R & R
In Raccoon City central hospital in room 616 police officer Leon S. Kennedy slept dreamlessly in a large hospital bed. He'd been here for two solid weeks and still hadn't woken up. Whatever happened to him, it couldn't been a pleasant encounter. Several bones were broken, one lounge punctured, sever though no-fatal internal bleeding, blood loss and a nasty concussion. Miracle cop his co-workers called him, since his survival was indeed a real life miracle. Barely a week at the force and he was already hospitalized. Leon's closest collage at the force, Marvin, came by every day at the end of his shift. He usually stayed until visiting hours was over and then headed home. Marvin never said anything nor did he ask any questions to the nurses, he simply was there for his collage, nothing more nothing less.
It was around four o'clock in the morning on the third week that Leon finally woke up. The painkillers made his head spinning and his vision one big blurry fog. «Good morning Leon, how are you feeling?» A woman asked with a gentle voice. «Like I had the crap beaten out of me...» Leon sighed followed up by a faint smile. His dry lips cracked open and drops of blood began to pop to the surface. «Do you remember anything?» The woman asked. Swallowing in hope to wet his dry throat a little, Leon looked into his disorientated mind and tried to focus on his last solid memory. «Devil May Cry...» He groaned as he recall seeing the bright red neon sign. «Yes, something saved you from a gang that was beating you to pulp, and Dante brought you here.» The woman supplied.
At the mention of the name Dante confusing images and loud sounds rang through Leon's mind. Roaring guns, pain and a large black winged demon. «Why did... what...» Leon couldn't sort things straight in his mind so he simply gave up. «I'll explain everything, so I want you to listen to me and listen carefully for I'll tell you this only once.» The woman soothered him. Leon weakly nodded in response and tried to clear his mind as best he could.
After a theatrical pause for dramatic effect, the woman began her tale. Leon had a hard time keeping track of what was said about who, what, when and where, but at least he caught the headlines, sort of. In short the story was about Dante, his trade and the many things that followed in his wake.
Dante was a man feared by just about everyone in Raccoon City and with good reason. If there was anyone that could live up to the proverb «tough as they come», Dante was your guy. He came from a small and broken, yet happy family. This only true happiness was torn out of his hands at an early age and that one event planted the dark seed that would later bloom into the present day Dante.
As a natural hunter and ruthless killer, Dante spent every woken moment bent on one thought alone; revenge. Everyone, everything was a potential target. In the early days, Dante had no clues, no ideas, no real suspect, no skill, no experience, no nothing. He kicked down every door he came across, skating uphill, kept on going no matter how many punches he took along the way. True he had his limits, but he'd just fall back, crawl into the shadows, lick his wounds like a injured predator, only to start anew with stronger resolve.
When Dante reached his teens, he already had a respectable reputation in the criminal underworld, especially considering his young age, the police was keeping a closer eye on his movements, but things went from bad to worse during Dante's early teens. The places, people and events he continuously got connected to grew weirder and weirder, darker and darker. Dante kept digging, into the abyss of human nature and society, no one can tell for sure what he found down there (the few who can are either insane or dead), but whatever it was, it died screaming and Dante came back to the world of the living with a trophy from his adventures.
Where it came from, few dare to speculate, how Dante managed to tame it, no one wants to know, who's really in charge; Dante or the beast, people don't dare to ask. All they know is that when the shit really hit the fan with Dante around, it comes. A dark angel of death, surrounded by a crimson red aura, with a big white cross across its chest, milky pale dead eyes that holds no soul, mercy or hope and claws that sink deep into your being and drags you deep down into the shadow of darkness. Wielding a sword identical to the one Dante uses, it hunts, it kills and it will not stop at anything, for anyone until the skies cry blood. It is a open, violent and savage rebellion against everything that man holds dear.
It was this... thing, whatever it is, that put Dante on the throne once and for all. Everyone that has tried to challenge his seat has failed, their fates are told in detail to make children of serial killers and other extremes of human nature behave. Word is that if Dante's after you, there's no escape, not in this life or the next.
Leon sunk back into his bed and took a moment to think things over. The image of Dante with a devil watching over him kept creeping in behind his eyes. «For whatever reason, this thing acted on its own and came to your rescue. Though once the gang was... dealt with, it left Dante to clean up the mess.» The woman said as if she was talking to herself. «Holy...» was all Leon managed to say at that point.
Looking up with a much clearer vision than earlier, Leon glanced over at the window. In the frame sat the silhouette of a woman and as the sun rose from behind the skyline of Staunton Island, the rays of light revealed her blond hair, black leather clothing and fair blue eyes. «You're still going to be stuck to this bed for the next 2 months, so take the time to think things over, where you want to go from here. Get some R & R y'know.» Trish said before sliding out of the window frame and leaving the room.
