Summon Suffering
An earthquake sets Dante temporarily off balance. The surrounding enemies take advantage of this situation; all fail horribly. After clearing the opposing swarms, he took a breath and thought of the current situation. Lady was waiting in the library, resting after their most recent "display of affection," and was putting all of her hope in Dante. Not too much a burden; their goals were practically the same.
To the extent of Dante's knowledge, Vergil had fallen into a deep crevasse after Arkham had revealed the depth of his current power. And now, he stood atop the Temen-Ni-Gru, gathering the power of the legendary Dark Knight, Sparda.
Navigating the tower proved to be more difficult than previously. Dante now had to work around the new center platform that had risen high above the rest of the tower. This required Dante to actually "move" the tower, carefully keeping track of his directions.
At last, the top was in sight. No time to reminisce about his last standoff here. There was a new sight here; a ball of distortion that didn't quite seem to lead anywhere. Dante used the power of logic. Dante looked up at the gaping portal of chaos in the sky where Arkham was probably waiting; same color.
"Well, hey, if they're the same color, they gotta be connected right?"
Okay, so it wasn't the bestof logic, but it was a start.
Dante entered the realm of this shadow. He gazed at his new, unfamiliar surroundings; a domed room, with hardly any light. The only visible sources were these metallic spheres in the wall that reminded him of demonic eyeballs that let light gleam through. There was another thing that Dante realized; no exit.
Suddenly, the light fixtures around him began to pulsate on and off in rhythmic patters that were dizzying. And then, utter darkness. Pure silence heightened Dante's senses. But it wasn't as dark as it seemed. One light fixture remained shining, casting Dante's shadow far ahead of him.
Rebellion made its way to the front guard. If anything was to attack suddenly, their movement would give them away. There was more than enough time to dodge and counter an attack from any angle, even one from above. Frantically, Dante began to circle the room along the outside edge.
After making a full rotation around the room, Dante realized something very odd. His shadow had split ways with him a few minutes ago. In fact, his shadow remained fixed in the same position even after Dante had walked away.
The shadow started to morph into a physical form. Tall and with large, demonic horns, the image of Sparda stood face-to-face with his son.
"How touching… And just when I was starting to think this room was pointless!"
The shadow laughed a deep and dark laugh that struck fear even into Dante. It truly did sound like Sparda. And the resemblance was uncanny.
"You want to throw me off? You missed you're chance! You should have appeared like this in the first place; not make yourself known first. Now I know exactly what you are. You have no chance of victory."
"Catch you off guard?" The voice had changed. And the shape went long with it. It was a calmer, more serene voice; a soft, beautiful voice that brought Dante to his knees.
Dante peered up from the ground up at his mother. He knew it wasn't her, but the pain was there. He felt the anger swelling in him.
"Ha!" The image shifted into Vergil, and quickly performed a sliding slash. Dante couldn't dodge fast enough from the dead weight position of being on his knees. The Doppelganger laughed again at the bleeding half-demon.
The attack wasn't all that damaging to Dante's body as it was his ego. The demon had in fact caught him off guard. Now, he would have to slaughter it. He had to make sure that it was absolutely obvious who the stronger combatant was.
Dante bolted backwards into a run and sprung up a wall. At the highest point of his wall run, he began his attack fire from Ebony and Ivory, and continued until his descent. The bullets bore holes in the creature's body. Where blood should have been spilt, there was a dark black smoke that encompassed the wound. Within a few seconds, the hole was no more.
"O…k… Let's try something else…"
The cold breath of the wind greeted one of Dante's hands, the fiery breath of destruction from the other. Agni and Rudra sliced through the air with molten hisses. Breaking into a run, Dante began to furiously swing the swords at the Doppelganger like a madman. Slices quickly filled themselves in, leaving no trace of injury.
One last idea came to Dante. He once again took out his trusty sword Rebellion. He gathered a large amount of energy into the attack and took ample time to aim it. When the Doppelganger broke into a charge, Dante released his Stinger thrust hard, directly into the beast's heart.
Or what should have been its heart. Instead the sword's blade passed right through the enemy's body. But this time, the wound healed with the sword inside and Dante was unable to free Rebellion.
The Doppelganger's faced melted away. The smoke cleared to reveal the silhouette of Lady. It began to scream with pain. The sword deep in Lady's heart; it wasn't real, but the vision was still just too realistic to be ignored. In the split second Dante reacted to the vision, the Sparda look-alike swung his mighty sword at Dante.
"Once was bad enough." Dante's chest was just grazed by the sword, and dashed backward. And while Dante's body was mid-air and mid-dash, a portal of darkness spewed shadow refuse from below, knocking him high into the air. Just how many things could this thing do?
Dante spent some time in the chamber dodging attacks, eventually slipping up slightly, and then paying the consequences for it. It took him nearly an hour of futile attacks to even fathom the significance of the single light in the room…
