Chapter 4 – Once in a great legend's city, Stood a hunter scratching his head

Dante's previous sadness and anger at the world, and all his thoughts regarding his parents had all but disappeared in the face of such astonishing news. He stared at Alex and then at Agatha, staring at the pizza box for a very very long time before looking about nervously, as though hoping that some people would come leaping out of a bush and scream "SURPRISE! YOU'RE ON CANDID CAMERA!" But no such thing happened. It really did appear as though Alex was being utterly serious, much to his discomfort. Dante licked at dry lips before frowning, looking visibly and utterly angered.

'You're taking the piss, right?' he asked earnestly, almost hopefully. Alex shook his head.

'Not at all.'

'Language, young man! LANGUAGE!' This outburst came from Agatha, who was stroking her pizza box. 'Fluffy hates bad language!' Dante ignored her and faced Alex, looking at him critically.

'Somehow I thought that the ghost of Christmas to come would have been a hell of a lot older,' he said, his tone of voice airing only too clearly his doubts. He earned himself an angry glare for all his pains.

'Oh shut up, ponce,' snapped Alex. Dante scratched his head, looking confused before pointing at Agatha.

'If you're the ghost of Christmas to come, then what the hell is she?'

'Oh. She is the ghost of Christmas past.'

'So where's the ghost of Christmas present?' There was a pause before Dante groaned, clapping his hands to his eyes. 'Don't tell me. The pizza box is the ghost of Christmas present?'

'No, dinkus,' snarled Alex. 'The pizza box has nothing to do with this. The ghost of Christmas present is Angela.'

'So where's this broad then?'

'She couldn't come.'

'Why?'

'She's on vacation. She went to the Bahamas for a well deserved break.'

'Okay. Fine. Whatever. But why exactly are you guys here? What's all this got to do with me?' Alex sighed as though Dante's question had been exceedingly stupid. He gave him a pitying look.

'For someone who said that they had red "A Christmas Carol" you sure can't remember much at all, can you?' Dante growled in reply to this, feeling that the kid was trying to get the better of him somehow. He cast about wildly for something to say but then found he couldn't, yet the boy continued to look at him expectantly. He sighed, deciding to admit to the somewhat pitiful truth.

'The language was too hard.' Alex raised his eyebrows before shaking his head.

'Well anyway, the reason why we're here is to try and scare you shitless therefore helping you to see the error of your ways.' At this point, Alex stopped and looked up at the demon hunter, taking in the sight of his sword and his guns. Then his eyes slid over to look at Agatha. Well, he'd been able to survive talking to her without wetting his pants and Alex was lightly impressed as a result. 'But since that obviously won't work, we're just going to try and talk to you instead.'

'Huh?'

'This is going to be one hell of a long night,' Alex muttered under his breath, staring at Dante through narrowed eyes, who promptly decided that he was going to return the stare by rolling his eyes in a demented fashion and poking his tongue out.

'Hey look, I'm Gollum!' Then he choked. When Dante's eyes eventually stopped watering, he was ashamed to see that even Agatha was staring at him as though he was not all there. Then she petted her pizza box and called it to heel. He cleared his throat, dusted off his clothes and looked at Alex in a grave manner.

'Okay then. Talk to me. I don't like talking to the undead or spirits or whatever so you're pretty damn lucky that I haven't tried to shoot you already.'

'In short, Dante, you are acting like a sap and if you're not careful, you're going to turn into Reiko.' Dante gasped, his face one of horror.

'No! No! Anything but that!'

'Scary thought, isn't it?' Alex agreed, delighted to have found a way to scare Dante shitless after all. There was hope yet! Agatha also looked pleased but for a different reason entirely. She had just successfully toilet trained her pizza box.

'Good Fluffy! I knew you had it in you!' she crooned. Dante forced his attention back to Alex, who he now noticed to be hovering slightly above the ground. This irritated him. It wasn't fair that they could fly without wings, without having to transform. He was insanely jealous. Alex broke into his thoughts by speaking yet again.

