Author's Note: Hello everyone! Just a warning before you read, there's drug use in this fic. So don't read if you don't like!

Also, Faceclaim: Victoria; cross between Lara Croft (the young, new design) and Adelaide Kane.

Enjoy ^.^

Chapter 1: Devil May Cry

After last night's attack by the demons and the Man in Blue saving her, Victoria had grabbed her books and raced back to her dormitory on her college campus. She was a sophomore and school had only begun about a three weeks ago, but she running around the campus in a mad panic, she must have looked like an idiot as she bumbled through the campus looking for her dorm building; she embarrassingly walking into two wrong dorm buildings.

When she'd finally gotten into her room, she'd quickly locked the deadbolt on the door and propped he roommate's chair against it for safe measure. For once, she was glad that Camilla wasn't home (she was staying the night at her boyfriend's), as Victoria was in quite a state; she'd scrapped her knees to hell, she was a sweaty disheveled mess, and her long, braided dark hair had come loose, thus making her hair look stringy. Not that she'd cared at that moment. After securing the door into her dorm room, Victoria then quickly unlocked the padded lock on her wardrobe, unlocked the safe inside of it, and pulled out the Beretta her father had gifted to her when she left her home state for college. She then grabbed her own desk chair, turned it to face the door, locked and loaded her gun, and sat there, waiting for hours until she felt safe enough to go to bed.

Waking up after only six hours of sleep, still groggy and disoriented from the Klonopin and Ambien she had taken to sleep, Victoria sat in bed and was actually beginning to wonder if last night had simply been a dream. However, after seeing the cuts and bruises from last night's encounter, she came to the horrified realization that last night was indeed not a dream; but it was in fact, very real.

I thought things had been feeling wrong around the city for the past week, she thought to herself, last night just confirmed that my visions and intuition were true: we are about to be under attack by demons, or we already are being under attack. At these thoughts, Victoria groaned to herself: as if she didn't have enough problems already; she had an anxiety disorder and primary insomnia, which weren't helped by the fact that she was also what most would call a "witch".

Seeing that she only had about an hour to shower, dress, and get her butt in her seat for her Chemistry exam, Victoria quickly pushed this out of her mind; but she was also mildly hoping that demons would crash the Chemistry building and cancel the exam. She doubted the she had that much luck though.

It was around 3 P.M. in afternoon before Lady was able to get over to Devil May Cry. Getting off her bike, she'd decided not to take Kalina Ann with her since she currently had no missions today and was only heading over to talk with Dante. Walking through the two heavy doors, she saw that Dante was nowhere in sight. Irritated she yelled, "Yo! Asshole! You home?!"

No response.

Sighing irritably, Lady realized that if Dante wasn't passed out drunk at his desk or in the shower, then he'd probably been up all night at Love Planet and was passed out in bed dead asleep. Stomping up the stairs to his bedroom, she was going to barge in and wake the lazy bastard up, but realizing that this may put her at risk for seeing something that may scar her for life, she decided to bang on the door loudly.

Bang Bang Bang "Yo! You better have some pants on or at least have your dick covered!"

No response, but she did hear sheets rustling as Dante probably rolled over in his sleep.

Goddamnit! Lady felt her temper flaring. Lazy Sonofabitch! Barging through the door, which was unlocked, Lady was careful not to look over at the bed in case there was a scene laying in it that she'd rather not see. Walking over to the curtains, she jerked them open yelling, "Rise and Shine!"

Dante, half naked with a half empty bottle of Jack still in his hand, groaned and pulled a pillow over his face against the offending light. "Ugh! Why?!" He ground out, head throbbing, and hung over.

"Job," Lady simply said as she yanked the pillow off his face. "Get decent, come downstairs and we'll talk about it."

Hearing Lady leave, but not closing the door behind her, Dante took a swig and got up to shower. Coming downstairs, he saw Lady helping herself to his fridge.

"Jeez, Dante. You're diet is terrible! All that's in here is pizza and ice cream!" Closing the door to the fridge, she dug around her purse for a bottle of pills. Handing him three gel capsules, she told him, "Take these and take a shower. You smell like booze, smoke, and shame."

"Yeah, yeah..." he responded as he took the pills, swallowing them with Jack, and headed for the shower. Closing the bathroom door he heard Lady say, And quit drinking! You need to sober up, not drink hair of the dog! And look professional! I'll make coffee.

While Dante was showering, Lady looked at the mess of a kitchen.

