Scars
Gemakai: (Takes a looonnngg drag on some random cig)
Astar: Since when do you smoke?
Gemakai: (Drunkily) Since your mom! OHHH!
Kora: …that was uncalled for. Shouldn't you, like, write something for How about that Scars thing?
Gemakai: (Still drunk) What you say about my mother? I'll kill yo…(passes out)
Astar: Well, I guess I'll start it up for him.
Kora: And I'll do the disclaimer! (Ahem) Devil May Cry is not a part of anything that Gemakai owns. All he owns now, is a computer, fantasy cigarettes, fantasy alcohol, and his pride.
Gemakai: (Pants fall for no reason)
Kora: Well…forget the pride part.
Chapter VII: Duel on the Coast
Ah, The outdoors. It was calm, peaceful, birds flying above while they bombarded unknowing travelers with dookies. Oh, how Dante just hated it, especially after the tenth dropping hit his coat. He just got it dry cleaned! How could they be hitting a moving target like him, he wondered. He just made a low growl and sulked in the middle of the back seat. Morrigan and Lilith were there too and for some reason, the birds didn't even seem to notice them and they were as clean as a whistle.
"Hey, hombre! How much farther til we're there?" Dante shouted to their guide and driver, who shouted like a crazy Chinese person would in Chinese. "Um, yeah, yeah, Baka Ne to you too!" And Dante shrugged.
Lilith looked up at Dante from under her hood, careful to not get any sun on her skin. "Um…mister Dante? Did the man who hired you give you anything specific about the demons we're looking for?"
"Pfft!" He replied arrogantly, "Not much. As far as I know, we only know where they were last seen, what they are, and nothing but jack from there!" Lilith didn't ask anymore questions after that, a little fearful of the Demon slayer, but only a little.
Despite the constant bumping and random Chinese cursing from their driver, the ride into China's wilderness went pretty smoothly. Finally, they stopped along the side of the dirt road and the three hopped out. Dante turned to their driver and said slowly, "Stay…here…okay? Just stay here!"
The driver nodded, saying something quick in chinese, and then immediately drove off.
"Hey! HEY! God damn…"
"Well, might as well look for them." Morrigan suggested as she stepped into the forest, followed by Lilith and lastly, Dante.
The trekked through the forest went not too different than the ride in the jeep. A few bumps and turns, tangles here and there, and somehow, ISOMEHOW/I those birds were able to land their droppings atop Dante. "DYAH!" He drew Ebony and Ivory and begin shooting the sky. "Take that, you crap blimps!" He cursed as most of the birds flew off, while others dropped around the Devil Hunter. Several dozen bullets and a calming sigh later, Dante had returned back to his collected self, followed by a startled Morrigan and Lilith.
"So, Lilith. Does any of this place seem familiar?"
"Wha-Huh?"
"The description of the two we're after, they seem to fit your own descriptions of the two other people who were prisoners with you."
"Well, it was just a steel truck with no windows to the outside, so I don't remember anything."
"Oh, right. Nevermind, stupid question."
They continued through the jungle, until Dante stopped and looked around. "What is it?" asked Morrigan. "You find something?"
"Look at the trees."
The kunoichi examined the trees, and saw scratches along one tree, as well as a stab into it and some dried up blood splattered against the base of the trunk. "Was there a battle here?"
"You said one of them used a knife, right Lilith?"
"Um, right." The raven haired girl softly replied.
Dante brushed aside some fallen leaves and passed his hand over some imprints in the ground. "Judging by the foot prints, one of them was bare foot, and the other wore sneakers."
He moved aside some more leaves, "They were attacked by some sort of animal. A cheetah or a tiger of some sort. They were expecting it," He noted, eying no slide in the dirt from the shock. "But the bare foot one went to hide, while the other one stayed behind. The tiger leapt at him and the other one jumped…" he paused as he took several forward and presses a hand to the ground, "Right here, then he jumped back at the tiger and tried to stab him, but missed and ran into the tree.
