"So this is a witch?" Dante asked.
"And her familiars."
The two stood in what seemed to be the sky, on wires of clotheslines that stretched on endlessly. In front of them, crawling on the lines like a spider would her web, was a giant body in a schoolgirl uniform, but with extra arms and hands where the legs and head should be. Dancing on the lines were lower bodies with skates on their shoes.
"A witch's labyrinth can be just as dangerous as the witch itself," Homura said.
Getting to the labyrinth was simple enough. Homura led Dante to some nondescript apartment complex and held her hand out; next thing he knew, space distorted around him and there they were.
The witch and familiars might look like some freaky science experiments, but the labyrinth made for a nice change of pace. Not often he gets pulled to a pocket dimension.
Dante curiously stepped on a line, unsurprised it was able to hold his weight.
Homura noted he didn't have any issues balancing himself.
Patricia was a relatively weak witch, but the terrain made her more difficult than she actually was. How poetic that the first witch she fought was a test for Dante.
"You've proven you can take a hit, but can you actually fight?"
"Fighting's in my blood." The man set into a cocky grin. "So the mission's just to take out the big one?"
"Correct. Defeating the witch will remove her influence over the area, destroying the labyrinth and familiars as well."
"Normally kids aren't allowed at my parties, but this time I'll let it slide." He looked around for a moment, the witch and her familiars either not aware of their presence or not caring. Unlike with demons, he couldn't sense the witch's presence or how strong it was. But simply from experience he knew it wouldn't pose a problem. He looked toward Homura, who was staring at the witch herself. Dante chuckled. He was used to a partner that knew her way around a gun… or several. Why not try this one swordless to commemorate their new partnership? He'd need to hold back anyway. "Try not to be too impressed."
In the next moment, he was gone. Homura blinked in surprise before she saw Dante standing on the nearest Mathieu. In alarm, the familiar began skating and jumping erratically, but Dante kept his balance and rode it, making several flamboyant gestures in the process. Its frantic pattern alerted every other familiar and they all mobilized to his position. Keeping stride, the next time his ersatz skateboard jumped, Dante leapt high off it. "Gunslinger!" He shouted. Homura knew she saw a flash of red cover him this time. He produced two handguns and fired a hailstorm of bullets, riddling all the nearby familiars with holes until they no longer moved. He landed, but more Mathieus were already waiting to slice him with their skates. The guns were gone, replaced by a modified shotgun. He spun it around him like a set of nunchucks, the consecutive buckshots destroying everything around him. Homura thought it was fitting that he used firearms like her. His accuracy was quite impressive. She hadn't seen him reload or change weapons, so she figured it must be an ability of his, which explained how he could fire them constantly. How convenient that must be.
But, her musings ceased as Patricia howled wildly, a strong gust of wind generated by the scream.
"Could you be a bit louder?" Dante taunted. "I didn't catch that." Patricia leaned back and unleashed a storm of school desks and chairs. "Really? That's your attack?" Dante asked as the storm of furniture flew towards him. There were several ways to deal with this, but he had a bit to commit to. He pulled out the Kalina Ann replica, held it on the clothesline with his foot and went Hysteric, the missiles destroying the witch's projectiles before they got too close. He picked up the gun, pointed it forward and unleashed another barrage of missiles. Patricia screamed as they collided with her.
"Trickster!" He warped above the witch. "Gunslinger!" Another missile, hitting the witches midsection. The severe number of explosions disoriented Patricia, she moaned as she tried to compose herself. Dante chuckled; the witch didn't even notice he was on top of her. He pulled out a second rocket launcher, attached to the first one and aimed. A laser shot forward, piercing through the witch, trailing it up her body until she was split into two parts. Dante leapt off, the Witch horrifyingly silent. "Care to do the honors?" He asked Homura. She pulled out a pistol and fired; the straw that broke the camel's back. The witch fell apart, the labyrinth collapsing around them, bringing them back to the real world. "And that takes care of that."
