Chapter Six - The White-Haired Hunter and The Birds of Prey
Eventually, the noises stopped. We heard a ridulously loud screech, and then nothing.
"Oh boy, I think the Phantom just left the scene," I said to Alcapacien. She just stood there.
"When you peeked your head in, did he see you?" she asked me suspiously.
"Well.... yeah, I think so," I answered a bit quietly.
"I see," was all she said back. I started thinking again. Man, and I hated when I did that.
"What do you think he'll do when he meets us? Won't he just be a bit suspious that two teenage girls are in a big, spooky castle in the middle of nowhere?" I asked Alcapacien. She just shrugged.
"Who knows," she answered back, "I've never met a video game character before." I hit my head with my gloved hand.
"Oh boy, this is gonna be a bit complicated. It's obvious we can't just avoid him. But how are we gonna explain why we're here?" I doubted our situation. Alcapacien answered slowly.
"Well, we could just say we're here to do what he's here to do, right? I mean, he's here on a mission, we have the perfect storyline here, we could say we're after Mundus or something..."
"Well, maybe," I answered, "I mean, how many girls do you see that can turn into demons and hang out in big castles? But, what if he thinks we're the enemy?" I asked, just a tad nervous at the silence coming out of the door next to me. My partner turned to me, looking a bit grim.
"Well, we could fight him..." I gasped at this. "... or we could run away."
'Damn,' I cursed inwardly, 'I didn't come through all this pain to just run away from my favorite non-real person in the universe! No, there has to be something we can do....' I thought again.
My thoughts were abruptly cut off when we heard loud footsteps echoing in the Pride of Lion room. They diminished, then we heard them leave completely as a door slammed.
'Whew,' I thought, and wiped my forehead. "Now, what are we going to do?" I asked again.
"Well, what we were about to do, we follow him. That's what you want, isn't it?" I nodded. "Okay then, what else are we gonna do? All there is to do is kill stuff, and I don't want to waste my energy if I'm gonna need it later. Remember : Boss battles."
"Alright, let's get moving." So we uh... got moving. We entered the Pride of Lion room when we thought it was safe enough. Not to our surprise, there was a huge molten hole in the middle of the floor where the Phantom must have "made his exit". I sighed. 'Well, at least we won't have to fight it. I bet we won't be seeing him for a whil...... OH CRAP!' I thought as the floor started shaking violently. And as fate would have it, here comes Mr. Big-Molten-Lava-Spider-Thingie through the wall. Yes through it, because he sorta destroyed it. And was coming straight towards us. With a lone black figure running in front of him. I looked over at my comrade.
"They wouldn't happen to be... uh.. running straight at us, would they?" I asked, a bit too calmly. Alcapacien looked at me wierdly.
"Why yes, indeed they are," she said in her most 'I'm so smart' voice.
"Uhm.... what should I say? How about ... CRAP!" I said to her.
"Ya sorta might want to get outta the way!" a voice called to us.
"Oh crap, crap, crap crap, I know that wasn't him talking to us! ARGH! WILL I EVER BE FREE! WHY HAS THOU FORSAKEN ME!" I yelled really loudly. The spider stopped for a second and started -- what I thought was -- laughing. "Oh GOD NO! THAT SPIDER IS NOT LAUGHING AT ME! OH NO OH NO OH NO! URGE....TO KILL.... RISING!" FLASH! BOOM! WIND RUSING! FWOOSH! I had transformed. Finally. Into my devil counterpart. And that means fun for me. I spread my new wings out. I noticed I looked just like Alcapacien did when she was a demon, but I was a dark purple whilst she was a light blue. So, in my anger, I ran towards the giant spider. Straight for its face. And out I swung my new sword, and seconds later, it was covered with lava.
"STUPID SPIDER STUPID SPIDER!" I kept on yelling while I kept slashing at its face. Eventually I slowed down. I heard a very loud roaring, and felt a gust of wind in my face as again, the Phantom left the room in a hurry through the same hole.
"Holy crap!" I heard a voice say as I transformed back into a human. I turned my head. There he was again, the red-clad devil hunter, Dante. I fell over with a thud.
"Uh... hi." I said while looking up at the ceiling. Alcapacien came over and together her and Dante looked down towards me.
"Uh... is she alright?" he asked Alcapacien.
"Don't worry," she replied back, "She's just starstruck, don't worry about it."
"So anyways," he continued, "What are two babes like you doing in a place like this?" I grunted.