'You might be wondering why Agatha is the ghost of Christmas past even though it's obvious that she is…'

'Nutso?'

'Eccentric was the word that would have been more appropriate.' Alex saw no need to admit to the fact that when he was by himself, he called Agatha a lot worse. Grandkids these days…

'I still think nutso is better,' Dante murmured thoughtfully, as though Alex was actually interested in his opinion. The ghost, irritated that he had something in common with the demon hunter on one of his bad days, when his brain refused to work.

'You would! You're thick!' he snapped. Dante growled and snarled looking for all the world like a bad tempered wolf that had just been hit in the ass by a pigeon that had been knocked off course.

'Shut up! I can be serious when I want to be! Cretin!' Vergil would have been proud that Dante had been able to use that word in the right context. Well, the Vergil of old anyway…The thought of his brother suddenly filled him with an awful sense of sadness and longing, as well as anger, a dangerous combination if there ever was one. Alex sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose, clearly extremely frustrated at this point. Dante was unaware, lost again in his thoughts and memories.

'Come with me, Dante.' Alex said softly, wanting to cut him off before he probed any deeper into his mind. Dante nodded mutely before moving closer to him. Alex quickly took a hold of his hand, which caused Dante to yelp and pull his hand away.

'What the hell are you doing? I'm not a paedophile! You look under eighteen!' he yelled.

'All I did was hold your hand!'

'What are you, gay or something? If a person walked past us and saw us holding hands what conclusions d'you think they'd reach, huh?' Alex rolled his eyes at Dante's outburst.

'You homophobes are so pathetic. I'm not gay but if I was, would you be scared?'

'Scared? Scared?' Dante positively bristled at the thought of being called anything less than brave. 'I'm not scared! You prat!'

'Nice to see that the English language of England has rubbed off on you.'

'Shut up!'

'Anyway, if you want to see the future, you'll have to take my hand.'

'No!'

'Would you rather hold my crotch instead or something?'

'…' Dante was shocked and repulsed into a stunned silence.

'Hand it is then, I assume.' Dante bowed his head as though in defeat and offered his hand to Alex, who took it without hesitation and warped off, much to Dante's surprise. A minute later, they were in what appeared to be the same street.

'Here we are, two years from your present!' Alex sang cheerfully. Dante found himself itching for his guns at that moment. Alex didn't seem to notice, or if he did then he simply couldn't have cared less. This did nothing to calm Dante's somewhat frayed temper but he forced himself to swallow his unreasonable rage. Alex started to walk forward, and, seeing nothing else that was better that he could be doing instead, Dante had no choice but to follow him.

'Isn't the ghost of Christmas past meant to talk to me first?'

'Well…we tried that but instead she got you talking about her dog instead.'

'All I saw was a pizza box.'

'You'll find it's easier to humour her. Trust me, you don't want to get on her bad side. Besides, she did do the job she was meant to do anyway. She reminded you of your family.'

'No, she just reminded me of grandmother Bob.'

'Exactly, she's family, right?'

'I only met her three times.'

'But because of her, you got to thinking about the rest of your family, right?'

'That's stupid. I think about my family all the time. I didn't need any reminding,' Dante objected angrily. Alex paused and then looked sheepish.

'Oh…in that case, Agatha really is a good for nothing!' Dante didn't know what to say to this outrageously mean comment. He felt like rising to the little old lady's defence, seeing how he quite liked her despite all her madness. So, instead of keeping his silence like any other normal person would have done, he decided to stick his foot in it.

'That's not a nice thing to say.'

'I'm the ghost of Christmas to come. The ghosts before me were never nice. I'm just living up to the stereotype.'

'Oh. Quite. Where are we going anyway?' he asked at this point. Alex pointed at a little house. 'The house of extreme smallness? No one's been living in there since…since…well…since before I was born!' Dante spluttered, not sure how long exactly that actually was when he came to trying to figure it out for himself.

