Disclaimer: DMC and its characters aren't mine. This version of Alastor's and Ifrit's persona are mine. Rated R for some language, and graphic violence.
A/N: I bear no animosity toward people living up north, or those that choose to join Polar Bear clubs and/or similar groups.
To avoid confusion: Remember how Dante just stood there while the ghost ship sank? Stoo-pid! I've given him a reason to stay put now. In this version, I envisioned that Dante had jumped straight onto the main deck in the beginning of the mission. Why? Because the man CAN leap great distances, and if it wasn't for that "invisible wall" blocking the player, I'm convinced Dante could've made the jump onto the ship in the game.
In other words, he hasn't fought the Blades below deck, and he hasn't discovered the needlegun...
Dante knew he was in serious trouble when the ghost ship gave a colossal shudder. When the ocean began gushing in all at once, he knew he was meat.
"Look at what you did!" Alastor cried shrilly to Ifrit. "If the mongrel goes, we go with him!"
"Gah! Must you squeal like a castrated pig? We have the staff! We are in no dan -
- by the Dark Lord's teat, this place floods! Move, hunter, if you value your hide!"
Yes, it would've been nice to do just that, too bad the turbulent waters conspired against him. It was as if water cannons had been built into the walls - two of them, actually - specifically aimed at him, then cranked to maximum jet. It impeded him, but didn't stop him from bulling his way to the door.
Turned out to be a no-no, since he only managed to cross halfway before a wall of H2O - where in Hell did that come from!? - drove him into the stationary dinner table...how convenient, it was bolted down. Unable to escape the pin, Dante just ground his teeth and dug in his heels.
Jesus H. Christ! The water was freezing!
He hated the cold! With a passion! A single bad experience during a job in snowy Colorado had ruined him for life. It was there he learned the true, and profound meaning of "thin ice".
Returning from his trip down memory lane, the hunter flinched as salt water pulled at his thighs, then hips.
The powerful undertow swept up random bits of debris, knocked one bookshelf flat, and polluted the water with half-decayed clumps of wood and paper. The antique globe was bowled over, then jammed up against a corner. Hearth and Watcher were swallowed by a singular rush of water as the ship dipped subtly to one side. Hermes was too overbalanced, and busted his perfect face in the fall.
The twisting currents were fickle, ebbing one moment, surging the next. Aiming to live a long, fruitful life, Dante gradually pushed off the table's lip, to wade through the icy water, and the hell out of here!
Cripes! How do people up north take this!? he wondered incredulously, thinking of all the crazy fucks that joined Polar Bear clubs and the like.
The current heaved forward, returning an unwilling Dante into the table, again. Because Alastor and Force Edge guarded his back, Dante was spared the feeling of the table mashing into his kidneys. Snarling wordlessly at the waves, he twisted around for better leverage for another go. Before the chilly waters could entomb Captain Dead forever, the hunter blinked dubiously at the dead man -
- had the grin curled further up the skeletal face?
The captain's toothy smile seemed to bid him a manic farewell, then disappeared beneath the tide. By this time, Dante was shivering, but not entirely from the cold. He still couldn't sense taint from the corpse, yet it smiled at him, right at him! What the f- !
Trapped air from below burst up, giving birth to Old Faithful's miniature twin. The ensuing "rain" proved that violently liberated air and water could drench, as well as sting.
Hel-lo mini-Niagara.
But that wasn't the worst of it, oh no. With water up to his shoulders, Dante caught a glimpse of the chandelier as its chain decided to snap. It fell as the last of its candles died, leaving the hunter in darkness, and the suspended image of the chandelier in his mind's eye.
. . .
By the time his eyes adjusted to the dark, Dante was treading water inside a shallow air pocket. As Lady Luck would have it - the bitch! - his air supply was quickly dwindling into soap bubble proportions. Teeth chattering, he looped the Staff of Hermes one-handed to his belt while trying to float in place.
"...hate the cold, hate it!" his shaky voice echoed dull and hollow in the shrinking bubble. "Gonna vacation in the Keys because I deserve time out from this shit!"
With that, he sucked in precious O2 as his reservoir of air ceased to be. Instantly, the grip of great depth pressed in on his body. His ears popped a heartbeat later.
Funny, it was brighter underwater than above. Whatever light that eked its way in was refracted and enhanced, somehow. Of course, Dante wasn't working with full-blown daylight here, just the minimum illumination to see by - like the wan light of predawn.
He tried the front door, but found no success. It was jammed.
No time to bust it open with fists or steel, Ebony and Ivory would misfire underwater, the shotgun was equally useless, and his air pocket was gone, so no turning back. The hunter tried the portholes, but they might as well have been cemented shut.
Deliberately ignoring Captain Dead, he pushed toward a paned window in the back. Pressure had done its work here as well; the glass felt impossibly solid....and what a fascinating view of the water's surface from this vantage... The half-devil cast another look around, creeping worry stiffening the hairs at the nap of his neck.
