Author's Notes: A pretty long chapter here, the longest so far I think, but like I said in the previous notes, I've just been overloaded with ideas for this part, hehe. Anyway, hope it doesn't drag on too much, tried to keep the funny flowing, and I realise that parts of this chapter, mainly the parts with Zone in, haha, push the rating of this story, but I figure if you understand what the rodent is talking about, then you already know about that kind of stuff and I can hardly be blamed for that, can I XD? A few friendly cameos in this one, Zoom knows who she is, and I hope she likes her appearance in this, Keahi is property of my good friend Lori, and while not exactly a cameo, Lady's badass attitude in this and I guess, the previous chapter, are dedicated to my great friend V. A bonus point to anyone who figures out where the stone that hits Beowolf came from, and lastly to Agent47Rulz, I'm not a professional writer, but I aspire to become one and this story is a significant step towards that, I'm trying to see how my work appeals to a larger audience and collect feedback. So I really mean it when I say I appreciate every review, they're helping me live my dreams :), and the least I can do is continue to entertain you all, which I hope this chapter does, I certainly enjoyed writing it :D. No offence is intended towards any fanboys, fangirls or anyone by their portrayal in this chapter, I merely poke fun just like I do at everyone else in this story. With all that said, I give you the latest, and naughiest, chapter :3.
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Once the three were inside the Bullseye bar, the door closed behind them, Arson calmed down and Reiko let him go, the hybrid standing on his own two feet and seeming to cheer up at the warmer atmosphere. The vampire looked round the bar, which was a carbon-canon-copy, except it seemed someone had removed the switch-like device in the far corner and added several more rooms branching off a hall. To the right of that, was the entrance to the Love Planet; someone had evidently been a very slick business thinker, putting a bar and a strip joint in the same building.
The front was deserted save for a young blonde female behind the bar who glanced up at them, a curious expression crossing her face, but said nothing. A meaty-looking sub machinegun lay on the bar besides her.
Giving a courteous nod of good intentions towards her to show they meant no trouble, figuring she must be guarding the place like Lady was, Reiko turned to the other two. "Alright" he explained, "There's at least two people on watch for any attacks, so it should be safe to split up and start asking round for information".
Getting a nod of confirmation from both Arson and Zone, the vampire turned and headed to the back area.
Arson looked around curiously, gazing in fascination momentarily at the multicoloured bottles at the bar, then followed. Reiko went into a room on the right of the hall, so the hybrid entered the one on the left.
Poking his head around the doorframe, he scanned curiously before entering. The room was like a big extension of the front, a large space with maybe a dozen decent-sized tables for customers to sit down and drink up. Several of the tables had groups of people sitting at them, with a few loners spread in-between.
Wandering up to a table at random, Arson said "Hello", his voice cheery and friendly, and the occupants of it, who had been chatting animatedly, turned to look at him. The hybrid's sharp mind quickly detected a certain trend, noticeably the pages of paper sprawled all over the table, the shirts with "Dante" or "Vergil" in a heart, or sometimes both in one heart, and most obviously that everyone at the table was female.
There was a brief uncertain silence. Then it was broken as the girl on Arson's left yelled "Aww, he's so kawaii", and glomped the hybrid sideways. Luckily for Arson another girl tackled him from the other side and he was rebalanced, squashed between the two females who quickly began to coo over him, along with the rest of the table. About half a dozen DMC fic-writing fangirls started to aww and tell each other they couldn't believe how cute he was. One was playing with his hair, and another climbed over the table to cuddle him tightly, giving him a face-full of 32C chest, his nose stuffed right into the ample cleavage.
With a delicate and complex manoeuvre and a little superhuman strength, Arson managed to extract himself from the group-cuddle enough to speak. "Um, thanks" he said with childlike grateful innocence, the cute teenager earning a synchronised awww. Flushing slightly he continued "Uh, who are you girls?".
"Oh, we're a fangirl tour" explained the one who had given Arson an encounter of the curved kind.
"Yeah, we were going on a day out round the fandom, which was totally awesome! But then all this happened and we got stuck here, which totally sucks" added the one who had originally glomped him.
"Yep, all cus of Mary Sue, she's so selfish" said one of the others resentfully, getting sounds of agreement.
Arson gave an understanding nod and supportive smile, "Sorry to hear that" it was a fairly basic response, but coming from such an adorable speaker they ate it up. "Actually, me and my friends are trying to stop Mary Sue" he continued with an enthusiastic grin and nod, hoping they might know something of use.
