In reply to a recent review, I am indeed aware of how Trish and Lady's first meeting went down in canon during the anime, and my original plan had been for them to get into a fight, something along the lines of Trish lying to Lady and saying Dante and Vergil were dead to get her nice and angry before luring her to some abandoned warehouse as a "test" of sorts to see if Lady was worth her time. But I decided that there's no way Vergil would go along with such a scheme, so I reworked it into what you saw. That said, I have every intention of giving them an actual chance to go at it, and you'll get a good idea of how very soon.
And yes, in the end I decided that skipping over Mallet island was more ideal then rehashing what little of DMC 1 I had left to work with. Sorry about that to anyone who was hoping to actually see the Mundus fight.
In addition, this chapter is going to be somewhat shorter then normal, sorry about that, but this is more of a setup for the next few chapters, and I couldn't find a way to extend it any more without dipping into needless padding.
The four demon hunters were sitting in their office, door now once again replaced, and all of them looked bored out of their minds. Vergil's head was deep in a book, Dante was sleeping in a chair, feet up on a desk, Lady was busying preforming the semi-tedious task of slotting bullets into her gun magazines one by one, a task that even with tools to speed the process took a while with the amount of ammo she expended, and Trish was filing her nails. She looked over at Lady.
"You sure this guy's showing up?" She asked. Lady shrugged.
"Morrison referred this client." Lady said with a shrug. "Was supposed to be here a half hour ago."
Suddenly, the door opened, and Morrison stepped inside. Just behind him was another man with short black hair in a brown coat.
"Sorry we're late." Morrison said. "Traffic's a bitch."
Lady kicked the desk Dante has his feet against, jolting him awake.
"As you say." Vergil said as he put the book down. "Let us not waste time, then."
"Ok, so, you may or may not have heard of our client. Big name over in the movie business, this is-"
"Quin Taro." The man said as he stepped forward. "I'm a director down in Hollywood."
"Bit far from home." Trish observed as she continued to file her nails.
"Oh, hey, I know this guy!" Dante said.
"You do?" Lady asked.
"Sure. Makes a lot of action flicks, lots of stylized gunplay and shit. You should watch some of em, Lady, I think you'd enjoy it."
"Always nice to meet a fan." Quin said. The others just looked blankly at him.
"Right, well, sorry to say the rest of us don't watch a lot of movies." Lady said.
"Shall we cut to the chase?" Vergil asked.
"Sure." Quin said. "So, we're in the middle of production for our next film, but we're running into a snag. Lots of shit keeps happening. Equipment gets damaged with no explanation, tapes vanish, takes keep getting ruined by all manner of weird shit. The cast keeps saying the production is cursed. I told them to grow a pair and get back to work. We even moved production to a completely different location, but it kept happening."
"All very sad." Vergil said without a trace of sympathy. "But I fail to see why this matters to us."
"Last week, our lead actress was injured in a major accident. She's going to be out for months, I had to halt all production. But one of our cameras managed to catch this bastard."
He handed over a picture of a small, grey demon with stubby arms, legs, and wings, no more then 2 feet tall. They passed the picture among themselves as Vergil spoke.
"You have an Imp infestation."
"And where there's one imp, there are more." Lady noted.
"And they somehow followed you?" Trish said skeptically. "Imps are some of the stupidest, most braindead demons you'll ever find. They know enough to evade detection, but they're not trackers."
"Someone's got it in for you, buddy, and they're using demons to do their dirty work." Dante said with a nod.
Quin sighed. "Yes, that much I worked out. There's more then a few people who have issues with the way I do business and who would like to see me fail. But the problem is I don't have any actual badasses working for me, just actors. So I asked around, spoke to some associates, and they tell me stories about some group of demon hunters out west who are making waves. So I look into it, and I say, "Why the fuck hasn't anyone told me about these people before now!?"
"So the job is to go and kill these imps?" Dante asked.
"That may prove difficult." Vergil said.
"If they're targeting you specifically with the aim of shutting down your production, then they already won." Lady pointed out. "There's no reason for them to expose themselves again."
"That leads us to the second part of the job." Quin said before turning back to Morrison.
"Mr Taro here needs a new movie, with a new subject. And he wants to make it about you."
There was a brief moment of shocked silence before Dante broke it.
"You're shitting me."
"Not in the slightest." Quin said. "I can already see it, you got all the roles I need right here. The hardass heroine with the guns, her laid back partner, the stoic evil twin brother, and the sultry, sexy counterpart to the heroine.
"Why, thank you." Trish said. Vergil, meanwhile, looked furious.
"What do you mean, evil brother?" He asked.
"Look, someone's gotta be the villain." Quin said. "You can't have a movie without a villain, unless you're making some bullshit artsy thing so you can win an award. And you look the part better then anyone else."
"No!" Vergil yelled as he fixed an angry glare on Quin.
"Yes, perfect! That's the kind of intensity I'm looking for!"
"Come on, Vergil." Dante said, shrugging. "It could be fun."
"I will not be insulted like this!" He insisted, crossing his arms.
"Look." Quin said. "There's plenty of actors out there who make a career in villain roles. Nicest people you'll meet off set, but they're just naturally inclined to the role of the villain. It's not a knock against you or anything."
Vergil sighed, realizing he wasn't winning this argument. "Fine. If you insist."
Lady, meanwhile, looked conflicted. "I mean….I've never actually acted onstage before and, I'm not sure if I'm ready for something like that…"
"Is that stage fright I smell on you, Lady?" Trish asked. She turned toward Trish.
"No! It's just…we have a job to do, we can't afford to get bogged down at a movie shoot for weeks or months."
Quin shook his head. "No, I get that, I do. So the plan is, I got a preliminary script in place, already made the arrangements with the studio. You're gonna come in, and we're going to shoot all the action scenes. You guys will be "stuntmen", there to do those scenes. Once your job is done, you'll go home, and I'll get real actors in to do the rest of the movie."
Both Lady and Vergil still looked unsure, and Quin stood up. "Just think about it, ok? I think the idea's got a lot of potential. Morrison, thanks for your time, get back to me once they reach a decision."
Quin left, and they waited a second before speaking.
"Morrison, you sure this is a good idea?" Lady asked. "We're already pretty well known, but I don't want us to get constantly hassled in the street like some celebrities if some movie with our names on it gets released."
Morrison shook his head. "That won't happen. I've already discussed that with him, we'll be using fictional names for everything from the city to your names. Only reference to us will be an "Inspired by" line in the credits. I may get a few more calls then usual, but I can handle that."
"And if you're wrong?" Vergil asked.
"Then you can just glare at anyone stupid enough to hassle you and scare them off, Mr Villain." Morrison said with a chuckle. Vergil sighed and shook his head.
"Do I really come off like that?" Vergil asked.
"Yep." Dante said.
"Pretty much." Trish agreed.
"And I wouldn't have it any other way." Lady said as she put a hand on his shoulder, trying to make him feel better. Morrison stood up.
"So, we're all agreeing to take the job?" He asked. Each of them nodded, Vergil slower then the rest. He nodded back. "Alright. Get packing, you're all gonna be flying out tonight."