Apocalyptic!
He rolled his eyes at the voice.
"That seemed to pose no problem to you." Homura had to admit, the ease with which he dispatched Patricia was impressive.
"Killing demons is my job, Little Lady," he said. "I've been fighting things tougher than that since I was your age." Homura quirked an eyebrow. "Gotta admit, did not expect it to look like that."
"Every witch has a unique form and ability," Homura explained.
"Least that'll keep it from getting boring," he said.
"Your use of firearms was very… unique."
"I'd call it 'stylish'."
"And the demonstrably unlimited ammunition?" Homura walked past and retrieved the grief seed.
'Trade secret."
Homura hummed. "Nevertheless it seems you can actually back up your claims," she said.
"You haven't even seen half of what I got." He chuckled. "We're all in the same boat here. I can't keep going back, you know. I got other stuff to do." Homura narrowed her eyes. "If this is what it takes to stop it, then I'm all in."
"You've proven to be able to handle the weakest of witches," she said.
"Bring 'em on, I say."
"However, if we are going to work together, I need to know how you work. Your experience, abilities, and knowledge on what we will face. Otherwise you'd only be in my way."
"Sure, mission briefing stuff, I got it."
"Of course, it goes without saying that you should not speak of these things in public."
"Yeah, yeah,"
"As such, we will need to speak somewhere privately," she said. "My home is relatively secure. We can continue our discussion there."
"If it's alright with you, I think I'll look around a bit."
Homura's eyes narrowed. "For what purpose?"
"Just to get a feel of the place."
Homura had to wonder exactly what he meant by that. "I would implore you to not hunt any more witches," she said. "That would attract more attention than I would like."
Dante shrugged.
Homura didn't like his blasé attitude. But, if she wanted to understand how Dante did what he did and perhaps get closer to finally defeating Walpurgisnacht, it was in her best interest to acquiesce. For now.
"...Very well." She told him where to find her when he was finished and left him to his devices.
The man gave her an easy wave as she walked off. In the meantime, she did have a bit to mull over in her mind. Dante was an enigma, one she needed to unravel. So he could kill Witches with extreme firepower, similar to herself. With his high durability and infinite ammo, she could see the benefit in keeping him around. But it still begged the question of how he knows about time looping so concretely. Madoka's only recollection of previous timelines are dreams that she has. So why him? Could she find a way to make Madoka remember? If she could do that, there's no way she'd make a contract. They could run away together and let some other magical girl fight Walpurgisnacht forever, right?
Homura bit her tongue, the pain cutting off that line of thought. If Madoka remembered everything, there's no way she wouldn't do everything she could to stop Walpurgisnacht. She went back to current matters: if she was going to use Dante, she needed to get to the bottom of the mysteries surrounding him. Where did he come from? What is the secret to his power? Why does he know about her? So many questions and so few answers.
She felt this was going to be the toughest month she had in awhile.
Dante watched Homura walk off to wherever she needed to go, leaving him to his thoughts. That witch or whatever was really different than anything he's seen; definitely not demonic in origin. "Wonder how many of these things there are?" He mused. Didn't seem that tough, though if a child could kill it, why would it be? But then that begged the question: why is Homura fighting witches? He assumed that they hurt people. Maybe they bring them into the labyrinth and eat them or something.
But what actually concerned Dante was Homura herself. Her eyes gave it away: she'd seen some shit. Once again, he drew a comparison to Lady. When he first met her, she had a fire in her, a rage that needed to be let out. She burnt so hot she'd combust if she didn't direct her focus somewhere. Made sense considering everything her bastard of a father put her through. Once everything was done with Temen-ni-Gru, she turned to killing as many demons as possible. And it worked for her.
But Homura? Far as he could tell she didn't have a burning desire to kill Witches. She wasn't fighting them because she wanted to help people or get revenge- she fought because that's all she knew. For someone repeating the same month ad infinitum, he guessed that made sense. She clearly kept repeating time after the circus came to town, probably because she kept failing to kill it.
