formation glowed brightly, and then shattered like glass. Grinning, he finally exited the room; whatever weird stuff the other rooms in this mansion had in store, at least he was done with this one.


Once again, Jill and Dante had found themselves outside; this time on a terrace of some kind, which contained a 9mm clip that Jill was overjoyed to find.

And once again, Dante found a gun being pointed at him. "Hi, Barry."

Barry sighed, lowering his revolver. "Would it kill you to say that before sneaking up on me?"

"You know him, Barry," Jill said in a long-suffering tone. "Always rushing into things." The effect was ruined when she smiled.

"Well, glad you two are having fun, at least." His face became very somber. "Jill…I'm sorry, but you'll need to see this." He pointed at the blood-covered corpse he'd been examining. "I'll warn you…it's not pretty."

She got close to the body sitting in the chair. It was covered in wounds, and when she knelt to look at the body's face (a man, judging from the general build), it was missing its eyes. Still, it almost seemed familiar…

"It's…it's Forest, Jill," Barry said quietly.

She gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. She took a steadying breath, clenching her fist. "What did this to him?" she ground out.

Dante peered at the marks all over the corpse. "Well…lookin' at these, he wasn't attacked by a zombie. These bite marks look smaller; sharper. If I had to guess…" He paused, tapping a foot in a "thinking" pose. "Some kind of bird."

Barry glanced from Dante to the corpse. "You mean…a crow, or something?"

"Lots of 'em, but yeah."

Jill stood up, turning over the facts in her head. "Crows aren't usually this vicious. Not that I'm aware of, anyway."

Barry tilted his head. "You think…maybe whatever happened to the people here…"

Jill swore. "If that's true, then…all the birds in the area…" The dogs had been bad enough. But crows that could do this? That could attack them anywhere outside?

"Damn, I hope not," Barry said. "Whatever the case, we should keep investigating. There's nothing we can do for Forest now."

She nodded. "Okay, I'll-"

"Wait. There is one thing to do."

Barry looked at Dante. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean."

Jill sighed, nodding. "Okay. Step back, you two."

"Jill, what-" Barry began.

She held up a hand. "We have to make sure he won't turn, Barry. We need to do it quickly. Unless you'd like for us to join him?"

He looked at her curiously, but stepped aside all the same. Dante followed suit.

POW!

She sighed, re-holstering her pistol. "Okay. Let's get-" She stopped suddenly, noticing a torn piece of paper under Forest's shoe. Pulling it out, she read it aloud.

" 'I.O.U. one grenade launcher'." She frowned. "The hell?"

"Ah, that's no problem. I've got one of those," Dante reassured her.

"Right, right, you've got one," she said, nodding. She pocketed the note…

And then stopped.

"Wait…what?"


"So…are you going to tell us what you found?" Chris said finally.

They'd continued exploring the mansion, and Nero hadn't mentioned anything after he'd left the room with the armor puzzle. Chris hadn't had time to ask at first, as they'd had to take down a few zombies, but after ten minutes of silence, it felt a bit ridiculous.

"Not much," Nero said casually. "The suits of armor didn't have any keys or anything." Literally speaking, this was true.

"And…that's all?"

"Hey, it wasn't easy taking 'em all apart." This was also true, in a somewhat different literal sense than Chris interpreted it.

As they opened their next door, however, things began to get weird for all of them.

"Okay, why?"

…Well, because the room they'd just entered had a fountain in the middle, and vines around its base seemed to be quivering.

"Seriously, why would you have a fountain up here?" Lady wondered. "It's not even a question of aesthetics; there's barely enough room in here for a fountain in the first place."

Poor Chris had his attention occupied elsewhere. "Um…are those vines…moving?"

Nero glanced at them. "Seems so," he said casually.

"Neither of you are…bothered by this?" he asked faintly.

"Well, they're not trying to eat us, so no." Nero walked closer to the fountain, but as if to disprove his statement, the vines sprang up and curled around the fountain.

Chris shook his head in amazement. "Wonderful. First walking dead, now mobile plants. What's next, a zombie shark? How are we supposed to get past this thing?"


In a different part of the mansion…

"Hey Jill! What's this?"

She stared at the object in question. "Looks like…some sort of fertilizer bag?"

He shook his head. "It's got a bunch of 'toxic' labels on it."

"Anti-fertilizer, then? I don't know. What should we do with it?"

"Leave it. It's probably useless."

She shrugged. "Okay, you're probably right." She continued to stare at Dante, however.

He turned to stare at her.

Neither of them said anything for some time.

Dante blinked. "So, uh…"

"Now explain about the grenade launcher!"


Nero shrugged. "Well, there is one very simple solution."

"And that is…?" Chris prompted.

Nero didn't respond. Instead, he revved Red Queen twice, then swung at the plants. They recoiled as the burning blade sliced through them, and writhed in what seemed to be pain as the flames consumed them. They went still, the flames extinguishing as they met the water around the fountain.

"We persuade them," he said finally. He strode past the fountain; on the far side of it, there was a shield on the wall. On the shield was-

"Another one of these death masks, then?" Lady said. "That makes three; what do you think they do?"

Nero shrugged. "With our luck, probably another puzzle somewhere that ends up opening a door that has a key that opens another door." His pockets were getting a little cluttered, but he was just able to put the third mask away.

Chris shook his head as they left the room. These two are nuts. They don't seem like military; I wonder where they get their skill from…


"I told you, I've had it the whole time."

Jill stared at Dante in disbelief. "The whole time."

"Yep."

"A grenade launcher. In your pockets."

"You got it."

Her mouth opened and closed silently several times. Finally, she took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Why didn't you say so before?!"

"You didn't ask. Besides, enclosed quarters. Wouldn't want to blow you up too."

The second half of that was reasonable enough that she ignored the first one.

"You didn't mention that you had a weapon that fired high explosive rounds because I didn't ask?!"

…TRIED to ignore, rather.

"See, you've got it! Pretty easy, huh?"

She shook her head, smiling against her better judgment. She wondered vaguely if all Dante's friends felt like this; unsure whether to laugh or slap the back of his head.

Still, there was something else. "Well, then, how did you manage to kill those bees before, hmm?" she said, shaking her head. "Got a mini-flamethrower in there, too?"

"Nope. That was demonic ice magic."

There was no dilemma this time. She slapped the back of his head.


Author's Note Space: I actually had 2/3 of this chapter finished by the time I posted the previous one, but I had to go back and clean up some stuff, and I wanted to continue further than I had to make it feel like a full chapter. Still, probably the quickest follow-up I've done (besides the times I multi-post).

Fun fact: A group of crows is known as a "murder". I wonder if the creative team was aware of that during the original game.

As always, whether good, bad, or so-so, please review!