Chapter three: Randomnessesses

Dante and Trish find themselves in a classroom full of students discussing the riveting mysteries of organisation theory.

Dante leans back in his seat and puts his feet up on the desk. "How intriguing!"

Trish daintily polishes her nails on the front of her coat. "The world is coming to an end." She sniffs.

"In a hand basket!"

Trish yawns. "I'm so nervous I could die!"

"No worries, mate," Dante says with an Australian accent. "You can only die once."

"But what about the afterlife. I'm not sure I believe in Hell."

Lenore pops up from behind a curtain. "You can always come back. I did!"

"Don't kid yourself," Trish grumbles. "You're dead all right. I can smell it!"

"That's my perfume, Voo Doo." Lenore flutters her eyelashes at Dante.

Trish makes a sour face. "Yeah, perfume. Right." She stabs Lenore; the dagger penetrates her heart all the way up to the hilt. "And this is my knife."

"Ouch." Lenore looks at the knife protruding from her chest. "It's true! You can only die once."

Trish stares off into space, pondering deeply. "Are you completely sure? If there's an afterlife, there should be an afterdeath." Her attention snaps back to Lenore. "So die, you dead bitch!"

Dante gives Trish and Lenore a sideways glance. "Hey, don't fight, girls. There's enough of this," he points to himself, "to go around."

Trish turns her fiery gaze his way. "Shut up! I'm sick of your macho talk and macho walk, you sick macho bitch! Please just get over yourself!"

Dante looks hurt. "But…I'm the great Devil Hunter, son of Sparda."

Trish growls. "Sparda menarda. Tell someone who cares. I will no longer wash your long-johns, that's for sure."

"But these leather pants are freezing in the winter. And with my mommy gone, who will wash them if you won't?" Dante pouts.

"You figure it out!" Trish crosses her arms over her chest. "I'm on strike."

"Yeah!" Lenore adjusts the dagger's hilt and imitates Trish's pose.

Trish whirls around towards the girl, irritation in her voice. "Not you, you psycho bitch! Death to you, double die!" She trains a gun at the girl and starts pulling the trigger.

Lenore backs up against the wall, a hint of fear in her eyes. "Wait! What will you do about Cthulhu if I'm gone?"

Trish hesitates. "Penniewise has taken care of it. No worries, she can be trusted. I think. Possibly."

Lenore gives Trish a doubtful look. "The weird demonic clown? You trust a demon?"

"I'm a demon, you twit!" Trish's eye-lid starts twitching.

Dante stops twirling his guns and joins the conversation. "My father was a demon too, and he saved the world!"

Trish clears her throat. "As far as you know. However, I've heard rumours…"

"What have you heard?" Dante gives Trish a suspicious look.

"Well," Trish said gently. "From a different point of view, your father conquered the world and ruled it with an iron fist. Face it, your father wasn't exactly a democrat." She examines her nails closely.

Lenore pats Dante's butt. "How well did you really know your father? He died so long ago that he has become a legend, and your mother died 20 years ago. Or am I wrong?" She pauses and gives him a doubtful stare. "By the way…when were you conceived?"

Trish points at him. "HA!"

Lenore nods. "You have to be Bob Marley to become a legend in your own generation."

"Well," Trish scratches her head. "I don't know any Bobby, but I've always suspected that Sparda never really died. He lives on in a kind of weakened and pathetic existence. At least I like to think so."

Dante pulls his guns. "Hey, stop bad mouthing my dad. He was the legendary Dark Knight!"

Trish frowns. "Dark Knight, Dark Schmight. Give me Jeanne d'Arc anytime…"

Lenore throws her hands up in the air. "Oh, please. That psychopathic I-was-sent-by-God chick wasn't that much better."

"At least she had the decency to stay DEAD," Trish mutters under her breath.

Lenore sticks out her tongue. "Well, you're the one to talk. How come you're standing here when Mundus fried your ass before he was killed by Dante? Could someone answer that?" She looks around expectantly.

Kimmy Jarl turns around in her seat. "Don't ask me," she shrugs. "Penniewise is the Devil May Cry fanatic. Not me."

Lenore gives Trish a dirty look. "I think you're a faker. It was just a scam to make Dante fell sorry for you."

"Hey!" Trish says airily. "I resent that. I do know what happened. God happened. I'm a saint reborn."

Penniewise bursts into the class room, Cthulhu's head under her arm. "The time has come to meet my fate! Soon." She plunks down into the seat next to Kimmy.

Kimmy glances at her out of the corner of her eye. "Think you'll live through this?"

Penniewise absentmindedly scratches her head. Both of them. "I think I'll survive. But I feel so unprepared."

"Damn straight," Cthulhu's head grumbles. "Now give me back my body!"

Penniewise pokes him in the eye. "No, I thought I might turn that into a couch. It's quite soft."

Cthulhu frowns. "So what about my head, ne?"

"You just shut up." Penniewise flicks away a forward tentacle.

Kimmy leans back in her chair and sighs. "Just as long as you know what you're doing."

