Disclaimer: Don't own much that can be bragged about, so don't sue, Capcom.
Joe: Huge thanks to anybody who reviewed, you people make the world a better place.
You'll notice that I changed the chapters names a bit, because I couldn't think of a name for this one, and, plus, the name I gave this one suits it better than it suited the one I changed.
That's all there is to say of importance, so, on with the chapter.
Tailor inspected the forces at his command on the dunes before him. Unlike earlier, when the forces were a small task-force sent to make a beach-head in the demon base, he now had a full-armed battalion, complete with heavy tanks, artillery, full links with HQ for back-up and air support, not to mention the countless extra general infantry at his command.
The Guardians, regrettably, had to be taken out of the picture, due to their insubordination. Tailor didn't know where they were now. But, then again, that didn't matter for the time being.
"Have you made a decision, General?" asked the M.P. beside him respectfully.
Tailor sighed irritably to himself. He didn't know why the military police were still here. They annoyed him. Their presence made him feel like they thought that he had done something wrong.
Not something one would want to feel in the heat of battle.
"When I do," Tailor answered in a measured tone "You'll be informed. For the time being, I'd appreciate it if you left me be for a while, I need to think."
"Of course, sir."
The M.P. saluted. Tailor saluted back, and the M.P. left.
Tailor then turned his attention to the pyramid. He had no desire to chase after Dante and his retinue, but that's what HQ expected him to do. Dante had to do what he had to do, and the chances were what he had to do was the right thing to do, the best course of action. But, Tailor was supposed to send his men in to storm whatever was in there, and arrest the twins.
Hell, he had a feeling that was the reason that the M.Ps were still here; to make sure that he did his duty. The top brass was aware of his relationship with the sons of Sparda, and the M.P.s were still here as a precaution to Tailor doing anything stupid like making orders to ensure the safety of the twins.
He didn't know what he should do. But, time was ticking. He could see the obelisk rising steadily as a reminder of this. Action had to be made.
He had to send the orders. Soldiers had to be sent in, for good or for worse. They would either deal with the problem themselves, or at least discover what was down there, so that further proper action could be taken.
He summoned Colonel Benson to him, who was nearby.
"Send the orders to the men. I want three squads of twenty sent down - three squads of the best. Ask the squad COs to hand pick their best for this. I want at least five heavy machine guns for every squad, and at least one medic per squad. See to it."
The Col. Benson acknowledged his orders, saluted, then left, leaving Tailor alone again. Tailor watched Benson's progress towards the troops. After a moment, an M.P. called Benson to him, and said something him, gesturing towards Tailor.
Tailor narrowed his eyes as Benson replied, and continued towards the troops. The M.P. looked towards Tailor, but didn't move.
They were happy with his decision, apparently. He was not to be court-marshalled just yet.
As Dante kicked the large double doors open, there was a short moment where the occupants of the large chamber within were still. The devil hunters took this moment to flood into the chamber en masse.
Then, the demons realised who was at the door and began to attack.
This was also the same moment that Dante realised the mistake he had just made as he took in the amount of immensely powerful devils.
"Oh, shit." he quietly cursed, then, casting thought and any regard for his own safety aside, charged on with Alastor and Rebellion at the nearest devil.
Many of the other devil hunters hung back and opened fire.
Nearby, Joel saw Dante and made to charge at him, but Pontius held him back.
"Not now - you are not ready." he ordered.
Joel gritted his teeth in irritation, then retorted hotly;
"But, I have to defend the chamber with the rest of you!"
"That may have been the case when the soldiers were going to invade, but not these humans. They are strong. You are not ready. Stay near the back where you can avoid danger."
Joel continued to grit his teeth, but bowed his head reverently, then turned and stormed towards the opposite side of the large chamber from the attackers.
Dante had no idea why nobody was dead yet. The Order seemed to have decided not to full-out repel the devil hunters. The bullets that the devil hunters were firing were either not doing any noticeable damage when they hit a higher devil, or if the devil was capable of preventing the bullets from hitting them they did so. Those who were proficient at melee combat, such as Trish or Dante, refrained from doing so, as they knew that the devils would not hesitate in swiftly killing them.
But, the Order did not fight back for some reason.
This puzzled most of the devil hunters, who nonetheless did not cease fire, just in case. However, although Dante kept firing and knew full well that it was doing no good, he did know one thing; the devils were waiting for something.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dante could see an extravagantly dressed demon with black hair and orange eyes stare at him interestedly. The devil's foot was tapping the floor rhythmically, as though he was bored, but his expression was blank.
