Time for Two [log]
Who: Dante Sparda [stylishflair] and Hermione Granger [prettiestwitch].
Where: Devil May Cry, and assorted other locales.
When: Sunday April 8, middayish.
Summary: Hermione goes to see Dante about time travel. Drama, comedy and both of them showing off ensues.
A lone girl stepped out into the street, rubbing her arms in the chill air that seemed to catch her. Even though the weather had been described as 'bright, warm and sunny' she certainly didn't think so - rain clouds were toying with the edge of the horizon, and she wasn't exactly dressed in anything waterproof. From any passerby, she looked like a regular girl, just out to the shops or running an errand. But Hermione was on her way to much more important things.
Rounding the corner and scanning the many shops surrounding her, she kept her eyes wide. This area wasn't exactly the most safe to hang out in, and she'd only been here a couple of times before. Eventually, she spotted it - the sign to Devil May Cry. This is it, then, she thought to herself, summoning the courage to walk to the door and give it a swift push before stepping inside.
The inside of the building didn't really look much safer than the outside, probably due to the demon heads impaled on the walls and weapons scattered carelessly about. Dante was sitting at the desk; or, rather, balanced precariously against it, his chair tilted back at an angle that made it look as though it could topple over at any time. Glancing up as light streamed into the room through the open door, Dante sat up properly, recognising Hermione quickly. "Hey, so you finally came."
Hermione squinted slightly in the diminished light, finally making out Dante sitting across the room. At his remark, she flicked some hair out of her face. "I apologise. I had some... things to attend to."
"Doesn't matter," Dante shrugged lightly, standing and pushing the chair back. "Stuff's been pretty busy here anyway, now's probably the best time in awhile." Seeing her squinting and glancing at the ceiling, he added sheepishly, "Lightglobe's out. My brother's meant to be getting a new one, but he's probably gotten mixed up in another high-profile murder by now."
Hermione sighed. She'd seen the entire Sylar thing all over the city - only to know that that wasn't really Sylar at all, only someone else, and Dante appeared to be getting a lot of the blame for it. "How's that going, by the way?" she asked, before glancing up at the ceiling.
Without much show of emotion, she reached into her top pocket, pulling out something that looked little more like a stick - even though it was, in fact, her wand. Muttering a spell under her breath, light filtered at the end of it, making things appear at least twice as brighter. "There. Now I can see. If you want, I can fix that as well," she motioned to the light up above her. She didn't intend to brag - only be helpful.
Dante's eyebrows arched, and he made a mental note that magic was probably not quite so useless. It did, at least, have practical household applications. Maybe there's a spell for automatically calling for pizza, or finding lost remotes. "It's going alright. It'll go a lot better when someone catches the real killer, though. I'm not sure if the police force are vengeful, or just plain stupid." Probably the latter.
Nodding in agreement, she flicked her wrist slightly, muttering another spell under her breath, and pointed her wand to the ceiling - the light seemingly repaired itself, and coughed out specks of light a few times before once again, lighting the room. Hermione placed the wand back in her pocket, and returned the conversation. "The police.. well, they aren't that good. They're out of their league, half the time," she mused, thinking about all the magical and demonic incidents recently - too much for the police to handle.
Definitely," Dante agreed. "'Course, if they were competent enough to take out the supernatural, then I'd be out of a job, so I'm not complaining too much. They should just stick to mortal crime, for their own good." And from how it sounded, this Sylar didn't exactly fall under that criteria.
Hermione weakly smiled. "They'll have to admit it one day, though. That everything supernatural... exists," she mused. It wasn't like New Sanctum was, anymore, able to live with two seperate sides of the coin. They kept on clashing together. Again, bringing her reasoning back to why she was even here in the first place.
Sighing slightly, before replacing her expression with a more determined one, she said eventually, "... still... as I said before. We could figure out all the strange goings on recently." Or at least, try to make sense of it all.
Dante nodded, leaning against the desk. "So, you've got that thing?" The entire situation still seemed a bit surreal to him, even despite all he'd seen in his life, this was taking it to the next level. "Mind if I take a look at it?" Although it's probably naive to think they'll ever admit it. People would go into hysteria, it wouldn't really help anyone in the long run.
Hermione pulled a chain that was hanging around her neck, gently retrieving the golden coloured... watch shaped mechanism. The Time Turner. "Not at all.." she said, but her face was serious. "Just... don't... turn the center part," she motioned to the discs. Those were what turned back time, and, in the hands of someone who didn't know how to use them, could seriously mess up the stability of the universe, at least.