Drowning wasn't going to become a reality anytime soon because he knew his body's limits, and knew its warning cues. If he couldn't find a way out, then he'd have no choice but to create an exit, and he didn't know how much energy - time, more importantly - that would take. The ghost ship refused to fall apart with Griffon onboard, what were the chances of a single, man-sized half-devil breaking through with fists and sword? Dante was psyching himself for that eventuality when -
- There!
Beside the staircase descending into the cabin, was a ventilation duct at floor level. Dante homed in quickly, suddenly eager to make certain his eyes weren't deceiving him.
The vent's grating had been torn off when the ocean had barged in. A thin stream of bubbles slid free from its dark interior. Dark though it was, Dante could see faint light at the end, about twelve feet in. The shaft wasn't impossibly small, but would be a claustrophobic experience for someone with his frame.
Without a second thought, he doffed both swords from his back, and pushed them through the duct.
"You aren't leaving me are you?" Alastor blurted. "I-I've been civil all this time...a feat in itself, I might add."
Dante ignored the spirit, and followed after.
Arms out before him, he swam/slithered down the straight shaft with little difficulty, pausing long enough to drag his weapons ahead of him. His shoulders grazed the shaft's sides the entire way, and the fear of getting caught up on something pressed teasingly against his mind. Emerging was like a breath of fresh air - figuratively speaking - but it was also bad news.
Lovely, he thought. Below deck is exactly where I don't want to be.
Indeed, too many detours usually meant tedious backtracking. This moderately large, rectangular room was where the ship's thick mainmast extended down through the middle of the ship to the keel below. Useless cannons, and other odd heavy equipment littered the area. Weak illumination stabbed silvery gray beams through small firing windows on either side of the room, while an odd number of unidentifiable scraps traveled slow-mo in the still environment. It was surreal.
Dante saw grim reality in the shapes that swam into view.
Undulating their sleek bodies made them seem almost harmless in their grace. But these reptiles were thick-scaled, and powerfully built, armed with talons on hands and feet, both sporting a whip-like tail. They wore bone-white helms that masked their fanged, sloping faces, and a buckler of the same underworld metal on one lean forelimb.
They were Blades. Two of them, and they noticed him as well.
Ifrit, forget the Antarctic, Dante reiterated to the fire spirit. The Antarctic is too good for you. I'll stick you in my fridge, instead. It's not as cold, but at least I can point and laugh at you whenever I want.
"Because I do not know what this "fridge" is, I've decided to ignore you."
The gauntlets gave a petulant, "burp" of fire. Water vaporized, spitting up a thick cloud of bubbles from either gauntlet. Dante saw this; an idea was taking shape.
No sooner did he replace Alastor and Force Edge at his back, did one Blade rush straight for him.
The other held back, waiting, watching.
The charging Blade was a wiry, black-scaled beast, sporting four-inch long talons as wicked as they were long. It feinted toward his left flank, only to return to the right, raking wildly and without finesse.
While a sword or gun would be unwieldy underwater, Ifrit packed enough punch to make up for both. For all the Blade's show, Dante knocked the slashing limbs aside with one strong slap, then presented the demon with a spectacular backhand across its reptilian face. Metal gave, teeth broke, and the lizard twisted almost a perfect pirouette. It tried to orient itself, but a fist in the gut changed its mind.
"Yes, finish it!" Ifrit crowed. "I take it back. Allow me!"
The Blade recovered fully, only to witness a gauntleted fist clamped down on its helm's visor, crushing the metal mask like aluminum. Stunned, the Blade had no time to ponder its supposed superiority in the water. It never even had time to scream.
Ifrit cheerfully unloaded white-hot hell into the demon' s headgear.
Claws thrashed once in violent reaction before the body gave in to convulsions. Flakes of blackened scales, skin, and vapor bubbles spread a gruesome death shroud over the twitching carcass. There was no blood; that caramelized on bone instantaneously.
Savoring the killing, Ifrit waited a few seconds more before relinquishing its fire, but not its hold. The flame spirit laughed - genuine belly-rolling laughter - as if there was no tomorrow. When the pressure in Dante's hand had gone, and control was his again, less than polite thoughts zipped a million miles per hour in his brain, many of them revolving around the fact that Ifrit should be constrained by his will, just as Alastor. Between private curses, Dante finally settled for -
- Would you stop that, please!
"Agreed," said Alastor in turn. "Why should you be so fortunate when I am more deserving, Ifrit?"
With an abruptness only accomplished by the terminally insane, Ifrit went from untamed hysterics, to brooding silence. For a crazy second, Dante thought the fire spirit had simply...left, but no, he could hear it muttering profanities in demon tongue.
We'll talk later, the hunter thought gruffly, his attention switching to see what the remaining Blade was up to.
It still made no move, studying with obvious tension the hunter, and his grisly prize.
In the few distracted seconds that followed its comrade's end, it hadn't done anything but stare? An offhand flick of the wrist tossed the dead Blade to one side. The true horror of Ifrit's overkill became plain when brittle vertebra crumbled, and the Blade's head drifted askew of the body.
