No, never abandoned.
Here's some music I find oddly fitting for the chapter at Dante sections, Final Fantasy XV OST Veiled in Black (Arrangement)
Chapter 28 ~ Never Say Die!
One hour had passed by through the foggy lands since Dante took to his pursuit of the grim brother, the boy overtaken by Mundus. So much time wasted on the way . . . Lady sought possible sanctity inside the church, but found its structure to simply be too unsound. The bounty hunter subsequently searched and searched around for some way to follow. The chase took the two towards the city, and Dante would not be beholden to any weaselly distractions on the part of the dark prince, not that he would do so anyway.
It had been a long night and that fact wore on her. It's not over yet.
She could see smoke in the distance and sought to move forward, but her legs were reticent and her eyes were weary.
A behemoth of a man was visible through the chilling mists, his assault on life clearly a genocide of biblical proportions, and the sounds of screaming citizens soon followed.
The shaking and the rumbling growls all shocked her human sensibilities, leaving her unable to bear this lonely cemetery any longer, treading along the flooded soil.
Was it just too late? Maybe she actually had died and Dante had never returned at all, it would explain this anomaly.
"I've not seen this beast on earth for some time." She heard Manah speak, not even aware he was close by, "Last I saw of it, Sparda was here, two millennia ago."
His words were met by complete silence, of course, and he understood that, such an incident was ancient history and thus prompted no reaction her. She held no concept of what two thousand years ago was even like for humankind. What a shame, teachings from those times are simply lost, and mortals tend not to care. Sadness was all he expected from her and she did not disappoint, in her own simple way.
"Oh, he's still alive, by the way. You shouldn't worry about that." He spoke words intuitive to her feeling.
Lady closed her eyes and took a moment to breathe . . . she sought the cold dusty sidewalk to sit and rest but it was still wet. She desired not to speak with the horned demon.
"What do you know?" She sighed, "With my luck, you're also secretly working for Mundus."
He would've felt insulted but, it wasn't worth it to speak on that topic.
"I know more than you'd give me credit for. Call it a thirteenth sense, if you will. I know what you feel, I see what eats away at you, unspoken grief. You're afraid of what he did to you, aren't you? You shouldn't fear him, Mundus's original trade was lies, he naturally manipulated his way to where he is now. He will only have power over you if you allow him so." He crossed his arms, a look of amused frustration was obvious in his face, "I'm surprised that I didn't catch anything about your resurrected friend."
She wondered how many senses he had. Lady placed her hand to her forehead. In all this time, the last thing she wanted was a self-important empath telling her how she felt. Nevertheless, it was quite shocking to see her old friend returned to life, at least for now, his cheerful candor so successfully pushing back against the darkness. Clearing her thoughts, she turned back toward the old devil and his rustic features.
"I've accepted the fact that he isn't part of this world anymore." She muttered.
Willpower: Honesty with herself was all that she needed.
That's what she told herself, was it not? His return had less to do with the connection they shared and more to do with his vendetta against that twisted being.
While he had been away, her own feelings had grown for his replacement.
It was faith in herself that had brought her this far, tearing through suicidal battle after suicidal battle, disemboweling any demon she fought . . . Her rage taken out on those rotting symbols was therapeutic, to say the least. For this cold cathartic moment, however, Lady's willpower had slipped from her grasp. Her determination had done little to weaken the demon king and free the man who held dominion in her heart, no matter what she told herself. It did not shield her from the sounds of Modeus screaming in agony as the demon king enjoyed stabbing him ever so slowly, forcing him to writhe and lurch on the ground. She heard it all and didn't have the strength to do something.
She was unavoidably human.
Even though she hadn't witness it, her mind did the work for her, imagining the gorges in his body and the rivers of blood that poured from.
The thoughts in her mind of what happened to him here will assuredly give her nightmares if she lived through this night its beautiful annihilation.
Even though she never knew him, she enjoyed his company and appreciated his strong help.