'Well…someone lives there now though.' Alex peeked in through the window. Dante, feeling even more of a pervert, also followed suit, seeing no alternative but to do whatever Alex did. It felt kind of like playing "Follow the Leader" with Vergil when he was four. Vergil was always the leader, and once they climbed over the fence, went through town, went through the woods, the swamp and then back through the swamp, the woods, the town centre and back over the fence and through the back garden and then finally, back home. Vergil had been totally immaculate in his appearance but poor Dante had looked as though he had spent the entire afternoon swimming through the back of a garbage dumpster.

Eva had not been happy to say the least. With her in his mind, he looked through the window and gasped at the sight that befell him.

'MOM??' Alex slapped him over the head.

'No! You idiot! That's Trish. One would think that you would be able to tell the difference by now!'

'Well it's difficult sometimes,' Dante whimpered, his eyes watering from the overly hard smack. 'Mom used to dress like that from time to time. Then Dad would get pleased and they'd run upstairs. Sometimes Mom even had a whip. I never really understood why Dad would get all happy though. I'd be terrified!'

Alex had no idea what to say to this. All he knew was that he was now totally and utterly traumatized and that he wanted to take out his brain, put it in the dishwasher and get those terrible terrible thoughts and memories out of his mind.

For a while, Dante watched Trish watch the TV. Then something finally occurred to him.

'Why is Trish in the house of extreme smallness? Shouldn't she be living with me?' Alex looked pleased that Dante had noticed something by himself without any aid to speak of whatsoever.

'Well Dante,' he began in unctuous tones. 'This is what will happen in the next two years if you don't get your act together. Trish will become so annoyed with you and the way how you try to kill anyone who says the littlest thing that is not complimentary to their own family, to your family or even the homeless bugger at Bog's End's family.'

'Like Arson.'

'You see? And he has a good reason for hating his mother. Eventually no one will want to drop by for a visit. Trish loves her friends. She adores them. Yet you'll deprive her of one of her only joys. She'll stay by your side faithfully but then she'll eventually turn miserable because of your temper and growing intolerance of other people. Then she will be more than pleased to leave you.'

'Me? Intolerant? That doesn't sound like me at all.'

'Who do you dislike at the moment? I guarantee there's a quality that you will dislike with everything that you have about one of your friends. Go on, tell me!'

'You talk so much shit! I'm perfectly happy with them!' Dante hissed under his breath, his aquamarine eyes narrowing.

'And you say I'm the one talking shit? You are a liar.'

'Am not!' Alex was about to respond with the age old come back, but he stopped and told himself that childish behaviour was below his station, that he was not about to engage in a stupid fight with Dante that had no end until Dante got tired. And he knew that Dante could be as stubborn as a mule when he wanted to be. It really wasn't worth the trouble. Instead, he decided to try and come back with a more adult approach.

'Then tell me. One quality. That's all I ask. One quality about each of your friends.' Alex looked him straight in the eye, the expression on his face questioning and expectant. Dante hesitated under the close scrutiny before taking a deep breath.

'Okay. Well, let's first start with Arson…if…if that is okay with you?' Alex nodded his head in confirmation. Dante took another deep breath as though bracing himself.

'He goes nothing!' he bellowed. And then he fell silent, his expression frozen into one of defiance. Alex cleared his throat and frowned when he saw that this action evoked no response whatsoever.

'Any time you are ready, Dante,' he prompted. He wondered idly whether he should perhaps give the demon hunter a mighty poke in between his ribs in order to get him moving again. At that point, Dante jerkily moved his head so then he was staring directly at the ghost. His eyes looked unfocused and he looked somewhat terrified about the whole business.

'Okay,' he merely said again. Alex smiled and waited. When a whole minute had passed and it had become obvious that the demon hunter was not making any move to speak, the ghost gave vent to a low annoyed growl and put on his most grown-up voice, which made him sound like a teacher that would have no qualms about murdering any pupil if they so much as dared to get any answer wrong to any question.

'I'd like to get an answer sometime before the next minute if you don't mind, Dante,' the ghost snarled, suggesting that even if Dante had minded he would not be able to do anything about it. His voice suggested that Dante did not have the even the slightest choice in the matter, but could only do as had been asked of him. Dante tried again to stall for time.