Slob, she thought as she struggled to find the coffee pot. Finally finding it under a stack of pizza boxes, she soon found the coffee grinds and began to brew the coffee using water from the sink. She was trying to work on her temper a bit, but the way Dante lived, in a stye, was disgusting. The two of them got along a lot better when she didn't have to meet up with him at Devil May Cry; but she'd been called by the president of the nearby university about the campus possibly having a demon problem, and after checking it out last night, she realized that she needed Dante's help in taking it out.

Sighing as she looked at the results on her chemistry exam she'd taken earlier this morning, she supposed that the first exam would be the one that'd have to be dropped because she'd epically failed it.

Stupid Demons! Victoria thought as she turned off her laptop to lay in bed.

She had slept very little last night and after her confrontation with the demons, she was pretty exhausted and pissed off. If last night hadn't happened, she probably would've done pretty damn well on that exam!

Fuck I could really use a joint right now!

Before college, Victoria would have never even contemplated smoking, but after attending a few college parties and getting a few drinks in her, she let some friends talk her into smoking a bowl with them. Such a liberating experience! These friends had always told her how anal retentive and high strung she was and that popping benzodiazepines wasn't a very good way to cope with her anxieties.

Sighing in frustration, Victoria settled on turning on the TV. The local news channel playing in the background, she started taking her clothes off to put on her lounge clothes. Going into the bathroom to take her makeup off, something on the news caught her ear. Going back into the room, she turned up the volume and sat on her bed.

"Strange occurrences continue to happen around the city. Last night, two local university students met a violent end-"

Victoria's mouth dropped when she saw the camera pan to the "crime scene". The students must have been cornered by...something...as there were nothing but large, long slashes accompanied with copious amounts of blood on all three walls.

Listening more carefully, the news woman added, "local law enforcement is baffled as they do not know what could have possibly caused these markings or this amount of damage. The university president has stated that all students should be careful, but the university will not be shut down as these deaths occurred off campus."

Feeling a cold chill go down her spine, Victoria quickly looked for her bottle of Xanax and popped one. Though Victoria had accepted demonic presence in the human world to be a reality since she was little, it did little to help her anxieties about their existence. In fact, any time she sensed a demon to be near by, she began to have panic attacks.

Lying in bed, shaking, Victoria patiently waited for the medication to take effect and calm her down. She felt tears streaming down her eyes as she felt despair; she hated the fact that she had to live her life by needing anti-anxiety and sleeping pills every single day. Recently, she was having to use them more often than usual; likely due to the increased demonic activity.

After about twenty minutes, Victoria felt the medicine kick-in and her paralyzing anxiety went away. Taking a deep breath, she finally felt calm enough to think.

I'm done with these fucks, time to do something about them.

Getting out of bed, Victoria put her Beretta in her purse and pulled her clothes back on. She may be just one witch with a handgun, but she was sick of demons thinking that they could kill people on her turf.

Putting on a pair of brown combat boots, Victoria locked the door behind her, and headed towards the demon.

Meeting up with the stuffy university president, Dante and Lady were asked to keep their investigation into the demon sightings as quiet as possible. Apparently, the university couldn't afford to close, and if demons were found by the public, they'd be forced to out of safety concerns.

Due to the campus wide warnings about the nearby violent crimes, the campus was basically empty when the sun fell and night came. That was when Dante and Lady split up and decided to begin scouting the campus for demons. So far though, neither had any luck.

After midnight, the two hunters met up in the quad and took a break. Lady found a vending machine and got them both sodas, which they sipped on as they re-grouped. The campus was larger than they had expected, and thus, it took them a good three hours to thoroughly check the south and east sides.

Finishing her soda, Lady spoke first, "I guess we should get started on checking the North and West sides." Hitching Kalina-ann up on the large strap, she began to walk to the West. "I'll start on the West side. Let's meet back here in three hours." Stopping in her tracks, she realized that she forgot something. Pulling two radios out she added, "I forgot that I found these radios. This campus is so large we could easily lose track of each other." Tossing a radio to Dante, Lady told him, "Radio me if you find anything."

Dante waved her off, "Later."

Finishing his own soda, Dante picked up the guitar case that held his massive sword, Rebellion, and began to head North. The library was the biggest structure North, so he thought he'd head there first.

Half a mile away, something caught Dante's eye in the shadows. Focusing, he saw that a girl with long dark hair, pulled back, wearing jeans and combat boots was checking the parameters before entering the building cautiously. Then, it struck him; this girl, there was something different. Something about her wasn't right, but Dante couldn't figure out exactly why; though he knew one thing for sure, she wasn't an ordinary human.

