A/N: Happy Devil May Cry 4 Coming Out Week! I saw some of the cutscenes for the game, and all I'll say is, if you for some crazy reason need further proof Dante is the epitome of awesome, try that game and you will need no more!
Sorry if my updates are a bit slow, I got a new job recently and am trying to adjust with actually having some money (good) and actually getting up in the early mornings (not so good). But here we go…it's the grand "everything is explained!" chapter!
Or is it?
Muahahahaha.
Fara is behind his desk when he gets back, which is what he's expecting.
Lady is sitting on the other side of it, however, and that is a tad unexpected. He hasn't seen her for almost a year.
They both look up when he comes in, Fara turning toward the sound of his footsteps even before Lady sees him. He takes the two women in for a moment. Fara looks as tired and worn as he feels. Her skin is paler than usual and drawn and he's dealt with her enough to know she has to be feeling sick. Using that stone allows her to see to some extent, enough she can translate those manuscripts no one else can translate for her without going mad, but it takes a horrific toll on her. He's seen her completely debilitated for weeks afterward from the strain of using the thing. It makes him feel slightly guilty for asking her to translate that one; he wouldn't have done it if he'd had another alternative.
Lady looks good, as usual. He's careful not to let his eyes drift too far south of her jaw-line, taking her in with a swift glance. She's wearing jeans and a denim vest today, not fighting gear, so she's come for some other reason than back up. As far back as he can remember Lady has never shown up on his doorstep unless she needs something.
He shakes off thoughts like that, the past is past and things are how they are. He smiles at her as she pushes herself away from his desk, interrupting his greeting with her usual impatience. "I met up with something really strange a few days ago, your friend here seems to think it's connected to this book you found."
Dante looks over at Fara, who is getting out of his chair. She smirks at him. "How did your talk with Auntie Dearest go? Did she give you a lecture about the practical ways to go about an orgy?"
"She didn't get the chance. Oh, that reminds me, I still don't know the answer to this; how do you manage to be blood related to a succubus like that and end up being…well, like you?"
Fara stiffens slightly. It's not the insult that puts her back up but the way he says it. Not with his usual good natured jeer, but forced and falsely cheerful. About as unDantelike as possible. "Dante…"
"She pretty much took one look at that page you translated for me and tossed me out. She didn't seem to like what she saw."
Fara blinks, surprised and Lady speaks impatiently again. "So, now that he's here, do you mind telling me what the hell this book is all about?"
"Sounds like a good idea to me…" Dante looks down at the book and Lady is unnerved to see he seems wary of touching it. Dante is very clearly on his guard, eyeing the thing with trepidation. "Although….I think it might be best if we got rid of this damned thing. Something really weird is going on and it all seems to come back to that cult and this book."
"What happened?" Fara says sharply. Dante looks at her, then at Lady, and then gives a brief rundown of what happened in the elevator. Both women listen to his tale silently, Lady wide eyed and Fara looking grim. After he's finished, Fara nudges Lady into telling him about her own strange encounter, which has Dante shaking his head, confounded, by the time she's through. He looks to the sorceress, who is standing across from him, her slim fingers resting on the cover of the book. "What is it, Fair?" His voice is quiet. "What's happening here? You said it seemed demonic but this isn't demon power."
"Chaos."
The two demon hunters stare at her. That one simple word carries a chill within it that makes the room seem darker and colder than it was before. Fara strokes the book, looking down at it with an odd mixture of revulsion and fascination on her face that puts Dante on edge because he's seen it before. Fara, he believes completely, is good at heart but her curiosity and willingness to walk that fine gray area between good and evil makes him uneasy at times. It's not a good sign this book elicits such a response from her. She looks up and not for the first time he wonders if she can read his thoughts. Those calm red eyes fix eerily on his, focusing on him and yet completely unseeing. She leaves off touching the book and picks up the tape recorder, setting it on the desk. "Some of it was in several forms of demonic language, often alternating between different ones and human languages from word to word, which was annoying. Specifically, it uses the three languages most common among the higher ranks of demons and used in spells and rituals and the like…"
"Fara?" Dante has his "get to the freaking point" tone in his voice. "You're veering off into Nerdland where we can't follow you."
She nods, trying not to get sidetracked. "Right, sorry. Anyway, not only are the languages all mixed up, but the words keep changing and rearranging themselves."
