11-27-2015, 03:14 AM
Quote:After the Magus vs. Dante match."You should think hard about joining my army... I could not imagine a better soldier."
Those words bit harder than any blade the dark sorcerer had wielded against Dante. The half-devil had fought with all the might he proved able to muster, throwing his hesitation to the wind by summoning his demonic heritage, yet he was witnessed as nothing more than a soldier. Magus would truly settle for no less than a perfect, unflinching, deathless warrior- Dante could not imagine a worse fate.
"Sir Redgrave..." A voice spoke from aside the devil hunter's limp, blank-faced form on the table. The attempt to elicit some response whatsoever failed. At any rate, however, the clerics were fortunate to have been able to save this combatant yet again.
Dante still found himself consumed by what the Fiendlord did to him. Broke through his devil half, refused to kill him, and offered the chance to join beneath his banner- that man could only be of demonic caliber to achieve such feats like that. With such a goal - to make the gods themselves quake in their shoes - Magus had to have been so absorbed by darkness, so far beyond humanity that he would dare see himself as greater than any deity. Having witnessed such evil again, Dante found himself questioning why he had ever been so concerned with his own being in the first place.
Yes, of course, there was always someone better, but likewise, so existed someone worse. That magician had proved his power ever so greater than the Son of Sparda's, and too revealed a plot for this world more sinister than even his unbridled instinct may dare to conjure. Dante felt no more eased at heart, so long as that remnant of the Hollow remained within him, but if there was nothing else to gain from his bout in the Colosseum, then he at least found some sense of direction.
But there was, in fact, stuff to gain from the arena: Dante had grown more powerful, he could feel it in his aching bones. Even then, too, having 'found' that direction was just a relative concept, really; it would be more accurate to say he reclaimed it from his part life. That same plan as always: to kill the demons threatening humankind, and look kind of cool while doing it.
Though that black voice in his head had quieted down for now, he would eventually have face that own inner demon later on- but those were battles for a later date, Dante figured, when he built himself more power. That already gave him a whole bucket list of things to do: destroy the Hollow, stop the likes of Magus... maybe start a new chain of Devil May Cry here? Who knows?
"Next time," Dante muttered inadvertently, quietly expressing his eagerness to put a fist in the Fiendlord's face in the future. The assistant 'tending' to the eliminated competitor (just standing by him with concerned expressions) snapped back into focus.
"Ah, Sir Redgrave- I hope you have recovered well from your loss-..." The boyish assistant said without thinking, earning an absent look of disapproval from one of the clerics observing from a short distance away. Dante grunted in protest against his stiffened joints as he got back up.
"One," the devil hunter interjected the young aide's lost second sentence with a raised index finger, "Don't call me 'sir'. Two," his middle finger joined the first, "I haven't lost if I'm still alive."
A bit distraught and emotionally staggered from the sudden retorts, the intern tried to reply, "I'm sorry, but you were eliminated from the brackets this round-"
"Three," Dante adamantly ignored the young man, raising a third finger for visual aid, "I need to know the nearest demon that needs killing." That point seemed to catch the attention of everyone else that had been recently before working on Dante, and even a few that were still in the process of working on something otherwise.
The assistant, realizing he was now well outside his learning expertise, fell back to be hesitantly replaced by one of the present doctors. "Excuse me, Redgrave, but do you really think you're in any condition to go out fighting demons so soon?"
Black boots hit the ground, and Dante pushed with his hands a bit to set his body back on his feet, the little accumulated pains still working themselves out. "What do you care? A man's gotta make a living, doesn't he?" He said, rolling his shoulders and securing the weapons on his person.
"I mean," the doctor continued, a bit more forcefully than he meant to, "All things considered, if what we witnessed in that match was any indication, you are-" And then he froze, the half-devil's piercing eyes glinting a rebellious red and boring great holes into his composure. "E-er, you were..."
"Go on. You can dig yourself deeper than that." The tension fell heavy in the air, and while Dante himself had no intent on doing anything 'funny', no one who knew that regardless dared to challenge him. If looks could kill, that poor doctor surely would've died of somewhere between fear and guilt right there and then.
"T-the Pale Moors. There's a gate, just south of Minas Tirith, that will take you there." Reclaiming some shred of confidence in his quick paradigm shift, the medic continued, "There's all sorts of wicked creatures lurking there- I've no doubt you'll find what you're looking for, sir-"
"Hey," Dante butted in again, body turning to leave but head still poised to have the final word, "Don't call me 'sir'. The name is Redgrave." And with that, a swish of white hairs and red coattails sent the devil hunter out on his way.