Dante kept firing in the general direction of the main crowd of devils, but slowly walked towards the orange-eyed devil.
The devil noticed this and approached him, his face remaining indifferent.
"Son of Sparda," he called out.
Dante stopped firing, holstered Ebony and Ivory, but gripped Alastor and Rebellion from his back.
"And who are you?" he asked the devil bluntly.
"My name is Pontius" the devil continued eyeing Dante up and down "and you…I expected more, to be honest."
"Yeah, well," Dante retorted coldly "Every piece of filth who said that so far ended up dead."
Pontius laughed loudly at this, but his expression remained the same, which unnerved Dante.
"You are very like your father…it is such a pity…you should have chosen your allegiance more wisely."
"Vlad said something like that, yeah," Dante responded, letting his guard drop a little, but still tightly gripping his swords."
"I would say that he did…" Pontius agreed "…but, child, it is not too late…that is why I wish to speak with you…now, it would be wise if -"
"Don't bother," Dante interrupted harshly "I didn't come this far to give up."
Pontius gave a low chuckle.
"Then, child…what did you come this far for?"
Dante spun and flourished his twin blades in a stylish motion, then brought them into a fighting stance. Alastor crackled threateningly.
"You really need an answer?" he responded.
Pontius did not laugh, but rose an arm into mid air. White flames erupted from his hand, which extended slowly into a strange shape. The flames instantly extinguished with a great explosion of white smoke. After the smoke settled, a strange weapon lay in Pontius' outstretched arm.
The body of it was like a whip with a blade at the end, but the handle had countless of such whips protruding from it. Not only that, many of the whips branched out into multiple smaller whips, all with blades at the end.
"Well…" Pontius stated "After all your travels…I would hate to disappoint you."
Crìnge and Vergil went silent for a short moment. They could hear the sounds of a battle raging nearby, and they could sense humans - and a half-devil with them.
"It seems…" Crìnge announced slowly after the pause "that your brother has arrived."
Vergil frowned, then answered;
"It will take a lot of persuasion to make Dante join us."
"I have no intention of forcing him," Crìnge said "It is entirely his decision. If he wishes to fight, then let him fight."
"I don't wish to fight him," Vergil remarked sullenly "I-"
"Need further training," Crìnge finished "And, do you also feel too emotionally attached to him to kill him?"
"Not that!" Vergil blurted "I could kill him if need be - I would."
"You would?" Crìnge said softly, reprovingly, frowning.
"I…" Vergil paused. He was evidently getting the wrong impression of Crìnge - of devils, for that matter.
Again, there was silence.
"That amulet…show me it," Crìnge broke the silence, gesturing towards Vergil's amulet.
Vergil took the amulet from around his neck, paused for a moment, as though unwilling to part with it, then slowly handed it to Crìnge.
Crìnge looked at it for a while, then said;
"Ah, yes…it has been…what is it now, a millennia? Ah, memories."
Crìnge hung it around his neck. He looked at Vergil, then announced as he turned his back on him.
"In any case, I do not wish you to fight anyway. But, I have matters that need seeing to. Stay here."
Crìnge made for the door.
"Your sword," Vergil called out, pointing at Crìnge's broadsword, which was still by the throne.
"I will leave it here," Crìnge replied as he opened the giant double doors with a wave of his hand "I have no need for it now."
He shut the doors behind him with a resounding clang, then there was silence.
Vergil fingered the area around his neck where the amulet was, which felt unusually bare. He sighed, knowing that there was a battle that he should be participating in, but he followed Crìnge's orders. Vergil sat himself on the throne, deep in thought about his conversation with Crìnge, about the supposed mind powers Vergil had within him...
Major Edward Blunt stared uneasily at the strange contraption before him.
He was in command of the 57th regiment of the 81st Infantry Division that were embarking on an expedition into the pyramid.
The regiment had made it into the centre of the maze, and had reached the lift, but they did not yet know what the lift was. Maj. Blunt had ordered the regiment's engineers to take a look at it. That was ten minutes ago now, and an engineer was giving his report now.
"We've agreed that it's a lift of some sort, but the question is, how to operate it," he said "The circle-shaped thing on it definitely has something to do with it, but were stuck as to how it works. The rim of the circle spins when you spin it, but that has no effect on the lift."