"We're uh... looking for uh... Mundus, yeah that's it." I replied. He gave me a wierd look.
"I thought this was a solo job for me? You guys look too dainty anyways." Alcapacien's eyes flared. She looked towards him with a frown.
"Ok look here Mr. High-and-Mighty devil hunter! We're here to kill stuff, and by God we're going to! I don't care if you like us or not, we have the urge to kill, and it must be quenched!" she said to him in a furious tone. He gave her the weirdest looking smile.
"Alright, down girl. I understand. Gotta quench those demon urges eh? Alright then. So... you guys wanna come with me?" He sounded like he was pleading. My heart beat a bit faster.
"Uh... I'd.. I mean we'd love to! Anyways, you probably gonna need some help with the Phantom right?" I smirked. Dante whispered to Alcapacien.
"How'd she know his name?" he asked. Alcapacien just shrugged.
"Before we go, could you two stand next to each other for a minute?" Alcapacien asked us. I gave her a skeptical look.
"Yeah... but exactly what are you up to?" I answered.
"Just do it!" she snapped back. I stepped next to Dante. She started looking us over. "I knew it! That's very freaky." she said after a few minutes had passed.
"What?" Dante asked quickly.
"Well.... how can I put this? You two look almost exactly alike. Look at yourselves. Both have pratically the same outift, you both have icy-looking eyes, and about the same sword."
"Whoa!" I exclaimed. "Your right! Pretty cool. Heh, I always knew I had good fashion sense."
"But you copied my outfit! Wouldn't that make me the one with fashion sense?" Dante answered back.
"Uh... yeah I guess." I stuttered. "Of course! I mean... how could I have better fashion sense? Heh..heh." I laughed, a bit too nervously. He seemed a bit worried. Probably of my sanity.
"Uh.... right. Anyways, we better get moving before the Phantom gets back." he replied.
"Yep, your right. Of course your right! LET'S GO!" I yelled. Dante and Alcapacien looked at each other then gave me a wierd look. They both shrugged and started moving towards the door.
"Wait up you guys!" I said as we neared the exit of the Pride of Lion room. (Yup, we're still there.)
"What's up?" Alcapacien said as she turned.
"I think I know where we are and what's ahead. Just give me a sec to go through the map in my head." Dante gave me a wierd look.
"Have you been here before?" he asked, a bit confused. I laughed nervously.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that." I looked up at the ceiling for a minute. "Alright, I've remembered. I'll explain our situation. We're in the Pride of Lion room. Up ahead in that door --" I pointed to the corrisponding door "-- is a bridge which we have to cross. We read the inscription over the bridge, cross back, and go back through the Alastor hallway. While walking down, the Phantom will chase us to the end of the hall--" Dante interrupted my speech.
"I've already done all of that."
"Oh," I replied, "Ok, then, we'll skip that part. Next we go back to the fountain area.." I paused as I thought about when I had first woken up there, and continued speaking "... and we use the Pride of Lion on the statue there. Then we kill the Shadow that attacks us, and I can continue this when we get that far." I looked down from the ceiling to their faces. Alcapacien looked smug as both her and me looked at Dante. He looked utterly stunned.
"How'd you know all of this?" he asked, a bit skeptical of my conclusion.
"Well.... lets just say I'm a 'precog' in a sense." I said and smiled up at him. He shrugged.
"Fine, we don't really have any other choice but to follow you anyways."
We started walking towards the fountain room. Dante suddenly spoke up as we neared the door.
"I forgot to ask... I never got your names."
"Oh yeah... sorry. Well, I'm Xyphos and this is Alcapacien." I replied. He held out his hand.
"I'm Dante, demon-hunter extrodinare." I snickered at this.
"Yeah... we sorta knew that. *CoughSomeoneHasALargeEgoCough*" He spoke again while giving me a 'I heard that' look.
"I forgot to ask this too.... how did you guys know my name? And why are you here?" he asked. I had been afraid of this. Dammit all.
"Well.... this is sorta a bad time. How about I promise that we tell you later." He looked at me skeptically.
"Tck... fine. But you'll have to explain yourselves eventually." I nodded.
"Alright, I promise. Anyways, lets move on." We slowly walked down the hallway. All I could hear was our footsteps, and I can tell ya, it was pretty unnerving for me. I knew that the Phantom was about to pop out and chase us any second. I wondered if we were ready to face it. Or if the fear would overtake us. Or just me. I had a strong dread in my heart, and I didn't know what it was dreading. But I decided to be a little more cautious as we moved on.
