Phantom
It was the day after the TV event that would make history and Leon wanted to have a word or seven with Dante about what had transpired on live television. Furiously he stomped out of the police station, down to the garage and drove off in his green jeep. How could Dante do such a thing? Maybe, just maybe he didn't know what Leon did and that was all there was to it. Yes, that made sense; Dante was just tagging along thinking that the man he shot at the Pan Lantic construction site was just another scumbag crawling around in the social gutter of society.
The drive was a short one and once outside Dante's office, Leon wasted no time. Not bothering turning off the engine to his jeep, he got out and opened the double door leading into Dante's lair with a loud bang. «Dante! We need to talk, now this instant!» He demanded, but there was no reply. The nerve of that guy!! True that he could give just about everyone the creeps, but even so! Dante's attitude was really getting on Leon's nerve. Spitting curses, Leon took it upon himself to look all over the office to find Dante. However a good hour worth of thorough searching later, Leon was still empty handed. «Shit!» Leon spat out before stomping outside to get some fresh air.
Calming down a little, Leon ran things over his mind to try to pinpoint where Dante might have gone off to. His bike was missing, so he could have gone out on some sort of job. Then again, he did get a hell of a lot of media exposure last night, so he'd most likely keep a low profile since as far as Leon could tell, Dante wasn't a real fan of the public spotlight. A more casual errand, such as shopping for food, getting supplies or something of that sort? «He got injured last night, so maybe he's over at Ada's place? If he's no there now, he might have been last night and left the doc some idea of where he'd go next.» Leon mused to himself.
Digging up Ada's phone number on his cellphone, Leon gave her a call. «Dr Wong speaking.» Ada answered with her usual indifferent tone of voice. «Ada? It's Leon here, have you seen Dante?» Leon asked, getting straight to the point. «Only last night, on TV.» Ada replied callously. «Any idea where he might be at? I've tried his office, but came up empty.» Leon then asked, crossing his fingers. «Oh, you didn't get that part?» Ada asked at the other end, sounding a little surprised. «What part?» Leon shot back. «Dante's over at Sex Club-7, cashing in his reward, enjoying his 15 minutes of fame.» Ada actually chuckled.
Even more furious than before, Leon hung up on Ada and got into his jeep. Rounding the block, Leon spotted it; Dante's custom made bike parked straight outside Sex Club-7. Had he no shame at all?! Upon entry, Leon was given some trouble by the door guard, but some harsh words and flashing of his badge got him through. He caused enough of a scene to get the owner of the place, Luigi downstairs to see what the hell was going on. «Kid, kid... what's got you so bent out of shape, huh?» Luigi asked, flanked by a couple of muscle men. «Dante's here isn't he?» Leon demanded, not willing to play any games with Luigi. Leon knew that Luigi was a coward wearing a hard man's mask.
Luigi's face hardened at the sound of Dante's name. «He had a busy day yesterday and he's earned his reward fair and square. There's no way I'll let you ruin his party.» Luigi said firmly. «You better let me in or I'll have a bunch of federal agents in here so fast they'll make a breeze upon entry.» Leon threatened, pointing a finger at Luigi's face. «Kid, you just don't get it do you? I'm keeping you out of Dante's party to protect you. If you crash his party, you'll answer to HIM and the people that do, usually don't live to tell the tale.» Luigi explained. «I'll risk it.» Leon snorted out bluntly.
What happened next, Leon don't know since it all went black at that point. When he came to, he was tied up backstage of Sex Club-7. Some of Luigi's muscle men gave him a beating before Luigi walked up to him and suggested that he'd just give it up and walk home. Leon gritted his teeth and insisted that he wanted to see Dante. Another round of beating followed, but Leon did not yield. They kept it on for 5-6 rounds of beating before Luigi simply walked out, taking one of his thugs with him and telling the other to keep an eye on Leon.