She guessed that if heaven existed, it worked on borrowed time, masquerading itself as something attainable by human hands. It brought a wonderful guilt to her knees.
"Ah . . ." She buried her face in both of her hands. The sense of helplessness had consumed her to a ridiculous level, "How can you tell?" She broke the silence.
"Tell what?" Manah asked.
"That Vergil's still alive?"
Manah smirked, he just couldn't help himself. Humans were pleasant, so much more capable than demons, yet inferior to them physically. Manah sighed and accepted it, her human nature a delightfully complex and interesting thing to him, perhaps he was just like old Sparda, the softy. But whereas the devil who could have been king had chosen to live amongst the humans, Manah was still usurious and manipulative of them, they were great tools and interesting people he still had so much left to figure out and understand.
And for Lady, progress had been made, so he explained.
"Because I can sense him. I can hear his voice, but it's faint, growing quieter as time moves on."
Her expression softened slightly, as though he made her happy on this dark night. Ever-quick was the passage of time, moving out beyond where there minds could perceive, drawing them in with its massive currents and eternal embrace. How brightly those awesome towers used to shine, the ingenuity of mankind taking itself from era to era, combatting demons and devils throughout forgotten history and through the gardens of Eden's paradise, tonight was the culmination of its long, long fight. And he gave her a warm smile that assured her that humans had been here a long time, and they'd stay here many years more. Free to walk the earth, free to roam the stars, free to fly like decadent fireflies glowing brightly in the darkness.
He adjusted his clothes in his usual sarcastic way, "Now excuse me, I have the battle to attend to."
He took one step before hearing a voice say softly to him, "Please, I know I can't do much, but . . . take me with you."
The old daemon stared back at her with a pensive look.
He cared about her in a strange way, as if she were important.
"There's going to be havoc. No place will be safe." He told her.
"I know, I-. . . I just can't. I can't sit by and watch him fight alone, he's always alone." She said, two lone tears falling from her face.
The beast looked down, and then returned his gaze to her, "As you wish."
With that, he took her hand and embraced her, and they leapt into the air and flew away, towards the looming war giant and his dark master. Blasting past through the wind, past the smoke of fires and past the demons of flight who sought to tear them down. Lady blitzing them with Dante's old shotgun. Zooming off to war, to the raging glow of the cities fires that became so apparent as the fog cleared. The demon of Manah's past, the murderous giant who sought to flatten all beings in its path a vagrant of rich devils and historic bloodshed.
And the red soul rode on through the hordes of the devil's warfare, undeterred, unfazed
Dante felt his rage boil within him, and to his luck, he saw a fleet of demons blocking the road forward. They were the Hell sloths if he remembers correctly. Rotting flesh and ancient white cloth folded around their decaying cadavers, the scythe was the final confirmation. So, Mundus had also called upon the power of the seven hells . . . He'd made many alliances, ensuring that the world would be his by any cost. His dominion must extend many places.
"Perfect timing. I got an itch you morons gotta scratch." He chuckled.
He was in a strange mood that seemed to be a mix between his typical cheerfulness and the sincere urge to slaughter everything in sight. Speeding through, Dante took a turn to the right, drifting the cavalier into the crowd as flipped off and tore the cycle in two down the middle, the ride naturally splitting and transforming into identical twin weapons, the wheels becoming deadly chainsaws that drilled their way into sand creatures, Dante dragging the righthand weapon through the face of an ardent Hell Sloth trying to drive its scythe into him. Pulverized into dust, he landed into the pack upon the release and went to work sawing and grinding his way through the infestation with reckless abandon.
Spires of sand emerged as used the split cycle, beasts torn apart with each stroke of the weapon. Handy that, transportation that also doubles as a dual set of chainsaws.
Dodging a rampant scythe coming at his neck, he ducked down then pushed off the ground and flipped in the air, conjoining the cycle back together.
