Passing Through Shadows

[Simon]

Continued from You Will Be Reborn

The dilapidated stone portal, stock still beneath the gray cover of the Pale Moors, suddenly began to shimmer and displace. Within moments, two individuals had emerged: a tall, white-haired man in a long red coat, and a shorter man with spiked hair, elfin features, and dressed in battle gear.

Dante and Jak had been unfortunately forced to retire their buggy after discovering that it would be too large to fit into the gate, and so resolved to continue their travels on foot. Trusting the half-devil mercenary knew his business here exactly, Jak allowed him to take point in their trek across the drab landscape - especially considering the eco warrior had never visited this verse before. As Dante quietly walked along, his new partner took the opportunity to absorb the view of this world, the sheer darkness of the environment almost ever-present, the ambient noises of strange creatures occasionally filling the air wickedly.

"So this is the Pale Moors," Jak said simply after a time, haven taken his fill of the ghastly surroundings after several minutes. "I've heard a few things, but I didn't know it would be this... spooky." Dante offered no response beyond a nod of the head and a hum of agreement. Looking to the red-coat, Jak registered that the devil hunter somewhat frequently swung his gaze about, as if he were on the alert for trouble, or even looking for something specific. "And... you said you had business here?"

"In a manner of speaking," came the Son of Sparda's response, answering without looking at Jak. He found himself straying slightly off the beaten road, trying to look out for certain landmarks in the area - without being able to follow the exact same path as before, however, he had no real way of recognizing where they were going, or which direction they even had to go in.

Curious, and a bit bored, Jak continued to question, "So... there are people actually living out here?"

"So I'm told," Dante flatly responded again, "But some of those people might be less friendly - and less 'people' - than others, if you catch my drift."

"Right, right," the fellow mercenary nodded in understanding. Any manner of wicked and terrible creatures could certainly find themselves at home here, and Jak couldn't help but hope that they didn't end up running into any along the way.

[Simon]

"So, uh..."

Dante looked over his shoulder to acknowledge Jak, all while they were both moving through a tangle of sickly brush and dead woods. The foreign mercenary hesitated to continue, not wishing to speak any offense to the powerful devil hunter ahead of him. "You do know where we're going, right?"

The white-haired man turned back, ruminating the question for several seconds but still not stopping. "Roughly. I'll admit, I never really got a good map of this place."

Under his facade, Jak's disdain over Dante's choice of path grew. How were they supposed to go through any sort of business if they couldn't even figure out where exactly they were headed? Hints of regret started to seep in, but Jak didn't let that on, pressing through the drab plantlife to keep pace with Dante again. "Sorry. I hate to doubt you, but it's just that-"

"I get it," the Son of Sparda interjected, adopting a softer tone to settle the fellow mercenary. "Hard to find a place if you don't know where to find it, right? But really, most of my time spent here the first time was either fighting demons or running from them. The one time we rested, it was a bit late to try and figure where anything was." Recalling the events, it really had been a series of battles all the way down, from the ambush in the forest to the attacks on the road, and topped off with a holdout against one of the most brutal things Dante had yet encountered in the Omniverse.

"Sounds hectic," Jak said, and Dante confirmed the idea with a nod. "Whatever you were doing, I hope you managed to get it done."

"So do I," the devil hunter replied, unintentionally creating another shred of doubt in Jak's heart.

The eco warrior hesitated, "Wait- what do you mean by that?"

Dante finally halted in his tracks, turning back to explain briefly, "I was trying to hold out for the sake of buying an Exorcist enough time to summon a base, but I got pulled away by Teucer in the last minute. I don't know if he succeeded."

"Oh." Jak allowed the both of them to resume, now fully understand what Dante's 'business' here entailed. Considering the half-devil's inherent power and his presence of only a dark side, he really did seem to have a noble intent in what he did- most of the time, anyways, from what Jak knew of the man. He found himself echoing Dante's concern over his uncertain fate of the Exorcists, and quietly bashed himself for his mental accusations of the devil hunter.

Time passed, and scenery along with it, until the pair of mercenaries emerged from the gloomy forest into a sort of transition between two environments. Bridging a temperate wood on one side and a marshy wildland on the other side was a certain clear gap- not a beaten road, but open enough to serve just as well. The sight of this area set Dante beaming with new confidence as Jak came aside.