He had to wonder how that would help. Sure, if she was dying she should go back in time. No shame in living to fight another day. But she wouldn't be getting stronger, right? Like, her body would go back to how it was in the past? At this point, she had to know its entire moveset. But that's the thing, isn't it? Fighting an enemy you have no chance against; she's just throwing herself at it, hoping that she'll kill it one of these times. Clearly her unsuccessful attempts were eating away at her. He had to give her props for going on this long.
Good thing he showed up when he did. He didn't think the girl could take it much longer.
He never liked when movies did time travel; it never made sense and just gave more questions than answers. He was sure Nico could give him a comprehensive lecture on it if he asked. He supposed he could also just ask Homura how her powers worked, but he really didn't care enough either way. She had him now, and he could take on Brazilian Night (or whatever) with his eyes closed. Fighting it could even be a little fun.
But this 'magical girl' shit was worrying. When Homura first mentioned it, he didn't know what to think. He's seen two witches by this point, and it's clearly a big deal for her. But then that begs the question of why he's never heard of them. As far as he could tell, there wasn't anything special about Homura. He didn't sense any form of power coming from her at all. He was able to sense her shield when she was about to do some time manipulation, but apart from that she was just a normal, if jaded, human girl. He couldn't even feel the circus and Frankenstein'd schoolgirl when he was right on top of them.
How could he of all people not know about this? Homura implied she wasn't the only 'magical girl', so where are the others? And what's the deal with witches?
Standing around wasn't doing any favors. Dante figured since Homura was so keen on playing the waiting game, she could wait a couple more hours. He had some legwork of his own to do. A good ice cream place isn't gonna find itself.
As he walked, his thoughts drifted to how everything started. He knew something was off in the beginning: he and Vergil had been in Hell for a very long time. Yet when they came back, not even a year had passed. Hell doesn't technically have time, at least not in the same way the mortal plane does, but he's been there enough to know, generally, how long he's been there. And by his calculations, it should have been at least a few years.
He'd ask Vergil if he knew something about magical girls, but the second they both realized what was going on he said he'd 'use the time provided to catch up on my reading', so he's definitely not going to help. At least not until he's read every book in the world.
Dante definitely couldn't wait that long.
Sure it was fun at first, messing with Lady and Trish by knowing everything they were going to say and do, but that got boring after the tenth or so time. He tried to get Vergil to get to know his son, to some measure of success. Since no one else remembered anything, he convinced Vergil to attend gatherings and dinner parties with Nero until he could finally do it right. That had taken a few loops too; Vergil was motivated to have at least one dinner be absolutely perfect. He figured that was the best he was gonna get.
After that he couldn't find anything else to do. Since time was looping, the same jobs kept coming in and he got bored of those really quickly. He tried doing things he's never tried before, like baking Patty a cake from scratch- that was several disasters he figured he shouldn't repeat to ensure her safety. But he couldn't take it anymore. So once the time loop went on for the twentieth or so time, he had enough and tried to stop it himself.
The Watcher of Time wasn't any help. After all the blood and proud souls he offered, he figured they were practically best buds by now. But nope, they only ever want to talk about war tactics. Wasn't even concerned that time was going in a circle- like an old lady watching reruns of tv shows. So that meant he had to go all across the world to find whatever demon was messing with the time stream.
He wasn't lying when he said meeting Homura was a coincidence. He just happened to find her at the right place and right time.
Now he can finally fix things and get back to what's important: Nero and Kyrie are finally getting married and he's not about to let some ten year old get in the way of his nephew's much deserved happiness.
So consumed was he in his thoughts that he dismissed the beady red eyes observing him as some weird albino cat.
A couple hours and several strawberry sundaes later, Dante was meandering about Mitakihara. He'd hoped to get some intel about potential demonic activity as an explanation for witches, like some cult or summoning gone wrong, but he couldn't find a single seedy bar or dive anywhere. All he found was overworked men and women complaining about their bosses. The city was apparently really clean when it came to crime.