Dante took the Time Turner, examining it with curiousity. "So, your school just gave this to you?" he questioned eventually. Even without the time travel aspect, it certainly looked valuable. "Do they know what you're planning to do with it?"
Hermione looked thoughtful before answering that. "I got it from... taking so many classes," she decided. "... they don't exactly know about this." In fact, they don't even know about this at all... She was probably breaking countless school - no, wizarding - rules, but it was for a good cause - wasn't it?
Dante's eyebrows arched. "And what exactly do you think they're gonna do if they find out? I mean, I figure that if they give these things out to students, they'd probably have some means of keeping track of exactly what's done with them, or at least seeing changed effects." If they didn't, then they were extremely stupid indeed, at least in Dante's view.
"Did I mention I'm somewhat the most trustworthy kid in there?" Hermione asked, knowing she probably hadn't. "They only gave it to me because they could trust me." At least, she hoped they didn't keep track. But due to some events at the end of last year... she doubted it. Looking to reassure her arguement, she said, "... I've... been back for things other than school before. No one found out."
"Yeah, but if they did find out?" Dante questioned, shrugging. "All I'm saying is, if anyone found out about this, there'd probably be hell to pay." It was times like this when he was glad that the rules of the demonic world amounted to 'kill stuff, a lot'. It was much simpler that way.
"I know that. It doesn't matter," Hermione said briskly. Truth be told, she was bothered. But why be bothered when New Sanctum could switch right back to being abnormal any second? She walked up to him, taking the Time Turner from him, and holding it up by the chain, the main watch figure swinging. "You coming, or not?"
Dante gazed at her, eventually reaching out and snatching it back, resorting to the (extremely childish) method of holding the Time Turner over her head. "It's a bad idea," he said flatly. "Yeah, sure, it sounds good in theory, but there's a lot that could go wrong, and that's just assuming we didn't accidentally end up outside the city." Because of all the grand majestic deaths Dante foresaw for himself, dying of radiation poisoning thanks to a time-travel mishap wasn't on there. "I'm thinking that if something like this would really work, one of your teachers probably would've done something already, if they've got access to this stuff." At that, he fell silent, realising with dismay that he'd just used the 'your teachers are right' argument.
Looking disgruntled, Hermione frowned, giving the most menacing glare she could muster - which, for a girl, could be quite menacing. "Despite what you say, they won't have. And I'm going anyway," she voiced, sounding all the more stubborn. Once her mind was set on something and with good reason, Hermione was not one to be messed with.
"And if you end up in the Old World, circa disaster period?" Dante questioned, responding with his own menacing glare; ie, mimicking his brother. To an onlooker, the scene would probably look quite comical. "Even if you don't end up getting yourself killed, what do you think you'll be able to change? It's the past, it's over and done with. The whole problem with everything is that people are too hung up on stuff that happened in the past instead of fixing the present."
"I don't want to change anything back then," Hermione pointed out. "Only see how it can be fixed." If she figured out what made she and a few selected people invisible for a day, the next time it happened, she'd be able to stop it.
"What if it can't be?" Dante retorted, shaking his head. "Whatever caused it's probably in hell anyway. There's only one way down there, and it's not through time travel." Actually, half of it was hanging around his neck, but that would probably just give her more ideas. "Go by yourself if you want, but it's a really terrible idea," he eventually conceded.
Hermione frowned, reaching up and snatching the Time Turner back up of him, and placing it around her neck. Before Dante gave her any more reasons to doubt the possibility of finding anything out. "But what if it's not? What if you let the chance slip away?" she questioned, teasing with the chain slightly.
"Then I'll live with it," Dante shrugged, taking a step back. In his experience, these kinds of things created portals, and the best way to avoid portals was to distance one's self from them. (They also usually caused debris, which was a shame because he'd just bought that new desk last week after Vergil had a training mishap.) "If something shows up here and causes trouble again, I'll find the cause then and kill it. For all we know, someone else has already dealt with it, and going back could mess all that up."
"I doubt it," Hermione sighed, half resigning to the fact he wasn't at all too keen to come with her. She shrugged, once again messing with the chain before letting it drop slightly, deciding whether or not to be brash and have him wear it as well - like she'd done with Harry. Her face seemed to show she was planning something, though she didn't move.
Dante felt that it was now time to make her aware of one key fact. "Hey, if anyone can kill whatever's been doing that stuff, it's me," he grinned. He really, really didn't like transforming into his devil trigger form, mainly for the vain reason that he looked like a hideous monster and that really wasn't conductive to his badass image. Nevertheless, he changed form for a few moments, just long enough to hopefully deter her from dragging him along with her. Changing back to his human form, he added, "See?" In theory, it would be assurance.
