[DANTE]

Actually, no. Fortuna isn't a mess.

It's a colossal pain in the behind. And that's Dante being generous. Really, really generous. Very generous. The most. He is Dante the Benevolent when he says that.

This mess with Fortuna and this Order of Dad's Worshippers is so annoying it's not even amusing anymore.

After the mess in that Opera House, Dante is on the other side of the city a while – probably a few hours now – later, crouched on a rooftop and surveying the city crawling with demons. He hums low on his throat, a considering noise.

The gunshots beside him pauses, and Lady leans into his line of sight. She's frowning, though not in that way of hers where she looks like she's going to shoot you in the head. Dante figures that Lady's facial expressions got messed up somewhere down the line, since the walking gun factory smiles when there's things to blow up.

"Look, I'm sorry about not notifying you earlier about this, alright?" She says, reloading her guns all the while. "I was-"

"-Busy, and you had a lot on your plate, babe," Dante shoots her a quick smile, turning his eyes back towards the… thing. Sitting so innocently in the distance, a couple kilometres off the north-eastern coast of the city. A massive slab of rock with writings done in the tongue of the unholy. A relic of a past that will not be forgotten. "Don't worry about it."

"Well," Lady huffs, pushes her shades up her scarred nose and blasts some demon scum with Kalina Ann. "I'm still worried."

"Which is why we're here and trying to make sense of this mess, yeah? Besides, Trish is working to get us info from the inside." Without telling them of her plan, true, but Dante knows where her loyalties lie. And it's not with the Order. Will never be with anyone else. "Wonder how she's doing."

"Still don't like how she just handed over Sparda to them…" Lady mutters, but there's a look in her eye, speaking of her own worry for the other Huntress. Sure, Lady and Trish don't always see eye to eye, but they're thick as thieves in their own way. Every hunter in Devil May Cry has that relationship. "There must be another way."

"What's done is done, and so we wing things until we can make heads and tails of this mess. And that," Dante points at The Hell Gate, standing up to plant his hands on his hips. "Should be our biggest concern right now. If that's what I think it is, then this job just escalated from 'Normal Tuesday' to a 'Special Saturday'."

Lady groans, dropping her head against the bazooka to thump it against the metal tube. "God, I hate Special Saturday jobs." She grumbles, rightfully put out and exasperated. After all, the last Special Saturday job they had, it was a rollercoaster from hell.

Literally. Dante still isn't sure why a whole theme park got possessed by a demon.

"Just think of the pay, babe."

Lady perks up immediately, grin cat-like and excited. Dante shakes his head fondly. "Good thinking, Dante." The smile then slides off of her pretty face, still so young and baby-faced despite all these years. She'd shoot him in the head for calling her baby-faced, Dante's sure. "So. What is that? Doesn't look very friendly, does it?"

"Because it's not," Dante agrees, holding out Ebony and Ivory for her to play with when she pats the side of his leg. "That, and I hope to whatever higher power is there that I'm wrong, is The Hell Gate."

Lady pauses, stops firing down demons to blink up at Dante. "I hear the capitalization."

Dante breathes deeply, bringing a hand up to rub at his forehead, lips pressed together. He really, really dislikes it when humans mess around with demon stuff. He might even goes as far as saying he hates it when they do that. Stupidly fragile, stupidly mortal, stupidly human, humans. Dante respects humans, he truly does, but it doesn't erase the fact that the majority of the human race are plain dumb.

It almost makes him cry at times, to be honest.

"You know how we recovered books, from the library of the tower? Back then?" Dante sees Lady's shoulders tense, and he honestly hates bringing up things related to Back Then, but she needs to know. She's been there for a long time, a steady presence all these years. "One of those talked about paths leading to Hell. Like Temen-ni-Gru. This thing we're looking at right now? Is just like the tower."

Lady scowls. Starts gunning down demons once more. "And it's sitting there, in the open…?"