'Just the one quality, right?'

'That's right, Dante. Unless you have more than just one thing to say.' Dante needed no second bidding and Alex realized with a sudden jolt as to why Dante had been trying so hard to stall for time. The reason was one that startled him badly, almost to the point where he thought that he might actually faint. Dante had been stalling simply because he was trying to decide which quality to pick out of so many! He gulped and watched Dante with a type of horrified fascination.

'I can't stand Arson because of the fact that he's so whiny! It's like "Oh noes! I have no strawberries! What do I dooooooooooo!" and if he doesn't get what he wants then he goes all mardy and moody and sulky and refuses to talk to anyone.'

'So…what was it that he started sulking over?'

'Well, when his date stood him up. When his date turned out to be a man. When his date broke up with him on the first date. When he failed an exam.'

'Dante, that's not him sulking. That's called being ashamed. Don't you see that he just wants to make you pleased?'

'…eh?'

'Never mind. Do carry on.'

'What's with the hyperness? Actually, I don't mind the hyperness when I'm not the one who's being victimized.' Dante started chortling at some memory known only to himself. Evidently, it was something that was extremely funny for Dante dedicated a full twenty minutes to his hearty laughter. Alex had begun to suspect that the demon hunter had turned totally and utterly insane, and that there was no hope of him regaining his mind any time soon before the 1st of January. In fact, he was quite hopeful that this would be the case; if it was true then it meant that he could go home early and could relax instead of spending a long and tedious night with this moron who insisted on wearing red leather. But it was not to be. Alex breathed out a sad sigh as Dante calmed down enough to carry on with his long rant.

'Because I'm going in alphabetical order, next is Jester. He makes me want to gouge my eyes out.'

'You consider him a friend?'

'No, but I need to get this burden off my chest now that I have the opportunity.'

'Oh right. Fair enough. I guess…' Alex said, sounding totally unconvinced about the matter. Dante resumed his ranting, the look on his face one of extreme happiness.

'Jester makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon because of his nose, which could eventually gouge out my eyes for me. I also can't stand his disgusting voice. It's even shriller and more screechy than a woman who's having a good time sleeping with me!' Alex said nothing to this arrogant comment but merely shook his head slowly out of sheer bemusement. 'Another thing about Jester is his love for pissing me off. I've never been so glad as when I heard that Lady killed the crusty old bastard. Only my father carries off the colour purple with some sort of style and even that style is highly questionable. Mom didn't seem to have liked it anyway so it must have been bad. But I thought it was pretty cool.' Dante showed no sign of stopping soon. Alex sighed and watched him with a bleak expression on his face.

'And you said that you were tolerant, Dante?'

'Jester's a bad guy. I'm allowed to hate his guts. I can be as intolerant of him as I want!'

'Fair enough. Please, do continue. I want so much to hear what else you think,' said Alex, sounding for all the world as though he would rather jump off a plane while strapped to an elephant, neither of them having a parachute to speak of. And before you ask, the elephant is not Dumbo. Dante however, did not pick up on Alex's tone of voice and continued, his eyes shining with enthusiasm, a wide happy grin on his face which made Alex want to puke.

'Next on my list is Reiko.'

'I thought you said you were going to do this in alphabetical order?' Alex asked, feeling close to exhaustion. Dante fell silent before shaking his head.

'Yeah…but that didn't work out very well at all.'

'I…I see,' Alex said weakly, though he really couldn't understand Dante's point at all. However, he had come to adopting the same technique he used in dealing with his grandmother. Agree. Humour them. It was just so much easier that way. With this thought in mind, he settled back, leaning against the wall of the house of extreme smallness and prepared himself to listen to Dante's highly odd and disturbing thoughts, which would probably give him nightmares for the rest of this year and the next. He thought longingly of Anmgela. Why didn't he ask for a holiday first? Yet his was the most important job when it came down to the crunch, they couldn't just get anyone to be the ghost of Christmas to come after all! Dante had begun speaking again, passionately, loudly.