Hermione flinched slightly as Dante triggered, but didn't back off, though seemed to show some fear from it by dropping the Time Turner - of course, it didn't smash, since it was around her neck. She had never doubted Dante wouldn't be able to deal with anything. And as time went on, the plan did appear to be more.. reckless than at first glance. Maybe she was just desperate to do something with herself. School was... boring. Looking back at Dante (and feeling somewhat relieved he was back in human form), she said quietly, "What would you do, then?"
"Fix the problems," Dante replied nonchalantly, flicking his hair out of his eyes. Somehow, triggering always managed to mess with his hair. "There are plenty of problems with everything. Understanding how they came about is all well and good for history books, but most of the time, it doesn't do too much to solve the problems themselves, especially not when the problems are hostile." Essentially, he was advocating 'shoot first and ask questions never', but it applied perfectly in demon-hunting, at least in his opinion.
"But that's your way," Hermione pointed out, pointing a finger at him. "I do things differently from you. Why? Because we are different. I do things by books and magic. You do things by fighting," she said irritably, once again reaching to big up the Time Turner and actually get around to spinning it this time. She was admidst so much pent-up rage she was daring to go against any common sense and be as stubborn as she liked.
"So fight with magic," Dante responded. "What, are you learning all that stuff just to make day-to-day life easier? You've got that power, so use it." What looked to be a tense situation was mercifully distracted by the shrill ringing of the phone. Reaching over and answering it with a simple, "Devil May Cry, password?" Dante eventually leant over the desk, scrawling something on a scrap of paper, punctuating the phonecall with "Yeah," and "Uh-huh," every few seconds. Hanging up, he glanced up. "I'd love to continue this little ethical debate, but I've got a job to do."
Hermione folded her arms, seeming all the more annoyed at the fact Dante seemed to be dismissing her abilities. I can fight. I can. I've given someone a right headache before... but... she sighed. Not with magic.
Raising an eyebrow, she looked up at him, the stubborness shining more than ever, as if to prove a point she was not worthless. "I'm going with you."
Ah crap. Perhaps this was what Vergil meant when he said Dante talked too much. He did seem to have a habit of giving people bad ideas. "It's dangerous," he warned, internally factoring it all in. If the client was right, the demons should be weak enough for him to balance making sure she didn't get killed and taking them out, so it wouldn't be a monumental disaster if she tagged along. Then again, there were few things more dangerous (to themselves) than reckless teenagers with something to prove. (Dante had been one himself and was still a reckless twentysomething with something to prove, so he felt he had an authority on the matter.) "They're Hell Prides." If she didn't know her demons, she probably wouldn't pick them as one of the lower rungs on the demonic foodchain. At least the name sounded intimidating.
Hermione knew about the existance of demons, but little about any ranks or status. She shrugged, seemingly less put off. "I've had worse," she commented - which was true. She had been through a lot worse, or could have been killed a couple of times without applying some sort of sense. "Since you won't come with me. I'll go with you."
"Fine, fine," he held up a hand, walking over and fetching Rebellion, his greatsword, from where it was leaning against the wall. "Can you at least shoot a gun?" he questioned, shoving the piece of paper into his pocket after consulting the address a final time. It was only a short while away.
Momentarily pleased at the fact she could accompany Dante, her face fell. "No," she said, casting her mind back. She'd never actually really fought with anything besides her wand. "Magic only, I'm afraid." Which isn't all that bad, I know quite a few spells...
Dante looked less than convinced at the strength of her magic, although he nodded, gesturing for her to follow him outside. "Just try and not get hit. Keep your back to the wall, stops 'em from sneaking up behind you." Pausing at the door, he questioned somewhat belatedly, "You ever ridden on a motorbike?" He didn't even have one helmet, let alone two, but he did have a license. ...it was an expired learner's permit from when he was sixteen, but still.
Hermione followed Dante, stopping suddenly when he mentioned the motorbike. "No," she said eventually, feeling all the more dismayed. Gee, I really need to get out more often.
Dante grinned cheerfully, leading her outside and gesturing to the motorbike parked in the side-alley next to the shop. "First time for everything," he responded, climbing on and gesturing for her to get on behind him, affixing Rebellion to the side of the bike in a way that was surely illegal but mighty convenient. "Just wrap your arms around my waist and don't let go." For her benefit, he decided that perhaps he'd consider respecting the speed limit, given that she had a much lower chance of surviving any possible crash.