Upstairs on the second floor, Dante was having a great time at the finest VIP room Sex Club-7 had to offer. Plenty of food, drink, great music and lovely girls. The mood did drop considerably when Luigi came in, turned down the stereo system and told the girls to wait outside. «You know me Luigi, so this better be good.» Dante said half glaring at Luigi. «That cop of yours, Kennedy is downstairs. Said he wanted to see you no matter what. My boys tried to knock some sense into him, but he's a persistent fuck. Since he's all yours, I figured...» Luigi explained and left the last part hanging. «He and every cop on the station probably knows about that guy last night.» Dante groaned. Getting up from the sofa he was sitting in, Dante sighed before he said: «Alright, I'll have a little heart to heart chat with him. Give us some privacy will you?»
Leon was untied and dragged upstairs before he was shoved into a richly decorated VIP room. «Okay, here you are, here I am, here we are. First you'll talk, I'll listen, then we switch places. After that, we go our separate ways, deal?» Dante said from the opposite side of the room. Leon nodded before he sunk down in a chair. «That guy you shot in that TV show, do you know who he was, I mean really was?» Leon asked Dante, looking up at him with his bruised and swollen eyes. «Federal agent James R. Johnson, joined the FBI after 4 years as a S.W.A.T in Miami. He was a uncle to 3, two twin girls and a older boy. His youngest sister was a lesbian, though she died in a hurricane some 2 years ago, trapped under the roof and drowned as the sea water rose.» Dante replied with a dull and dead voice as if he was a recorder.
Shocked, Leon just gaped at Dante. He knew, the son of a bitch knew, hell he even knew more than Leon did and he STILL did it!! Why?! «If you knew who he was, then why the hell did you gun him down like that??!!» Leon demanded. «Weren't you listening? Rules of the game stated that it wouldn't end until there was only one man left, no silver medals for finishing second. So it was either him or me.» Dante replied with more indifference than Ada. «What kind of reason is that?! You could have walked away, you could have done whatever the hell you wanted 'cause you've got this town by the balls!!» Leon protested. «You through?» Dante asked, not affected by Leon's outrage.
Leon was even more disgusted, but he felt that he couldn't mount the energy needed to yell at Dante any more, so he just nodded in reply to Dante's question. «This life I live, it's not as black and white as you'd think. Gangsters are afraid of me because some of them have seen first hand what I've done and I use that fear as means to my own ends. However handy that fear is, it must be maintained. I cannot for one second afford to be weak in front of either of them.» Dante began. «The things that I'm after, they are as bad as me, if not even worse. As far as I can tell, the one and only way to beat them is to fight fire with fire, be smarter, faster, harder, stronger and more ruthless than all of them put together.» He carried on explaining to Leon.
Unimpressed by Dante's little speech, Leon staggered back on his feet. Cracking a sarcastic smile, Leon couldn't resist the temptation and spat out at Dante: «You're one crazy son of a bitch.» Turning around to leave, Leon didn't noticed that Dante closed in on him fast from behind. Yanking him by his hair, Dante dragged Leon across the room and into the bathroom. Once there, he stuffed Leon head down the toilet, flushed it, pulled Leon's head up, banged it a few times against the edge of the toilet while waiting for it to refill with water and repeated the process. After the third time, Dante pulled Leon up so the two was face to face. Unable to look away from Dante's eyes, Leon saw for the first time that they were like two pits of burning infernal anger.
In the end, Dante just dropped Leon like a sack of sand in disgust. Grabbing his coat, Dante walked out to the hallway, where Luigi and some of his boys were waiting. «Party's over Luigi, take him to Dr Wong at the cop's place and have her patch him up as good as she can. The fucker hardly deserves that, but as much as I hate to admit it, I need him.» Dante whispered to Luigi before he left. As Leon was picked up and driven off somewhere, in his dazed state of mind one question rang over and over in his head: «what the hell was that?»
