Devil’s Tears

It’s a dark and gloomy night, the moon shines with its pale fangs of death. The air carries with it, the essence of sorrow and the wind roared its silent symphony of sorrow. A dark shadow of evil intent flashes past the full moon. A silhouette of a young schoolgirl walks down one of the empty alleyways of Sin City. She walks under a light post, revealing her brunette hair. The schoolgirl stops there when the shadows move around out of sight. The cold feeling flowing through the girl’s body is soon shaken off and starts off again for her destination. The sound of trash bins hit the ground, spooking the target even more. A deep black mist appears, signaling the arrival of the evil intents. A vanguard and a group of fausts stand in front of the frightened schoolgirl. The vanguard raises its scythe up, the brunette girl opens her mouth and before the sound of her voice rung out, a white fabric flaps around her. An athletic type male about the age of 19 wearing a white jacket with the sword, Rebellion, hanging on his back. He had black short messy hair with a slight silver color to it. The scythe was cut and it falls backward slicing through the vanguard, killing it instantly.

The devil-hunter, in which he obviously is, turns around toward the group of now swaying fausts, they erratically move around each other. “ I know, I know, ‘It’s Vance!’ I’m going to give you all a choice, well that’s if you understand me,” said Vance, “ Choice one: you can go peacefully back to the hole you crawled out of, or choice two: I can blow your asses back to hell. Your pick.” The fausts floated there. “Number two, my favorite,” he said as he rolled up his coat sleeves, showing off silver gauntlets. Vance signals them to attack him. Two of the fausts charged toward the white-clad devil-hunter. He picked up the schoolgirl, she blushed, and jumped up to the top of the alley. “Excuse me while take care of business.” Vance dropped her and jumped back down and shot the fausts on the way. The two fausts dispersed in defeat. The remaining fausts circled around Vance, they all struck with their stinger fingers in sync, our hero jumped up allowing the stingers to stick into the ones across from them.

The white jacket man lands on the platform just created by the fausts. Two twin katanas appear in Vance’s hands. The sheaths fade away revealing the blades. He spins in a white spiral, with a flurry of slashes cutting through all fausts and breaking through their stingers. The white devil-hunter stops and the katanas disappear as fast as they appeared. The schoolgirl watched the whole thing from the roof. “Wow. Who is he?” the brunette girl said. Vance jumped back up to the roof that he left the girl on. He waved her over and dropped her off back in the alley. “So, what’s your name kid?” He asked. “ H-Haley, H-H-Haley Stevenson,” She responded. “Well Haley,” He said as he took out a cigarette and lit it. “ You’ll be okay the rest of the way tonight. Hope, you don’t see me again.” He walks off down the alley way as Haley nods her head with her jaw dropped.

The next day, Haley was in the main square of Sin City. She sat by the central fountain, daydreaming about last night’s incident and the man in the white coat. “I have to find him again.” Haley stood up and walked to the market district, through the experience of the merchants she would definetly find the guy. The brunette walked up to one of the vendors. “ Excuse me.” She said. The vendor responded with a generic welcome. “ I’m looking for someone. He black hair with a silverish tint to it, if you look hard enough, about as tall as you, um, he wears a black shirt and pants and huge black and white boots, and he wears a big long white trench-coat.” “That sounds like Johnny,” the vendor said. “Johnny?” Haley replied. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about Johnny Whitewing!” the vendor exclaimed as Haley shook her head. “Well, I suspect that you’re in a hurry. Head down the street and ask around for the shop called ‘Devil May Cry’. You’ll end up finding him.” “Thank you, thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me!” Haley squealed. She then ran off in the direction the vendor pointed. Every other vendor she ran into, she asked them about Devil May Cry and went where they told her. She eventually stood in front of the shop with its retro neon sign. Haley enters the shop, slowly looking around seeing if anybody’s in side. “ Hello? Is Johnny here?” She asked. There was no answer.

Devil May Cry, as a shop, hasn’t really changed at all. The jukebox, random furniture, and remnants of adventures passed. Rebellion hung on the sword rack once used for Sparda over the desk. The changes that have been made are seamless. The new technology made during the fifty years after Dante’s disappearance has been installed throughout the place. Devil May Cry has also become successful enough to be a small franchise. Other DMC shops have opened in other towns. This one is the main office and most of the revenue from the cases of the other shop. Ikkimaru took it over 50 years ago and followed Dante’s example from the time he met him in hell. This is the reason he holds Rebellion, Dante gave him the sword for his help and the mission to keep his shop alive while he’s gone. From then on, everything transferred over to Vance.

