Disclaimer:
I do not own any Dante, Nero, or any other characters of the Devil May Cry series. These characters are the property of Capcom. I do not garner any profit from this work of fiction, save the personal profit of self-satisfaction.
Detective Jacob Sullivan sat at his desk in Capulet city's 9th precinct.
He was going over the case files for a series of homicides he had been investigating for the past week.
The latest was a woman who had been murdered in an alleyway, her body mutilated beyond recognition. As of two hours ago, she had finally been identified as 23-year-old Serena Derain through dental records.
The perpetrator had used some sort of razor sharp blade large enough to slice through the majority of the woman's torso, and chunks of her flesh had been torn off in a way that looked like some sort of large animal had taken a bite out of her. Those pieces of her were still missing.
The entire precinct was befuddled as to who, or what, could have killed her, as well as the three other people who were killed in a similar manner over the last 2 months.
Jacob's partner, Nathan Rennes, walked up to the elder detective's desk with a grim look on his face.
Nathan was a 32-year-old man with a head of curly blonde locks and blue eyes. He had been on the force for 9 years, and had been Jacob's partner since he made detective, 3 years ago.
"There's been another one." He stated plainly.
"Alright, let's go." Jacob said as he swept a hand through his dark brown hair.
Arriving on the scene, the partners were subjugated to the grizzly sight of a young man, who was torn to pieces exactly like Serena Derain.
"Any ID on this one?" Jacob asked one of the uniformed officers on the scene.
The officer shook his head solemnly.
"The only thing found on him was this business card in his pocket." The officer said as he held out an evidence bag.
Jacob took the bag and read the slightly bloodied card.
"Devil May Cry? What kinda name is that?" He said bewildered.
"I have no idea." Nathan said, shaking his head.
"Well, in any case we should check the place out and find out if they can identify this poor sap." Jacob said as he handed the card to his partner.
As Nathan pulled out his smart phone and looked up the address printed on the card, Jacob wandered over to the body.
He noted that the man's face was still intact, which was a great thing; it would make it much easier to identify him. Again, it appeared the body had been sliced nearly in two, and it appeared this one's heart had been torn right out of his chest cavity. One of the victim's legs had been torn off as well.
"Was the leg found anywhere on the scene?" He asked the officer he had spoken to earlier.
"No. The crime scene unit looked around, but was unable to locate it." The man answered.
"Has the medical examiner given a time of death yet?" Jacob asked while pondering why the killer had taken an entire leg this time.
"Yeah, they said he died around 7 or 8 this morning." The officer answered.
"And no one saw or heard anything?" He mused to himself in disbelief.
The neighborhood they were currently in wasn't known for being dangerous, and the residents of the area generally cooperated with the police during investigations. So it was unusual that no witnesses had come forward. He thought that maybe this was actually a body dump, but the presence of gore splattering the walls around the body shot that theory down.
Nathan tapped him on the shoulder, jostling him from his thoughts.
"Hey I got the address for that place." Nathan said while nodding over his shoulder.
Jacob nodded and followed his partner to their car.
"So where exactly are we going?" Jacob asked as they stepped into the car.
"To a little shit hole about 10 miles from here." His partner said as he buckled up.
Jacob did the same and started the car up. They took off down the road and Nathan directed Jacob as to where to go. After about 20 minutes, they finally arrived at their destination. They parked and got out of the car. They still had to walk a bit because the shop they were headed to was located down a few alleyways.
"Good god, why is this place so fucking far from the main road?" Nathan moaned after 5 minutes of walking.
"It's probably not a normal business, with a name like Devil May Cry." Jacob answered his annoyed friend.
"What, like some kind of brothel or escort service or something?" Nathan grumbled out.
"Maybe. Who knows?" Jacob said with a shrug.
Later, after about five more minutes of walking, they finally reached their destination. Which was lucky since it seemed the sky was about to let loose a torrent of rain.
The shop was a desolate looking building with a large neon sign over its' door. The sign was large with letters in a sharp cursive font, and the silhouette of a woman toting two guns.
"I guess this is it." Nathan said as they approached the doors.
There was no sign indicating whether or not the shop was open, so Jacob knocked on the door loudly.
"Come on in. We're open." Came a muffled voice from the other side of the door.
Entering the shop they were greeted by the sight of a large number of rather deadly looking weapons adorning the walls.
Sitting at a desk on the other side of the room, sat a man with silver hair and blue eyes. He was reading a magazine and had his feet propped up on the desk. The two detectives looked around, taking in the numerous amounts of weapons on the walls. Each one was unique, and all of them looked very lethal.
"Can I help you two?" The man asked with a bored voice.
"My name is Jacob Sullivan, and this is my partner Nathan Rennes. We're detectives for the Capulet City Police Department. We're investigating a homicide and one of your business cards turned up on one of our murder victims." Jacob told the man.
"And this concerns me because…?" The man drawled.
"We were hoping you could identify the victim for us." Nathan said.
"I dunno if we can help you, we mostly deal with our customers over the phone." He said as he shrugged his shoulders.
"We? Exactly how many is we?" Jacob questioned. "On another note, what kind of shop is this?"
"We deal with… exterminations… of a large variety. We, being myself and my two other staff." The man said while straightening himself out in the chair.
Jacob noticed the two large handguns sitting near the edge of his desk.
"And you need all these huge weapons to deal with these, exterminations, do you?" Nathan said as he gazed critically at a silver broadsword on the wall. "Do you even have all the permits for all these weapons?"
With that statement, the air in the room became stagnant and tense. The three men were at a standoff, and it seemed as if the situation could become explosive. One wrong move, and things could get ugly.
