Silent Where?
Part 1
"God damn idiot girl runnin' out in front of my bike!" Dante cursed on the side of the road. "That stupid school girl just had to dash out in front of my motorcycle while I was drivin' down the road, didn't she?"
It had been nearly a week since he had read through the file on Silent Hill. After he had gone through the whole thing, he spent the rest of the time getting his equipment in order and getting plane tickets over to where he needed to go. Silent Hill was in the New England area, so it wasn't anywhere drivable.
Getting his weapons on the plane hadn't been easy. He had the swords and other stuff put in his luggage and he declared them before he went on the plane, but his pistols never left his side. How did he get away with it? Dante had just about every license you could have for carrying a weapon. Weapon's permit, concealed weapon's permit, automatic weapon's permit; basically, any kind of permit that you could get and some that you couldn't through legal means.
After the flight it was on to the hotel in Brahms where he stayed the night, asking everyone how to get to Silent Hill and getting strange looks and awkward stares whenever he asked. He couldn't blame people for looking at him so weird. After all, with the kind of stuff he had read about going on there, it was obvious that most wouldn't be keen on going. But Dante didn't fit into the "most" category.
The file had been helpful but hadn't necessarily been descript. Most of it was strangely phrased legal junk, probably to keep anyone who shouldn't be reading it in the dark. From what he could gather, though, Silent Hill wasn't all bunnies and sunshine like it was formerly advertised…
It used to be a resort town. Silent Hill made away like a bank robber during ski season. Although it was a resort town, there were still a great number of residents. Therein lied the strangeness. Silent Hill had been built where an ancient tribe of people used to live. When the town was founded, the tribe's religion melded and merged with the settler's religion, but not in a good way. It looked as if the tribe was a group of demon worshipers, and that never equaled something good.
Because of this there was a cult within the town. Here's where the report got sketchy; the cult began to become more and more extremist, trying new methods of worship, most not legal, and one specific individual, Dahlia Gillespie, tried something drastic. Her ceremony (exactly what she did wasn't mentioned in the file) caused a catastrophic fire in the town. The fire was put out and people moved back in, but several years later, something else happened.
The file described the event as a manifest of the demon the cultists worshiped. Reality was split into several planes, and as a result, the town was abandoned. The "manifest" was beaten back by one "Harry Mason", but the town was still uninhabitable.
And that was all the file contained. It mentioned excursions into the town by a man known as James Sunderland and a woman known as Heather Morris, but that was all. It looked like even Wolf, Ram and Heart didn't want their own people to know what was going on. That or they didn't know themselves.
Dante mulled all of this over as he walked the rest of the way to the town. Step by step, he made his way to his goal, the eerie fog swirling about his person telling him that he had arrived. Carefully, he drew his pistols. Dante didn't want to be taken unawares by any monsters. He knew there were monsters because that was the only other thing in the file the he could make sense of; "The manifest and dimensional split had given rise to unusual phenomenon in the form of beings of hostile nature and physiology", was what the file had said to be exact.
Translation: big, mean monsters with sharp teeth…
Monsters weren't anything new. He'd been to the demon world after all. What could be worse than that? Sill, he took the utmost precaution. He brought most of his "toys" for two reasons; one, to make sure he kept alive; two, to have as much fun as possible with any baddies he ran up against.
To be more specific, he carried his usual armament of his twin pistols, Ebony and Ivory. The shotgun that he had used back in L.A. was still tucked into his pants and he had even though to bring an Uzi along this time.
As far as sharp pointy things went, he brought a good amount. There was Alistair (he left Force Edge behind because he didn't think he'd need two broadswords), Cerberus and the illusive Beowulf gauntlets and grieves that Dante still couldn't figure out how to summon again.
Dude sure knows how to hold a grudge, he thought, thinking back to his fight with one of his father's enemies. Don't know why he's still got his metal in a bind, though. Not like I killed him, just blinded him is all. You'd think-
There was movement up from out of the fog. Ebony jutted out to Dante's left as he kept the pistol pointed on the spot. Something to the right this time. Ivory followed suite. The demon hunter was now standing with both of his arms outstretched in either direction, not at all looking pleased. Then there was something right in front of him. Dante rolled his eyes. He looked about to groan in frustration, but his mouth twisted up into a smirk. At least this town knew how to show him a good time.
The shadows moved closer and now it was clear that a something, or rather a small pack of somethings, was headed his way. He still stood stark still, the smirk never once leaving his face. All three pounced, anticipating to dig into their prey's unprotected flesh. Such satisfaction was never felt by them. Their target disappeared the next minute and soon after it began to rain hot steel.
Dante spun like a top jacked up with adrenaline, firing off his pistols one after another in different directions. He came back down, narrowly hitting his head but adjusting his fall so instead he landed on his feet as if nothing had happened.
He turned on his heel and carelessly strode over to one of his kills, inspecting it by nudging the carcass with his boot.
"Lemmie see…unusual alright. Definitely hostile in 'nature' and physiology. Well, the file was right…" Dante twirled his pistols about before he put them up again. "Too bad it didn't give any details on where I can find the sonovabitch I'm looking for."
He turned again, leisurely walking into the fog as if he were on a morning stroll. "Guess I'll just have to take a little tour around town…"
And three hours later…
"Wait, haven't I been here before?"
Besides thinking that he should stop talking to himself, Dante went over his romp in his mind. There was no possible way he could have wound up back where he had come from. But, sure enough, after three hours of encountering locked buildings and giant gaps in the ground caused by who knew what (probably better to not know) the expert demon hunter normally gifted with a great sense of direction found himself running into the dead bodies of the first three baddies he had encountered in this ghost town.
The confused half-breed scratched the back of his neck. "Too bad I don't have a map or anything…"
His train of thought was broken as he saw something small and blue to his left. Naturally, he aimed his pistols promptly, wanting to shoot first and figure out whatever the hell he shot later. But he hesitated.
Damn…
It was that psycho kid again, the one that had dashed out in front of his bike. Dante put up his guns. Sure, he was angry at her, but he wasn't about to shoot a kid. He was one of the good guys, after all.
Dante walked closer, but the figure of blue moved away. One more step and she ran off into the surrounding fog. He could still see her figure through the fog, due in part to his demon senses. It was clear that she wanted him to follow her.
"Well, I don't have anything better to do here. Ok, missy, I sure hope this little game is useful in the end…"
He walked off, following her trail and taking his time. Monsters or no, she'd still be there when he caught up. Somehow, he knew that for a fact…