No dice on demons and nothing on witches. Looks like Homura was his only informant here. Which meant that, in order to actually learn anything, he needed to be in her good graces. Otherwise she might reset time again just to piss him off.
In his experience, young women tended to be on the temperamental side.
"How do I keep getting stuck looking after kids?"
Looking after Patty was way less of a headache than this was turning out to be.
He turned into another alley, hoping to finally find some evidence of a crime syndicate with demonic connections. Or if he was even luckier, a witch. He didn't know how Homura found the first one, so looking at another example would be good.
He slightly tilted his head to narrowly dodge the spear point that whizzed by him. A nimble twist to dodge when it snaked around to try and get him from behind.
"I just can't catch a break," he said, the weapon retracting to the figure that jumped in front of him."
"I was wondering what kind of witch would go around killing other witches," she said. "Prey's already gettin' thin around here, so I figure I'd nip this in the bud before it got worse." The girl stepped forward, a lance taller than she was resting on her shoulders. Her eyes sharply focused on him, her mouth set into a sneer. "So imagine my surprise when I find you. Gotta say, Kyubey's description doesn't do ya justice."
Dante returned her sneer with a smirk. He eyed her: red hair tied in a ponytail donned in a red dress with red boots. "I dig the color scheme, kid. Glad to know there's someone else out there who can appreciate a good shade of red."
She grinned. "Takes one to know one."
He guessed she's one of Homura's ilk. And just like her, he didn't get the sense that she was anything other than a normal human, giant weapon notwithstanding.
"So," she continued. "You ain't a witch, that much is clear." She twirled the weapon, pointing the spear at him. "You ain't your average Joe if you can kill a witch. So what's your deal?"
Dante folded his arms.
"Like I said,'' she continued. "Prey's gettin' thin. Can't fault you if you thought this was free territory, so I'll give you five seconds to get the hell out of here. Otherwise…" the spear tip split into two, the sharp edges gleaming despite the low light.
At that, Dante couldn't help but laugh. "Man, what's my life come to when kids are threatening to murder me?"
The girl chuckled herself. "Hey, don't say I didn't warn ya."
A red, chain-like barrier surrounded the two.
"Some things never change," Dante said. The girl twirled her spear, assuming a combat stance.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure to leave a few bones unbroken."
Dante shook his head. "I'll be damned. You're actually serious."
"I don't joke when it comes to food."
"...Whatever floats your boat kid." Apparently the girl eats witches? Gross. Dante turned to leave. The girl frowned.
"What, you trying to run away now?"
"You make this yourself?" He asked, standing near the barrier. He reached out to it. It didn't try to repel him like he thought it would. Was kinda itchy, though.
The girl gave a curt "Hmph," as an answer. With a flick of her wrist, she set her lance upon him, it separating and lunging toward him.
Without looking, he grabbed the tip of the lance before it could strike true.
"What the-"
"Listen, kid. You don't have to-" Dante paused. Now that he was actually holding the weapon, he did notice something. A faint pulse feeding into the weapon, giving it its form and power. And just barely, he could trace the energy back to its source.
In that momentary lapse in attention, the girl pulled her weapon, the point slicing through his hand to return.
"Heh, never had my attack caught like that before," the girl chuckled. "Guess you're pretty tough for an old-timer."
Dante flexed his hand, contemplating the energy he felt. If this is what he thought it was, it's no wonder he couldn't sense them. Suddenly, magical girls became a lot more interesting. Dante turned back to her. "Alright, kid. If that's how you wanna play it," he rolled his neck and cracked his knuckles. The kid clearly wanted blood, so talking amicably was out of the question. He'd just have to test if he's right the old fashioned way.
He stretched out his hand, taunting her to come at him. "Let's dance."
Honestly surprised more than four people read this. Thanks a bundle. I'll try to think of something not funny to say next time.