Chasm says: DMC and its character aren't mine, but Alastor's a**hole personality is.

(Thank you Orin Drake for the reviews, it really helps. And Zellychan, thanks to you too.)

The ward of souls sealing the hunter's only exit shattered with the sound of breaking glass. Dante sloshed Alastor beneath the chill water flooding the area, ridding the blade of any unwholesome demonic anatomy. He briefly wondered why the ward was put up in the first place. Did Mundus really think he would try to escape?

Pfeh! And his dad was the pope!

Since the red blood orbs strewn throughout the chamber had mostly dissipated, the devil hunter only collected those of his most recent kill. Back in the main tunnel, a smattering of demonic Beelzebub gave Ebony and Ivory a less than adequate workout, and Dante was moving passed their twitching remains in moments.

It had just gotten to that point when he stopped wondering how every room became re-infested.

He ignored the service tunnel, for now, in favor of venturing further down the main waterway, but resolved to check it out on his way back. Eventually, he saw his path angle left from the massive portcullis. He discovered a large, steel double door just around the corner. It was marked with rust and mineral stains, yet it looked able to withstand the force of a battering ram. Bolts as big around as half-dollars lined the sizable door, reinforcing it. If the stout nature of the door was any indication of what lay ahead, then Dante didn't acknowledge it. Danger on a grand scale laying in wait did flit through his mind, though, he merely chose to deal with it when and if it came.

No sweat, no worry, but be prepared. A motto to live by.

Dante pushed at the heavy, latchless doors with one hand - locked and utterly unmoving - then remembered his newly-acquired key. From an inner coat pocket he produced the key - a rusty old thing of plain design - then fit it into the keyhole roughly at the door's center.....where it stuck.

With a grunt of mild surprise the red clad hunter attempted to turn the key forcefully. Fearing it would snap in two if he persisted, he tried pulling it free. "You have got to be kidding me," he grumbled when the item in question refused to budge.

"Something the matter?" Alastor crackled to life.

"It speaks," was the devil hunter's quip. "You know, silence truly is golden."

"Spare me your wit, such as it is. I was....lost in thought. Now, what is the problem?"

Soaked from near-constant battles in the waterway, and beginning to feel chilled, Dante crossed his arms while summoning up a degree of patience for the task at hand. "Door's stuck," he said simply.

"Yes, I'm aware of that. Was it your doing?"

"I found a key that jammed in this lock," Dante stated in a no-nonsense tone, "and I'm seriously considering using you as a makeshift lock pick....unless you come up with a better idea, that is."

Alastor muttered angrily in an alien dialect, no doubt the language of the Underworld, probably an insult, too.

"Should you not rest between bouts of mortal combat?" the devil spirit finally grated. "I tire of your abuse."

"Yeah..." drawled Dante with deliberate inattention, idly scratching the side of his jaw. "So about this door..." Dante couldn't help but grin at Alastor's growls of frustrated indignation. He doubted the lightning spirit's pride would ever allow it to fully accept its status as his weapon. Truth to tell, the young half-devil was a bit winded from consecutive hostile encounters. He would have recovered completely by now, too, if the tank-like Phantom hadn't been such a hassle....but he wasn't going to tell Alastor that. Though the spirit spoke in his mind, it could no more read his thoughts than he could read a closed book. The hunter found, almost by accident, if he wished the sentient blade to know his thoughts, then he would direct them accordingly, or simply open up that guarded part of himself. He could always speak his thoughts aloud, otherwise, Alastor was in the dark.

Not waiting for a better solution, Dante took the living blade in both hands.

"Wait! W-what are you doing?" was Alastor's squawk of surprise, and proof of its lack of clairvoyance.

The spirit shrieked in protest as the sword's razor tip sliced into the vertical crease dividing the double doors. Immoveable object met irresistible force and fat, blue-white sparks exploded with enough violence to make Dante flinch. Once the peal of tortured metal resonating off the walls ceased, did he blink away the afterimages, and look upon his handy work. The sturdy doors, once marked by age and disuse, now stood partially open, was badly scorched along the inside of both frames, and the lock and key were melted to slag. A fine haze accompanied the thick smell of ozone in the stale air.

As Dante's expression of amazement turned into one of satisfaction, the familiar voice of Alastor roared in his skull.

"Rrrrrr-I am not a tool! If nothing else, use your guns, use Force Edge, use your head! I was meant to rend the souls from the living, not perform menial tasks at your convenience!"

"Look, number one: I didn't feel like using Force Edge, okay. Two: Ebony and Ivory were made to blow your relatives back to Hell in style, and three: the shotgun's for whatever forgot to die after step two. 'Sides, ammo for that one's scarce."

"And what of the use of your thick skull? Or did you intentionally leave that out as a lost cause?" "I did use my head," retorted the hunter, feigning hurt. "Using you as a lock pick was shear genius, 'specially since I knew it would piss you off -"

"Bastard!"

"- oh, and you'll perform any "menial tasks" I want. If I want to use you to scrape the mud off my boots, I will, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."

"You wouldn't dare?" gasped the sentient blade, angry and afraid at once.

"Hell yes! Can you say, "paperweight"? How about, "coat rack"?"

A good ten seconds elapsed with nothing but the sound of dripping water echoing in the background. Dante chose that moment to check his shotgun - the most recent addition to his arsenal - for wet shells. He knew well that soggy ammo would downgrade the powerful gun into a fancy club, and it was difficult enough to find ammunition in the first place. Returning the sentient blade to his back, Dante shrugged off the shotgun and shoulder strap. A deft flick of the wrist opened the large barrels, and a quick inspection proved to be a mixed blessing. One shell was clinically drowned -

- Crap! -

- but the other was salvageable enough. Tossing the useless shell away, Dante moved to replace it with a drier partner. He reached into a saturated jacket pocket, suddenly worried if any dry ammo remained, and was relieved when there were. Perhaps it was because the inside pocket rode high on his chest? Nah, he was soaked through, had to be dumb luck. In any case, he finished loading the gun, then looped the shoulder strap over his head, letting it rest diagonally across his chest. Then he remembered the unfinished business...

"Yo, Alastor, you still there?" he asked, retrieving the blade.

"...I.....I....," stammered the boggled spirit.

"Yeah?"

"....I hate you," hissed Alastor.

Unfazed, Dante moved passed the warped and scorched doors, Alastor's length resting comfortably against his right shoulder.

Chasm apologizes: I know-I KNOW! This one's too short. Understand, I'm writing this as it comes to me, and I pay particular attention to detail. Also, I realize that the shotgun had limitless ammo in the game, but think about it....Dante has survived the hunting business solely with Ebony and Ivory and Force Edge up to this point. Doesn't it make sense that he would use Ebony and Ivory - ol'trusty and reliable - more over any other gun? That's my opinion, hence, the limited use of the shotgun. The other weapons Dante finds will be the same way, which may or may not cause him to discard them throughout the course of the missions.

Now, using Alastor over Force Edge is an entirely different story. Who wouldn't WANT to use the more powerful, cool-looking, able-to-devil-trigger-you sword? Force Edge is, what, weak and...shiny...?