The first chapter! (Prologue being chapter Zero because shut up!)
I don't own Devil May Cry. Putting that out there now because I tend to forget that kind of shit.
Welcome to Hell~I mean Fortuna!
Ch.1-Introducing the Players
It was a typical Sunday afternoon, in a quiet suburb in New York. Until the psychotic yelling of a panicked teenager interrupted it, at least.
"AAAAAUGH, FAHK! Run, damn you! Shake it! Shake it! Shake it! FAHK!" she yelled as Resident Evil 6's Jake Muller got snatched up once again by a monster she affectionately referred to as Nemesis, even though it had a different name that she couldn't remember. Ustanak? Ubastank? Uberskank? The (by now intimately) familiar "You are Dead. Continue? Yes/No" screen came up as she sighed theatrically. "Game Over."
Quitting the game, the brunette woman flopped back on to her full-sized bed, careful not to get her sneakers on it. A light knocking was heard on her door. "It's open…" she chuckled. Two people entered the room: a guy with short, wavy brown hair and a girl with curly black hair.
"So, I'm guessing you got caught by the Ustanak again Katie?" The guy, Bobby, asked in slight amusement. Katelyn, called "Kate" or "Katie" for short, laughed.
"Yes I did. I'm still not used to the controls, though the barrels didn't help any. Those fahking traitors…" she swung herself back into a sitting position with a smile on her face.
"Tell me again why you chose to play that?" The ebon-haired female asked as Kate went to change games. There were several games in a small pile next to her PS3, including Resident Evil 6, aside from the DS and 3DS games on the adjacent shelf: Dragon Age (Origins, Awakening and 2, each their own disk), White Knight Chronicles 2 (Which had a remastered version of the first game as a bonus), Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Soul Calibur V, and Devil May Cry 4.
"To put it simply Kee, I SUCK at shooting games." The brunette explained to the foreign exchange student from Essex as she placed RE6 back in its case. Putting it to the side, she pulled her long-ish hair into a ponytail before picking up DMC4. "There's only one time I'm ever good with a gun: When I'm controlling Dante or Nero. Games like Mass Effect don't work like that, so if I want to expand my horizons as a gamer I decided to get some practice. By borrowing Bobby's game."
With practiced ease, Kate opened the case and put the game into the system, grabbing her controller as she turned toward the bed. Something or, in this case, someone tapped on the outside of her window. Looking over her shoulder, Kate blinked.
"Oh." Walking over to the window, she opened it and smiled at the guy on the other side. "Bit early for parkour, isn't it Shawn?" she asked.
"It's mid-afternoon, Katie." The black-haired male pointed out as he climbed through the second-floor window. Looking up at the clock, Kate noted that it was indeed past noon.
"Time flies…" she mused as she looked at the now somewhat-crowded room. "Well, I'd be a terrible hostess if I kept playing in front of company, so would either of you like to smack Berial or Echidna around while I calm my fraying nerves?" She teased, holding out the controller to both Keeley and Shawn. The former took the offered controller and sat on the bed, also careful not to rest her shoes on it. There was a bean-bag chair in the corner of the room, which Shawn took and placed in between the bed and the TV. Kate sat next to Keeley on the bed, and then Bobby tapped her on the shoulder.
"Hey, Katie I'm going to 7-11. I'll be back in a bit." He said. The brunette girl nodded, it was business as usual in her household. Bobby had a tendency of letting a family member know if he was going out and where. In this case, Kate was the only one available. Her older brother was at work, her parents and younger sister at church. And then he left, leaving the three teens alone in the house. With the dogs. Playing Devil May Cry 4 on Devil Hunter mode because Kate had yet to unlock any higher difficulties.
"Kyrie got kidnapped again." Shawn reported. "Goddammit, Kyrie…" Keeley, whose name sounded a lot like the auburn-haired songstress in question, shrugged.
"It's not that I hate her, I just wouldn't want to be around her in a fight. She's pretty useless in those cases." Kate eagerly jumped into the conversation.
"Ditto. Kyrie would hide someplace, while I'd be an idiot and shout obscenities at them, using an improvised failure of all the melee combat I've ever seen in various games and movies until help arrived. Then my pride would make me keep fighting." She explained. Keeley grinned.
"I'd just throw rocks, and then if Nero showed up I'd have to drop a pick-up line." Kate rolled her eyes.
"He~ey, you've already got your eyes on Dante! Why not give the other single lady here a chance?" she teased, pointing at herself. Shawn shook his head and sighed.
"You two are nuts…" he muttered. The two girls laughed and continued playing. Things were quiet, for a time, the only sounds being from the game and the occasional bit of commentary or the odd expletive from one of them.
"So tell me, Shawn…" Keeley began. "What would you do if you were faced with a bunch of lesser demons with only Kyrie as a companion?" He contemplated this for a bit, then pulled down his left sleeve.
"I'd probably use this." He said, revealing an Assassin's Creed hidden blade replica.
"Shank the Scarecrows? Nice." Kate mused. A couple missions later, the character changed to Dante and shit began to hit the fan.
