Lightning Crashes

By Star Crossed Vigilante

I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry. Dante spun full around, glaring.

"Who are you?" he repeated, voices thunderous.

"I—" I choked. Dante's glare intensified.

"Say something!"

"Wha—?"

"I know you're there!"

"Can't you hear me?" I asked, rising from my seat. My voice rang plaintively in the Darkness: "Hello?"

"You can't hide from me! Come OUT!"

Dante was obviously growing agitated; he had started pacing like a caged animal, all sinewy muscle and tamed fury. I looked around, frantic and scared and confused, and noticed a headset used for xBox Live games sitting on top of the TV.

Unsure if it would work or not, what with it being a gadget meant for another console, I jammed on the receiver and held the mic over my mouth. Breathlessly, I said: "Hello?"

Onscreen, Dante stopped yelling. He ceased his pacing and stood stock still, eyes wary.

"Can you hear me?" I asked. Dante's eyes were still fixed disconcertingly on me, and I shivered. "Hello?"

"Who are you?"

I jumped. I had not been expecting him to speak so frankly. "Um…" I mumbled, unsure of what to say. His voice was everywhere… and nowhere. It was intimidating, issuing straight out of the Darkness and into my ears.

"What's your name?"

I frowned at that. Name? Before I could really think about it, however, I blurted: "Max." I started at the sound, then repeated the word. "Max. I'm Max." It seemed right, and I beamed at Dante, though he could not see me.

"Are you a ghost?"

"I…" I began. What was I, anyway? "I don't think so."

He looked satisfied. "A demon, then."

"N-no!" I stuttered. "I'm a… a…" I couldn't remember.

"Human?" Dante snorted.

"That's it!" I said with triumph. Dante shook his head.

"No way. Humans can't use telepathy this well, or for this long."

I stared, taken aback. "Telepathy?"

Dante tapped his ear with a finger. "I can't hear you with my ears, just my head. Sure-fire sign of telepathy."

"Oh."

"So, spirit girl… who are you, and why the hell were you possessing me?"

"…possessing?"

"Controlling me. Those movements, when I was fighting those demons… well, they sure as hell weren't mine."

I scowled at his scornful tone. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He snorted and smirked. "My movements were never that clumsy."

Grudgingly I said: "And here I thought I was playing rather well."

Dante's eyes narrowed. "'Playing?'"

"Uh-huh," I said blandly. "You're a video game."

I blinked at my own words, dumbfounded. Then I leaned forward and switched off the console.

The screen immediately went dark. The light on the Playstation had turned red.

Setting the controller down onto the table gently, I leaned back in my chair.

I mean, the absurdity of it! The thought that a video game could talk and interact with me like a living thing! What was I, crazy? Dante could not be—

Wait… Dante?

Who was Dante? I couldn't seem to recall…

I frowned, staring at the TV screen stretched before me. What was I doing here, in this Darkness, thinking about… what had I been thinking about?

After a moment of concentration, I shrugged. Did it matter? No, of course it didn't. I sat a moment, mind blank. Then I noticed I was bored, and there was a Playstation sitting on the table in front of me.

A video game, I thought happily. That won't be boring. I turned on the machine and watched the screen come to life.

A shirtless man was glaring straight at me, and in a moment of utter clarity I remembered everything. My jaw dropped.

"My God…"

Dante—for now I remembered him—smiled acidly. "Oh, so you can talk! I was beginning to think you were a hallucination or something, but then I realized that no hallucination of mine would be so damn—"

"Dante!" I hissed, pillowing my head in my hands. "Shut up!"

"Shouldn't that be my line? I men, you ARE in MY head, after all, so—"

"SHUT UP!" I roared. "I'm trying to think and your chattering won't damn well help, you stupid son of a—" My swearing dragged on for a minute or two as memories of life before this dark place came rushing back to me: the lightning strike; the hospital; the doctors; Nikky; the coma; everything. The flow of forgotten information came on so strongly and so quickly that I cried out and fell out of my chair to the ground-that-was-not-ground.

"What's wrong?" Dante said. Was there concern in his voice? He must have heard me fall. Or was he alarmed by the fervency of my words? I couldn't tell. "Spirit Girl?"

"I had forgotten," I moaned. I stared at the 'ground' and gulped. The sensation of swallowing felt all too real, despite the fact that I knew I was in a coma. My head very well knew that this could not be reality and that I was hallucinating, but the rest of me didn't seem to get the message. Dante was still there. "Oh, God, I was just sitting here like everything was fine while my body is fighting for its life, and I—"

"Whoa, whoa," Dante's voice interjected. "Your body? What's going on?"