"I don't like this, not one bit." Dante says. "We all know that Dad sealed off all the pathways to Hell. Sources far and wide add up, supports the statement and making it fact. I don't like risks – at least, not with this – but for now I think we can say that thing's currently in a dormant state. Needs something to start it up. Like a key-"

"Or a power source." Lady immediately picks up on Dante's train of thought, and he makes a noise of confirmation as he crosses his arms, staring at The Hell Gate with hopes of setting it on fire with just his spiteful thoughts and willpower alone. Sadly, laser eyes is not a gift Dante has. "The Devil Arms the Order is collecting, do you think this is the reason?"

"Highly likely, sad to say," Dante sighs. "Devil Arms are literally solidified souls of Devils-"

"-The highest possible rank a demon can have, and is worth legions upon legions of demonic energy." Lady sucks in a breath through her teeth, brows furrowed and her mismatched eyes narrowed behind her shades. "That's… Bad."

Dante nods slowly. "Very." He agrees.

"So what's the plan?" Lady gets up, handing back Dante's guns to him and patting off the dust from her shorts. Her ridiculously short shorts. "Am I right in expecting nothing will go easily?"

"Yep," Dante says, popping the 'p' as he says the words. "Like all sealed gates, it has a very specific lock that needs a very specific key. This one," Dante gestures to The Hell Gate. "Needs Yamato, if I remember the book correctly. Brother Dearest's beloved odachi. Arguably the prettiest sword in existence."

Rebellion grumbles in the back of his mind, and he runs a hand down the blade, like soothing a disgruntled cat. Rebellion subsides, and Dante promises carnage and demon blood later. Lots and lots of violence to sate both their primal sides.

Lady jerks, as if electrocuted- "Yamato, but wasn't-?!" She stops, chews on her lips with worry and unease. Sounding so, so angry, to hide her soft underbelly. "Wasn't it lost?"

"Back then, maybe." Dante ignores the hole in his chest, a pain so old it's a part of his being at this point. "But apparently…"

Lady looks at him, waiting for him to continue. "'Apparently'…?" She prompts, a foot tapping the ground now, a giveaway to her impatience and worry. Worry, worry, worry. Lady worries a lot, it's a miracle she hasn't developed some sort of severe case of anxiety or paranoia yet. Must be the guns. Or the constant blasting demons around with Kalina Ann. Maybe both.

Dante just points down to the ground with a finger. "Yamato? Somewhere in the island." He says simply.

And wasn't that funny? Yamato, lost to him for years, for ages. Then suddenly, it's here? In Fortuna? What a joke. What a horrible, horrible joke. What's next, fate is going to tell him Vergil is alive and well? Still looking uptight and snooty even when he got his assed kick seven ways to Sunday? If things were that easy, Dante wouldn't have this hole in his chest. Wouldn't have all these scars from all those years, festering and spreading since that day in the tower where Vergil fell.

But his tumultuous thoughts aside, Yamato's energy lingers steadily all over Fortuna Island; a rhythmic, continuous thrum that niggles at the back of Dante's mind and in his soul, a ghost that's there over his shoulder, invasive, hovering, and screaming in his ear without a voice.

It would be annoying if Dante doesn't care about Yamato or the odachi's owner one bit. But the thing is, Dante cares. Cares a lot.

So.

He needs to get Yamato back. Fast. And probably any other Vergil paraphernalia that's possibly still here in this God forsaken island. And that's probably one of Dante's most clever – not to mention most annoying – pun ever made. Points to him.

"We need to get it back," Lady says, voice grave and expressive even more so. Lady may have the biggest grudge against Vergil, but she knows the importance of Yamato, and the danger it poses when it's in the possession of someone else that isn't Dante. "Fast."

"I wish that was easy." Dante sighs, gesturing for Lady to follow him. She steps close him, shouldering Kalina Ann, and with careful movements, Dante sweeps her up, jumping across several roofs just to save time. He sets her down, and they peer at the northern edge of the city, leading into the massive mountain capped with snow. "Yamato's presence is…. Even, across all the island. There's no weak area, no strong area, just a flat, steady energy radiating all over the damn place."

"And so you can't pinpoint it."