"The tiger tried to get him while he was distracted." Dante got down on his knees and sniffed the ground around the tree, "It got his back some, but then he pulled his knife free and slashed the tiger's belly as it tried to get it's head. The tiger's blood got on the tree, then it wandered off…" Dante's eyes trailed off from the tree and pointed left of it, "And died right over there." Morrigan and Lilith looked and indeed there was a dead animal, a large white tiger whose lifeless body was already decomposing.
"Ugh! That's grosser than gross!" Morrigan winced in disgust as she stared at it.
"Then the knife user and the barefoot one met up again and headed," He aimed southward, "In that direction." He rose up and stretched a bit, "C'mon, let's go. This battle is only about two days old, so we shouldn't be too far off."
The taste of cooked snake was actually quite savoring to Gem's surprise. Gem was quite impressed about Syra's knowledge in survival and even began to take after her in such an environment.
Since they decided to make camp on the beach, they've mostly only had fish from the sea. Long story short, they made a small shelter, had fresh water from a nearby river, Gem eventually got tired of the taste of fish and decided to hunt for other food in the jungle, which brought us to this point. It was a dark night, lit by only glimmering stars and the fire made by Gem.
He sunk his teeth into the scaly skin of snake, only to spit it out so he could get to the meat. It was about five bites later that Gem noticed Syra standing on the opposite side of the fire, wearing her damp white dress. She must've just gone swimming. Gem held up his dinner to her.
"Want some?"
"No thankies." She answered with a smile.
"Don't like snakes? They're actually not too bad." He took another bite, "Sort of taste like chicken."
"It's not that. Syra ate while she was swimming."
Gem blinked at his companion, bewildered, "You eat your fish raw?"
"Yep-yep! It's actually pretty good, if Gemy knows what's poisonous and what's not."
"Heh, I guess with your survival skills, it's easy to tell, huh?" He bite off another layer of scales and spat it to the side, "Raw fish, hmm? I think you'd like Sushi. It's practically the same thing." Then he munched back into the snake meat.
The neko smiled, came around the fire and nestled next to her friend. "Where is Gemy from? Gemy and Syra have only been together for a month and Syra only knows Gemy's name."
"Where I'm from? Well, uh…" He tried to find some more meat on his meal, but he'd already ate most of it, and tossed the snake aside. "I can't really tell you that."
"Why no?" Syra pouted and looked up at Gem with pleading eyes, but he just looked away.
"I don't like to talk about it. I don't like talking about myself, period. Besides, it's for your own good." Syra was about to ask 'why' to that as well, but before she could open her mouth, Gem asked, "What about you, Syra? Where's your tribe from?"
"Um…Syra's tribe is a nomadic one. They no stay in one place for long, but Syra's tribe is mostly around South Africa."
"Africa? That's a long ways to go." Gem's companion sighed sadly, but Gem just put on a smirk, "Don't worry, though, I'll make sure you get there safe and sound." The farther away, he thought, the better.
It was late morning when the Devil Hunter and his crew arrived on the coast. Dante stumbled from side to side tiredly, with small bags of sleep under his eyes. "Man, whose idea was it to keep going through the middle of the night?"
"Ano… It was you, Dante-san." Said Lilith, making the Demon Slayer shut his big mouth.
"In anycase, look on the bright side!" Morrigan said cheerfully, "We're at the beach, so we only have two directions to go to find them."
"Or," Dante spoke up, "They've upped and gone already." He shrugged, "But I guess we can get an idea where they've gone."
"Any idea where they've went from here?"
"Hmm…" Dante knelt down and gazed at the sand for several minutes. Morrigan and Lilith looked as well, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Dante finally raised his arm. "They went that a-way." He aimed down the right side of the beach.
Lilith looked amazed under her cloak, "Really? What do you base that on?"
Dante just stood up, raised his chin, and stated proudly, "Absolutely nothing!" Confusion came over Lilith's amazement. "I mean, come on, look at it! The only thing I can determine is that if they have come here, they've come and gone a LONG time ago."
"So how do you know they went that way?"
"Because of the smoke." Dante pointed to the stream of dirty air rise from the distance. "Well, let's go." He began strolling across the beach towards the source, with Morrigan and Lilith soon coming after him.