Major Blunt, a veteran of many battles with demons, walked up to the lift and inspected the circle with the strange markings on it. The engineers around him looked forlorn and confused, and one or two were literally scratching their heads.
Blunt placed his hand on the edge of the circle, and with a grunt pulled. It was firmly stuck.
He spun it, and watched it spin for a few seconds before it came to rest.
He made an interested sound, as a child with a new toy would, then stroked his clean-shaved chin thoughtfully.
"As you can see, sir, it doesn't look like we have everything we need here," the reporting engineer stated "Perhaps there's a key that we need or-"
Blunt, who had been completely ignoring the engineer, grunted and gave the circle a heavy kick.
Two of the twelve markings on the circle lit up, and the rim of the circle started slowly spinning.
The engineer went silent, and Blunt smiled vaguely at his work. He reached to his hip and unsheathed an elegant long knife with engravings along it, and started hacking at the circle. (Ever since the contract was signed, all soldiers were issued blades, and the higher officers, naturally enough, were given prettier, more formal blades). The blade made contact with the circle, but did not leave a scratch on it's pristinely smooth surface, but the remaining lights lit up.
The floor of the lift trembled, and Maj. Blunt and the engineers hurriedly jumped off as the left swiftly descended. With nobody on it, the lift shortly returned to the top. The nearby soldiers eyed it with renewed interest.
The engineer turned to Blunt.
"Sir?" he asked quietly
"Mhm?"
"How did you know how to work the lift?"
"I didn't. An intelligent guess, may I say so myself. With these demons, you see, it's all a matter of force."
Maj. Blunt then organised the 57th into it's subdivisions - A company, B company, C company, and so forth.
He ordered them to go down the lift in turn, and to hold the lift chamber below until given further orders, as well as ordering the radio man to report to HQ.
Several minutes later, the entire 57th regiment was inside the pyramid, and Maj. Blunt was inspecting the chamber along with the company lieutenants.
The companies were to each take one of the many passageways leading from the large lift chamber, and the one company that was left, K company, was to hold ground by the lift, where Major Blunt would be receiving radio calls from the lieutenants on their progress.
It was First lieutenant Jones of C company who first radioed, after coming into contact with a group of devil hunters. Maj. Blunt ordered him to co-operate and cover the devil hunters, as he knew that they would have a better idea of what was going on than the military currently did.
First lieutenant Jones ended the radio call, and handed it to Sgt. O' Hehir, the radioman. He then turned to Pike, who was watching him with his arms folded, a lit cigar in his mouth.
"The major says that we've to work with you.," Lt. Jones stated in a matter-of-fact way "So, I guess that we have to work alongside each other.
Jones offered Pike his hand. Pike merely looked at it until Jones put it down.
"I said - NO!" Anvil's voice was clearly heard, and it echoed a few times in the corridor.
The company medic was trying to clean up her wound as best as he could, but Anvil refused point blank to show him her wound, and she would not accept pain-killers.
The medic gave an irritated grunt, and faced upwards as if to pray for strength.
Anvil remained on the floor, legs and arms crossed, with a sulky expression.
"Well, when do you plan on moving forward?" Jones asked Pike, who shrugged.
Jones was getting irritated, Pike treating him the way he was in front of his men, and Jones decided to take control if Pike did not.
"Fine then. If you are not going to do anything, then I will," Jones announced boldly "Now, first of all we need to-"
He was cut off as one of the Pyramid Guardians became visible in mid air right beside the two. Pike swiftly took his Magnum revolver from his coat and fired at the head of the creature as it raised it's sharp claws.
The creature was knocked from the air, and the orange glow that was once in the sockets of the skull's eye faded away. It fell to the floor with a crash.
Jones was speechless, his jaw open and quivering. Pike spat out his cigar and crushed the butt under his boot.
"Yeah, that'll happen every now and then. You watch yourself," Pike stated to Jones "…Jakeson, is it?"
"Juh -Jones," Lt. Jones corrected.
"Whatever," Pike responded "Anyway, I know it's your duty to order your men about, but the devil hunters are going to do what we want. If you're staying with us, be my guest, but don't try and order us about."
Jones nodded.
Pike turned to look at the numbers the group now had. After a moment's thought, he said;
"But, your are right on one thing, James, we do need to get moving."
He turned to the nearest devil hunter.
"Are we ready?"
The devil hunter nodded.
"Good. Let's get going."