"Aww, how brave! That is so sweet!" declared the generously-chested one, who seemed to be the leader of the group. She was met with enthusiastic agreement as they all cooed over the cute, bold kid some more.
"Hehehe, thanks" Arson said earnestly as two of them played with his hair and said how strong and rich it was, "You wouldn't happen to know a good way to beat her, would you?" he asked hopefully.
The fangirl group paused and huddled whispers flew around the table, even though they didn't move any closer. After a moment the leader replied a bit sheepishly "Uh no, sorry, we don't know anything like that".
"Yeah, we're great at complaining" another said brightly, getting several enthusiastic nods of agreement from her friends, "But… We haven't quite worked out how to solve it yet" she added a little sheepishly.
"Oh, OK, thanks anyway" Arson said politely. Then out of curiosity he asked "Is there a fanboy tour, too?".
The leader snickered a little, "No, most fanboys aren't intelligent enough to group together like that. They lurk around in ones and twos. There's a few here, oh, there's one now" she pointed to the room's entrance.
Arson turned and saw a male no older than himself standing near the entrance. Just then Lady walked by, pausing to check everything was alright in the back, before heading to the front to change shifts with the other armed woman. As Arson watched it was very obvious the fanboy's attention was fixated on her chest.
Lady turned and left, and the fanboy followed. The fangirls around Arson snickered conspiratorially, and one of them muttered "They never learn, just listen". Arson nodded and strained to listen as best he could.
The hybrid heard a brief exchange, followed by an angered yelp, and then a gunshot. A few moments later, and the fanboy hobbled back in and collapsed moaning in a corner, holding his leg, which was bleeding.
The fangirls burst into giggles, and the same one who spoke before said "Told you, they never learn".
Arson looked at the wounded fanboy, and felt a pang of empathy, even though he could guess what had caused the angered yelp. "That's a bit, harsh, isn't it?" he asked the group around him uncertainly.
As he did, Lady strolled back past the room, sneering at the wounded fanboy, and was joined by the other female from the bar. "Not really, he walked away. Well, limped away" one of the fangirls remarked as the two heavily armed women conversed for a moment.
"That's Zoom" the same one explained to Arson, "She's called that because she's got an aim like a sniper. She's harsh" Zoom went back to the front as this was said, replacing Lady on watch. Arson nodded and shrugged slightly; it seemed a strange alias, but he could hardly talk. Besides, if Lady, why not Zoom, he thought. Then he noticed someone rise from a table and follow Zoom after Lady went into the other room.
"Oh boy, another one" the fangirl leader said, as the better-disguised fanboy went out to the front. Arson could tell from the angle and expression of the male's stare he was following the other woman's decent chest. His gaze was so manic it looked capable of seeing breasts through walls, a kind of seX-ray vision.
There was, again, a brief exchange, then, a growl, a gunshot, a whimper, and finally the thump of a body hitting the floor. "They don't walk away from her" the fangirl leader elaborated, to unanimous agreement.
Arson just blinked in bemused intrigue as, in the distance he heard the front door open, then close as Zoom went out to take up watch for her shift. No other sounds emanated from the front of the bar. A little caught out, he remembered his purpose and briefly wondered if either Zone or Reiko had had better luck than him.
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Having made sure everyone under her guard was coping fine, Lady went back out to the bar at the front; she'd rather be near the entrance in case Zoom needed help. Normally the daughter of Arkham was fiercely independent, but when the unscripted current crisis had struck, she'd ended up finding herself trying to save and protect what survivors she could find. Hence by some compassion in her soul not yet extinguished, she'd ended up forming a sort of safe camp here, where there was cover, shelter and plenty of supplies.
Entering the front, Lady's eyes fell onto a form lying in the middle of it, and she rolled her eyes. She liked Zoom, the only other person she'd met who could defend herself since this all began. They shared a passion and expertise for firearms, and Zoom's precision was remarkable. But still, Lady thought as she fetched a broom and used it to roll the corpse of the fanboy into the corner, she was prone to leaving a mess behind.
Having made the place mildly tidier, Lady having some standards, she went behind the bar to get a drink to rehydrate herself. As she did so, she noticed a movement on the bar surface, and realised she wasn't alone.
Sitting on the wooden surface by an empty bottle was Zone, who was briefly seeing how he looked in his reflection. After all, unlike his companions he didn't wear any clothes, so he was more prone to get dirty if he didn't stop to check his fur now and then. Cleaning a couple of faint smudges off of himself, he looked up, saw Lady had seen him, and smiled. "Afternoon Lady" he said with intended politeness, bowing a little.