Nero headed back to the shop. There was no reason for her to avoid the main roads now, so she made it back much quicker than she had left.
As angry as she had been at the elder hunter, she had since cooled off her boiling fury down to a light simmer. And when the weather suddenly began pouring rain, drenching her completely in seconds, her anger was entirely forgotten.
She ran towards the front entrance of the shop, not even bothering to try and re-enter through her window.
"Is the universe just determined to fucking screw with me today?" She lamented as she finally reached the door.
The three males in the Devil May Cry shop had been staring at each other for about 5 minutes straight.
Dante knew that the two detectives were ready to pull their guns on him. He was intimidating them without even trying. Of course all the weapons on the walls probably didn't help, but at least he had moved all his more 'macabre' trophies to the basement. He didn't want to scare off the customers who were actually human with the severed heads of demons he had killed.
Plus Trish and Lady had forced him to do it after the tenth time a customer dropped him due to his tastes.
He moved slowly, so as to not spook the unnerved officers, and stood from his seat.
An unwise move it seemed, as his daunting height only served to make them more alarmed.
At that moment, Nero crashed through the doors of Devil May Cry, soaked to the bone in rainwater.
"Fucking hell Dante, it's coming down in god damn buckets out there." She practically shouted as she slammed the door behind her with her foot.
"Get me a damn towel, would ya?" She said as she rubbed the water out of her eyes with her still bandaged arm.
As she looked up, she finally noticed the two strangers in the room.
"Who the fuck are these guys?" She said as she narrowed her frosty eyes into a glare.
Dante stepped out from behind his desk and made his way over to Nero after grabbing his coat from the back of his chair.
As he approached, Nero suddenly became wary of his expression. He was staring at her, and for some reason, his gaze seemed unnaturally heated. She couldn't pinpoint why he was scrutinizing her, and that made her nervous.
Not only was Dante staring at her intently, but the two strangers were as well. It made her extremely uneasy, and she backed up into the door.
"What the hell are you all staring at?" She asked as Dante continued to approach her.
The blonde stranger was staring with wide eyes, while the dark-haired one was attempting to keep his eyes from straying from her face.
When Dante finally reached her, he placed his jacket on her shoulders, backwards, so that it covered her front.
"You do realize that your shirt is white, right?" Dante said as he grinned at her. "Let's not go flashing our guests your bra." He winked at her as he stepped back.
Nero's cheeks burned as blood rushed to her face. Her lips turned down into a scowl, and her eyes thundered murderously.
"Godamnit! This is all your fault Dante!" Nero yelled, exasperated. "If you hadn't sent me on that job this morning, none of this would have happened!"
She shoved Dante out of her path as she stomped her way over to the stairs, making sure that each footfall was as loud as she could possibly make them.
Grumbling to herself as she went up the stairs, Nero refused to acknowledge anything that was going on. She didn't care that there were two, still unidentified men in the lobby.
All she cared about was getting upstairs to her room, where she could fume over her absolutely dismal luck for the day.
Dante watched Nero head up the stairs, staring at the back of her head intently.
He turned back to his two guests; it was time for these guys to go.
"As much fun as all this has been, I don't think we'll be able to help you with your case." Dante said as he made his way back over to the two.
"I'll let you stay until the rain clears up a bit, but after that, I'm gonna need you to leave." He stared straight into Jacob's face, and made it clear with his posture that he was entirely serious about this.
Nero was fed up with this day.
Her day had started out lousy, as Dante had pushed her out the door at 6, so she barely had a chance to eat breakfast. He didn't want to do the job that had come to them because it seemed too simple for him. Trish had been out, and he wouldn't have been able to get her to do it any way. So he dumped the job on her.
The job had been simple enough, but getting to the warehouse that had been overrun was a bit of pain. Since she didn't have transportation, she had been forced to walk.
It took her tree hours to get there.
She finished the job within half an hour, only getting hit once.
Of course that one hit had cost her shirt, and her hooded vest, exposing her bra to the world.
She had trudged the long three-hour walk back, clutching the remains of her hoodie together, and then she was nearly molested by Dante.
Twice!
And she lost another shirt in the process.
Then she got in that fight with the Hell Greed, and had problems with Kyrie, and top off her miserable day, she ended up in the pouring rain, the one time she was wearing a white shirt.
So she ended up flashing Dante her bra again, along with two complete strangers.
Nero swiped a towel from the bathroom, and marched to her own room.
Slamming the door behind her, she dropped Dante's leather coat on the floor, and proceeded to strip down to her underwear.
Using the towel, she dried her hair and body as best she could.
Thunder crashed in the sky, which mirrored Nero's foul mood. A thunk resounded in her room, and Nero looked up, searching for the source.
When she found it, her aggravation was set ablaze again.
Of course she had forgotten to close her window when she had left. Now the floor around her window was sopping wet, and a large part of her bed was soaked. She crossed the room swiftly and slammed the window shut, thankfully not cracking the glass in her rage. She practically ripped down the blinds, which had been banging around in the wind.
Her bare feet squished the wet rug underneath her, and she sighed.
All she wanted to do right now was curl up in her bed, under her warm comforter, and sleep until this horrible day was over.
But now her bed was wet from the rain, and there was no way to change that.
There was only one option left.
She didn't want to, but at the same time she had to.
Sorry this took so long.
I was... distracted.
My 23rd birthday was last Wednesday.
Sooo... Yeah. Distracted.
Also, I don't usually do this because I secretly find it pitiful but...
Please review~ It really makes me happy. And a happy writer means faster typing.