As Dante slowly came into consciousness, the first thing he noticed was the heavy sweetness in the air. He sat up, his skin peeling off the plastic loveseat. Through his bleary gaze he saw Saori on the computer. On the coffee table was a large box of doughnuts. Sitting on the floor next to the table was Kenta, munching contentedly on a cruller.
Kenta looked up and licked a layer of sticky sugar from his lips. "Ah, you're awake."
"What time is it?" Dante mumbled.
Kenta checked his watch. "Almost noon. Welcome back to the world of the living."
Dante froze. Saori stopped typing. They stared at Kenta with wide eyes.
Kenta, feeling like an earthworm in a dissecting tray, inspected his doughnut.
"Do you know what you just did?" Saori asked.
Kenta took a bite of his doughnut.
Dante laughed. "You actually said something without using sophistimicated language!"
Kenta gnawed on his doughnut.
Saori joined the boys around the coffee table. "Awww, you hurt his feelings," she said as patronizingly as possible.
Dante reached for a jelly doughnut.
"Mine! Touch it and die!" she growled.
Dante yanked his hand back, as if a poisonous snake had been coiled inside the doughnut box.
She grabbed said doughnut and stroked it protectively. "You are not worthy of the sugary goodness. Anyway, it's about time you finished your regeneration cycle. We need to get back to the game."
"Yes, Master."
"And don't you forget it. Come now." They resumed their places around the computer. Saori, who had managed to consume the doughnut in three gargantuan bites, went through My Computer to start the game.
A message appeared: You have 0M of free disk space. Thief requires 35M. Thief cannot run.
"Uh oh," Dante said.
Kenta slid out of his chair and underneath the desk.
Saori drew in a deep, ragged breath before unleashing a stream of expletives capable of shriveling flowers and killing small mammals.
"Well, that was not so terrible," Kenta said from beneath the desk.
"She's just coming up for air," Dante said.
Sure enough, Saori continued her tirade a moment later. She stopped only after exhausting every possible curse in the dictionary.
Dante closed the copy of War and Peace that he had pulled from who knows where. "Are you done yet?"
"I'm fairly certain she fabricated some of those words," Kenta said.
Saori pounded on the keyboard. "How dare you disobey me?" she yelled at the computer.
"I don't think it can hear you," Dante said.
"Someone please inform me when it is no longer hazardous to emerge," Kenta said.
That time came after Saori reinstalled the game. "Get up here already," she commanded. Kenta, quivering slightly, obeyed.
Lo and behold, the saved game was gone again. The boys looked at Saori, expecting another flood of curses that would make a sailor proud. She glared at them. "What do you want from me? I'm only @%&* human! How many ^#~+ swear words do you think I know?!"
"When you keep making them up like that, about a million," Dante said. "And counting."
Saori had already turned her laser-like focus to the game. "We're doing this MY way this time. Sword!"
"Well, I'm scared. Kenta?"
"Utterly terrified."
"I will not let you beat me," Saori said, her eyes narrowed into slits. "I will NOT. Do you hear me?!"
"Great," Dante said. "Now she's talking to the voices. Just when you thought she couldn't get any nuttier—"
"Silence, pathetic mortal! Now, to the front gate!"
"Uh, it's kinda heavily guarded…"
"Irrelevant! Kenta, go now!"
Kenta looked to Dante for advice.
Dante heard Saori's teeth grinding. "Um, better do what she says…that is, if you value your manhood. Hel-lo!"
Kenta would have paled if his natural skin tone hadn't already been deathly white.
Saori grabbed the keyboard and started beating furiously on it. "Never mind! Just stay out of my way!"
"I roger that," Kenta said in a shaking voice.
Kenta's response made the Princess of Darkness twitch in the middle of a fight with the guards at the front door, resulting in Garrett's untimely death. Growling faintly, she started the level anew.
"Dude, what's with you lately?" Dante asked Kenta. "You're freakin' me out, man!"
A rosy hue invaded Kenta's ivory cheeks. "Well, you see…for the past few weeks I have been endeavoring to attain a better grasp of conversational English."
"Okay, first of all, nobody in their right mind would say 'endeavoring.' "
"His or her."
"What?"
"Die, bastards! Die! Ah ha ha ha!" Saori yelled.
"It should have been like this: 'nobody in his or her right mind,' " Kenta said.
"And stop correcting grammar!" Dante said, exasperated.
Saori chuckled. "Most excellent." She had slaughtered everyone at the front door.
Dante shook his head. "You only killed that guy once. I think you're slippin'."
"Slipping," Kenta corrected. "Proper enunciation ensures comprehension."
"NO, *#%@!"
Saori nodded. "Not bad, not bad. You're still a rank amateur compared to me, but…"
Dante hugged himself. "Aw, now I feel all warm inside."
"My goodness," Kenta said.
"And no more 'my goodnesses,' " Dante said. "It's more like son of a—"
"Regard the monitor, if you will."
Dante looked. Saori had finished the level. In less than two minutes. Dante stared. "Wow. You wear the pants!"
Saori leaped out of her chair and onto the desk. She began to do a victory dance.
Dante jumped up. "Let's moonwalk! Ow! Ow! Carpetburn!"
Kenta covered his eyes, certain that there was something horribly inappropriate about all of this.
"And now," Saori said as she struck a triumphant pose, "it's time for the second level!" A smile crept onto her face. Soon her shoulders were shaking, her torso was quivering, and her eyes were gleaming. Unable to contain it, she let out a full-blown demonic cackle. "Second level, ho!" she yelled and jumped off the desk.
Dante and Kenta shared this thought: We are trapped in a basement with a demon. Someone please kill us. Preferably not the demon.
Little did Kenta know that beings more horrible than Saori waited for him…the undead.
Dante knew, but he forgot. He was stupid like that.
Author's Notes:
My sense of humor is back, oh yeah!
This chapter had almost nothing to do with the story, yet the dialogue was so beautiful…I feel like holding hands and singing "Kumbayah." Anyone else care to join me? I sure hope so, because the last time they found me holding hands with myself and singing, I had to go see the nice doctor for some medication.
I changed my mind…my characters are not like me. Not at all. No. No, I tell you! Except for that victory dance on top of the desk thing…
O__O