Lady recalled him from before, and being a little unsure how to respond to a hamster sitting by an empty beer bottle greeting her politely, she replied "Uh, hey". In truth Zone had only had, literally, a couple of drops of alcohol, out of curiosity, and wasn't the least bit intoxicated. But seeing him sitting by the drained bottle, combined with something about his smile, was just suggestive of otherwise.
"Hi, my name's Zone" he said by means of introducing himself, then striking a pose with the aid of his reflection, added, "Zone The Tyrant Hamster".
Lady gave him a look of bemused disbelief, arching one eyebrow, and the rodent sagged a little. "Alright, well, aspiring Tyrant Hamster" he admitted a little sheepishly, quickly relaxing into a more casual stance.
"Um, that's great" Lady replied after a moment, wondering what she had done to have so many freaks inflicted on her. "Did you want something?" she asked, as she would rather satisfy whatever he wanted and be done with it than go through any more bizarreness today.
Recovering a bit from his failed, and in hindsight he noted, foolish attempt to impress her, he nodded. "Uhuh, actually" he said, pausing for the slightest fraction of a second, before grinning and adding "I was hoping I could pump you for information", the rodent radiating artificial innocence.
Lady gave him a wary look at the inflection with which he said "pump" with, but replied anyway. "Information about what, rodent?" she asked, using the term to try and put him in his place a little, as some ancient instinct made her feel the furball was up to something.
"Oh, about Mary Sue, me and my friends are trying to defeat her, so, if you know anything useful, maybe you and I could skirt the issue" Zone glanced at Lady's skirt meaningfully as he said this, smirking widely.
Lady did get the implication that time, and glared at the rodent with a mix of rising fury and sheer disbelief.
Zone winced slightly under the glowering, Lady mustering a significant amount of enraged indignity into it over the idea of being hit on by a rodent. But, standing firm he continued, "Of course if you're, impatient… We could just go right to the nub of the problem" he almost snickered, winking as only a furred being can.
Lady was actually shaking now, and placing her hands on the bar either side of the hamster, giving him nowhere to run, she leaned down and starred daggers at him from mere inches away. "How can you even pretend I would consider anything like… That, with a ball of fuzz like you" she growled murderously.
Zone gulped. He couldn't help it, he was a cocky creature, but so too was Lady an intimidating one, especially given their size difference, which her proximity only emphasised. However, while he did flinch he did not flee, and staring back into her face with a confident, cheeky smirk, he replied, "Don't deny you find me cute, you're already dying to be close to me" his furry grin he said this was incandescently smug.
Lady just glared at him furiously, thinking to herself that he was even worse than Dante. The hamster was really quite cute she admitted, although not out loud. But his cockiness was enough to make her want to strangle him. Of course, while she'd actually shot Dante in the head before, the diminutive rodent couldn't take anything like that much punishment, and while Lady was temperamental, she was trying to eschew killing purely out of anger. So, settling on a satisfying middle ground, she grabbed a full pint glass of bear with one hand, and threw the contents in Zone's face, drenching the half-foot tall rodent.
Gasping and spluttering, the hamster was knocked onto his back by the tidal wave of alcohol, half-drowning in it. After a couple of moments he half-sat up, leaning on his hand-paws and panting, his fur completely soaked through with cheap beer and matted to him; his whiskers sagging heavily with the stuff.
He carefully opened his eyes, having closed them reflexively; glad his fur was keeping the alcohol out of his vision. The rodent looked up, and saw the triumphant face of Lady looming over him, the young woman most satisfied at having doused the frisky rodent's innuendos. However, she did not count on the resilience of Zone's determined cheekiness, and coughing up a little of the drink, he replied with a wet, wide grin "Alright, fair play, now we're both soaking wet".
Lady's expression transformed from pleased victory to mute rage as the words registered in her mind. Her glare would have sent frenzied dogs scampering in terror, but Zone merely hiccupped and gazed into it with an unfaltering grin that somehow combined cute, furry little innocence, with shameless cheekiness…
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Having had no luck digging up anything useful in the first room he'd gone into, Reiko walked back out into the hall. Seeing Arson was in the room opposite, he figured he'd best leave it to the hybrid, and looked around for somewhere else to inquire.
As he stood there, a distinctive smack snapped his attention down the hall to the front room of the bar, and a split-second later he saw Zone zoom horizontally about a metre above the ground, straight into the wall.