Reassembled, he hopped on Cavaliere and tore through thirteen Sloths easy, curving around and smacking the butt of the vehicle into a particularly unlucky Hell Sloth that went flying into the side of an abandoned semi truck, exploding on impact. He split the weapon again, front-flipping forward slashing horizontally right, then laterally left, tearing apart three different Sloths with each strike, then turning into another downward crush, bring the right-handed saw down. Splitting the skull apart, the demon burst into dust and as the weapon crashed onto the ground, sending out cracks across the tar.
Dante raised the left saw and slammed it out to the left against two Sloths that teleported beside him. Bringing the himself back towards them, he took one step and hauled Cavaliere's other half toward.
The saw smashed into a creature that attempted to defend itself with its scythe, but the wheel shattered the weapon on contact, and the creature was roadkill.
Is Mundus that desperate to stop him he ordered these weaklings to stand in his way? You disappoint me, dark prince.
He made room and crossed the wheels out with a strike like an X, knocking numerous Sloth's off their feet. Time to put his gunslinging skill to good use.
Fusing the two together again, he thrust himself atop the leather seat and stood aloft the motorcycle, then seized Ebony and Ivory from his lower back.
The group gargled to one another, as if deciding what to do to him. They moved irregularly, using their-known technique to vanish within a grey fog and appear elsewhere.
Gathered around, they launched a simultaneous tackle towards him, swinging scythes and spitting venom.
Dante rocketed straight up off the motorcycle, a red platform appearing beneath him as he hiked through the air, and he soared high above the familiar weaklings. As he neared the apex of his leap, he was pulled back to earth by gravity's inevitable pull, righting himself to face the ground head-first. Violently spinning in a vertical circle, he thrusted his arms outwar and opened fire. Bullets rained down like meteors, tearing apart the creatures of dust like they were insects, wiped out by his genocide of their kind, crushed into the ground like paste.
And upon his return to earth, the devil hunter landed upon his cycle's seat effortlessly and zoomed off for the heart of the city.
. . .
But what is morality? Dante wondered to himself during his chase. It was that vision to the end that empowered someone to see the difference between right and wrong, the clarity to realize the solid truth and have enough courage to act upon it, to act against injustice, and the integrity to stand by the ones you love at any price. That would be his basic answer to anyone who'd ask. It's silly to wonder why he bothered trying at all to save Vergil, even after everything he'd done, after all the things he'd put humankind through. It was that unprecedented aftermath, his desire to seek redemption through whatever means necessary, and the love for that young girl as though she were his own child.
Blood is thicker than water, but that didn't mean he would've bothered trying with Vergil if he hadn't seen something in him worth fighting for.
And the truth is, this is his chance to be there. Unlike the past where he left him behind, that night in the tower.
He had witnessed it all, seen how he was so torn by him merging with the savior, and the lengths to which he sought to free him, even if he was already dead.
And there was so much more.
That was the Vergil he'd grown up with . . . the one who promised to pick him up whenever he fell. Sibling rivalry gets in the way of that, blinds one to the truth, but Vergil . . . he still kept that promise.
To this very day, he was intended to protect the people he loved, he'd just learned that it shouldn't come at the expense of his human soul.
Even if he didn't want to admit.
But moments like this were what built people into who they were meant to be.
He would always remember that last happiest moment he'd shared with him.
Words that never found his lips.
. . .
The motorcycle came to a halt, a wave of foul darkness overcoming all senses, moving out of which came an impression of shining black claws and a hard, ribbed-like exoskeleton of some giant insect. Whatever it was, it ripped the air inches from his face, hitting him if not for his speedy reflexes, sliding the cycle sideways mid-motion beneath the slice. He left the vehicle, flipping sideways through the air as it streaked to a halt several feet behind him, the man landing on his feet with ease.
Dante was interested at the moment, watching in great amazement as the entity swarmed over his face, leaping nimbly to the wall on his right, and continued to run sideways.