In the morning after, Syra was the last to wake up, her small paws rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Mew?" Silence responded as Gem was already up and gone from their small but stable tent. Scampering outside, Syra spotted three cooked fish, standing on sticks in the sand. Gem stood nearby, throwing punches and kicks at air. Small beads of sweat trickled off his fists as he punched.
"So…are you two the guys we're looking for?"
Immediately, Gem and Syra turned toward the new voice. Gem moved in a fighting stance, while Syra hurried behind Gem, frightened of these strangers.
They were a odd looking bunch, one male and two females. One of the women wore a long cloak, which hid her face, and the only way they could tell her gender was through her figure. The other was a blond-haired, green-eyed woman, wearing a skin tight, light red ninja gi and black slippers with small chisels on the end.
However, the single male of the group seemed the most interesting. Wild white hair with roughed-up bangs barely above his ocean blue eyes. He wore a crimson coat with no shirt underneath, showing off his well developed chest and abs, and a black pair of jeans. What intriqued Gem the most, however, was the massive weapon he held over his shoulder. It was a large, dragon-hilted sword nearly as long as the man himself, and it pulsed with electric energy.
"What if we are?" Gem replied with a sly smirk. "And who's asking?"
"The name's Sparda…Dante Sparda."
"Dante, huh? Odd name."
"And you two are?"
"This is Syra," Gem aimed a thumb behind him then he pointed to himself, "And my name's Gem."
"And you say my name's odd."
In response, Gem shot a glare at the devil hunter and jumped at him. He struck at the ground at Dante's feet as a the devil hunter avoided the attack from jumping back. The punch caused the sand to shoot up from the impact, while Gem dug his feet into the sand and propelled himself forward at the demon slayer. He threw another punch, which Dante moved smoothly to the right and countered with a punch of his own.
Gem skidded across the sand, but he didn't fall to the ground. Instead, she smirked and wiped the blood from his chin. "Not bad." And he reassumed his fighting position. "Try this!" He dashed forward and threw a left at Dante, who merely caught it this time. However, just as Dante caught Gem's punch, the jewel demon reached behind him and drew his dirk, slashing it at the demon slayer's head. If it weren't for Dante's godly reflexes, he would've been dead then, but he managed to take only a minor scratch on his cheek.
Just as Dante recovered from the surprise attack, Gem was already attacking again, but Dante expected it this time and block Gem's dagger with Alastor. The look on Gem's face changed from excitement to one of pure astoundment, and he withdrew his attack.
"What did you say your name was again?"
"Dante…" replied the hunter, sheathing his weapon over his back.
"Your last name, I meant."
"Sparda."
"Wait…you mean THE Sparda?" Gem's amazement grew rapidly, "The Dark Knight that fell Mundus?"
"Er…yep, that's the one."
Immediately, Gem put away his dagger and got on his knees, "It is an honor, sir Sparda. Forgive my uh…rash assault on you, heheh, can't be too careful in the wilderness, you know. Heheh." Gem was sweating bullets, with a nervous tone in his voice, but Syra seemed completely confused by all this.
"Mya…who is this dum-du-mmph!" Syra's mouthed was quickly silenced by Gem.
"Heheh, please excuse my friend, Mister Sparda. She's uh…a little overreactive some time."
("She's over reactive?" Lilith whispered to Morrigan.
"Takes one to know one I guess." Her sister replied.)
"Um, it's fine. I was jus-"
"So what would the legendary Dark Knight want with us?" Gem interrupted again.
"Er…we were sent to find you both and return the cat girl to her tribe."
Syra shoved away Gem's arm, "REALLY!" She sprang forward and hugged Dante's waist, "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" This caused the devil hunter to blush. Maybe Gem was right about her being overreactive.
Gemakai: That's that. Hope you're enjoying my fic.
Kora: ….That's it? No witty remarks? No bashing yourself from anyone? No dropping of your pants!
Gemakai: Nope! I think I'll give myself a break this time and I'm through with drugs. (Stamps out a joint)
Kora: Well I'm not done with you! RAAWGH! (Lunges at Gem and gnaws his hair)
Gem: HELP! (waves arms in panic) She's eating MY HEAD!
Astar: Um…Well, there you have it, the next Chapter. Please R&R