"Now- this is looking familiar," the hunter grinned, and his companion softly nodded in recognition. If this was a path to be followed, then the two of them would certainly be on the right track from here.

They had hardly spent a minute more walking when Jak suddenly piped up, "Do you hear that?"

Dante whirled around, trying to scope out Jak's concern. It took a moment, but that looming echo of air seemed too familiar to be mistaken. The shadows seemed to move and twist ominously, first behind Jak, but then surrounding both him and Dante. It didn't take the Son of Sparda any more time to figure out what was happening.

"Get ready," he announced to the eco warrior, and they went back-to-back. Without question, Jak drew his blaster while Dante pulled his pistols out. The darkness quickly focused into swirling holes than spat out columns of shadowy smoke tendrils. From each portal, creatures started to emerge; hands and heads fitting for withered corpses, deathly humanoid cloaked in reaper's robe gaining purchase on the earthen floor and pulling themselves free of their gateways. Each of the demons brandished a large scythe- a harvester's tool for anyone else and a wicked weapon in the hands of an agent of hell.

"What's going on?" Jak finally couldn't help but ask as he trained his firearm on one of the creature's heads. More black portals began to open to replace the ones that disappeared as the reapers crawled out from them, allowing the ranks of the dead to gradually grow around them- but Dante didn't open fire yet, even as they seethed and moaned and began to approach.

"I just remembered," Dante began, twirling the handguns on his index fingers before snapping them both to aim at one of the Hell Prides, "There's a certain someone out here that would like me dead."

[Jak Mar]

After several hours of traveling through brush that at times poked him, he was beginning to wonder about the Devil hunter’s sense of direction.
Jak was for a reason, quite quiet unless he had something he had to say at the time. Dante was walking quite fast, Jak having to run through the brown plantlife in order to keep up with the man.

Jak then asked a question about Dante’s experience with the Exorcists “Who exactly are they… I meant to ask what kind of people are they?”

But the eco warrior’s question was cut short when these strange black creatures slipped behind him and then started to surround him and Dante.
Jak didn’t say much before he lined up back-to-back with the Son of Sparda and pulled out his blaster while Dante pulled out his pistols.

Jak frowned and growled just a bit “Who exactly would want you dead around here?
However, Jak could feel Dante’s pain as he seemingly could relate to people wanting him dead.


“Well then, whoever wants you dead, doesn’t realize how powerful the two of us are.”

Jak smirked and bent down aiming his laser sight on a creature, almost ready to fire.

[Simon]

"Well then, whoever wants you dead... doesn't realize how powerful the two of us are."

Dante couldn't help but smirk at those words, a fleeting display of his former nature that Jak would never notice. Becoming a Prime had taken the devil hunter nearly back to square one with the sudden loss of power- but that didn't mean much when he proved naturally the strongest (and only) of their kind.

With no more hesitation, the Hell Prides let loose their deathly cries at various pitches, as if to announced their attack and their enemies' fate. A pair of gunshots pierced the atmosphere, deftly muting one of the wailing maws into a pained choke. Heedless of their kin disintegrating into sand with its death, the reapers all lurched forward and hefted their scythes to run the two mercenaries through. The dynamic duo broke pose, the blasts of their firearms forming a crescendo of destruction against the Hell Prides' symphony of evil. With each bang and every zap, one of the demons' ranks crumbled to dust, and another seemed to replace it.

The beautiful order of the mercenaries' violence quickly devolved as one of the Prides let loose a solid swing that threatened to hack them both up. Forced to break away, Jak and Dante separated to dodge the hum of the slicing blade, only turning back to fill the offending demon with a dozen new holes. But as much as they evaded, there was little space to maneuver that would not be attacked by those reaping weapons, and the pair found themselves at a dangerous impasse.

While Dante had already forgone his handguns to sweep away the waves of demons with Rebellion, Jak let loose a final violent burst from his blaster to buy himself some space to step back. These monsters were only fodder, seeing as how a couple shots from his blaster could take one down, but they held an advantage in overwhelming numbers. He'd already gunned down what felt like a dozen of the shambling freaks, and more just kept pulling themselves out of the shadows. "I guess this just isn't quite gonna cut it," the eco warrior lamented over the handgun as he pocketed it. From over his shoulder, instead, he pulled out a larger firearm comparable to a machine gun, aiming the barrel at the encroaching demons.