"That's impossible," Lady says, almost scoffing though there's a hint of fear in her voice. Because she knows that while it is impossible, so has a lot of the stuff that's happened over the past few days.
Fara shrugs and reaches for the tape recorder, feeling around for it on the desk. "Read it for yourself, obviously it's already tainted you, reading it now won't do any harm."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Lady's voice rises a bit and Dante looks over at her.
Fara presses the play button and her own voice comes from the tiny speaker, speaking in an almost chant like rhythm and tight with pain from the toll the eyestone is taking on her while she translates. It doesn't take away from the rolling wave of words that manage to be ridiculous and utterly terrifying at the same time. As if the book has a seething mind of its own and is voicing its alien thoughts through Fara's lips. Indeed, the blind woman murmurs along with the words, though Dante doubts she knows she's doing it.
"We are I am that song that taste that rapture of symmetry thrown into the rupturing pestilence I am I am what we are within you within me around around this we are here I am there within the lovely depth of blood and starry blackness within the web within the spread within the spreading darkness…"
"Turn it off." Lady doesn't wait for Fara to do it, reaching over and shoving the stop button down with enough force to send the tape recorder skidding a few inches. She feels like if she has to listen to anymore of that babbling, she'll go crazy. It's just a jumble of words thrown together like poetic nonsense but it chills her to the bone. Maybe because even Fara's calm, chanting voice can't hide the madness that roils in those words. She stares at the book.
"What is this thing, Fara?" Dante manages to keep his voice calm, though he's not much better off than Lady.
Fara seems paler than she was a moment ago and Dante actually rises and makes her sit down. She lifts a shaking hand up to push a strand of jet black hair away from her face and takes a deep breath. She was feeling tired and sick before but just listening to it seems to amplify that feeling by a factor of ten. "It's chaos," she finally whispers. "Did you hear all that about spreading and the web and the spread, and all that? That continues, all the way through what I managed to get through and even when it all changed around and I had to retranslate it that remains a subject it keeps coming back to. Spreading, a web of mortality as it calls it later on in the book. Weaving through the veils of worlds."
"Like a…like a disease or something?" Lady says very quietly.
Fara looks up at her thoughtfully and nods. "That's a good way to describe it, yes. It came to you because Dante found it and you knew Dante, so somehow this power…this chaos…went to you through him. How, I don't know, this isn't a power I can detect or trace or follow. I don't know how it spreads. I don't know where it came from. I do know that saying it wants to destroy anything is an understatement."
"Do you have any idea how to stop it?" Fara looks up at the tone of Dante's voice and reaches out instinctively, laying her hand on her friend's for a moment. He allows it, even seeming to take comfort from it for a moment before he pulls away. She's never heard Dante sound so tired. He's one of the bravest and strongest people she knows, but this is an enemy he can't fight one on one and face to face. For all his power, he seems powerless and she knows it's driving him crazy. Before she can speak, he interrupts, an edge to his voice she's never heard before. "It went to Lady because I picked up that damned thing, and she wasn't anywhere near me. What if I've been spreading this…power…just from walking around today? I passed through a ton of people in the building and on the street. What if every person I passed by is tainted by this thing now?"
"You can't know that, none of us have dealt with something like this before," Fara objects.
Lady nods in agreement, obviously as bothered by the whole thing as he is. "Even if that is how this thing is moving around, you guys said a cult had built up around it. If it goes from person to person, they probably spread it around long ago. And on purpose. You can't have done as much damage as they have already."
"Finding a way to destroy the book might be a good way to start, though it's pretty much guaranteed that's not going to be easy. You should take it out of time come nightfall when there's no one around to try it." Fara turns her head toward Dante. "I have to go home and rest at least for a while before I can't even think, but once I recover a little bit, I'll look deeper into it. I'll help you find a way to stop it though whatever means I possess. I promise you. There's a way. There always is. And what better two are there to fight something that's never been fought before?"
She smiles and for the first time in hours Dante manages a chuckle, glancing at Lady. "You are gonna try your hand at kicking this thing's ass, right?"
Lady cocks an eyebrow at him. "Of course. This could be a world threatening situation we have here, do you think I'm going to risk leaving it up to you two to stop it? We'd all be doomed."