Not long after that a nurse from the morning shift came by to check on Leon. Seeing that he was wide awake, she went to fetch a doctor right away. After a series of questions and check-ups, Leon was left to his thoughts. He had a lot of things to consider, but worst of all he was all alone. If there was just someone... anyone he could consult with, to ask for a second opinion, but there was no one.
Dante and this Trish lady, whomever she was, were obviously not your average Joe and they were both so deep into this that they didn't have much choice but to keep going forward. Marvin, along with a lot of the other cops at the station knew that there was something going on, something unnatural, but had chosen not to peek into it any further. McCoy had been the only one so far that had answered the call, but he was dead. Leon couldn't talk with the dead, though he wouldn't be surprised if this Trish woman could. Why did Dante kill him anyway?
Leon was curious about that question, but was that curiosity worth getting involved? He had the feeling that once he agreed to join hands with Trish and Dante, he'd be stuck there 'til the end of his days. While pondering over these issues, Marvin came to see Leon in the middle of his shift. «Heh, when I heard the news, I just had to come over.» Marvin smiled as they chatted over a bottle of soda Marvin had smuggled in.
While Marvin was chatting happily about normal day issues at the station, football games and the up-coming Oscar show, Leon remembered that there was one person he could talk to regarding joining Dante or not. Dr Ada Wong was deep into it and she could give Leon important information that he'd need to make his final decision. «Say Marv'.» He asked his co-worker. «Yeah?» Marvin replied, pouring himself another cup of soda. «Could you drop a line to Dr Wong for me and ask her if she could come over?» Leon asked.
Marvin was taken a little aback by this sudden and rather unexpected request, but saw no reason to refuse. «Sure thing, I could do that. Do you got the hots for her or something?» He grinned. Now it was Leon's turn to be surprised, but he jokingly suggested that by looks alone, sure he wouldn't mind being doctor Wong's patient, but was uncertain if her personality and character had a similar attraction. «Better tell the guys this, they love to have bets about this kinda thing.» Marvin laughed. «Oy, oy, oy. If you do that you'll start finding dead bugs in your coffee.» Leon jokingly threatened.
Although it was a shot in the dark, Leon did have a faint hope that Ada would drop by. Thankfully his hopes weren't misplaced as Ada gently knocked on the door frame at the end of visiting hours. «Sorry I'm late, but there was a fire in the subway and... well, yeah.» She shrugged. «Close the door doc and have a seat.» Leon said, inviting her in. Raising one of her eyebrows in suspicion, Ada did like she was told. «I know about Dante... the whole... his story.» Leon said, wasting no time to beat around the bush.
Ada just tilted her head a little in response before asking: «Are you asking me to help you getting him behind bars?» Leon was quick in dismissing that idea. «No, I was... offered what I guess was McCoy's seat by this Trish woman.» He explained. «Trish?» Ada asked sounding puzzled. «Blond woman, blue eyes, dresses in black leather, face like an angel...?» Leon supplied. Ada just shook her head. «Nope, doesn't ring any bells.» She said spreading her hands helplessly.
This was a serious blow to Leon. Just who was Trish? Did Dante know about her? Was she playing Leon into a trap? Questions like these kept popping up in his head until he felt like it would explode. «Dante's inner circle is painfully limited. Most of the top gangsters in Raccoon City are clueless of what's really going on, they just know that Dante can fix problems that are out of the ordinary.» Ada said as if she was trying to answer some of the questions in Leon's head.
Leon had to make a decision, so in a blind leap of faith he cast aside his doubts about Trish for now and asked Ada what he wanted to ask her in the first place. «Ada, what... how did you get inside Dante's inner circle?» Ada leaned back into her chair at that question, her eyes saying «so that's what you want to know», but she sure took her sweet time before she started talking.
In the beginning she told how she used to spot Dante near crime scenes out in the city. He stood out like a sore thumb thanks to his silver white hair despite his young age and then there was of course those eyes of his. For some time that was their so-called relationship, but it advanced to the next level when he suddenly one day arrived at the station and started asking questions about a mutilated body.
When she suggested that such information was strictly speaking for law enforcement eyes only, Dante quickly countered with saying that he was a P.I investigating the same case on behalf on a private client. Ada being clueless of what or whom she had to deal with, promptly shoved Dante out of the station. The very next day Dante came back, this time with his client. Dante's client was no other than Donald Love, one of the most powerful men in all of Raccoon City. Mr Love was polite, yet quite firm when he insisted that Ada would give Dante 110 of her cooperation.