"What about me?" Anvil asked shrilly, her temper steadily getting worse.
Pike turned to look at her, and frowned.
"Can you walk?" he asked her softly.
"Yeah," she answered, then added hesitantly "I just don't know if I will be able much longer."
She motioned for Pike to come closer, then clasped onto his arm to pull herself up. She took a step forward, stumbled, but Pike caught her.
"You're sure you can by yourself?" he asked her.
She pushed him roughly off.
"Positive. Let's go," she snapped, looking away from Pike.
Pike sighed, then turned to Lt. Jones.
"Get your men together. Looks like were moving on, Johnson."
"It's Jones!" Lt. Jones called out irritably to Pike's back.
"Whatever."
Jones ordered his men to move on and follow the devil hunters.
A few minutes after the last soldier was gone, something strange happened. The corpses of the skeletal creatures shuddered. The glow in their eye sockets returned, and they rose into the air again. They dematerialised out of physical existence and visibility, then floated towards the humans, moving through walls and everything else to locate and stalk their prey.
Back in the lift chamber, Maj. Blunt got a radio from the first lieutenant of A company, who reported that companies A, B, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J had all reunited together; their passageways interlinked. The lieutenant went on the say that there was a giant double door close by, and gunfire could be heard behind it.
Maj. Blunt ordered that they open the doors up and open fire on anything that wasn't human; that was the mission that they were given in the first place.
Shortly after, Major Blunt received another call informing him on the participants of the battle and the overall situation. Blunt ordered that they open fire on the devils in the room, but not the devil hunters. When informed about one of the sons of Sparda engaged in close combat with a devil, Blunt ordered that they refrain from firing at him. As Blunt said; "I don't trust him either, but if he's fighting one of the higher-ups, let him. We can arrest him later when he's done."
Upon hanging up, Maj. Blunt radioed back to battalion HQ to inform them on the situation. Col. Benson received the call, and then informed Brigadier General Shea, who informed General Tailor.
Gen. Tailor, thinking quickly, sent the orders for 30th Infantry regiment to reinforce the 57th.
"Fire at will!" Lt. Jones barked at his men, as a small group of the Guardian creatures materialised right beside the company.
The creatures were shot down, but not before they had slashed at a few soldiers.
Jones walked up to the corpses and inspected them. Pike joined him.
"Some of these were ones we already shot down," Pike said, more to himself than to anyone else.
Jones eyed him curiously.
"How do you know?"
"Look." Pike pointed to one, which had a large fracture in it's skull, between the eyes, joining the two sockets into one large hole. "That's the one I shot down earlier."
"So it is…" Jones remarked softly.
The creatures had inflicted cursed wounds on five soldiers, and killed two others; their sharp claws had penetrated the ribcage and heart of one soldier, the other had half of his throat missing.
The company medic was doing his best to deal with the cursed gashes of the wounded, but could do nothing useful.
"What's the goddamn hold-up?!" Anvil screamed angrily from the back of the group "The sooner we move on, the sooner we can find a way to get rid of these bastards!"
Sure enough, they moved on shortly after Anvil's outburst.
It wasn't long before they came across a large double-door, similar to the one to the obelisk chamber.
They opened it, and entered. They encountered a strange chamber.
It was spherical in shape, with a statue in the centre, with a message at it's base, although it was written in a strange language, presumably Lìstook. The statue was of a devil of some sort; humanoid, but larger, and in elegant armour, with sculpted gargoyle heads as shoulder guards. It's face was expressionless, the mouth was closed, the nose was plain, and the eyes had no pupils; they were just blank. The head, too, was horned, but these horns were not like rams, but came outwards, and were each about the length of a butter knife. The figure had a cape, which came down to it's feet. The figure had one arm held up, a large sword in it's hand, as if to salute anybody who entered the chamber.
Along the walls were coffins, standing upright. Between the coffins were the creatures, but they were not yet active; they were help up against the wall with nothing visible supporting them, and their eyes had no light in them.
Directly opposite the double doors was the inanimate body of what looked like the leader of the Pyramid Guardians. It was absolutely massive in size, and it stretched from the wall opposite the double doors, along the edges of the spherical room, to the ceiling directly above the statue, where it's head was.
It's skull resembled nothing like a human's like the other creatures did. It looked more like a dragon's, or a dinosaur's, but it was longer, and had three pairs of eyes along the skull. It was horned; rams horns.