Dashing along the side of the skyscraper's face, it clung to the brick in a skittering gallop.
Amused, Dante tracked it all the way across its leaps of glory, watching as it agilely pivoted on at least three of its legs and then dropped to the ground behind him, blocking the way forward. He might have simply waited for it to come for him, having never seen something of this ilk before as it attempted to slash through him, using its elongated leg-blades to sting him across his throat, knocking him back off his feet, though he recovered quite easily. Tearing apart his windpipe all but briefly stopping him, it screamed— and the trumpeting, triumphant whine that erupted from its inhumanly curved bloated-lizard-face was enough to get him moving. The wounds across his neck healed instantaneously and he smirked at the beast.
It's his turn now.
Dante stood up straight and charged forward, ramming the Force Edge on into a stinger as he zoomed off the ground and struck the massive thing's crested-head. The creature faltered as the blade tore into its brittle flesh, sown together as if made of flimsy waxworks, limbs flailing wildly, the quality of its shrill shriek changing towards a furious howl. Stranger things befell him these days, it seemed. Dante drove the weapon in with all the momentum possible, then drew Ebony and Ivory, firing constantly his fraternal pistols, spraying the creature with deadly hot shells, infused by the power of his mother's tears and his father's legacy, chewing through it even after it had collapsed. At that point, its only movement came according to him, the rounds jerking the limp form.
He knew it was dead but had to have some fun. It was like a vexing of the soul for what he felt was not human, it was twisted and distorted but it was something strong.
It burned so bad like fire lacing his veins and creeping up his spine, the feeling of being alive for the first time in so long.
Now was no time to stop, he holstered his weapons and jumped over the rapidly-decaying corpse where he resumed his ride, the roaring winds still flying past his ears.
A sudden scream ripped through the air, and his blood ran cold. Staying stoic, he turned his head and glared.
The sound pierced his brain and ignited some primeval pathway. Adrenaline surged through Dante's veins, revenge becoming a sweet drink he couldn't say no to, this giant was Mundus's greatest weapon.
"I'm gonna slay the giant." He said, "Always wanted to say that."
His hand curled around the handle of his father's broadsword and he rode off towards the behemoth. He welcomed the challenge of this new demon, though its appearance sent a strange sensation shooting through his system, as though he were no longer exactly the experienced devil he'd grown into and had reverted back to his amateur self, that boy who was wide-eyed with wonder, who'd only just started his wild hunt. The words of wisdom briefly faded away.
He could feel the tension and hear the intensity in this great monster's clamor.
One could only make out its silhouette through the fog. The sound of buildings rumbling came to him. Just then, a dozen comets of ice, enormous and unnervingly fast, emerged from the fog. They exploded on impact with the ground, and he jammed the accelerator all the way, flooring it as he now knew the colossus was just as much aware of him as he was of it, the hail slamming down all around him; breaking through buildings and tearing apart all manner of small structure, all freezing on contact as he successfully swerved at mach speed back and forth, very nearly losing his balance.
Despite expert dodging, a deep freeze nearly took him, the permafrost's evil touch reaching into his bones, and he could no longer feel his fingers, yet somehow he held on.
As if his heart were a door left wide open to the icy wind, it swung open and shut in increasingly rapid fashion. Because Modeus knew of it, so too did he now know of the legend.
Balar's eye could freeze anything it looked upon.
The giant called again, it's rusty voice grating like a deep-sea glacier scraping the sea floor.
A pure monstrosity was a rare sight to behold in these supposedly civilized times.
All he needed to do was avoid its eye, keep up the swiftness of his cycle to avoid providing it with the window necessary to freeze him, after all, it was all about the fun of a challenge.