Sliding to the ground, the hamster sat up dizzily, on the fourth attempt, and looking around his spinning surroundings, spotted two Reikos. "Hey, guys, I think Lady really likes me" he yelled as he managed to get onto all fours, finding balancing difficult, since he was still disorientated from the slap Lady had given him.
"You're soaked in alcohol, rodent! Want me to go find a lighter?!" the vampire heard Lady roar. Zone let out a fearful squeak and half-staggering, half-scurrying, ran into the hall Reiko was in, bumping into the walls a couple of times on his haphazard course, and darted into the room the vampire had just left.
Reiko watched him go in bewilderment, then was forced to back up the corridor or be stampeded as Lady followed the hamster, furiously trying to spark a lighter in one hand, a loaded, cocked shotgun in the other.
Shaking his head, the vampire muttered to himself, "You really have a way with women, Zone" he said with a faint grin. Hearing faint conversation coming from behind him, he decided to let the rodent exercise the independence he so fiercely demanded and handle Lady on his own, and went to investigate the talking.
Coming to the end of the corridor, the vampire was presented with a door on the right, and he opened it.
Hearing the discussion on the other side cease as he entered, he made sure to come in nice and slowly, so as not to alarm anyone. When he was fully inside, he closed the door, and turned to face the room's occupants.
He was surprised by both what, and who he saw. "Nevan?" he asked curiously, the vampiric succubus sitting at the only table in the small room and… Playing cards, with another woman he didn't recognise.
Nevan's face lit up in delight as she recognised the intruder disturbing her game, "Reiko honey! Mm you're looking especially tasty" she said by way of greeting.
Reiko sighed internally, seeing that Nevan was wearing what she always did even in public, a dress made of living bats that served her, with nothing covering her blue-skinned torso except her long, richly red hair.
"Nevan, you sound exactly like you always do, frisky, what are you doing here?" Reiko replied, pausing and looking at the other woman at the table, who was returning a look of curiosity towards the vampire.
Nevan laughed lazily and replied "With Dante out of commission, I've got nothing to do, you didn't expect me to sit up in that tower all alone with nothing to do, did you?".
Reiko wanted to point out that she'd been stuck there for two millennium already, but decided against it, and instead asked "So where's Beowolf?". He knew Dante would have defeated Cerberus, and Agni and Rudra before Mary Sue struck, but if the undefeated bosses were going out wandering he wondered where the giant wolf of light had gone.
"Oh he's outside sugar" Nevan replied, gesturing to a window, which Reiko glanced out of curiously.
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Beowolf stood in an ally behind the bar, heaving and striding about as if enraged at something. "That odour, I know it" the humanoid demonic wolf growled, and suddenly he spun round and punched a bin just sitting there by the wall, annihilating it. "It's the stench of betrayal, the odour of that accursed Sparda! I will annihilate every last filthy creation of Sparda!" he roared as he laid into the garbage containers, which had the extreme misfortune to be manufactured by a company called Sparda Bins ltd.
A moment later, a tiny object fell from the sky and struck the rampaging demon square on the forehead. The piece of rubble shattered on impact, and the giant wolf froze, his eyes slowly glazed over, and he finally toppled backwards, hitting the ground with a loud crash.
----
Reiko watched all this with an expression of hopeless confusion, the vampire just giving up after a while and ignoring the whole thing. Turning back to Nevan, he saw she was taking his distraction as a chance to shamelessly stare at his well-muscled body. "You're always like this" he asked with rhetorical weariness.
"Always honey" the words oozed out of Nevan's mouth, then she turned back to her acquaintance. "Keahi love, this handsome morsel is Reiko, Reiko, Keahi" she said, introducing the two to one another amusedly.
Reiko nodded and, not holding her association with the succubus, who he had a mixed opinion of, he bowed politely to the other female. "A pleasure to meet you" he said, rising and looked her over properly.
The young woman had slightly tanned skin with an even tone, and long, chestnut coloured hair that went down to her rear. Her eyes were a nice shade of amber, and she was, even Reiko had to admit, very, curvy.
She was wearing a clean white blouse, fully buttoned up but not tucked in, and with the sleeves rolled back past her elbows, which were leaning on the table as she held her cards. A pair of black leather pants and matching stiletto boots going up to her knees completed an appearance that was sexy but not outright slutty.
"Thanks, same to you" she replied with a blush as Reiko stood straight again, flattered by the courteous greeting. Turning back to the game briefly, she laid down her hand victoriously, "I win" she said to Nevan.