It had multiple arms along it's body; three pairs, like it's eyes, and each had long, razor sharp claws; a larger version of the basic guardian's. It had one other outstanding feature; it seemed to have a ribcage of sorts, with a large tablet of stone within it, although nothing was holding the stone up. There were hieroglyphics on the tablet of stone.
After inspecting the chamber, the group entered and looked around.
Jones looked at the message at the base of the statue.
"What does it mean?" he asked Pike. Pike shrugged, and lit a cigar.
Nearby, a devil hunter opened one of the coffin doors curiously, and found a mummy inside. The hunter stared at it with awe, his jaw dropped.
Soldiers and hunters nearby had similar reactions, and they approached the coffin to get a closer look.
It was Anvil who first noticed the guardians around the room come to life; their eyes glowed orange, then they swiftly zoomed towards the intruders.
There were screams as everybody opened fire.
Lt. Jones barked orders for regular assault rifle-armed soldiers to fire at will, and told the machine gunners to assemble their heavy weapons at certain points in the room, then open fire on the attackers.
The soldiers knew what to expect this time, and fared better than the last time. Even when the Guardians that were shot down previously in the corridor entered the room from the open double doors flooded in, the humans were already prepared, and the soldiers with the stationary belt-fed machine guns mowed them down with ease.
Casualties were minimal, with only several soldiers and devil hunters wounded and nobody killed. The medic, again, could do nothing.
When the last guardian hit the ground, the eyes of the statue in the centre of the chamber glowed orange. A sphere of orange light exploded from it, and the light expanded until it engulfed the room.
Every guardian that was on the ground returned to life. Even those that had pieces of their body blown off did so; the limbs, as if they had a will of their own, returned to the body of the creature it came from.
"You're kidding me!" Pike roared as opened fire once again.
There was a delay before the shocked soldiers and hunters started shooting, which cost many their lives.
Once again, the guardians were shot down, but it wasn't long before the statue's eyes lit up and it revived the guardians again.
"We can't keep doing this!" Anvil shrieked at Pike, as though it were some fault of his that the creatures kept returning to life.
"I KNOW!" Pike roared in retaliation. His cigar had long been spat from his mouth. He then got an idea.
"Jared!" he roared to Jones.
"JONES!"
"Whatever. Does any of your men have -" Pike paused to duck as a guardian slashed at where his head was a second before, then he blasted it away "- have any explosives of some sort?"
"Yeah, we have five missile launchers."
"Good. Tell your men to aim them at the statue."
"Of course…MEN! I WANT ALL M11-PURGE FIRE DIRECTED AT THE STATUE! NOW!"
As per orders, the soldiers with the missile launchers aimed at the statue.
Each round took a sizable chunk off the statue, which was made of a strangely durable rock, and it took six rounds to completely destroy it.
Any guardian that was active fell immediately to the floor, dead.
The soldiers and devil hunters were all hugely relieved, many letting out sighs, others just nursing their wounds.
Many were dead; their bodies littered the chamber, all of them soaked red in pools of blood, large gashes were evident on their pale bodies.
"That looks like it," Pike announced to Jones "That's these bastards dealt with."
"Pike!" Anvil called out weakly. She didn't sound angry anymore, and her voice became frail, which hurt Pike more than her angry yelling did. Not only that, but she was becoming increasingly pale; the curse had not yet worn off.
That was not why she called Pike.
Anvil was pointing towards the form of the great creature that was help up against the ceiling; the great tablet of stone within it's ribcage rotating slowly, and bands of glowing orange light revolved around it from every angle.
Then, all of the creatures eyes instantaneously ignited into orange flames, and it began to move.
It opened it's hollow jaw and let out a roar that chilled the blood of everybody below, then flew from it's original position, moving sleekly through the air like it was swimming through water.
It turned to face the stunned humans below.
Dante was gasping for breath. There were cuts all along his coat and skin where Pontius' weapon had slashed him. He had been fighting for a while, and although he landed blows against Pontius, and Pontius often made noises of pain and irritation, Dante did not leave any mark on the devil or his clothing.
Not only that, but Pontius' expressionless face was become increasingly irritating to Dante.
The military had arrived in the chamber a while ago, but their presence made no difference; they fired at the devils, the bullets made no damage, and the soldiers stopped firing to save ammunition. They had machine guns set up at the entrance, and at several points around what they made the frontline; the point at which the devil hunters and soldiers were firing from. Ever since they arrived, a group of soldiers travelled to and from the outside, returning with sandbags which they placed around the machine guns and at the designated frontline.