Bullets wouldn't make a dent against that thing. It moved in toward him, vision still obscured by fog as it drove its large spear downward at him. Dante engaged the break and rode hard on the vehicles kinetic velocity, drifting in an unnatural curve as the spear cracked the ground and destroyed the street, spewing mountains of concrete and blacktop up and about chaotically. Dante kept his speed and balance as he spun, releasing the break continuing south towards a building that had fallen over onto its neighboring office. It remained slanted diagonally, all that metallic structure and concrete refusing to give out. He sped on down the road like a bat out of hell, the Jotunn behind him slowly regaining its wit.
It tried spiking him out of existence, but the hunter knew well enough, zooming around each earth-shattering stab as he drove on and on, the building growing ever so much closer.
The giant scowled and hurled frozen tons of magical ice, generated from nowhere as it tried desperately to catch the man.
It was to no avail as the trickster frequently evaded each blast of frozen death, racing to the slanted building as fast he could.
Eventually, it tripped somewhat, and, looking back to see, the beast noticed its foot had run afoul of a city bus. It growled and leant back over to pick up the contraption, the vehicles comparative size like that of a child's plaything, and with a grim wail, Balar hurled the vehicle like a football. Dante glanced back over his shoulder to see the piece of frozen metal flying across several hundred feet of destroyed corporate street, hurtling at him like a gigantic stone would towards an insect.
His eyes widened, and the man turned forward and braced himself, pressing onward.
He timed it as the shadow passed him by, sailing on down-lane. The greater mass carried the public transportation farther and faster than he himself could go.
The flow of time slowed down around him, the motorbus seconds away from crashing into the pavement slowly, particles of the beast's frozen touch flying off almost peacefully from the contorting wreckage, though it had not made impact yet. There was a good ten-to-twelve feet of room between the bus and its destination, barely big enough for a motorcycle that was roughly four and a half feet tall and a little more than eight feet long to pass through at its current speed, but no place for a man of his stature.
So, Dante himself relaxed his grip and gently placed his right leg in front of him on the seat.
Shoving down against the bike's handles to propel himself up off the ground, he stomped down flat with his left foot back on the seat and stopped the cycle's wobble as he rendered himself inert.
Flying through the air, he and the bike remained parallel as he soared above the descending bus, tucking his knees to make the gap.
But it wasn't enough.
Even now he was losing speed, and it wouldn't be long before he lost altitude as well. Luckily, there was a solution on that front.
Another crimson platform of arcane origin appeared behind him, shining brightly like a star in the sky, and he rammed his feet into the solid stand, propelling himself forward like a bullet.
The bus crashed down just as Cavaliere zipped by it out of harms way, and the red soul cleared the bus, rushing forward above the cycle, still neck and neck. They traveled separately some twenty feet, Dante gliding like Superman gallantly descending upon the earth. Mere inches away, he landed upon the seat as though nothing had happened, seconds later bursting through the front lobby's tilted glass window, somehow still intact. The building had been a law firm. He forced the vehicle sideways by planting a boot on the ground, whipping around off the strength of his own self as he drove up the side of the crumbling wall, the entire building slanted up like a ramp toward the next destination. With the front end of his vehicle bearing barbed-prongs, he easily tore through each floor, breaking past every barrier that stood before him as outside, the frost giant beyond the steel, enraged, continued to storm after him, hurling freezing asteroids at him through the glass.
As he reached the floors with glass window panes, he began swerving in and around, driving off to his left, then his right, then off to the far left again. Some of the glass was simply missing.
Balar's ice didn't help, crashing through and smashing more glass with each shockwave. At once, he had to drive over spider-webbed glass and hope physics would not fully break its surface.
He broke through more floors, raged across less and less glass, and outran the polar destruction of his frigid aggressor until finally reaching the peak of the collided constructs.
Pale was the rider, emerging through to the top of the faulty supports, the building next door.