The succubus chuckled, laying down her own cards, which were almost but not quite a match for Keahi's, "So you do sugar, well played. I guess I'll have to find something else to entertain me" Nevan said meaningfully, easily rising to her feet and looking at Reiko pointedly. "Did you want something honey, or did you just get lost?" she asked him as she advanced towards him at an easy, seductive sway.
Reiko's first instinct was to back away, but thinking again he reconsidered that perhaps the succubus did have something he wanted. After all, she was thousands of years old; she was bound to know some things besides… The tricks of her trade.
"Yes, I do want something" Reiko said, and almost grinned when he saw Nevan's eyes light up slightly in pleased surprise. "I'm trying to find out how Mary Sue might be defeated, would you know how Nevan?" he continued, silently satisfied as Nevan paused her teasing advance and frowned briefly in disappointment.
"Mmm, is that all?" she asked after a moment, getting a silent nod in return. The succubus looked like her fun had been spoiled for a bit, but then a grin crossed her face and she walked up to Reiko, "Actually, I think I know something you might find useful" she confessed.
It was Reiko's turn to look surprised, and he tried to keep his voice steady as she slowly leaned closer to him. "Oh, well, what is it" he asked her as her advances caused him to back up against the wall by the door.
"Well…" she said teasingly, leaning in closer now he had nowhere to run. "I could tell you, but if I'm giving you something you want, it's only fair you give me something I want in return" as Nevan said this, her large chest pressed to his and he could feel her rubbing faintly up against him lewdly, one of her hands tracing a dangerous path up his inner thigh. Reiko swallowed; he was tempted, she had a lot of experience.
Feeling her tongue start to trace over his neck, the vampire closed his eyes, fighting down a shudder, and reached down between them. Clamping his hand firmly around her wrist, he gently but steadily moved her hand away from him, looking away from her to the side as he did. "No, not that" he told her simply, making no move to push her away any further, but stopping her advances unmistakably. Looking past her to Keahi, he asked "Do you know anything, please?", but the other female shook her head apologetically.
Nevan sighed, and slowly leaned off of Reiko, giving him a look mixed with disappointment and amusement at the vampire's stoic refusal. "Reiko, Reiko, Reiko…" she muttered in coy lament, and as he let go of her hand she added with a chuckle "You're a stiff in all the wrong ways".
A couple of moments after Nevan had separated from Reiko to a distance of some decency, Zone stumbled into the room through the still open door. The hamster was panting, looking pretty worn, and his fur was singed in several places. He opened his mouth to say something, but coughed out a puff of smoke instead.
"Aww!" Keahi cried out at that, almost heartbroken at seeing the furry little creature in physical distress. Standing up she hurried over and scooped Zone up, cuddling him tightly and rubbing his in places singed back soothingly. "Are you OK little guy?" she cooed as she took him back to the table and sat down again.
Reiko watched this in sheer amazement. He didn't know how he did it, but somehow being half-knackered and half-cooked, the shrewd rodent managed to be even more adorable than usual. The vampire hadn't missed the delighted glint in Zone's eyes either when Keahi cuddled him up, and Reiko suspected he was staying silent and just soaked up the attention on purpose.
He was in fact completely right, and even though Zone's first attempt at speech had gone up in smoke, he wasn't even thinking of making a second. The hamster was enjoying being spoiled by Keahi far too much, not to mention the fact he was being cuddled tightly to an extremely charitable amount of chest. Also, while he didn't know about Arson's similar experience earlier, he would have grinned even wider knowing that Keahi was much more generously endowed than the fangirl who had smothered the hybrid.
Nevan watched all this while chuckling into her hand, and turned to Reiko as Keahi set Zone down on the table to his disappointment, that was until she started scratching under his chin. "Well, if we can't negotiate then I'm afraid I have to go" the succubus said. Reiko clenching his fists in frustration, she knew something that they could really do with finding out, but while he'd do almost anything to find out, he wouldn't stoop that low. Not knowing what to say, the vampire remained silent as Nevan left through the door besides him.
Arson walked in a moment later, Keahi looking up at the cute new arrival and waving, the hybrid returning the gesture friendlily. "You have any luck?" he asked, turning to Reiko, who shook his head despondently.
"No, you neither I guess, what about…" he paused, looking around the room, then said "Where did Zone go?". Keahi glanced down at the table and realised the rodent she'd been stroking wasn't there anymore.