"Nope. It's annoying as hell, to be honest." It's strange – and worrying – that Yamato's presence is all over the island; either it was transported all over the place, frequently enough that the whole place is blanketed by the energy it exudes , or Yamato has been here for such a long time that the very island itself absorbed Yamato's demonic energy, starting to replicate it, even.

If his theory is right – that Fortuna is not a human place but rather an island raised from the very depths of Hell itself – then the latter theory about Yamato could be the most likely answer to his question. And if his second theory is also right, then the island's emulation of Yamato's demonic energy must be the reason this land is filled to bursting with demons, reason why there are corrupted humans. Someone knowledgeable in the demonic arts must've figured out that those energies can be harnessed as a renewable source, with the right method.

And looking at these elite guards of Fortuna, well. Seems like they have somebody who knew what they're doing, and knew what to do with this abundance of demonic energy being pumped out of the island itself.

"So what's the plan Dante?" Lady asks, palming a gun on her thigh, a habit she has when she needs something to do to calm down. "Grab a ranked member and shake some answers out of them?"

Dante sucks a breath in through his teeth, grimacing as he plants his hands on his hips again. "From what I've gathered, it's easier to bring back Dad then make these guys spill answers. Fanatics of the highest degree, the lot of them."

"… Worse than that man?"

Dante hesitates, but in the end, he nods, biting his lip. Lady just makes a noise beside him, something like resignation in it. But Dante doesn't call her out on it. He's not cruel enough to claw open old wounds. "Well, there goes an easy job." Lady sighs.

"An easy job is made up of several demon spawning points, and just five bullets in the chamber." Dante reminds her with a rueful grin, the gesture returned to him with a smirk. "Oh, let's add in that… What was it, a Kali demon?"

"True enough," Lady laughs. "And yes. It was a Kali- whoa!"

Dante hears it coming, and he wastes no time in grabbing Lady, jumping far away onto the next rooftop, Dante doesn't let go, despite Lady's demands, and he turns to the attacker with narrowed eyes. Lady falls quiet upon realizing they're no longer alone, and she goes tense in his hold, hands moving erratically towards her guns. Dante squeezes her shoulder, a cautionary gesture, and Lady falls still, though she remains wound tight.

Above them, hovering in the air, are angelic looking beings, several handfuls of blue-tinted ones, and two golden ones.

Lady sucks in a breath beside his ear, one hand gripping Dante's coat tight. "These from the Order?"

"Mm," Dante carefully keeps himself between the new arrivals and Lady, so he can give Lady a bit of time to do her thing safely. "Probably. Hey! You guys from the Order?"

The two golden angels raise their swords – equally as white and golden as them, beautifully made with sweeping lines and elegant edges – before slicing the air with a downward motion. The other blues heft their massive lances higher, their wings flaring with a burst of smoke and sparks, and they fly towards the Hunter duo at breakneck speed, pointed tips aimed to kill.

"Showtime, babe!" Dante crows with a laugh, tossing Lady high into the air as he dives beneath the angels' lances. He hears Lady's gleeful affirmative, as well as the sound of a shotgun being cocked. He jumps once more, clearing himself from Lady's line of fire and drawing Rebellion just as she pulls the trigger, knocking some of the blue angels out of the air. "Time to party…!"

Some of the blue angels breaks off from the charge, lances aiming for the red-clad Hunter this time, and Dante jumps over the first one, shamelessly using its horned head as a stepping stone. He twirls, twisting out of another's lances path. With a sharp 'hah!' he jabs Rebellion forward, meeting a third lance with the flat of his sword's blade and he kicks at Rebellion's side, shoving the lance up and away so he could bring his other hand up, Ivory in his grip.

He pulls the trigger, a point blank headshot, and to his surprise, the angel – which isn't quite an angel, apparently – simply falls apart, revealing itself to be a very fancy armour. With no one inside.

"Oh?" Dante, ducks down to avoid a swing, bringing Rebellion back absently to block a second blow. "Hey, Lady!"

"Yeah?!"

"These guys are just armour!" He calls out, flipping, running one angelic armour through with Rebellion and roundhouse kicking another with enough force to kick its head clear off. Now that it's proof these guys are just shells and not humans… well. No need to worry about letting loose, right?