Immediately, the beast, stepping into view right beside him, brought down its fist and smashed through the roof behind him. He bolted along, driving across the crumbling flat top. Concentrating his own power, he jumped a solid twenty feet upwards, grabbing the cycle with him as he was catapulted across the gap between the buildings. That which had been so impossible in life rested within his hands now in death, the man defied the natural order; pushed across the line, he landed successfully on the next adjacent rooftop, skidding to leftward bound in a spin. He ground to a halt and leapt forward off the vehicle, splitting the infernal wheels in their respective two halves.
Hiking once more through the air, he brought the right saw downward and lashed at its left eye just before its gaze reached him.
He stayed afloat as the weapon, with all of his might, ground through the eye and tore vision apart, destroying the its ability of sight. When the weapon finished its operation, it broke free of Balar's optic nerve and released forward, rocking the Jotnar's head backward and it shouted horrible things in an ancient language that Dante knew as Aramaic. A frost giant from Syria this monstrous demon was. It stumbled back, desperately grabbing at the spear it used, swiping at the hunter unfocused. It was unexpectedly fast, guess a mutilated eye will do that to you, and he was forced on the defensive, blocking one swipe sideways with the left-hand side of the cycle.
Knocked off his balance midair, Dante went flying, landing on his opposing shoulder roughly as he crashed back onto the roof he'd just left.
Turning its horrid face back at him, it searched for him and sought to destroy, like a prowler in the yard, and lunged at the first sight of crimson. The spear went through the building, stabbing right out the other side, and it stayed there for long enough that the man took an opportunity. It'd missed him by several feet, misjudging the distance to a few feet in front of the man. Dashing forward, the hunter sped on foot up the spear, onto the back of the giant's hand, up its arm and across to its bulging bicep.
The slayer's brother leapt off the mountainous muscle and struck the remaining eye with a rightward swing of the Force Edge, cleaving through its blackened iris out to its pallid sclera.
The beast reared back once again, now fully-blind.
And then, Dante began to fall, beholden to the Earth's mass as it pulled him down to the ground till suddenly, he no longer was. Through the force of nothing but his own power, the man triggered, growing to become covered in scales and charcoal skin, armored with demonic power and super-charged strength in all ways knowable, and his jacket, now made of dark leather, opened outward into four great wings and carried him up to the heavens. Around the bend he flew, liberated from human design, a true monster left to roam. He watched as the giant staggered around, turning away from the building, teeter-tottering to the brink of plummeting, left weak without eyes, the signature faculty by which it made its name.
Lone in the wind, the hybrid hunter did speak to the creature his sarcastic verve.
"Aw . . . I almost feel bad."
"You: die." Balar spoke in its bizarre ragged childishness.
Shifting steadily, he wheeled behind the sightless giant and chose the back of its legs to dart towards, specifically the calves. He drove Force Edge through the tendons and pushed forward into the meat of its left shank, the beast finally plunging ahead. Slamming down onto its knees, Balar lurched forward, crashing further onto its elbows, coming into collision through the town square with the park center, those diseased arms lumbering down onto the greenery below. He took advantage, ripped his blade out and flew back over to its left side, intending to strike downward with a power-packed slice to the back of the giant's neck, but the beast rose up somewhat and bashed its scarred left elbow back, jamming it right into the triggered hunter's chest.
Swatted down like an insignificant fly, the man ricocheted off into a tree, crashing straight on through the wood. The tree splintered and died as he flopped onto ground, himself on his feet, still alive.
This guy was stronger than he gave him credit for. Wings relaxing, they turned back into a coat draped over his shoulders, and he stood tall.
Balar flinched and swung the spear down through a park-bridge, forcing all the rubble high into the sky.
"A good man's got to know his limitations." Dante said, grunting, the pain in him steadily wearing away.
Ash rained down like shards of broken glass, making the very air itself appear tainted and sickly.
Even when he floated to face the creature again, he felt the suffocation, there was a layer of pollution smothering him everywhere.