Haley walked around the shop looking at the many extravagant equities, especially the sword Rebellion. She makes her way into the back room that leads into the bathroom. Haley steps in front of the mirror and fixes her hair. She looks down at her chest in the mirror. Haley then pulls up on her shirt lifting her bosom. “I hope he remembers me,” she says to herself. The sound of the front door opening is heard. The brunette initially steps toward the doorway leading out front, but just then a flashback of last night hits her. “ Hope, you don’t see me again.” This caused her to rethink her actions. She runs back into the bathroom and into the shower and presses herself against the wall across from the showerhead. Upfront, Vance has just come in from a long, Sin City night. He takes his white coat off and throws it on the coat rack . He flops down in the chair and sets his feet on top of the desk. He removes his gauntlets and places them on the desk. He gets back up from the desk and takes off his black shirt, throws it on the pool table, and heads into the bathroom. Haley’s heart starts to beat out of her chest as the sound of Vance’s footsteps coming closer. She hoped that he didn’t find her. She thought of what would happen if she was. Vance turned on the shower to let it warm up. It soaks Haley, who almost screamed from the chilled water hitting her. Vance grabs the shower curtain and slowly opened. Before he could see the intruder he heard a knock on the door. “Dammit! What now?” he said as went to go answer the door. Haley exhaled her long held breath. She stepped out of the shower and followed after Vance ducking into the other back room.

Vance opens the door revealing the person knocking at the door. It’s a pizza delivery guy. He hands Vance the pizza and gets paid. Vance then slams the door in his face. As walks toward his desk, unable to wait for it, opens the pizza box and taking a slice of the pepperoni delight. He places the box down on the desk and scarves down the wedge. Vance starts back into the bathroom and notices puddles of water coming out of the room. “What the hell?” Vance thought. He followed the trail into the backroom where there were cabinets and lockers. Vance walked up to the locker that the water trail led to. He opened the door, bent down in a crouched position, soaked to the bone was Haley. She looked up at him unconsciously blushing, wondering about what’s going to happen next. “I thought I told you that you didn’t want to see me again,” Vance said. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see you again and tell you thanks for saving me Johnny,” Haley replied. “Well, you’re welcome, but my name isn’t Johnny, okay?” He said back as he grabbed a towel and gave it to her as he helped Haley up. “Then what is your name?” she asked him. “Vance.” The phone rings and Vance runs to his personal office to answer it. He picks up the phone and answers, “What you got for me Mary?” An old lady’s voice comes from the other side of the line. “ I got a huge surge of demonic energy coming from the Great Quake Memorial. Get your ass down there and make sure that nobody’s coming out of there!” Haley walked into the doorway. “Alright, don’t get panties in a twist woman,” He answered back and hung up. “Who was that?” Haley asked. “Business,” He replied with a smirk. “ You stay here. You can dry up and grab a change of clothes, something to eat, and don’t go into the basement.”