"Maybe I could sew his mouth shut. If I can find it under all those tentacles." Penniewise pulls at his feelers.

Cthulhu looks up, a plaintive look on his face. "Why are you so cruel?"

"I'm bored," Penniewise whines. "And relieved that I have finished my oral exam."

"Speak for yourself," Kimmy mutters. "I still have to go up there."

Penniewise cackles evilly. "Hehe! And I know you just LOVE making a fool of yourself."

Kimmy gets teary-eyed. "Everybody's so cruel today."

Penniewise shrugs. "Sorry. It's my demonic streak rearing its ugly head."

"Hey!" Cthulhu exclaims. "I'm the ugly head around here. You people are missing the point."

Trish gives him a bored glance. "What point?"

Cthulhu starts wailing. "MEEEEEE!"

"You have no points. You're all blunt stuff." Penniewise rolls the head back and forth.

Trish nods. "Squiggly."

"Exactly!" Penniewise grins like a maniac. "Cthulhu's head is hereby appointed to be the definition of squiggly!"

Cthulhu's head frowns thoughtfully. "Then…what about my bottom?"

Dante shrugs. "From where I'm standing it looks quite firm."

"Are you checking me out?!"

"No! No!" Dante quickly protests. "I just…happened to look in that direction!"

Trish grins from ear to ear. "Now we're getting somewhere!"

Lenore looks nonplussed. "Where are we going? To the beach?"

"I was speaking metaphorically," Trish says. "But hey, that's a good idea. Let's throw Cthulhu's head into the sea!"

Penniewise enthusiastically jumps out of her seat. "Yay, we can play "Will it float"!"

Kimmy slowly gets to her feet. "Whatever. Just get on with it."

Penniewise bounces from bench to bench while rummaging through her pockets. "We can take my bike. I have a clown licence. It can take 10 people."

"HAHAHA!" Kimmy laughs flatly. "Oh…you're serious."

Penniewise pulls out a bike. "As a nutcracker!"

"Ouch!" Dante winches.

The body of Cthulhu hides a nutcracker behind its back. "Hehe!"

His head starts to whistle.

Penniewise turns around and picks up Cthulhu's head. "Hey, what's going on back there?"

"Waaah," the head screams. "Attack! Attack! Go body, go!"

Lenore jumps into Dante's arms. "Run for your lives. The deranged couch is running amok."

Kimmy backs away. "Come on. Just drop the thing and run!"

Penniewise tosses the head across the class room and jumps up on the orange bike. "Get on the bike!" She honks its giant horn, "Honk, honk!"

"HA!" Cthulhu's head laughs victoriously. "Too late. I'm taking back my body. Or rather…my body is taking me back. Haha!"

"So, you're not getting a divorce, after all." Lenore pipes up from Dante's masculine embrace.

"I'm going to ignore that," Cthulhu's head sniffs. "Wholeness is within my grasp! Full power! Full life." The body puts the head back on. "OH YEAH!!"

Dante stares. "The horror! It's upside down."

"Thanks." Cthulhu turns his head around. "OH YEAH!!"

Penniewise looks impatiently at the others. "Okay, are we gonna run now? Or are we just standing around, waiting for the monster to get his head straight?"

Kimmy walks up to the bike. "I suggest the run strategy. We can always get him later." She coughs discreetly.

"Yes! Now, everyone get on the bike already!" Penniewise honks the horn again.

Dante strikes a heroic pose. "I say we take him down now, or die trying!"

Lenore clings to his neck. "If I hadn't this big knife sticking out of my stomach I could glomp that slimy beast."

"DAMN!" Trish looks away.

"Ha." Lenore points at her. "Repent!"

A hint of a smile tugs at Trish's lips. "And still it's worth it…"

Lenore sticks her tongue out. "Bläähh!!"

Cthulhu growls. "You people are still missing the point!"

"I have a point! Take this!" Dante stabs him with Alastor.

"You never learn." Cthulhu flicks the sword away. He stomps Dante to the ground. "OH YEAH!!"

"What is up, gang!" Neva drives into the room with her cool ass jeep and crashes into Cthulhu. "Ops, sorry!"

Dante shouts loudly. "No sorry! No sorry! Kill, kill, kill the slimy beast!"

"Okay!" Neva backs up and drives over Cthulhu several times.

Kimmy dejectedly rolls her eyes. "This will never work."

Neva looks down on Cthulhu. He gives her an annoyed look and starts to get to his feet. "I think you're right."

Trish crosses her arms over her chest. "Let's choose life today."

"Oh," Lenore mutters. "So now you're a pacifist all of a sudden?"

"A saint," Trish smiles beatifically. "I told you. All life is sacred. Even squishy, slimy beasts."

Penniewise honks her horn. "Hurry up! Class is almost over. Kill him or let him live. I don't care."

Trish is still smiling. "Let him live…and survive." A halo appears above her head.

Neva slams on the gas and speeds away. They hear her yelling from a distance. "We shall kill him another day!"

The orange bicycle disappears into the sunset. "Honk, honk."

Cthulhu pumps his fist in the air. "OH YEAH!"