Dante III

Apparently, somewhere along the line, he had gotten his lines crossed and he had thought that the two women would have somehow been of use to him. But as he drove on towards the airport, he paused, frowning intensely and a voice of reason told him that he was grasping at straws that were not even there. A reasonable voice perhaps, even a logical one. Dante had never been one for planning, even on Mallet Island he had always burst in with guns blazing, taking everything as it came, always care-free, always so relaxed. A puppet had animated itself and had thrown a dagger at him while his back was turned. So what did he do? Return the favour of course! With his sword…

For some odd reason, that incident had remained with the devil hunter, had served as a lesson that perhaps he should have been more careful, and that in the future, he would act only after taking a moment to think cautiously about the consequences. A moment…well…a second. Still, he did think, even if it was for a split second of time, even if it did usually end with blood staining the floor.

In light of his usual behaviour, perhaps it would have been for the best had Dante taken this new logical voice of reason as some sort of a bad omen, a sign that maybe all was not right with him. And as soon as he had thought it, he pushed the niggling doubt to one side. What a stupid thing to say. Nothing was right. His arm had become demonic, his hand was a monstrous weapon, already he had destroyed things in his home without even meaning to. It wasn't a good indication of his power, he knew, but he also knew that as a kid he had accidentally damaged things but after a brief phase he had slowly settled into gaining control.

Now it was happening again; he was losing control and he hated it.

He supposed that that was understandable; there'd be something seriously wrong with him if he decided that he quite enjoyed the sensation of losing all control of himself and his powers.

So it was that he had turned around on his bike and had driven back home, his heart sinking as he realized that he had lost his only plan. He had felt so much more in control of things when he had some sort of course of action in his mind but even that had been unexpectedly wrenched away from him, by his own reason, of all things! Beaten by his own mind, he never thought that he would become his own worst enemy. He felt at this point, that not even Mundus had been quite as bad as all that was happening to him right now.

On he drove through the night, rage, frustration, despair and bafflement washing over him in alternating waves of emotion. The street-lights flashed across his features momentarily, throwing them into sharp relief, revealing the mental exhaustion that lay hidden deep within him before he was plunged into darkness, only to be held up to the light once again for examination. The roads were wet and thunder rumbled ominously ahead. Usually he loved the rain, whether indoors or not, but this time, even this failed to calm him.

He had no plan, he had an aim, a goal, but he had no means of achieving it. What he needed now was a stroke of luck.

And as he pulled up outside his agency, his home, it was standing there waiting for him, in an unexpected form.