Disclaimer:  I suck, and therefore I invented none of the Characters from Devil May Cry.  No, those go to some guy over at Capcom, but anyone who wasn't in the game is mine, all mine!  Muahahahahahahahaha!

Mission Two: Blackheart Revenge

            "What?!  There's nothing here!"  Trish was right.  We had just stepped into what looked like a cliché 'Riddle House' mansion.  On the inside however there was nothing.  Only a huge empty space veiled in shadow.  The only distinct feature were the identical marble statues that covered the walls around the space.  Each one a figure bearing one dove and one bat wing.

            "Watch the statues and keep on guard.  Stay close to the—" My whispered instructions were cut short when a huge slam rang from behind us. "—Door."

            With no option left to us we carefully stepped towards the center of the room.  Our eyes met with each of the statue's as we passed.

            Clickety-click came an echo from the deepest shadows in the room's corners.  "Did you hear that?" I hissed to my sidekick.  "I don't think we're alone."

            Something flitted out of the corner of my eye, like something crawling across the ceiling.  My gloved hands squeezed hard against Alastor, her power ready to be triggered at a moment's notice.

            Unfortunately, I didn't have any notice whatsoever before it happened.  A streak of flames sweeped across my face, forcing me backwards.  As I fell back, Alastor bent at a ninety-degree angle, the blade stuck into the floor.  The handle tore through my flesh, my shoulder blade and out of my chest, accompanied by many spurts of blood.  Fortunately, impalation wasn't completely unfamiliar to me.

            I struggled my neck around to face Trish when I heard the crackle of fire and a grunt.  She, too must have been struck.  The sounds were followed by the scraping of metal on wood, and Sparda slid across the floor to just within my vision.

            I knew what had just assaulted us.  The smell of brimstone and my own sautéed flesh was unmistakable.  I had just been smacked by the gauntlets of Ifrit.  The very ones that I had lost on the eventful plane ride off of  Melee Island.  The question was whose fists had been occupying them?  Who, besides myself, had the power to tame the fire god?

            "Dante!" screamed Trish, her voice, slightly muffled.  I glanced over and saw that the distortions were caused by blood in conjunction with a hand cloaked in flame wrapped around her neck.  The fire did almost nothing to light the shadowed owner of the hand except for a reflection on a grin of inch long pointed teeth.

The sight the flesh of Trish's throat flaring up and bubbling under the figure's long fingers was too much to bear.  I longed to tear away from Alastor, but the more I struggled against the handle's twisted grooves I was rewarded only with sharp waves of pain and flying streams of blood.

So my last resort.  "Hey dirtbag!  Picking on a lady?!  I'd think with a mansion like this you'd have a little bit of class!"  My taunting did its job.  He lowered Trish and paused momentarily before tossing her across the room where she lay limply at the feet of a statue.

The gentle 'tip-tap' of his boots coming ever closer was a prelude to pain.  In moments I felt the repeated collisions of Ifrit against my own helpless form.  With each blow I felt my body press against Alastor, still jammed firmly into the ground.  The pressure got worse and worse until…

"AAARRGGGHH!!!"  Alastor ripped outward through my shoulder, leaving my arm dangling from a thin strip of skin and muscle.

I lay there clutching the bloody mutilated tear with my one still functioning hand.  A gentle 'plip' came from near by when left and right Ifrit dropped to the floor nearby.  Whoever this attacker was, he had the nerve to ad insult to injury by tossing aside my old friends after using them against me.  I watched as The flames that surrounded them flickered and died.  Nothing could re-ignite them now.  This mysterious figure's mere touch had killed Ifrit.

Insult's addition to injury was not yet finished.  I could feel his long claw tipped fingers pierce the skin of each side of my chest.  He lifted me to my feet by my would-be collar.  His form was finally visible.

He was surprisingly humanoid.  He was a youthful looking man clothed in black robes over a bare, muscled chest decorated with many scars.  He was oddly pale, and had long black hair, streaked with red-brown strands.  His eyes where ice-blue, practically white.  His lips stretched back in a twisted smile, revealing those horrid devil teeth.

"How could you think you were the only one?" His voice was oddly calm, moving quickly from high to a low growl.  The voice of a mad man.

"Only one what?" came the only words I could bring to mind.

"You killed Mundus.  How cold you do that to me?!" he said, the tiniest bit of spittle flying from his lips.

"What are you talking about?!" I screamed.  He responded by digging his fingers ever deeper.

"You weren't the only one with a grudge against Mundus."  He put his face an inch from mine.  "Your daddy banished him just after he killed my daddy.  I wanted to get Mundus this time!  But no.  Your bloodline always has to hog the glory.  Your father is the legendary dark night, but daddy dearest was remembered only as a rebellious general of the underworld's armies.  That means I get to kill you."

"You think I dive a single red orb what the fuck Mundus did to you?  He killed my mother, and that's all I care about.  He made my brother, Virgil, into a slave, and that's all I cared about.  But most of all, I had the power to defeat him, so I did.  Let's see you take on a Phantom alone, smiley."

He slammed me down against the ground, snapping several floorboards beneath me.  "Well, you beat Mundus, and I'm beating you.  Doesn't that mean I have the power to kill Mundus?"  He punctuated his sentence by dragging a long, lizard-like tongue across my face.

"Faggot."

He drew to his feet and stepped over towards Sparda.  He bent and took it by the handle.

"Don't you touch that you damn freak!"  He swung, and slashed, and jabbed with Sparda.  He twisted his head towards mine, making sure our eyes met.  He smirked his terrible smirk and stole my heritage.  The parts of Sparda's blade flitted quickly up the handle and formed a glaive, then bent into a scythe.

            "Your father's weak, Dante.  See how easily I have made him my slave."

            "Put down Sparda!"

            "Don't worry.  I'll give him purpose."

            "Who are you, mad man?!"

            "You can call me Shin.  And just so you know, I you want the password your gonna have to find me."  With these words he slashed with Sparda and tore a rift in spacetime and slipped off into the void right before it closed.

            "Dante," came Trish's dim voice from the corner.  But she wasn't the only thing stirring in the room.