Although the Order were not retaliating, one devil delighted in letting the humans set up a blockade of sandbags, then strolling up to it and knocking it down, then retreating to let them set another blockade up. Bullets had no effect on him; it seemed that there was an invisible wall surrounding him, as bullets merely stopped at a set radius around him, but made noises to the effect that they were hitting stone.
Another burden on his mind was the obelisk at the centre of the room, which was slowly but steadily rising, always rising. He had a feeling that it was nearly at it's destination, and he had to hurry up with stopping it.
There was also was looked like a young man - in his late teens, it seemed to Dante - constantly staring at him, which unnerved him no end. He seemed annoyed at something, but Dante didn't know what.
Pontius swung his weapon horizontally. Dante threw himself to the ground as fast as he could - which required him to devil trigger in the process - and the weapon soared over his head. Before Pontius could strike again, Dante swung his swords up at Pontius' outstretched arm as hard as he could.
This was the area Dante had struck at most often, seeing as Pontius' weapon required Pontius to swing his weapon around, making his arm an easy target, providing Dante dodged the swing of the whip.
Because of this, when Dante swung his swords upwards at Pontius' arm, there was less resistance to the swing than there usually was, and Dante lost his balance afterwards and fell, seeing as he swung harder than was necessary.
Pontius' forearm and weapon fell to the ground with a thump, Dante having sliced cleanly through Pontius' arm.
Pontius screamed in anguish and fury, blood gushing freely out of the stump, his face still remaining blank, even at the loss of a limb.
Dante picked himself up from the floor, still in demon form. His combined use of Alastor and Rebellion was having a curious effect on his demon form; his body resembled an entire ensemble of armour, like it did when he used Alastor, but, rather than having blue light coming from the gaps in the armour, there glowed a red light. His wings were folded at his back, as usual. His two swords changed form when he triggered, to enhance their performance together; Alastor constantly crackled with intensified electricity, and Rebellion glowed red. The two also seemed to fit into each other at the end in his triggered form, becoming one double-ended blade.
Dante gave a roar before leaping at Pontius and slashing at his unprotected chest.
Pontius was knocked back, off his feet by the force of the attack, and landed on his back several feet away.
Joel could take it no more. He charged at Dante, his knuckles white from gripping his blade so hard.
He stabbed at Dante, who did not see Joel, his attention on Pontius, who was getting to his feet.
The blade went into Dante's side, and Joel felt triumphant, but almost a few seconds after withdrawing the blade the wound vanished, as it did not make a large enough wound for Dante to concern himself, and Dante was in demon form anyway.
Dante returned to human form and turned angrily to face Joel, who was already swinging his blade at Dante again. Dante parried, and while the blades were locked, pushed hard.
Joel was knocked off his feet, like his Master, but took more damage from the attack than Pontius did.
"I told you, you are not ready!" Pontius announced to Joel impatiently. Pontius clicked, and his weapon soared into his left hand. Blood continued to pour from his right arm, but Pontius ignored it.
"Foolish boy…" he muttered to himself as he swung his weapon at Dante, this time landing a direct hit on Dante, who was tiring, and doing considerable damage.
This time it was Dante who was knocked to the ground. Pontius raised his weapon high above his head, and was about to slam it down when a calm voice stopped him.
"Now, now, Pontius, that is not a fitting way to deal with Sparda's son."
It was Crìnge, who had seemingly just arrived on scene. Pontius looked at him, then brought the weapon to his side.
"The boy…he took my arm," he stated, raising the remainder of his right arm for emphasis.
"Did he now?" Crìnge replied amusedly "It seems you underestimated him. How foolish of you, Pontius, especially after Vlad making the same mistake already."
"Yes…I suppose you're right…" Pontius remarked, calm once again, as Dante slowly got to his feet, breathing raggedly.
"It is a pity about your arm," Crìnge said "Had it not been ten or so minutes later, this never would have happened."
"Indeed, I hate being in human form…" Pontius agreed, then turning to look at the obelisk in the centre of the room "…actually…it would be considerably less than ten minutes…"
Dante leaned on Rebellion, grimacing. He hates when people talk more than he does, yet this time he couldn't do anything about it.
Crìnge looked at him, somehow knowing how he felt.