Lady reloads Kalina Ann, swinging the massive thing and decapitating one of the armours. The head rolls off, revealing the gaping emptiness within and Dante can see her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline from where he is. "Oh, that's a surprise."

Dante whips out Ebony and Ivory, letting loose a storm of bullets before landing atop a roof with a boyish smirk. "No need to hold back then, babe." He says.

Lady's answering smirk is more demonic than his. "Hell yeah!"

Dante clears himself of the blast zone, leaping high into the air and engaging the other airborne armours with a laugh, meeting them blow for blow with ease. Below him, Lady casts her arms out, a dozen grenades winking merrily before going off.

A large group of the blue angels are taken out in one go, and Dante finishes off the group he's playing with, done messing around with the small fry. He lands on the rooftop where Lady has swung herself to earlier, the two of them regarding the last two golden angels in a tense stare off. Dante leans closer to her, keeping his eyes on the two Order groupies. "You take the one on the left, I take the one on the right?"

Lady hums, considering, before she smirks and brings up Kalina Ann in a flash. "Nah." And with that she shoots the bayonet, taking one of them by surprise – and hitting it deep, too – before Lady pulls the switch and drags the thing towards her with a snarl. Dante darts forward, Rebellion in his grasp, and he delivers a stinger as he meets the angel halfway, putting enough force in his strike that he shatters the whole thing to pieces.

The bayonet retreats, relieved of its cargo, and Dante twists, getting down on one knee and cupping just in time for Lady to run up to him, stepping on his cupped hands and placing her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. "Up you go!" He says, tossing the gun mistress high up into the air.

Lady laughs as she goes into the air, whipping out a shotgun as the golden angel flies towards her, sword raised at the ready. Using the shotgun's recoil, she dodges out of the way of the angel's heavy swing, twisting to bring the gun back around and blast the angel's helmet with it. It reels back, the helmet cracking open to reveal nothing inside it, and with a twist that wouldn't be possible for normal humans, Lady swings herself up to the angel, pulling out two grenades and flicking off the safety.

"Fire in the hole!" Lady exclaims, before shoving the grenades inside the helmet and jumping off with a corkscrew.

The angel explodes rather flashily, golden light accompanying the flames and smoke. Lady lands on the rooftop with a small 'oof', bending her knees to lessen the impact upon landing. Dante lets out a whistle, his face taking on an impressed expression.

"Gotta make them go out with a 'bang', huh?" He says, cheeky, and Lady scoffs, shaking her head in amusement.

"Haha, you're amusing. But you know what's not amusing?"

"The weirdly empty angel armours flying around with what looked sentience?"

"Yes."

Dante and Lady exchanged looks, and it's the red-clad Hunter who spoke. "You know, the longer we stay here, the more stupidity we find."

Lady sighs, adjusting her glasses and hitch Kalina Ann higher up her shoulder afterwards. "It's almost sad." She pauses, then amends. "Worrying and sad."

Dante nods in agreement, raking his hair back with a hand before letting it flop back over to his face. "I just hope there's nothing worse than we already found. I came here to investigate, but here I am, poking at what's probably a hornet's nest with my own finger, not a stick." Dante huffs, put out. "I never got a stick to poke this damn hornet's nest in the first place, actually."

"You do know that by saying that, you're jinxing yourself?" Lady says dryly, a smirk playing on her lips as she leads both of them away, towards the direction of the northern end of the city, where the path to the mountain beings.

Dante, if he feels like it, could've given Lady his biggest pout. "Mean." He says instead, smiling cheerfully.

"I'm just saying," Lady chuckles, shaking her head. "Knowing your luck, this thing will likely balloon up to disproportionate levels-"

"Now you're just jinxing me more and that's not very nice-"

"Bold of you to assume I need to influence your already phenomenal misfortune-"

The two hunters bickered all the way as they left the ruins of the city, killing any straggling demons on their way. So wrapped up with their own problems, they never noticed the winged figure watching them from several rooftops away, green eyes glittering with something like poison.