Making up his mind, Dante walked toward the library and decided to follow her.

To say Victoria was terrified was an understatement. As she spent the past several hours trying to covertly search the campus for the demonic presence she felt, she finally found it. As she had approached the library, Victoria felt the demonic presence to be overwhelming. It had to be here.

It was almost Midnight on a Friday night and nobody was around, save for the couple of librarians at the front desk on the first floor.

Going up to the second floor, Victoria headed towards the stacks of very old books that even the professors rarely dealt with.

It's here, Victoria thought as she felt the shivers go up her spine. There were no cameras around the "stacks" since it was the oldest part of the building, so she assumed it was safe to take her gun out and head up the stairs to the third floor.

As Victoria got up to the third floor, she felt paralyzing fear run through her like lightening; the demon was on this floor in and in this area. Cautiously, Victoria began to go through the long lines of bookcases after dropping her purse on the floor. After going through the third row, Victoria stopped dead in her tracks and felt her breathing deepen and slow. Quickly ducking, a large, long sharp claw barely missed her head, and knocked the bookcases over.

Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit!

In the chaos, Victoria had lost her gun.

Scrambling to her feet, she saw the demon materialize. It was a slick, oily black insect looking thing with long, scythe like claws for arms.

"Take this motherfucker!" Victoria concentrated her energy and sent a ball of fire at it. If it was an insect demon like she suspected, then it would be most susceptible to fire. Thankfully, she was right as she saw the large, burning hole burning the demon's massive oily abdomen. Unfortunately though, this caused the sprinklers and the fire alarm to go off.

As the water from the sprinklers extinguished the fire on the demon, Victoria saw her black gun a few feet in front of her and scrambled for it. Since she had exposed the thing's abdomen with the fire spell, maybe it wouldn't be so impervious to her bullets.

Grabbing the gun and unlocking the safety, Victoria aimed to fire, but what she saw made her stomach drop; the water extinguished the fire, enabling the demon to heal itself.

Fuck me!

Victoria started to fire rapidly as the demon advanced towards her. It's oily skin seemed to make it bullet resistant. When it got too close, it threw it's long arms in a slicing motion towards Victoria. It would have cut her head off had she not ducked and rolled in time.

Time for a new strategy.

Summoning another fire spell, she sent the fire ball soaring at the demon again, however, it covered itself with it's metal-like claws. It was unaffected if it blocked with it's claws. Backing up, Victoria realized that she had been backed into a corner.

NO! No no no no no! This was it...this was how she was going to die...

Summoning more fire spells, Victoria figured that if she died, then she would at least die fighting! Holding it's claws out in front of it, the demon advanced until it was only about five feet from Victoria. The demon, still using its claws as a shield, then whipped her to the side with it's long tail, sending Victoria crashing, hard, into the wall next to her.

Drained and injured, Victoria could only think, I'm done...I'm going to die!

Victoria closed her eyes, not wanting to see the horror of her own death, when suddenly, she heard something like a sword slicing through thick, wet flesh.

Opening her eyes, she saw the demon had been cut in half by a tall man in red with silver hair, holding a big, long sword.

He looks like the man in blue! Not only that, but Victoria also sensed that he was a demon as well.

Picking up her Beretta, Victoria noticed that he was unguarded so she took the opportunity to shoot him right between the eyes. Expecting the man in red to fall, she was shocked the he had barely even flinched.

"Ah! Shit that hurt!" the man in red yelped as he rubbed blood off of his forehead. There was no bullet hole.

Shocked, Victoria quickly recomposed herself; "Who the FUCK are you?!" Holding her gun aimed at his head again.

"Is that anyway to thank me? I did just save your sweet ass girl!"

Victoria felt her temper rise. "Girl?!" She bristled before sending a fire spell his way.

The man in red's speed in dodging her spell was incredible!

Putting out the flames that had nicked the bottom edge of his red coat, he scowled at her. "You know, you'd probably get along well with my partner." Advancing towards Victoria, he knocked the Beretta out of her hand.

Victoria flattened herself against the wall behind her in fear.

"To answer your question, the name is Dante." Sensing that the young woman in front of him was about to bolt, he trapped her with his arms; he had a few questions for her as well. "Now that I've answered your question," Dante began as the woman struggled to get free, "who and what are you? Never seen a prolific magic user such as yourself before."

To Be Continued...