As many people know, near the end of the first mission one plays as Dante, the infamous badass must face a bunch of Bianco Angelos, and an Alto or two, so he can escape the Order of the Sword Headquarters before the timer runs out. Well, that's what Keeley, Katelyn and Shawn were expecting as well. However, once they walked him into the middle of the room and the red-web barriers popped up to block all means of escape, nothing happened. All three exchanged looks of confusion.
"What the…?" Shawn muttered. Keeley nodded to the screen.
"Look here, do you see that?" she asked, astonished. Dante was still where they left him, but the timer had vanished and something was taking shape near the exit. It looked like black smoke, bubbling up from the ground to take an unidentifiable shape. The trio faltered, staring at the screen like a bunch of idiots.
"What the Hell is this?" Kate asked, forgetting that Dante had said it not even half an hour ago in the Mitis Forest.
"SwordMaster!" the character on screen announced.
"Keeley…I REALLY hope…you did that." Shawn said, slightly nervous. Looking at the controller, Keeley switched the style back to Trickster, which was the one she was best at. Or tried to, at least.
"Sorry Babe, no can do." Dante said, as though he, a fictional character on a television screen, knew what Keeley had just attempted. All three of them gaped at the screen, again.
"I think my jaw landed somewhere in Hell…" Kate muttered, shaking her head in an attempt to clear it.
"So, I'm not the only one who heard that?" Keeley asked, concerned. In the midst of all this confusion, the inky thing that began to show up had taken on the appearance of a swollen blob, equipped with tentacles, which reminded Kate of Arkham in DMC3.
"What're the odds of that fucker having fangs hidden somewhere in there?" Shawn asked. Kate scoffed.
"Pretty good, all things considered." The brunette looked over at Keeley. "Want me to take over? SwordMaster is my specialty, after all." She offered. All three teens have played Devil May Cry for at least a year, and they came to realize that each of them individually excelled at one of Dante's main styles. In their group; Keeley was a master of Trickster Style, Shawn was the Master Gunslinger, and Katelyn was their resident Swords Mistress. Sometimes Katelyn wondered if this reflected their personalities or something.
With a nod, the controller changed hands. Then the blob attacked. "Shit, this Arkham look-a-like is pretty fast. Let's see if I'm faster-TAKE THAT!" Kate challenged, dodging the monster's initial strike before charging with an attack of Dante's own. It started with a Stinger, which transitioned to Million Stab, then Prop Shredder, and finally the Dance Macabre. Even though this looked like a boss fight, there was no health bar indicating that it took any damage.
"Trickster! Happy now, Babe?" Dante teased. They looked at one another, "What the fuck?" clearly written across their faces as Kate handed the controller to Keeley.
"Words fail me right now; check back in five minutes…" Kate said. Keeley nodded mutely before taking back control and dealing some more damage to the thing. At one point, it attacked and Dante dodged again, but the tentacle seemed to hit the television. It sounded like those times a bird hits the window, and then the screen appeared to ripple.
"This looks like the start of every bad adventure tale my Grandfather used to tell. I don't like this." Keeley mused. Katelyn, who inherited her father's sense of humor and interest in History, snorted.
"I don't like this?" she reiterated sarcastically, "That's right up there with 'What could possibly go wrong?' Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, Keeley." She said, trying to mask her growing anxiety with false humor.
More ripples came from the screen before Dante changed his style. Again.
"Gunslinger!" Dante called. Katelyn responded with a quiet "Shit," before Shawn offered his hand.
"Show that S.O.B what you got, Shawn." She encouraged, handing him the controller. The only guy in their group wasted no time blasting the demon with Coyote-A, as well as Ebony and Ivory.
"Shit. Hit the Deck!" Dante called out. The girls took this as an order, diving off the bed and entering defensive stances. Shawn was confused as to why Dante would say what he did. By the time Kate and Keeley hit the ground, a tentacle came out of the screen, Shawn, whose reflexes finally kicked in after the initial shock, tried to evade it. But the creepy appendage wrapped around his ankle before the Raven-haired youth could fully escape its' range.
"Holy fucking shit!" he yelled in panic.
"Quick, grab him!" Keeley said, reaching out and pulling Shawn's arm. Katelyn did the same while Shawn himself used his other foot to push himself away, beginning an all-out game of Tug-o'-War with the TV demon.
However, three human teenagers are no match for a demonic tentacle. So it wound up dragging Shawn, Keeley and Katelyn into the Television. As they passed through the screen, it rippled one last time before a big-nosed Jester appeared, bowing theatrically before letting out a shrill cackle in victory.
And that's that. I don't know if I put an author's note here last time, but there is one now. If this looks different from what you've seen before, that's because it is. Sort of. It was kind of grating on me, the way I used to write and stuff. With this story's first Anniversary/Birthday coming up, I figured why the hell not? Clean up the old chapters and see what can be done for the new. So, from the prologue through chapter eight, it's being redone. story editing is going to be minimal, a few changes here and there because I used "and" instead of "an," things along those lines.
Please review if you haven't yet, I love hearing from you people! :D