'I don't understand why he has to be the broody one. And I don't understand why he has to be so bloody melodramatic all the time! Sure he's a vampire and sure he's meant to have a dark character but wouldn't it be refreshing if there was a cheerful vampire?'

'Well Rayne-'

'Is an idiot. Let's not talk about him.'

'Fair enough.'

'Does Reiko have to overdo the whole dark persona and the whole broody sad thing? And even worse is the fact that when he does anything with a sad look on his face, he makes everyone weepy and makes everyone want to hug him! What about me? Why don't I get hugged? I can be broody too you know!' Al;ex said nothing but almost choked at Dante's next words. 'These OCs, these original characters. They keep trying to steal the show. I hate them all, hate them all! I'll make them pay!' Alex was obviously quite upset by these words, being an original character himself and thus being a staunch supporter of the OCs that had come to visit the Devil May Cry fandom.

'Well, somebody must love them,' he said amicably. Dante merely sneered in reply.

'Well they should be shot too!' he growled murderously. Alex gave him a cold glare in response, angered.

'The writer of this story itself is a staunch OC supporter, you know. As a result, she could have you killed off at any moment!'

'She would never do that,' Dante boasted, entirely at ease and confident of his own greatness. Alex narrowed his eyes and smirked, looking for all the world like the dirty smelly stray cat that had finally caught the nice kind lonely lady's pet yellow canary. And had then proceeded to eat it without the smallest shred of regret or guilt. Dante looked at him uncertainly. 'What is it?'

'Let's just say that she's already killed you in one fic and your place of male protagonist has been stolen away.' Alex delivered his message with an inordinate amount of glee. Dante had the grace to look utterly horrified. That is, he had no grace at all when in the face of bad news.

'What? How could this have happened?'

'Well one day she was taking a shower and…'

'Never mind. More importantly, who is it that has stolen my leading role?' Dante asked, his eyes filled with worry and stress. If it is Vergil, I shall have to kill myself.

'I cannot bear to tell you, Dante,' Alex lied, hanging his head so then he could hide his delighted smile. Dante's lip trembled.

'I insist.'

'Fine…' Alex said softly before hesitating, drawing out the painful dread inspiring silence. 'It's…'

'Yes?'

'It's…It's your father!' Dramatic music began to play as Dante fell to his knee and screamed.

'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!' Alex massaged the bridge of his nose again, angered by the implementation of the overused but still very famous scene. The dramatic music came to an abrupt halt as the ghost slapped the hunter upside the head with a newpaper. No need to tell Dante that a dog had peed on it only a second earlier.

'Calm down!' Dante obediently got up and sniffled before the first traces of a smile began to tentatively make their appearance.

'Okay,' he said before his full thoughts took shape.

At least he didn't say Vergil…

'Oh and Vergil is the protagonist in a different fic altogether.'

'GAH!' Dante clapped his hands to his mouth as though he was going to be sick before he glared at Alex in annoyance. 'Did you have to tell me that?'

'Of course. I'm the ghost of Christmas to come. We're meant to be as mean as possible. It's our job.'

'Then Vergil would be perfect at it,' Dante grumbled under his breath. Seeing the extremely angered stare that the demon hunter was aiming at him, Alex thought it would be prudent and wise if he got back on track and tried to further to plot. Dante also seemed to think the same, for he made a visible effort to calm himself.

'Why exactly did you ask me to list bad qualities about my friends?' he asked.

'Well…'

'Can I rant about two more people?' Dante asked eagerly, forgetting all about plot developments.

'Well…' Alex sighed, about to refuse when Dante took matters into his own hands.

