Howdy-Ho Everybody!
Pen and pencil? Check. Wallet, keys? Check. New contact lenses in place? Check. And, off-list, eyes are throbbing because of them. Vance Rosewood silently went over his final preparations. Dante had spent 3 days setting him up for this, the first day of school. Senior year.
'Hopefully it won't be fun as sophomore year.' Vance thought. He was referring to the incident that had set him on this path in the first place. It had all started one year and a half ago...
"Vance! You're going to be late son!" His half-plastic stepmother called. Dante and Trish didn't know about that yet, but Vance felt no need to tell them; everybody deserves a few secrets.
"I'm coming down soon!" Vance called back. He gave himself one more go-over in the mirror. He was wearing dark blue jeans ("Baggy, not saggy" Dante had told him.) A plain white shirt, with a white-striped open blue shirt on top of it. But the contacts still bothered him. He didn't look right without his glasses. With a sigh and a quick decision, Vance removed the contacts and replaced them with his new glasses. They were slim and handsome as opposed to the thick ones he'd been wearing. (His parents had bought them some weeks before, they were supposed to be a school day present) "I guess that worked out after all" Vance muttered under his breath.
Vance made his way downstairs where his younger sister and artificially tanned step-mother awaited. Vance gave an involuntary shudder when she smiled at him; it was eerie to watch. Her face seemed so inflexible...Vance didn't know where she got the muscle to move her jaws.
"Cold, son?" She asked cheerily after seeing the muscle spasm from Vance. He hated it when she called him son. It wasn't that he didn't like the woman, but he was definately not her son.
"A little." Vance lied. His sister snorted into her Frosted Flakes. Vance ignored her. "Well, anyway dear you should probably get a jacket then. Your bus is on the way I can hear it."
A few minutes later, Vance stepped outside with his sister. He took a breath. This was it.
Dante was bored. He told Trish as much. "Hey Trish! I'm bored." Trish sighed. "That's nice Dante." she replied, not taking her eyes off of her work. Wait, work? "Trish? What is that anyway?"
Trish looked at him. "Its none of your business." This of course only served to intrigue the red-clad devil hunter further.
"Oooh, touchy, touchy," Dante said, sliding up to the blonde for a better viewpoint. "You know friends shouldn't keep secrets from one another." Dante attempted to peek at the manuscript Trish held, but was blocked when she folded the paper up and tucked it away.
"It's a get rich quick scheme" Trish told him. "And you are not involved." With that, she retreated to her room on the second floor and stayed there. Dante sighed and sprawled himself over the couch. He needed to do something. Anything. 'Maybe I should call somebody.' He immediately dismissed the thought; he'd need somebody to call first. "God, do I need some friends." He pushed himself to his feet. "Hey! I'm going out!" He called.
No response. He shrugged and picked up his guns and took Cerberus from the wall behind his desk. He used to keep all of his weapons on the walls or on a rack, but ever since those idiot gang kids broke in and tried to take Alastor... 'Kids really shouldn't touch things if they can't handle being impaled.' Luckily, Dante had been around at the time and managed to grab the lightning blade as it was speeding toward a teen's face. Now he kept the more dangerous items in places less accessible to the public.
Holstering his guns, and clipping Cerberus to his back, Dante picked up his coat and swept out of the door. When all else failed, he headed to the bar.
At first, Vance let himself sink back into his former habits. His shoulders dropped and he bowed his head, resigning himself to another day of either being pushed around or being ignored entirely. But then Vance stood up straight, and his forced himself to show off a reckless grin (he'd almost mastered it) that announced that he was ready to face the day. He remembered Dante's advice.
No, no, no. Tomorrow, in fact, this entire week, your objective is not to impress your girl-friend. Your objective is to simply make it through the day and show people that you are not the same person they've taken you for. This year, you aren't going to take crap from anybody...well, except me of course. So, go in there tomorrow and don't let yourself be defeated by yourself. Your problem is confidence. We are going to turn that into your greatest strength. It applies to women, to friends, to enemies, to fighting demons. Now, show me your grin.
Now that Vance went over it in his mind, flashback style, it sounded incredibly corny for the demon-slayer. It only made Vance believe it more. For Dante to say something detestable like that, it had to be true.
Vance walked through the school doors and took a second to stop and look around. Everything looked great, considering the huge fire that swept through it Sophomore year and all. Most of the school had been damn near burnt down. However, while the news and the school board called it a freak accident, Vance wondered if they had noticed that even the ceramic tile was aflame. Luckily, they had had a guardian angel watching over them.
—Flashback—
Vance had been in Biology class at the time, ignoring whatever the teacher was saying and instead admiring how great his crush looked with safety goggles on. Unfortunately, they had been assigned partners for whatever lab they were working on and Vance never got paired with Her.
Meanwhile, he saw some flicker of light out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look at the source properly and saw some kind of orange winged-creature fluttering about the room. No one else seemed to have noticed. Then he looked through the small window on the classroom's door and watched as a dim glow turned into a huge light in the hallway.
It occurred to him that the school was on fire. He raised his hand. "Um...Ms. Jackson, I think the school's on fire." Ms. Jackson stopped at that. She had never known Vance to lie, he was evermore the perfect student, but she looked out of the window and saw nothing.