"Patience, boy. A true warrior has patience. Not that you would care, nevertheless…"
"Nah," Dante responded, having caught his breath and decided to say something "That's what Vergil's into. Talk to him about that pompous crap."
"Yes, that were the ideals your brother was into…" Crìnge answered, subtly putting emphasis on 'was'.
Dante frowned at this.
"What do you mean, he was into that? Last time I checked, he was as stiff an ass as ever."
Crìnge laughed at this.
"Stiff? Well, now more so than ever."
Dante narrowed his eyes.
"What are you getting at?"
"Well, it pains me to say this," Crìnge said "But, your brother is dead. He was foolish enough to challenge me. I did not wish to do it, but one must fight back when assaulted."
Dante was silent for a while, his head hung.
"No." he stated eventually "No. He can't be. You lie."
Crìnge acted offended.
"I do not lie. I am, as you said, 'a stiff ass'," he spat "Here. If my words are not proof enough."
He reached for his neck, and took off the amulet that had previously been hidden under the black robe. He threw it at Dante.
Dante caught it in one hand and stared at it wordlessly. He couldn't believe it. It couldn't possibly be, but he knew it somehow did. Vergil would not have given it up if he was alive, Dante was sure. This was definite proof.
He had lost his brother.
Lucia's head throbbed with pain. It prevented clear thought, it made all light burn her eyes, and, somewhere nearby, the constant sound of an engine intensified the pain in her head.
She had no idea where she was, or for how long she had been there. She could hear ragged breaths from others nearby. She could sense that they were half-demons, too.
She weakly tried to raise her arm, but she felt resistance. She was tied down.
The last thing she remembered was uneasily standing guard outside the pyramid. It was her duty to prevent the humans from stopping Dante, who had gone in with the Devil Hunters. There was a fight, then the humans laid down arms. The Guardians let them be.
Then, after a long wait, more humans with different uniforms arrived. The new arrivals had strange weapons, but they did not display any desire to enter the pyramid. So the Guardians remained where they were and kept guard, albeit more cautiously.
Then, from where they were, the new humans fired their weapons over quite a long range.
Lucia had felt impact on her unprotected neck, then all went black.
The noise of the engine stopped, at long last.
There were sounds of a door being opened, then of footsteps.
Multiple footsteps. More people were approaching. There was conversation for a while, but to Lucia it was all incoherent, the voices were muffled; there was a wall or something dividing them. Her head felt like it was splitting open, and everything was a blurry mystery.
Further footsteps, this time moving slowly towards her direction.
Again, a door opened, but this time it was close, and this time accompanied with a flare of blinding light.
There was a chink as Lucia tried to bring her hand to her eyes. Not only did the noise of the metal hurt her head, nut she let out an exasperated groan, and all she could do from stopping the light cutting into her eyes was to keep them firmly closed.
She could sense the newcomers. Humans, four humans.
She opened her eyes again out of curiosity, as the figures of the humans were now blocking the flare from her face.
They were all soldiers, though one of them was dressed in a more impressive uniform than the ones. He was obviously the highest ranking of the lot.
He looked at her for a moment with a thoughtful glance, then he turned to the soldier beside him.
"I thought you said that they would be knocked out for the next few hours," he remarked in an accusatory tone.
"That's what I was told, anyways, sir. I'm just the one who drove 'em here from the airfield," replied the soldier beside him bluntly, who reached into a holster at his him and withdrew a semi-automatic pistol, and pointed it at Lucia, then asked, almost hopefully; "Want me to take 'er out?"
"No, she doesn't look like she's going anywhere," the commanding officer answered, still analysing Lucia's still form "From what I've heard of these…things, your handgun wouldn't do much good anyway. These are the 'half-devils', aren't they?"
"S'pose so," the driver said unhelpfully.
"Well, they'd want to be," announced another soldier informatively in a southern drawl "The sedatives they were shot with are usually for bull elephants - triple dose, too."
"Disgusting beasts" spat the last of the men.
The commanding officer turned to him, eyebrow raised.
"Care to add, lieutenant?"
"With all due respect, colonel, you haven't dealt with demons before - or…these confused scum," the lieutenant explained bitterly "I was there in Egypt, and if I had my way…well, we wouldn't be locking them up, we'd be lining them up against a wall and then fire until they stopped moving."
The commander frowned and turned back to look at Lucia, this time with a worried glance.
"Are they that bad? They were originally on our side. I heard others say that they were just like other people."
"I heard some folks say they were more decent," the southern man added.