The roar of vulcan fury rang out, Jak baring his teeth as the powerful gun began to mow down the opposition with utmost ease. He swiped down his side of the battlefield, the mercenary's only fight now being to control the recoil of his weapon. The pathetic minions were shredded to bits quickly and easily, unable to keep up.

Hearing the satisfactory whiffs of the disintegrating Prides, Dante looked back from the trio of reapers he had just carved up. "I think that's good enough- let's move!" The Son of Sparda insisted, returning his attention forward as he grabbed for the stock of his shotgun.

"Huh?" Jak faltered, the vulcan winding down as its owner looked at his partner, "We're leaving?"

A deafening explosion rang out, buckshot tearing open an alley-sized gap in the demonic horde. As the crumbling remains of the Prides fell away, the path forward was revealed again. "We've got places to be, remember?" Dante declared loudly, spinning the shotgun by its lever, "Unless you [i]really[i] want to stick around."

A glance back at the reforming ranks of Hell Prides, and Jak fast realized that, no, he'd rather not stay in the infinite amassing of demons as long as his ammo was limited. Hefting the vulcan onto his shoulder for the time being, he followed Dante in the sprint through the break in the crowd. The wailing chorus of the sinned souls continued behind them, but the two didn't stop, easily able to outpace the shamblers.

"So," Jak asked in between his panting breaths, "You never did answer my question."

Dante made a simple noise of confusion, head turning to acknowledge his partner running alongside him.

"Who would want you dead, in a place like this?"

"Oh," the half-blood replied. It wasn't that answer was hard, just difficult to explain while they were busy being not overrun by the Seven Hells of the Demon Army. "Can it wait? We're not out of the woods yet."

"What do you mean-" Jak began, but was interrupted by the sight of more demons appearing out of thin air right in front of them. These one were taller and greyer than the fodder they faced before, their thin yet imposing forms able to boast larger scythes. But while the eco warrior had delayed himself at the surprise, Dante only kept going, hoisting his sword forward in anticipation.

[Jak Mar]

Jak really didn’t intend to stay in the ever growing damned soul count growing but as Dante kept delaying his question from being answered, the eco warrior had to keep going with Dante as Jak eyed Dante for a second pulling out his Peacemaker and stepping back as he aimed the medium sized gun at the giant demons and charged up the dark eco lightning ball, causing a thicker feeling of dark eco lightning to come off the ball, after the ball had become big enough and Jak was ok with it, he yelled for Dante to duck as the purple eco ball had sped up to follow one of the two giant demons.

Funny how things happen as one of the two demons weren’t even looking at the giant eco ball heading toward them.

Once again, Jak had never faced a giant demon before, so he had to rely on the Demon hunter’s help. He had however, faced a giant precursor robot.

But something strange had popped out nearby. Eco vents.. Something Jak could use and perhaps could help himself and Dante in the long run. But what eco vent was it in the first place?

It had a strange blue glow emitting from it and Jak had to fight his way over to get to it. But once he did, he smiled only in victory as he touched the blue eco and Jak’s speed suddenly increased twice as fast as he normally was. Dynamite Kid was a lot faster and more durable right now at least as much as the eco kept going.

The blue glowing hero was quicker and was suddenly running down demons like they were made from paper instead of whatever they were made of.

Dante only was focused on the demons at hand but he had a short look at Jak being faster than he was.

The eco warrior would try making the two demons hit themselves with their own stythes. It would be useful if both demons could take each other out and make it easier on the both of them.

[Jak Mar]

The eco warrior suddenly found himself alone between the seven circles of endless demons. There was no way he could face these by himself. It was time to retreat.  Jak used the blue eco vent to "speed up" and ended up at a tree and shook his head, taking a small breath "I'm sorry, my friend, Dante. I couldn't save you this time, Farewell."   He would smash the demons or at least slow them down by crushing them with the trees.

Jak's fist squeezed the trigger of his peacemaker as he slipped it out, vowing to avenge his friend.  The purple cracking sound was shot at the giant tree, letting it crackle and start to break. As soon as it was close to breaking, he kicked it down and let it land on the giant demon's head, knocking him down.

"Catch you later, maybe never."
Jak was gone and used the remainder of his blue eco to escape to the Pale Moons gate. Jak pulled out his dataverse device and sent a message to Eric [b]"Eric, I'm coming. Meet me in the Nexus.

(Jak's gone, Nexus return)