Eventually, the noises stopped. We heard a ridulously loud screech, and then nothing.
"Oh boy, I think the Phantom just left the scene," I said to Alcapacien. She just stood there.
"When you peeked your head in, did he see you?" she asked me suspiously.
"Well.... yeah, I think so," I answered a bit quietly.
"I see," was all she said back. I started thinking again. Man, and I hated when I did that.
"What do you think he'll do when he meets us? Won't he just be a bit suspious that two teenage girls are in a big, spooky castle in the middle of nowhere?" I asked Alcapacien. She just shrugged.
"Who knows," she answered back, "I've never met a video game character before." I hit my head with my gloved hand.
"Oh boy, this is gonna be a bit complicated. It's obvious we can't just avoid him. But how are we gonna explain why we're here?" I doubted our situation. Alcapacien answered slowly.
"Well, we could just say we're here to do what he's here to do, right? I mean, he's here on a mission, we have the perfect storyline here, we could say we're after Mundus or something..."
"Well, maybe," I answered, "I mean, how many girls do you see that can turn into demons and hang out in big castles? But, what if he thinks we're the enemy?" I asked, just a tad nervous at the silence coming out of the door next to me. My partner turned to me, looking a bit grim.
"Well, we could fight him..." I gasped at this. "... or we could run away."
'Damn,' I cursed inwardly, 'I didn't come through all this pain to just run away from my favorite non-real person in the universe! No, there has to be something we can do....' I thought again.
My thoughts were abruptly cut off when we heard loud footsteps echoing in the Pride of Lion room. They diminished, then we heard them leave completely as a door slammed.
'Whew,' I thought, and wiped my forehead. "Now, what are we going to do?" I asked again.
"Well, what we were about to do, we follow him. That's what you want, isn't it?" I nodded. "Okay then, what else are we gonna do? All there is to do is kill stuff, and I don't want to waste my energy if I'm gonna need it later. Remember : Boss battles."
"Alright, let's get moving." So we uh... got moving. We entered the Pride of Lion room when we thought it was safe enough. Not to our surprise, there was a huge molten hole in the middle of the floor where the Phantom must have "made his exit". I sighed. 'Well, at least we won't have to fight it. I bet we won't be seeing him for a whil...... OH CRAP!' I thought as the floor started shaking violently. And as fate would have it, here comes Mr. Big-Molten-Lava-Spider-Thingie through the wall. Yes through it, because he sorta destroyed it. And was coming straight towards us. With a lone black figure running in front of him. I looked over at my comrade.
"They wouldn't happen to be... uh.. running straight at us, would they?" I asked, a bit too calmly. Alcapacien looked at me wierdly.
"Why yes, indeed they are," she said in her most 'I'm so smart' voice.
"Uhm.... what should I say? How about ... CRAP!" I said to her.
"Ya sorta might want to get outta the way!" a voice called to us.
"Oh crap, crap, crap crap, I know that wasn't him talking to us! ARGH! WILL I EVER BE FREE! WHY HAS THOU FORSAKEN ME!" I yelled really loudly. The spider stopped for a second and started -- what I thought was -- laughing. "Oh GOD NO! THAT SPIDER IS NOT LAUGHING AT ME! OH NO OH NO OH NO! URGE....TO KILL.... RISING!" FLASH! BOOM! WIND RUSING! FWOOSH! I had transformed. Finally. Into my devil counterpart. And that means fun for me. I spread my new wings out. I noticed I looked just like Alcapacien did when she was a demon, but I was a dark purple whilst she was a light blue. So, in my anger, I ran towards the giant spider. Straight for its face. And out I swung my new sword, and seconds later, it was covered with lava.
"STUPID SPIDER STUPID SPIDER!" I kept on yelling while I kept slashing at its face. Eventually I slowed down. I heard a very loud roaring, and felt a gust of wind in my face as again, the Phantom left the room in a hurry through the same hole.
"Holy crap!" I heard a voice say as I transformed back into a human. I turned my head. There he was again, the red-clad devil hunter, Dante. I fell over with a thud.
"Uh... hi." I said while looking up at the ceiling. Alcapacien came over and together her and Dante looked down towards me.
"Uh... is she alright?" he asked Alcapacien.
"Don't worry," she replied back, "She's just starstruck, don't worry about it."
"So anyways," he continued, "What are two babes like you doing in a place like this?" I grunted.
"We're uh... looking for uh... Mundus, yeah that's it." I replied. He gave me a wierd look.