'Good!' he exclaimed with glee. 'The next person I shall rant about now is none other than Lucia. Is she blind? Can't she see that as much as I like her as a person, I hate her? She is a brilliant fighter, certainly, and her accent does have a certain charm, so does her arse but really, that's about it. Her hairstyle scares me, her horrible lipstick that doesn't match her skin tone also gives me the heebie-jeebies and even worse is the fact that when she hugs me, it's like being sat on by a killer whale! I mean, hugs are okay when they're done normally but her hugs? She tries to suffocate me! What kind of normal behaviour is that?' Alex made a mental note to get in touch with this Lucia. Who knew, maybe Lucia was hiding her hate for Dante with affection. Maybe her trying to suffocate Dante with hugs was really a clever way of trying to kill him, a plan inspired by a lot of secret hate and resentment that he didn't feel the same way about her as she did for him. Then Alex was struck by a terrible thought. That he might have to endure more and more of this, and that now that he had got Dante started, that he would never ever stop.

Dante looked at Alex at that point as though begging for some kind of sympathy. Alex just sat there, frozen with horror at the thought that he would have to try and live through more of Dante's inane prattling. It almost made him feel sick and if he wasn't a ghost, he was sure that he would have heaved a couple of times. But no…it was simply not the done thing. Neither was throwing bricks come to think of it. Yet another possibility that had been destroyed. Dante mistook his look of illness for one that understood how he felt when dealing with the overly friendly devil.

'My next rant is directed at Vergil. Now, being half a devil and all I'm bisexual but as you know, I prefer ladies any day, right? But if there's a good looking guy…well…but I'd never never get into any shit with my brother. I mean, he's evil! Look at the way he keeps eating those gingerbread men! It's horrible, it's cruel! I'd never do anything with a guy like that and I'm trying to let the whole world know! But then he goes around and spoils it by acting so…so…vain…as if he wants to look good. And he doesn't meet many other people apart from Trish and myself. Trish looks like Mom so she's off-limits, even to him. But the thing is, why does he want to look good for? Does he want to look good for me or something? So it's not helping to stop the flow of the incest fics at all…'

'You do realize that you've hurt half of the members of this fandom now, right?'

'Yeah well…'

'And because of Vergil's appearance in Devil May Cry 3, you have more fans than you ever did before, right?'

'I guess…'

'And because of the vague possibility that you and your twin share a special "bond" more and more people have been coming to join the fandom, right?'

At this point, Dante began to think of changing his morals. Hey, publicity was publicity and who didn't want that? Well…lots of people sure. Besides if he did indulge himself in this whole yaoi bond thing, maybe he'd be able to persuade Vergil to stop terrorizing the poor men of gingerdom.

'Are you quite finished now, Dante?' Alex asked, his tone annoyed and bored.

'Yes,' replied Dante, subdued.

'Good. The point that I was making, and the point that you have just proved for me is that you have already become hopelessly intolerant of people and this will only continue to grow and grow until you end up pushing everyone away from you. Yes, even Trish. Do you see what you must do?'

'Yes!' Dante cried, much to Alex's relief. This was short-lived. 'Commit incest!'

'NO YOU DIMWIT!' Alex roared. 'Get your ass back in there and be kind and caring and be a little more tolerant of people and their faults! After all, it's not as though you don't have faults of your own you know.'

It soon transpired that this was exactly the wrong thing to say to anyone who was of the Sparda bloodline. Dante immediately became apoplectic with rage, his eyes bulging, his head looking as though it was about to explode.

'Me! Faults! I have no faults! I am Dante, Son of Sparda, The Legendary Dark Knight! I can do no wrong and I am wonderful in every way! I am bold! I am honourable! I am courageous! I don't do drugs and I don't smoke and I change my underwear everyday! I am Dante the Man! Dante the Magnificent! Dante the Righteous! Dante the Hygienic!'

'Turning your boxers inside out does not count as changing them.'

'What do you know, Buttmunch?' Dante snapped. Alex raised his hands in surrender.

'Fine fine, do whatever you want! Die alone and miserable for all I care!'

'Okay!' Dante sang. And without another word, Alex teleported Dante back to his present, but because they had been gone for such a long time, it was already Christmas Day. Dante didn't care though, all that mattered was that he was right outside his house, where Trish was waiting anxiously. Alex flipped him off and disappeared, pissed off and irritated. It was time to go home and get tanked on beers while watching the TV.