Back at the office, Dante was in a sour mood. Things had started quite nice yesterday; got a good case from Donald Love, interesting payment and even a little break from the old routine. Then Leon had to come crashing in, all high and mighty on his horse of moral, as if HE was in any position to tell Dante what was right and what was wrong. He agreed then and there that he better spend most of his efforts showing Leon the ropes. Dante would take him along with his cases, then show him first hand what it meant to do the things Dante did and why there was no room for compromises.
The phone rang and Dante answered it rougher than usual. It was Ada, her call was the last thing Dante needed. Of course Luigi's boys were too spooked to give her any explanation on why a cop whom was beaten to pulp was dropped in her lap to patch up. «I'm a forensic Dante, not a real doctor. There might be internal damage here, he could die unless I get him to a hospital!» She objected. «GODDAMMIT!! You listen to me!» Dante barked through the phone, slamming his hand on his desk. «I hear you doc, just do what you can with what you've got then and there, meanwhile I'll make some calls and see if I can cash in some favors.» This was really not Dante's day.
Over the next half hour, Dante sat with his phone calling around to see if any of his employers could cough up a private clinic or at the very least a doctor at a reasonably short notice, to patch up a beaten up cop and ask no questions. Joey had some ex-medical students and sacked nurses at his disposal, he gave Dante his word that they wouldn't talk and that they also had a clinic of sort to use. He admitted to Dante that the clinic wasn't top notch, but from what Joey could tell, it should cover Dante's needs. «Cheers Joey, send them over to pick up that sorry sack of human waste. The forensic can fill them in on whatever she can about his condition.» Dante thanked Joey over the phone before hanging up.
Taking a minute to catch his breath and calm down, letting his mind drift around aimlessly, it hit him like a ton of bricks. «GODDAMMIT ALL TO FUCKIN' HELL!» He roared, shooting out of his chair and sending his desk flying through the air with a solid kick. His relationship with Leon was now tense to say the least, so he couldn't count on his co-operation regarding that big demon thing that Donald Love had asked him to look into. «Fuckin' shit! You'd think I had cursed blood in me or something.» He complained, stomping around in his office in anger. Dante wanted to keep Trish out of the loop, but without Leon on the team that would prove difficult at best.
«Knock, knock.» A voice said from the doorway. Turning, Dante saw straight into the face that he didn't want to see at all, Trish had come for a house call. «The fuck do you want? I'm in the middle of something here.» Dante snorted at her. «And that would be... redecorating?» Trish asked. Since Dante wasn't amused, Trish decided to cut to the case. «Trismagia needs to talk to you about something, it's serious Dante. I'll take you by force if I have to.» She told him seriously. «Good, great, just bloody splendid!!» Dante laughed sarcastically. Old three-face knew, Dante was sure of it. «It's about that underground critter isn't it?» He asked Trish.
A little surprised, Trish looked at Dante for a moment, before returning to her calm self again. «Yes, how did you...?» She asked puzzled. «I know guys who know guys.» Dante replied, taking a seat on his polo table. «Well then, I guess we can skip that trip to Trismagia after all.» She said, walking over Dante's newly relocated desk and took a seat next to him. «Sing me your song Trish.» Dante said after the two of them had sat like that for a couple of minutes. «It's pretty bad Dante, you better get your grip together or you won't make it through this one.» She told him. So what else is new, Dante thought to himself but said nothing.
Trish took a small moment before she began telling Dante what he was up against. «This is one of the servants of the Dark Emperor, known as Phantom. Inside its exoskeleton body is hot molten lava. Not only is the shell hard, it also protects it from magical attacks as well.» She began. Yeah that added up with the strange rock Dante had found down in that basement. «It releases its magical powers with its mouth. This opening is the monster weak spot.» She carried on. Mouth equals weak spot, okay so far Dante was following along. «Coiled on its back is a deadly tail that will thrust its stinger with amazing speed. Keep your distance to avoid being stabbed.» Trish explained.