"Poppycock, Mr. Rosewood. If the school was on fire then we would surely hear the fire alarms by now." Their experiment continued, but Vance was no longer part of it. He was entranced by the dancing light outside the classroom. He was even beginning to feel the heat from the fire. The orange bat had been joined by two more in the classroom; together they danced about, seemingly setting off sparks.
'I've got to be hallucinating. Apparently that fever I had yesterday hasn't gone away. Maybe I should call the nurse.' He was stopped when She raised Her hand.
"Ms. Jackson, I think that kid was right, I think the school's on fire." A few people chuckled and after checking the window, Ms. Jackson waved Her concerns away like she did Vance's.
Vance wondered if She was simply trying to make fun of him. But he saw the worried look on Her face and decided that she saw the same thing that he did. Mustering up his courage, he reached out and tapped Her. She spun around and he pointed silently to the corner where the orange bats were. Her eyes widened and Vance watched as the bats touched down onto a counter.
The effect was immediate. The counter caught fire and it spread throughout the classroom as though it were alive. Suddenly, there was motion and sound. The fire alarms were blaring. The school was on fire. People screamed and ran for the door, but the handle was too hot to touch and turn.
The Windows! The students surged toward the outside grounds but was cut off as flame intersected their path. They were trapped. Some of the girls were crying. She was crying too. Vance could have taken this opportunity to run over and comfort her, but he was scared to death as well. He couldn't move.
The flame circled them in a way that made it seem eerily alive. They were all going to burn to death. Then, the man-in-the-red-coat knocked down the door.
—Present Time—
Jasmine was overjoyed to see Dante again. As Dante sat down at the counter, she slid him one of his preferred drinks, the Bloody-Mary. "How are you Dante?" She asked, affection layered heavily in her voice.
"Not too bad. Its been a slow work week." Dante replied. He sipped on his drink. The alcohol burned down his throat and he shook himself awake. "When do you get your break?" He asked her.
"A couple of minutes." She told him as customers sat down at the bar. "I'll be right back."
"Don't worry about it, go do your thing." Dante said, waving her away. Dante turned on his stool to survey the rest of the pub. There were several groups of extremely nervous looking people that kept glancing at him. 'Demons...the regular low-class.' In a few minutes, they would be leaving quickly and quietly, trying to avoid his attention.
Plenty of demons resided here in the human realms, trying to live out their lives as one of them among their unknowing neighbors. Plenty succeeded and were no trouble at all, but they still seemed to frequent various centers of alcoholic activity. It was foolish to act on their demonic urges and steal away a humans life, but some bad habits were hard to break. Demons in the human realm often couldn't resist one of two treats...the human body, or the human soul.
Humans were often ready to make bad decisions at these type of places. Easy pickings.
By now, many of the demons had left the pub. If they were smart, they wouldn't come back at all. If they were stupid, they wouldn't be back for a long time. Jasmine had returned as well, and she sat down beside him.
"So, how's school? You've been keeping your grades up?" Dante asked her without removing his eyes from his surroundings. Now the demons who had genuinely come only for the beer were starting to get a little anxious. Dante shrugged and took his eyes off of them. Some things just liked beer.
"You know I have." jasmine said proudly. "College is easy, and a lot safer than High school was." She said, laughing.
Dante grinned. "Good to hear. We sure as hell don't want a repeat of that. In fact, I know another kid who was there too."
"Really?" Jasmine asked, interested. "What's his name?"
"Vance. Rosewood. He starts his Senior year today."
—Flashback—
"So! Lucia's a psychologist now huh?" Dante asked Trish from the passenger side of their brand-new corvette. "That oughta be interesting." Dante said with a grin. He was basically talking to himself. Trish was too busy trying out her car. She made a sharp left turn down some street or another and accelerated. They passed a school and something in Dante's mind twitched.
"Trish! Stop the car!" Trish slammed on the brakes and Dante smashed his face against the dashboard. "Ack!"
Trish whirled at him. "What!" She shouted.
Dante shouted back. "The HELL do you mean what! How about I'm SORRY! You just mashed my head on your dashboard!"
With a frightened gasp she shoved Dante back and inspected her dashboard. "Dante, you better not have left a dent in my car!"
"Oh to hell with this! Just let me out!" Dante shouted angrily. He fumbled for the door handle and tumbled from the car. He picked himself up, slammed the car door shut then leaned in through the side window. "This is why there should be a law against women drivers!"
"Fine then Dante! You can walk home!" With the evil cackle of someone who had gone mad with power, she sped off.
"Wait!" Dante shouted after her. "You've got Rebellion in the trunk!" Too late. She was gone. Dante swore and turned to the school. "I knew it." Dante growled under his breath. The school was aflame, and it got that way through demonic energy. Dante swore again. There were bound to be students trapped inside, and bound to be demons running amuck as well.
And he'd have to handle it without a sword.
Dante strode up to the front door while rolling his sleeves back to his elbows. "I am never going anyplace with that woman again." He promised himself. "All she does is cause trouble for ME!"