DEVIL MAY CRY

THE

BATTLEGROUND

CHAPTER IV

The Legendary Dark Knight quickly changed his pattern of thought from his dead son to the Demon in front of him. Sparda slowly looked upward toward the incoming ax headed straight for him. He shook his head and smiled to himself.

"Demons just don't learn."

Sparda closed his eyes.

Within an instant, a gray, misty substance began to emanate from his body. He could feel the anger building inside of him. Sharp, needling pains began to radiate throughout him; a feeling he had grown accustomed to since discovering the Devil Trigger within.

As the ax came down, he opened his eyes. A large orange ball of fire engulfed Sparda as he morphed into his true Demon form. He grew larger and more demonic; almost half the size of his giant enemy.

The Furiataurus froze as Sparda looked up into its eyes. With lightning fast speed, Sparda equipped his sword and lunged at the Furiataurus….

There was a sudden flash of white and red as the entire Battleground seemed to erupt.

Then, like nothing had happened, Sparda appeared on the other side of the Demon with his back turned. He casually placed his sword on his back as he turned off the 'trigger' from within himself, causing him to change back to his original form.

The Furiataurus shook its massive head, blinked its eyes, and then turned to Sparda. It hesitated, then held its ax high and let out a roaring battle cry.

But before it knew what was happening, a large portion of the demon's left arm fell off. Its right arm followed, causing the giant mallet-ax it was wielding to come crashing down mere feet away from Sparda.

As larger pieces of the great demon continued to fall off and break away, it fell to one knee.

Sparda turned around and took one last look into its frightened eyes.

"Send Mundus my regards."

With that, the mighty Furiataurus was reduced to a pile of ash before the feet of Sparda.

He surveyed the BattleGround. The one thing he hated was the unholy silence after a battle. It made him feel like he was the only soul left on the planet.

Sparda took a deep breath and looked up into the dark red sky.

"Dante…"

The roar of the Demon spectators intensified as Dante pointlessly tried to struggle out of his thick chains.

The armoured beast that was holding the mace held it high above his head.

"Demons of the Underworld, this mace has tasted many different warriors blood, but it has yet to taste the blood of a Sparda!"

The demons howled and screeched in approval. The spiked warrior before Dante looked down at him.

"Until now," he said quietly, his orange, cracked lips forming into what resembled a smile. Dante lifted his head off of the elevator.

"You can take that mace and shove it up your ass." The demon's smile quickly faded as Dante grinned.

Every Demon in the Amphitheater was silent.

Knowing he should shut his mouth, Dante continued. "What, no one else that you've tortured had the balls to mouth off to you, sweetheart?"

He tilted his head cockily to the side. The torturer was dumb-founded. If he was going to go out, he was going out with a fight.

Dante leaned up even closer toward him. "Well I'm Dante Sparda, and guess what, I have balls you son of a bitch!"

With his last word, he spat at the Demon. It landed right on his cheek. Infuriated, the torturer roared and swung the mace.

Dante looked away….

And before he knew what was going on, the mace-wielding torturer was lying on the ground in a pool of its own blood. The mace landed on the elevator next to Dante. He looked in front of him.

There was a cloaked figure standing there with a sword held in his hands.

Dante could not make out his face due to the shadow from the hood of the cloak, but could he tell that his eyes were a dark green. The cloak ended halfway down the creature's legs, revealing his dark gray skin wrapped in a set offleshy green veins. Gracefully, he slashed through the chains that bound Dante to the demonic elevator.

Dante looked down at his hands and feet, then at the cloaked figure. He was very puzzled. Before Dante could say anything, the levels upon levels of Demons lost control. They had caught sight of the intruder and began to jump and crawl down from the levels that they were on.

The cloaked figure quickly glanced at the demons, then calmly looked at Dante.

"Son of Sparda, come with me."

Dante just frowned and stared into his strange, green eyes. The strange warrior's voice was deep and seemed to echo throughout his mind.

He had heard that voice before.

Dante was quickly snapped from his aura as the cloaked figure grabbed his wrist and yanked him off of the elevator. A flaming projectile created a small flaming dent where Dante's head should have been.

Dante stumbled and fell as he tried to regain his footing. The angry Demons were getting closer. As they reached the ground level, they began to hurl their weapons and projectiles at their fleeing prisoner.

Dante started to sprint, but quickly found himself on the ground again. He had tripped over a small rock in the Amphitheater's surface.

The cloaked figure, not realizing Dante had fallen, rushed back to his aid and helped him up. Dante bolted after the mysterious figure, who moved strangely with the speed and focus of his father.

Two giant stone pillars with tribal markings indicated the edge of the Amphitheater. As they neared the end of the demonic room, the cloaked figure halted and glanced at Dante. He looked at the edge, and pointed down. There was a steep, rocky ledge with a small body of water underneath it at least sixty feet down.

Knowing already what the figure would say, Dante let him jump first then leapt off of the edge after him, his red trenchcoat flailing behind him as he did.

Dante opened his eyes as soon as he felt the water consume him. He managed to spot out the cloaked figure, seeing how his green eyes shone like flashlights and he was the only moving black object in the water.

He hesitated for a moment, then looked above him. He could still hear the screams and roars of all the Demons above him. He didn't know if he should trust this person or not.

He soon made his decision to when a giant pair of scissors landed in the water next to him, nearly slicing his leg open. The scissors were followed by knives, swords, flaming projectiles of all types that almost took apart the Demon Hunter.

He let out small breaths of air as he glanced around him.

Knowing he had no other choice, Dante decided to follow the black image he saw through the mirage of weapons that pierced the water's surface.

As he began to swim in the cloaked figure's path, he found himself not short of breath. He was swimming fast, but it felt like his body was doing no work at all.

There was something very mystical about this warrior that seemed to draw Dante to him.

As Dante continued to swim, the weapons from Hell's angry Demons continued to shoot through the water and fly past him in all directions.

Strangely enough, he knew that as long as he swam in the cloaked figure's path, no harm would come to him….

Author's Note: Well, I've actually figured out the rest of the plot in my head. I plan to explain why Dante was fighting Mundus at the Temple in the first place, the identity of the cloaked figure and how Sparda managed to re-enter the human world. It's been like a full week since I pre-ordered Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening and I'm losing sleep over it. I just can't wait for it. Sooner or later I will go insane.