As if on cue, the remaining demon - a dark green specimen - scooped something up off the floor, then slid into deeper shadow behind the mainmast's trunk. Suspicious of its scrutinizing from the start, Dante was downright biased, now.
Were any of Mundus's goons slick enough to fashion a decent trap?
Gracing the Hall of Outstanding Failures: the biplane room with the assorted marionettes, the fighting pit underneath that, the Sin Scissor portrait, the Death Scissor ambush, oh it just went on and on. They were all unavoidable, all as plain as day.
The red clad hunter found that he was slowly becoming offended by the utter shoddiness put into every little "set-up".
Determined to end this farce before it could escalate into something irksome - like the dramatic entrance of reinforcements - Dante edged forward, all business, and ready to kick ass. He could see the Blade circling out of sight, peek once, then hide again.
He had been holding his breath for almost three minutes, now. He was still in the green - his lungs still comfortable with the air still in them - but the closer he approached his quarry, the more he didn't feel secure with taking his time. Dante drifted up to the mainmast, stopping himself with his palms. There, he lingered until the Blade filled his sixth sense, its taint forming an impression of its position.
The demon twitched to his left.
The hunter pounced, expecting and ready to counter dozens of scenarios -
- none of them involved a gun in his face.
Alastor and Ifrit got their signals crossed with a belated warning. They must've been picking their disembodied noses for all the sputtering they did. Dante let them know -
Curly, Moe...find Larry, you're just not the same without him.
- then promptly told them to shut the hell up.
For a tense few seconds, hunter and demon didn't move.
Since the gun was in close proximity - mere centimeters away - Dante had no trouble identifying it. He didn't recognize the make, but there could be no mistake: a needlegun. He'd seen scuba divers use them on sharks, and had once handled one himself, so he knew its basic mechanics.
Heavy, but maneuverable in the water. Built like a gatling gun. Six barreled, duel-grips for stability against recoil. Quick reload time. Pressurized gas was its power source. A little over a hundred darts in the ammunition box, and able to fire five-inch, steel-tipped shafts at a rate of six rounds per second almost simultaneously.
Okay....so now what?
Without warning or provocation, the Blade clomped the needlegun against his forehead. Hard. When the hunter responded with a hostile look, he received another conk on the head. Both times, the gun was aimed at him immediately after he was struck. The Blade was quick, too quick to fight back with the needlegun less than an inch away. Worse, it seemed to be enjoying itself immensely, like a child tormenting a chained dog.
Luminous red eyes wrinkled with amusement in the dark of its helmet, and it wasn't hard to imagine its crocodile grin. Again, it struck, right between the eyes. One more time, right on the kisser.
Dante was seeing double, he tasted blood, and he was on the verge of doing something reckless.
Damn lizard was playing with fire!
Even if pride had allowed him the use of Alastor's power, the spirit had no juice to give, having spent what little it had on Griffon. Ifrit's power was similarly out of commission until it recharged. Then the hunter saw something that made him want to kick himself and laugh aloud at the same time. The corner of his mouth quirked up in one of his trademark smirks.
Suddenly confused and upset, the Blade pressed the needlegun under his chin in dire threat.
The demon had failed itself in two major ways: One, its claws were too big to squeeze the trigger...that is, if it even knew what the trigger was designed for. And two, it hadn't noticed Dante noticing.
The demon must have realized the potential use of the needlegun, had known that its adversary would recognize the human weapon, and act with caution, if not fear. In its moment of brilliance, it had nonetheless forgotten to learn how to use the gun. That lack of crucial insight was about to cost the Blade dearly.
Dante knew this was going to be short and sweet.
When his smirk became a derisive grin, the heels of his palms rammed up into the demon's extended arms. The sound of popping elbow joints traveled beautifully underwater. With a muted howl, the Blade felt an icy stab of fear as the needlegun fell from its nerveless grasp. It was vulnerable, now! Even with both arms useless, the demon was an agile swimmer. It veered away like an eel -
- not fast enough.
Caught by one clawed foot, the Blade was viciously yanked back down. Its half-devil nemesis hooked vengeful fingers onto one scaled shoulder -
"Hunter, may I...?"
MINE, Ifrit!
- then nabbed the needlegun with his free hand before it touched the ground. Gun clenched in one fist, Dante proceeded to beat the living snot out of the loathsome hellspawn.
The helmet caved after four chops from the heavy gun. Three headfirst thrusts into the mainmast loosened the chin straps, as well as rattle loose teeth. A backhand to the jaw soon reversed momentum and became a solid punch. One jab to the solar plexus draped the helm awkwardly over the lizard's face, setting it up for a knee between the eyes, which detached the dented headgear, and exposing the battered countenance underneath.
Satisfied he vented all his anger - it wasn't healthy to keep it bottled in, after all - Dante felt no remorse as he leveled the needlegun. Broken, bleeding, and half blind, the demon Blade heard the faint click of a pulled trigger, then knew no more.
Chasm: College is slowing me up a bit. The last chapter of this mission will be up in due time. Patience will be required, but it'll be well worth it.