Made sense Dante thought. It probably used its tail to punch through the floor, then wrapped it around that girl and dragged her down with tremendous force. «It can summon the dead by plunging its head into the ground. The dead will awaken in the shape of fire pillars which strike from the places where the ground lights up. Run and jump to avoid this attack.» Trish said, gesturing with her hands and arms along the way. There are reasons why people say that the dead should stay quiet, this is one of them, Dante mentally groaned. «It can charge its powers and unleash fires of evil from its mouth. Rolling seems to work well in avoiding this attack.» Trish then explained.
Whoa, hold on there for a second, Dante's mind went on a little rewind and replayed the last bit of Trish's words: Rolling seems to work well in avoiding this attack. Does this mean that Trish has run into this bugger before and got away clean? She risked her own blonde ass to get vital info for him? Couldn't be... that damn oracle thingy is sitting on all the information in the known universe and then some. Hell Dante wasn't even sure if it WAS Trish talking now or if it was the oracle talking through her. «When its anger is at its peak, it'll shoot fireballs from its back like a volcanic eruption. Concentrate and dodge this attack.» Trish advised next.
Getting off the pool table, Trish started towards the door, but halted and turned around. «Last but not least; the body's topside is also vulnerable. If you want to prove yourself as a true Devil Hunter, close in on the enemy and attack him from above. Best of luck!» She smiled at him. «Oy, oy, oy... you mean I'm on my own on this one?» He asked her. «Of course you are, you're the son of Sparda after all, not me.» Trish said as if it was painfully obvious. Sparda, Sparda... when would people get it through their damn skulls that it was nothing more than a fuckin' name!! «Fine, I'll just go for a short drive meet and beat this sucker into gravel, with one hand tied behind my back and standing knee-deep in cement.» Dante snorted with sarcasm. «I'm glad to see that you're so confident, Dante.» Trish smiled, as if she hadn't noticed Dante's sarcasm.
Strapping his gear on, Dante got ready to go out devil hunting. Sword and guns were in top notch condition thanks to Dante's little adventure yesterday, Leon would stay out of his hair 'cause Luigi's boys had taken care of things, leaving Joey's private clinic and its team as the clean-up crew. Ada knew that some shit was going down since she got a beaten up Leon dropped on her front door and she knew form experience that now was the time to duck, cover and ride the storm off the best she could. When Dante thought about it, this day had started with a bang, then got dragged down in the dumps only to make one hell of a comeback as the evening drew near.
Maybe there was some sort of pattern to how this thing operated? Donald had given him all the locations that had been hit, so perhaps if he jotted those down on a map, Dante might be able to predict where the next encounter would be. Though with his luck of late, Dante felt that the bugger would drop down when the timing was at its worst, just to really rub it in. First stop would be Raccoon City tourist information center, to get a city map. An odd place to start the biggest devil hunt to date, but hey that's the way it was.
Once Dante had secured himself a map, he found a quiet side street and jotted down the places that had been hit on the map. Looking down at the various dots, Dante didn't really see any immediate and obvious pattern. Thus far there had been only one victim; that girl that summoned Dante in the basement. Was she the key? If so, how and why? Trish had been talking happily about the finer details about summoning once Dante had returned form the ordeal, but he hadn't really listened to her.
Ruffling his hair in frustration, Dante decided to start all over again from scratch. The girl had summoned him, why? She needed a demon pet for whatever reason. Trish said that the summon itself was amateurishly done, hence her failure. Aside from forgetting vital details, alternatively being totally ignorant about them, what other amateurish mistakes could she had done? She could have been overconfident, but how did that add up? Ignorant, overconfident and sloppy... not the best combination of characteristics. It was a long shot, but Dante somehow came to an agreement that after her failure with him, the girl tried once more and thus caught that bug's attention. Unable to control it, she paid the price. Made sense, but he still had to be sure. Starting his bike, Dante figured he'd better head over to the scene of the crime to dig up some facts to support his theory.