The lieutenant sniffed.
"I saw some of these rip the arms of good men off with their bare arms - what sort of decent person does that?"
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Lucia felt her strength return slowly, and her head started to become more alert.
With considerable effort, she devil triggered, and she felt strength course through her body.
The soldiers jumped, and were still for a while with shock, but then the driver raised his gun and fired at Lucia with a vindictive air about him.
By then, Lucia had tore herself from the metal chains. It turned out that she was in a military transport jeep with the back door open, where the soldiers were standing. The blinding light was coming from a guard tower nearby, which had it's spotlight focused on the many jeeps that had arrived in the base.
She ignored the bullets that were hitting her, then leaped out of the jeep. The soldiers dived out of her way, but the driver seemed to be the only one with a firearm.
She leaped into the air, then extended her angel-like wings, then flew off as fast as she could. She could hear the loud curses of the soldiers below. Lucia could now see that they were near a large building complex - but, Lucia could not guess it's purpose or what it was.
She did not know where she was going, either. She was in the middle of a desert still, but she had a feeling that it wasn't in Egypt. The driver had mentioned an airfield - that meant that she was probably not in Africa anymore. It also meant that she had been unconscious for far longer than she originally felt, as the sky was pitch black now.
But, Lucia knew for sure one thing: the humans had taken the Guardians captive.
However, she didn't know what they planned to do with them, or what Lucia was going to do now. She had to find a way to help her comrades, but again, Lucia did not know how.
Granson sat with Tailor in the HQ tent, beside the radio. They were the only ones in the tent, which gave them free reign to debate what was on their minds.
"Those hunters and Dante found the sons of bitches?" Granson asked Tailor.
"That's what the report said, anyway," Tailor confirmed "The 57th regiment of the 81st Infantry division joined them. Dante was fighting one of them in close combat."
"No shit…what did you do?"
"I sent in the 30th regiment to reinforce them. We need as much firepower in there as possible."
"Two whole regiments? It must be fairly roomy in the pyramid. Two whole regiments…I mean, they'd be squeezing in."
"I took into account how many casualties there would be inside with the devils."
Granson gave a grim sigh.
"I suppose you're right…" he then thought for a moment, then added "With more men, though, it's less likely that the wins will escape undetected."
Tailor gave a small laugh.
"Who said anything about them leaving undetected? That was never a possibility. Vergil, maybe, but Dante…it was always a matter of them leaving and the soldiers being smart enough not to try and stop them."
Granson chuckled along with Tailor.
Suddenly, the ground started trembling violently. Granson fell off his chair.
"What the hell is that?!" he bellowed indignantly as he scrambled to his feet and placed his cap back on his head.
The two ran out of the tent, and looked towards the pyramids.
Although it was now dark out, the red electricity flowing from the other pyramids to the main one illuminated it and let the two see what was happening.
The obelisk had reached the uppermost tip of the levitating part of the pyramid. The tip, like the middle part had, broke into quarters and separated outwards. With a massive rumbling sound, the obelisk stopped moving.
The red electricity came to an abrupt halt, and all went dark save for what light the half-moon illuminated.
Then, the entire obelisk itself burst into red light, once again giving the generals a clear view of what was happening. From the tip of the obelisk, a ball of red electricity formed and expanded, until, eventually, a constant beam of pure red energy, like all of the red electricity compressed into a single beam, fired straight up into the sky as if from a power hose.
Instead of going continuously upwards, the beam stopped at a certain point in the atmosphere, as if it hit something.
From where the beam stopped, a hole, barely noticeable at start, but gradually expanded to become obvious appeared, and continued to expand, slowly outwards.
From the other side of the hole, what looked like crimson clouds could be seen, whirling into itself, as if it were a whirlpool, the sky sucking itself in.
What the sky of the underworld looked like.
The patch of the underworld spread outwards as the red beam of energy continued to fire upwards.
It was only gradually expanding, but, if it was not stopped, it would most certainly cover the entire earth, making a complete transition from the realm of the human to that of the demon, such has not been for over two thousand years.
Joe: Cliff hanger! OHHHHHHHH!
You know, I could threaten to stop right now. Unless you give me…
1 billion reviews…(puts little finger to mouth).
Nah, I won't do that. Cos, that's Gromit's idea. Can't steal that.
No, no, I suppose I'll just ask (beg) for a more realistic amount of reviews.
So, that's it for this chapter.
Ciao.