Vance arrived at the Great Quake Memorial with white jacket, Rebellion and all his other equipment. The Memorial is the remnants of what is left of Temen-ni-gru, one of Dante’s first huge contract spots. The remains of the tower had become a memorial to the silver-haired hero that saved them from destruction. Vance stepped toward the ruble and crossed the line that kept tourists from getting to close to the demon charged area. As soon as he got within ten feet of the monument, it sunk and the huge lava covered tarantula known as Phantom, erupted out of it. The immense heat resonating of his body made Vance’s jacket flap in the wind. “Oh c’mon Mary! I’m not a damn exterminator!!” He yelled. Phantom replied, “ I’m not the one that’s goin’ to be exterminated. You’re goin’ to be nothin’ but ash afta’ I’m done witcha.” “ Man that lisp is giving me the creepy crawlies,” Vance said mockingly. “Your demonic energy will be a delicious an appetizer before I feed on the humans of this town,” Phantom blurted out angrily. “Bring it on. I just wish I had a can of bug spray,” He chuckled. Immediately Phantom moved in using his molten lava legs to swipe at Vance. The Devil hunter used his gauntlets easily blocking his attacks. Even though he was blocking the swipes excess heat shed off of Phantom and onto Vance. “Ha ha looks like you need to stay out of the kitchen” gargled Phantom. “And what reason would that be?” retorted Vance as he continued to block and dodge Phantoms onslaught of attacks. Phantom then hopped his large lava based tarantula body a few paces away from Vance. “Looks like you can’t take the heat HA HA!” “Oh great, I’m dealing with an ugly bug and an ugly mouth because I swear that was so lame.” In fury to his insult Phantom inserted his stinger into the earth. “Now you’ll have to deal with this special shit.” Pillars of magma began to burst from the soil and appeared to be moving towards Vance. “hew couldn’t you have done that somewhere else? Got the whole place stinking’.” Vance managed to maneuver around the pillars to lay waste four bullets into Phantoms head. Unphased Phantom swiped at Vance forcing him to jump back. Phantom set a trap triggering a pillar of fire to rise from the ground where Vance began to land. The fire and Vance connected catching his jacket on fire. “Shiiit! Stop. Drop. Roll.” And so did Vance he rolled on the dirt to get the fire off of his jacket. “Dude you know this jacket cost me… just know it cost me a lot and now worth your life.” “Oh thaseth fines and danthy whith donteth fith you anyway.” Vance looked confused but then shrugged as he hung his jacket over a seat of a broken bike. Phantom didn’t prolong anymore he created Kyclops from the earth. They were dwarf sized versions of Phantom only with out the fire element. “Say hello to my lithle friendths.” Vance smacked his head in frustration but then quickly got into a fighting stance with rebellion placed on his back and his gauntlets readily equipped. The Kyclops began to shoot rubble from their mouth. Vance’s gauntlets activated as the blades on them sprang forth. He then used them to cut and punch the flying rocks. Vance began to make quick work of the Kyclops. Dust and chunks of rocks began to skewer all over the place. After the dust settled Vance focused his attention back to Phantom. “Time to go for big mama now isn’t that right?” “You will regret dee – in a flash Vance equipped Rebellion using Hightime lunging the sword in a half circular motion thrusting the blade through Phantom’s head. Vance in the air back flipped to the rear end of Phantom. He slid a few paces away from his stinger. “Hmm well this was fun” Vance then used Stinger launching Rebellion in a parallel motion into Phantoms stinger. “Blaaghh, you may have… been able.” Vance slowly walked to Phantoms faced undaunted by his hideousness. “What were you saying... oh my gosh whats wrong? Why are you melting?” “Cursed you! the al mighty will be here will be here sooon” Phantom began to regurgitate lava as his body began to decompose. “soon? How soon? Well really doesn’t matter because you won’t be back anytime soon heh.” “Shoon” finally blurted Phantom as he compiled into a pile of ash. “Hmph, lets see what prize you left me” A small twinkle in the ash appeared. Vance kicked the pile of dust sending it airborne leaving an item on the ground. “Come on a small vital star? I tell you the Boss demons are getting cheaper.” Vance to the star drank it revitalizing a small portion of his health. He tossed the empty bottle and grabbed his coat making his way home. Moments later he arrived at Devil May Cry. Walking through the door he could smell a strange aroma. Ludovic a Boss-level Devil hunter greeted Vance at the door telling him that he suggests that he find a new cook. “Cook!?” Vance hurriedly put his weapons down and ran to the kitchen. Not to his surprise it was Haley draped in a chef’s hat and smock. She had the kitchen smoking. “What are you doing?” “Some of your buddies said they were tired of pizza so I said I would cook them a meal.” Cheerfully said Haley. Vance looked at her again and noticed that she was holding a barbeque lighter. “Lemme guess you couldn’t turn on the stove?” Haley nodded. Haley gave him an odd look that made his heart twist. Haley then forced a kiss onto Vance. They locked lips for a few moments until they heard a noise – click -. “What was that?” Vance spoke. Haley simply pointed at Vance’s arm. Haley had set torch to Vance’s coat by accident. “No, no, no!” Haley quickly threw a cup of liquid at his arm but it only made the blaze greater. “Oops must’ve been the vodka I was drinking sorry” exclaimed Haley. “Aaagh! Stop. Drop Roll. Stop Drop Roll!”
Prologue
In the mist of Temen-nigru a shadowy figure pulled himself from the rubble. “This world will be mine in so little time.” He then noticed a group of tourist passing by. “Looks like it is time for the appetizers.” The figure then consumed the humans with a black aura. “Not satisfying maybe when I get to Fortuna I might start enjoying myself.” And with a woof of smoke the figure was gone.