After a hasty drive, Dante arrived for the third time at the basement. Things hadn't changed much since his last visit as far as Dante could tell. «That book of hers, maybe that one holds any clues?» Dante mumbled to himself as he started looking around for the book. He did finally find it, surprisingly intact. Flipping through the pages, Dante just realized that he had no clue what spell the girl had used. He stopped his browsing and flipped a few pages back again before he stopped at a couple of pages that had blood splatted over them.
Holding the book open in his hands, Dante glanced over at the hole in the floor. The girl had been pulled down fast and brutally, causing her body to be forceably made to fit, thus damaging it and sending blood flying, splatting the pages that were currently open in the book. The book could have shifted location as people discovered what had happened, thus making the police ignoring it, plus Donald pulled some strings to shove this case under the carpet making the crime scene investigation group's work incomplete. Oh sweet logic.
Turning his attention back to the book, Dante looked at the letters carefully. Although he can't recall ever being taught how to read this gibberish, which looked like some sick cross-over of Chinese, Japanese and Arabic letters, the words themselves made perfect sense. An image popped into Dante's head; Trish spell on that rooftop. «A helping hand, huh?» Dante mused to himself, before reading on in the book.
The text proved to be a summoning command of sorts, calling upon the mightiest demon in the kingdom. Okay, by kingdom Dante figured that the good ol' USA fitted the bill, despite lacking little details like a king, queen and nobles. The mightiest demon part though didn't make much sense. If Dante understood it right, the summoning command would start at the top, with the biggest and baddest of them all, then work its way downwards in case the one summoned resisted or rejected the summon. However, Dante had answered the call and the first thing the girl said upon his arrival was that the spell worked. Ergo, Dante was the first one to come through, which meant, according to these blood splattered pages, that he was the mightiest demon in the kingdom. Hallelujah...
So when Dante left, the spell took that as a rejection of the summoning command or it was a flat out failure because the spell itself didn't have sufficient energy to contain Dante and thus bind him to the summoners will. At any rate, the girl obviously had a second go at the spell, more eager now knowing that it actually worked. She probably came to the same conclusion; there wasn't enough life essence to bind the demon to her command. However she miscalculated, figuring that the next demon would be weaker, thus requiring less life essence to be contained. While she was in principle correct, this other demon wasn't all that much weaker than Dante, hence the result.
Maybe the best way to get this buggers attention was to do it all over again? Gut some street dogs, chant a little and then blow the sucker out of the sky as soon as it popped it's ugly head through the portal? By the looks of it, it was one big son of a gun, so Dante were best to move somewhere more spacey. Taking the book with him, Dante headed upstairs to look for some bait. This sure as hell beat driving all over town chasing this sucker down.
After spending a small hour chasing after stray cats, Dante was all set. He rigged himself up with an improvised altar of sort, mainly made out of trashcans and had tied the stray cats to it. Idealistically Dante should have dug up some nuns as his sacrifice, thus he could bind the demon to his will and send it off to its own death, or so the book claimed, but where was the fun in that? He wanted to take down the sucker with his own two hands fair and square, no cheap shots and sucker punches.
Flipping open the book, Dante chanted in a obscure language, drew his sword and cut the stray cats in a ceremonial manner. Then, he waited. Hopefully he wouldn't be summoning himself, which would be kind of embarrassing to say the least. Soon the ground gave away a low and deep rumble as it began to tremble as if an earthquake was heading Dante's way. Without a warning it came, crashing through the ground. By God this thing was huge! Large as a goddamn bus and then some. As far as looks went, it was a spider made of rock, with some cracks here and there which molten lava dripped from, these also made up the joints in its body, allowing it to move its legs around.
The demon shrieked in fury, stomping its feet angrily at the ground. It then took a small moment to eye Dante up and down. «Bah...another small one. I sensed something a little bigger... what a disappointing catch!» It snorted unimpressed. Dante on the other hand, took a few steps forward and gave the spider's right foreleg a little knocking, as if to test its durability. «What a 'big' surprise...I hope for your sake you have something inside that big body of yours.» He commented to the demon, not intimidated at all. The demon's eyes turned a blazing red at his words, as it roared in outrage: «You PUNY pathetic thing! I'll step on you like an ant! Gwahahahaha...»