"I just remembered everything," I snapped, glaring back up at the huge screen. Dante was looking pissed. "I had forgotten. I don't know why, but talking to you has seemed to clear my head somewhat, like you're the only thing keeping me lucid."

"What?"

"Oh for the love of—" I took a deep breath and tried my best to steady myself. Slowly, I said: "My name is Maxine Aire. I was struck by lightning some hours ago, I don't know how many, and the doctor's put me into a coma so that my body could heal itself. I woke up here, in this Black Place, and somehow managed to conjure up a TV and a video gaming console." I glanced up at the table and saw the can of root beer. "And a soda, it seems. But that's not the point." I clenched my fists. "I'd forgotten my brother and my family and why the hell I was here, but then you showed up and I remembered."

He said nothing, merely quirked an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Listen, Dante!" I snarled, composure shattering like glass. "I think this is a hallucination or a dream or something. You can't be real."

"Like hell," he said bluntly. "Frankly, I don't think YOU'RE real."

My anger evaporated. I blinked. "What?"

"You're a voice in my head, Spirit Girl," he said casually. Onscreen, he swaggered over to his desk and plopped into a chair. "What would YOU think if you started hearing voices?"

I pondered that as moment and admitted: "I'd think I'd gone crazy."

"Bingo!" he said. I grimaced.

"I guess we're at a stalemate, then. I think you're not real, and you think I'm a ghost or a product of a rather strange bout of schizophrenia. Great."

Dante heaved a sigh. "Well, I guess we could always test to see if you really aren't a product of my imagination."

My eyes narrowed. "I assume you have an idea as to how that should be done, then?"

He shrugged. "How 'bout I hold up a certain number of fingers behind my back and you swivel the camera around to see 'em—if I'm really a video game that should be an easy thing to do."

I shook my head despite him not being able to see. "That's no good on three counts. For one, DMC is—predominately, anyway—a fixed camera game. The second thing is that if I were indeed a product of your consciousness, wouldn't I know exactly what you were thinking, including the exact number of the fingers in question?"

"Ouch. And the third problem would be…?"

"You, whom I have deemed as ever so slightly immature, would probably pull some stunt such as 'my thumb doesn't count as a finger so your number is technically off by one' or something. My brother does it all the time when we play that game."

Dante grinned. "That settles it. You're real all right."

I just blinked. From the tone of my silence, Dante guessed I didn't get it.

"Oh, come on, Spirit Girl! I thought you were intelligent; you're little monologue was proof enough of that!"

I stared at him and heaved myself back into my chair. "I don't understand."

He sighed again. "Look, I thought of the whole 'since I'm you and you're me you'd know the number' angle, but the 'thumb/finger' issue hadn't even crossed my mind. And, if we were the same person, you wouldn't be able to think up any thoughts that I hadn't thought of, now would you?"

I rolled my eyes and replied: "Though your reasoning is severely flawed, given that schizophrenic's personalities are able to invent dissimilar things without the assistance of their other halves, you seem convinced of my integrity, so I'm not going to complain."

Dante laughed triumphantly. "And that's another thing that proves my point! You've got a better vocabulary than me!"

"…True."

"So what's this game thing you were talking about?" Dante asked, yawning. I kneaded with my forehead with my knuckles, remembering.

"There's this game in my… world, I guess, called Devil May Cry."

Dante nodded. "Cool title. I like it."

"It's a series, actually. The fourth game comes out soon, and right now I'm—we're playing the third."

"Killer."

"The first game was amazing, frankly, but the second game sucked."

"Okay… maybe not so killer."

"The third one, however, brought back the series' glory."

"And that's the one I'm living now?"

"Yes."

"Sweet."

I looked up at him. "The next level begins when you step outside, I think."

He nodded. "What happens?"

"Um…" I thought, hard, but came up with nothing. "I can't remember."

"You're useless," Dante said, then lurched to his feet and stretched. Picking up his violent red coat, he sauntered towards the door. "Eh, whatever."

"Time to go to work, then?" I asked. "I mean, since sitting here gets nothing done and all."

Dante winked. "No time but the present. And hey, having a babe along for the ride should be fun."

I blanched. "You can't even see me, Dante."

He shrugged, stopping just before his office door. "It's the thought that counts." He then laughed. "Get it, 'thought?' I thought you were one, and—" When I didn't laugh he sighed and huffily said: "Oh, just forget it!"

Then he kicked down the door, and Mission Two was underway.

A/N: Sorry it was so short and sloppy. Review, please.

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