From then on, their partnership started in its virgin years. Dante showed up at strange hours of the day and was always interested in cases that had low profile and several unnatural elements in it. You never saw Dante on a nice and clean crime scene like a jealous mistress killing her lover for not divorcing his wife. Though things didn't stay like that for very long. A year or two at the most, then everything changed.
Ada was working late one night when all of the sudden strange worm like creatures shot out from the pelvis of a dead woman. As if Ada's scream of terror was his cue, Dante dashed in and shoved a massive sword into the dead body. Barking at Ada to get the hell out of his way, she fled out of the room and slammed the door shut. When Dante finally came out, he was covered in navy blue blood and had bite marks all over his left arm.
After that Dante told her to forget it all, nothing happened, it was a bad dream, fever fantasy or whatever lie I decided to tell myself. «Just don't insist that this happened.» He stressed out before leaving, Ada recalled. Since Ada was in a state of shock, it took a good week before she managed to arrange her memory from those fatal seconds into something she could digest and analyze. She wanted to tell someone, anyone, but couldn't. «Why not?» Leon asked, interrupting Ada's story. «I was having this feeling, that someone or rather something was watching me and that if I as much as thought the thought, it'd jump at me and...» Ada broke off, drawing a deep, shivering breath.
Fear, Dante's main weapon against the world that opposed his way of life. Leon had to admit it, no sane person would ever want to go up against Dante. You'd crumble and fall like a house of cards before Dante even lifted a finger. «You two are on talking terms now, so how did that happen?» Leon asked Ada, keeping his fingers crossed that she wouldn't bail out and never speak of the subject again. «McCoy.» Ada said, as if that explained everything.
On the verge of a full nervous breakdown due to paranoia and inhumanly high stress levels, Ada found reason to go on in McCoy. He knew that something was going down, that all the blood ran back to Dante's hands, guns and sword. He cut a deal with the police commissioner; Dante was a treat to public peace and although he's solved cases too hard for the police to handle, his methods were unacceptable 98 percent of the time, not to mention his deep ties with the criminal underworld. Needless to say, someone needed to keep the eyes on the man, 24/7 to roll him back in whenever he stepped out of line.
McCoy volunteered for the job, so whenever Dante showed up, regardless of the crime, McCoy was breathing down his neck. «And your role?» Leon asked, despite that Dante had filled him in on that earlier, he'd like to hear Ada's side of the tale, in case there were any differences. «Dante's a hunter, a killer detective. I worked on whatever he left behind, hoping to find something... anything that would make sense. None of it did.» Ada admitted a little bitterly. McCoy was afraid that if his reports confirmed even a fraction of those wild stories that hung around Dante like a bad smell, the police commissioner would pull the plug. So the details that really mattered in most cases were skipped or altered in the official reports.
Dante kept his own records, those are the real deal. Things worked out mainly because Dante was a bridge between the criminals and the police; we had a crime scene that looked like 30+ people had literally exploded without any form for explosives used, Dante found out what was really going on, produce some random criminal ass as the guy that did it, some fancy, twisted logic explanation of what went down on the crime scene, we caught the criminal with evidence and the whole shebang, case filed, stamped and closed. Their work wasn't always picture perfect, but then Dante took the heat and dodged the bullet.
«Sometimes Dante would come asking us for help with some crazy shit, though for the most part he went solo.» Ada made no effort in hiding that she was glad that Dante preferred to work solo. «Sounds like a twisted version of Batman to me.» Leon mused. Framing criminals for something they strictly speaking hadn't done, jail them for it and catch the guys that really did it off the record, hush, hush, under the carpet and in the shadows. «Batman never kills, Dante never puts his real targets in jail, that's the difference.» Ada pointed out sarcastically.
«One last question.» Leon said as a last request. «Shoot.» Ada grunted. «Is it worth it, getting involved?» He asked her. «Since you ask me, I'll have to honestly admit that it isn't worth it. Ignorance is bliss. I'd sell my soul to whomever is buying, whatever is left of it, to make all of this just... go away from my life, to start over, to take Dante's advice. To never ever insist on that anything of his businesses is real.» Ada replied with an unexpected honesty and openness to her words. Rising from her chair, Ada walked towards the door and stopped in the doorway. «The real question is; now that you know, can you walk away? Can you know what you know and return to blissful ignorance or will it haunt you until it you yield and walk down this damned path of ours?» She asked over her shoulder before leaving, the door slightly ajar.