"I thought this was a solo job for me? You guys look too dainty anyways." Alcapacien's eyes flared. She looked towards him with a frown.
"Ok look here Mr. High-and-Mighty devil hunter! We're here to kill stuff, and by God we're going to! I don't care if you like us or not, we have the urge to kill, and it must be quenched!" she said to him in a furious tone. He gave her the weirdest looking smile.
"Alright, down girl. I understand. Gotta quench those demon urges eh? Alright then. So... you guys wanna come with me?" He sounded like he was pleading. My heart beat a bit faster.
"Uh... I'd.. I mean we'd love to! Anyways, you probably gonna need some help with the Phantom right?" I smirked. Dante whispered to Alcapacien.
"How'd she know his name?" he asked. Alcapacien just shrugged.
"Before we go, could you two stand next to each other for a minute?" Alcapacien asked us. I gave her a skeptical look.
"Yeah... but exactly what are you up to?" I answered.
"Just do it!" she snapped back. I stepped next to Dante. She started looking us over. "I knew it! That's very freaky." she said after a few minutes had passed.
"What?" Dante asked quickly.
"Well.... how can I put this? You two look almost exactly alike. Look at yourselves. Both have pratically the same outift, you both have icy-looking eyes, and about the same sword."
"Whoa!" I exclaimed. "Your right! Pretty cool. Heh, I always knew I had good fashion sense."
"But you copied my outfit! Wouldn't that make me the one with fashion sense?" Dante answered back.
"Uh... yeah I guess." I stuttered. "Of course! I mean... how could I have better fashion sense? Heh..heh." I laughed, a bit too nervously. He seemed a bit worried. Probably of my sanity.
"Uh.... right. Anyways, we better get moving before the Phantom gets back." he replied.
"Yep, your right. Of course your right! LET'S GO!" I yelled. Dante and Alcapacien looked at each other then gave me a wierd look. They both shrugged and started moving towards the door.
"Wait up you guys!" I said as we neared the exit of the Pride of Lion room. (Yup, we're still there.)
"What's up?" Alcapacien said as she turned.
"I think I know where we are and what's ahead. Just give me a sec to go through the map in my head." Dante gave me a wierd look.
"Have you been here before?" he asked, a bit confused. I laughed nervously.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that." I looked up at the ceiling for a minute. "Alright, I've remembered. I'll explain our situation. We're in the Pride of Lion room. Up ahead in that door --" I pointed to the corrisponding door "-- is a bridge which we have to cross. We read the inscription over the bridge, cross back, and go back through the Alastor hallway. While walking down, the Phantom will chase us to the end of the hall--" Dante interrupted my speech.
"I've already done all of that."
"Oh," I replied, "Ok, then, we'll skip that part. Next we go back to the fountain area.." I paused as I thought about when I had first woken up there, and continued speaking "... and we use the Pride of Lion on the statue there. Then we kill the Shadow that attacks us, and I can continue this when we get that far." I looked down from the ceiling to their faces. Alcapacien looked smug as both her and me looked at Dante. He looked utterly stunned.
"How'd you know all of this?" he asked, a bit skeptical of my conclusion.
"Well.... lets just say I'm a 'precog' in a sense." I said and smiled up at him. He shrugged.
"Fine, we don't really have any other choice but to follow you anyways."
We started walking towards the fountain room. Dante suddenly spoke up as we neared the door.
"I forgot to ask... I never got your names."
"Oh yeah... sorry. Well, I'm Xyphos and this is Alcapacien." I replied. He held out his hand.
"I'm Dante, demon-hunter extrodinare." I snickered at this.
"Yeah... we sorta knew that. *CoughSomeoneHasALargeEgoCough*" He spoke again while giving me a 'I heard that' look.
"I forgot to ask this too.... how did you guys know my name? And why are you here?" he asked. I had been afraid of this. Dammit all.
"Well.... this is sorta a bad time. How about I promise that we tell you later." He looked at me skeptically.
"Tck... fine. But you'll have to explain yourselves eventually." I nodded.
"Alright, I promise. Anyways, lets move on." We slowly walked down the hallway. All I could hear was our footsteps, and I can tell ya, it was pretty unnerving for me. I knew that the Phantom was about to pop out and chase us any second. I wondered if we were ready to face it. Or if the fear would overtake us. Or just me. I had a strong dread in my heart, and I didn't know what it was dreading. But I decided to be a little more cautious as we moved on.