The giant screamed a pain-filled war cry and promptly swung around its tremendous weapon. Dante prepared Force-Edge and met the large spear head-on, slashing up at Balar's lance, the collision of two strong opposing forces creating a natural burst of energy that only a hurricane or storm could ever recreate. A giant wave of force pushed out from the epicenter to the end of the earth, blowing out all windows in the immediate street block, throwing cars and tearing apart advertising signs, and the frigid cold grew evermore so, freezing all things within the park save for the two combatants themselves.
His demonic face grew frostbitten, and all the trees around them looked alien, covered completely in smooth ice shaped so bizarrely.
The spear, in its entirety, snapped, breaking apart with one half launched hundreds of miles away, and the other impaling itself into the Jotunn's side. Balar keeled over and moaned. Dante soared past him and far down the avenue, swinging himself around so he faced the dark king's minion, then lined up the best possible shot he could. Summoning all the strength needed, he bid his few seconds wisely.
"Bingo." He said, and rocketed forward.
His entire body burned crimson energy, blasting forward sonically, turning into a cosmic dart streaking across this short expanse of the universe, and all particles condensed down into a single point.
Rapture tore through the beast, goring apart that which could not be destroyed, and he kept pushing and pushing till he ripped out the other side.
The shear heat coming off his body turned the ice on his devilish skin to steam off into the atmosphere, and where he landed, the iced grass melted and dried.
Balar croaked and staggered. Slowly, it came to the realization that it was dying in this living shell, and so let the pull of its final sleep take the mind under. It fell back on its feet, knees still bent, collapsed dead in the middle of the park. The last inches of un-life faded thusly, and though it was soon gone from this world, enough vigor remained to speak a simple locution from its deadened lips.
It uttered a final word, "Snow . . ." then ceased to breath.
The process of dying was crueler than any action the hunter ever committed or any book he'd ever read.
The pain Dante felt then would be with him until the end. He could feel it all over again, this body holding him was slipping away.
It wasn't time yet. He had to return his darkened brother to the life he'd built, he had to preserve whatever course for humanity was left.
Manah landed beside him in the chaotic, frozen square, and Dante's mortal features returned. He looked and saw the familiar daemon, his old friend Lady present there too.
Their eyes met and Dante smiled. It was nice to see him again.
"Dante . . ." She said.
"Hey Lady, been a bit too long, huh?" His voice was serendipitous to her.
"You son of a bitch!" She laughed, tearing up happily to herself as she walked toward him, and to his surprise, she wrapped both arms around him. He didn't expect it.
Being dead did call for a referendum on whether or not the living still cared. He found his answer here.
She whispered to him, "Why did you have to go?"
It broke his heart to hear that, her tears running down his shoulder as he held the back of her head.
She nuzzled her chin into his chest and kissed his right side softly. The man dropped Force Edge to the ground.
He embraced her fully.
"I didn't," He muttered in her ear, "I never wanted to."
She fell apart in his arms, bawling her eyes out, freezing.
"Please stay . . ." She whispered in his ears.
A lump formed in the back of his throat, but he held his sentiments together, feeling it improper form not to anchor her with solidarity.
"You know I can't," He said back so gently, "That's not how it works."
She parted from his chest and looked him in the eye, he saw just how lost she'd become, and he felt it pertinent to realize that, in a way, he'd always cared for her. Neither one was too great at expressing that, of course; he never took things seriously and deflected most of the time, she was too hostile and guarded for her own good, but to know that they'd always felt something, at least some kind of connection, it was worth putting up with one another's flaws just to know. He knew that though she loved his twin, there would always be that grand 'what-if' for them, maybe another world, another place where they could've been something more.
Lightly, he smiled at her and they shared a kiss on the lips, their first and their last.
And when they'd parted, she'd known in her heart that she hadn't forgotten him, and her shoulders rose.
"Where's Vergil?" She asked him, and they let go of one another.
"Further into the city," Manah said pausing for just a moment, he'd given the two their moment, "I can feel his unholiness as we speak. He's not happy you killed his giant."