One of it's legs rose high to strike down at Dante and in the last second, Dante jumped high up in the air, out of harms way, landing a good 20 feet behind the demon. Neither of the two combatants wasted a second. Dante drew his guns and fired away while the Phantom made a short jump and turned around in mid air. Shielding its face with its forearms, Dante's guns proved inefficient against the solid rock. As Dante ran out of bullets and was forced to reload, Phantom saw a window to launch an attack. Opening it's horrible jaws wide open, it fired a ball of fire at Dante.
With a quick reflex, Dante holstered his guns, drew his sword and used its broad side to shield off the attack. Even though he avoided a direct hit, the blast was powerful enough to send him off his feet, flying backwards. As he lied flat on his back, Dante saw in the corner of his blurred vision that the Phantom dug its head into the ground. Remembering what Trish had told him about the Phantoms attacks, Dante somehow managed to find the strength to get back on his feet, escaping a pillar of evil flame that shot up from the ground with a hairs width. «Sword, sword, sword!» Dante cursed while he reloaded his guns and ran, jumped and dodged the best he could as pillars of flame shot up again and again, constantly chasing after his heels.
Finally Dante managed to run around, snatch up his sword and getting ready to fight back. Phantom pulled his head up again to get his bearing before he charged up another fireball in his mouth. «Say AAAAH!!» Dante smirked, holding his sword with both hands as if it was a baseball bat. As the fireball came hurling down towards Dante, he timed it with a swing of his sword. Giving it all that he got, the two forces collided with immense power, sending the fireball back to its point of origin. The ball hit Phantom smack in the face, causing it to stagger backwards trying to regain its composure, which was what Dante was waiting for. Wasting no time, he dashed forward, shoving Phantom's forelegs out of the way with his sword and quickly drawing Ebony, stuffing it straight into Phantoms mouth, pulling the trigger as fast as he could.
Screaming in pain, Phantom knocked Dante out of the way as if he was nothing but a rag-doll with one of his forelegs. Making spitting sounds as it tried to recover from Dante's attack, Phantom was too distracted to deliver a follow-up attack. Dante was down to his last couple of magazines for his guns, so he figured he might as well make them really count. With the last of his strength, Dante dragged himself up on his feet and ran as fast as his battered body would allow him to.
Once he got close enough on Phantom's left side, Dante shifted to his demon half, gave his wings a few quick flaps and landed on the huge demons back. Drawing his sword, Dante gave Phantom's back a few quick, long and deep slashes. Wiggling around in pain, Phantom tried to shake Dante off. «Die screaming, fucker!» Dante cried out, unloading Ebony and Ivory into the fresh cuts on Phantom's back, sending molten lava splashing about.
Being busy keeping his footing, Dante didn't notice that the back of Phantom's body unwrapped and reviled its massive tail. With amazing speed it wrapped itself around Dante's legs and pulled him up in the air. Taken by complete surprise, Dante lost both his sword, guns and concentration, causing him to shift back to his human form. « Why... won't... you... die... you... pathetic... worthless... sack... of... flesh...!!!» Phantom yelled as it banged Dante's body, torso first into the ground with each word it spoke. «DAMN YOU HUMAN!! Damn you for making me fight so seriously!» He roared at Dante's motionless frame. «Bah!» It finally snorted, dropping Dante to the floor with a hollow thud before it crawled back to the hole of which it had arrived from.
As silence crawled in over the scene once again, Dante lied like a broken puppet in a pool of his own blood. Trish came walking out a shadowy corner as if she was made of it and stopped once she stood next to Dante. «Equals... impressive, yet not that impressive.» She noted to herself before picking Dante up, putting his left arm over her shoulders and dragging him away from the scene as police, fire and ambulance sirens grew louder in the distance.