"Boo hoo," Dante smirked, "It was fun."
A new entity shook the city, a heralding blast of light emerging from an unknown building. It was sputtering its incandescent indigo up to the sky in a spectral beam.
There were no more minions left, none willing to approach them anyway, they'd all probably gone underground, hidden themselves from humanity.
Her lungs burned. The air was chocked with fire and soot, despite the freezing temperatures. She peered through the veil of tears that manifested so swiftly, and she could see that the light had broken from the sky and become an aura. Well, it was time now . . . Time to let him go on, time to say goodbye. She went to say something, anything she could think of, but he simply turned away from her and held out his right hand, telekinetically recalling his sword from the ground to his firm grasp.
"I don't like goodbyes," He said, "It's time to kill ourselves a king."
He began walking forward.
"Dante!" She called him, and he turned slightly back towards her. She tossed his old shotgun.
With his free hand, Dante caught the weapon and chuckled.
"Kick his ass," Lady added with a smirk.
"My pleasure." He replied and summoned wings to fly.
And he was gone again, off to face destiny.
Manah snapped his fingers and Cavaliere reappeared before them, reassembled.
"I like to travel in style." He remarked, and they too departed for the light.
So, it had come to this, the two men fighting for the final time atop the city's largest parking garage . . . Fate was smiling
The top floor of this place couldn't have been a more perfect battleground. Mundus must've had a flair for the dramatic, as he'd stolen himself to the flattest battleground possible. There was a strong odor in the air, a mix of foul, sweet, and spicy chemicals. The cars sat on the greyed, smooth tarmac, each of them at one time the product of some factory to be advertised and sold on cold polished tiles. A chain of money these old representatives held for the bastions that they led to, the person who sat behind the wheel on their way to some hellish job. Now they won't help their owners, for they couldn't be resold for any expense . . . It was odd, things once so important seemed completely pointless now in times like these.
Dante landed on the car park and returned to his human self, a cyan blade slamming into the car just next to him, penetrating the glass.
He looked to its source.
"So, you've come all the way here." Vergil's face emerged from the dust, crimson eyes staring at him soulless.
Dante sighed and rested the sword on his shoulders, "Heh, don't call it a comeback. I've always been a thorn in your side, pops."
Another cyan blade skewered two other cars to his right.
The possessed slayer sighed, ". . . haah, I would enjoy killing you again, I've given my word to Vergil that I would make everything he knows disappear."
Dante just looked at the dark prince and laughed, "Fat chance, my mother's got a better prospect of that than you."
Mundus paced from side to side, Modeus's broadsword held in his right hand, the Yamato gripped in the other.
He let out an exasperated huff, "I've no desire for your quips, boy. I only seek what is rightfully mine, and what has always been deprived of me."
"Man, you're always whinin' about that, 'I need more power,' 'I'm really scary, you should fear me-' Blah-blah blah-blah-blah. It means the same thing it did last time, zilch." Dante replied.
He circled Force Edge in his hands and stalked Mundus, strafing opposite the crooked king's menace.
"Return what you have stolen from me, and your death will be a painless one, Son Of Sparda."
"Nah, I'm kinda likin' the whole Rebel-Yell bit," Dante admired his reflection in the blade as they talked, "Gotta say though-"
The legendary son abruptly struck a battle-pose, preparing the Force Edge at his side, those venomous eyes stinging right through devil's dead heart.
Dante would make Mundus burn till the stars all died.
"You've got this coming to ya."
To Be Continued
Author's Note:
Thanks for reading everyone. We're almost there, it's exciting isn't it?
Sorry if there's any disappointment with Dante, but Lady says it best, he just isn't part of this world anymore. It would take away from everything that's happened up to this point, and at that point it's not really a what-if story anymore, is it? I developed Vergil my own way, Dante coming back permanently undoes that, and it was always planned from the beginning to only be a temporary return.
Anyway, that's all for now.