Somewhat embarrassed by what Dante said, Hermione blushed slightly, but everything that was happening was a bit too overwhelming anyway, so she followed without a response, gingerly getting onto the bike after he did so. "So where are we going?" she asked, curious as to where the outbreak of demons was.
"It's a couple of districts away, close to the industrial zone. This kind of thing happens a lot around there," he answered, revving the bike afterwards before starting it up, keeping his speed more controlled than usual, although he was still verging on the illegal side of the speed limit. It was all for a good cause, he reasoned; if he didn't speed, they wouldn't get there in time and the people would be killed by demons.
Nerves seemed to finally be catching up with Hermione, but she dismissed them, concentrating on keeping herself steady instead. Now was not the time to start regretting being rebellious.
***
When one was in the midst of an attack by bloodthirsty demons, it was perhaps a better time for regrets, not that Dante seemed too worried, grinning wildly and swiping at an advancing demon with Rebellion, glancing back at Hermione. "Having fun?" he questioned, looking back to the demons as his grin widened.
Hermione, somewhat, seemed to be experiencing a mixture of emotions, and beginning to think that holding her wand out in front of her was little more than an owner holding out a stick for a dog (except, that she could use magic with it, but that's what it looked like). Truth be told, this was bit much for her, though she wasn't about to give up. "Depends what you define 'fun' as," she said, casting another spell at a demon in front of her, then proceeding to jump back out of reach.
"Enjoyment, happiness, that sort of thing," Dante skewered another demon through Rebellion, the creature exploding into sand as the blade split through it. "Looks like we've hit the last of the cavalry," he added, eyeing the remaining demons and quickly parrying as one of them made to strike at Hermione. "You blast that one, I'll deal with these three," he gestured to one demon approaching from the side, turning to face the others quickly.
Deciding then and there this was definately not much of her idea of fun (though it was somewhat interesting, since she hadn't used spells with this effect for... god knows how long), she nodded, turning to the remaining demon and (hopefully) eying it with something similar to remorse, briefly sending a stun spell at it to attempt getting closer, in the mean time looking back at Dante, who seemed to be doing perfectly fine.
Dante looked to be perfectly within his element, killing the three demons in the flashiest ways possible, jumping and slashing one, twisting in the air and landing on the second and then promptly decapitating the third, grinning like a maniac the whole time. Turning to Hermione and eyeing the one remaining demon, he questioned, "You want to do the honours?"
Sighing slightly as she realised this was probably a field trip for Dante, Hermione nodded, turning once again to face the demon, tracing back with her mind for a suitable spell. She came up with one pretty quickly, pointing her wand at the demon and a flash emitting from the end of it - next second, the demon was gone.
"Well, that takes care of that," Dante looked satisfied, flicking his hair from his eyes and sauntering to the door as though nothing had happened. "This is demon-hunting, pretty much. Get a job, go exterminate, tell the client, get paid. Most people don't enjoy it," he admitted, noting that Hermione was most likely among those ranks. "Most people either have a chip on their shoulder, or are too screwed up to do anything else."
"It wasn't that bad," Hermione admitted eventually. True, she wouldn't want to spend her whole life doing it, but it was... fun for a change of pace. "Probably because I find it... well, different," she said slowly, following after him to the door - somewhat suspcious that there could be more lurking for her in the dark corners, though she knew she was just being overly paranoid.
"It's pretty different," Dante agreed, leading her out through the darkened hallways, to the back alley exit where the motorbike awaited. "I guess it's all the fun of deadly combat, without the whole 'killing people' issue. Guess that explains why so many demon hunters are complete sociopaths." Vergil, for instance, not that he shied away from killing humans anyway. "Anyway, want to go for pizza?" he grinned, walking over to the bike.
Hermione was so distracted by mulling over what Dante was saying it took her a few seconds to realize what he was saying. "... what? A pizza?" She said, somewhat surprised that that had managed to slip into conversation.
"Yeah," Dante clearly felt that the question should be self-explanatory. "Celebratory pizza, it's the best thing after a successful job." Pizza was the best thing after anything according to Dante.
"Right," Hermione replied, pretty much unconvinced, thinking it was more or less just an excuse to go and get one in the first place. Guess guys really do think with their stomachs, she thought, feeling somewhat bemused.
"Hey, it's good energy food!" Dante held up a hand defensively, grinning. "Well, of course, if you don't want one, I guess we don't have to bother."
"Hey, I never said I didn't want one," Hermione replied, folding her arms. "Besides, I don't think you'd let the opportunity of getting one in the first place pass you by."
"Well, if you want one, then what are we standing around here talking for?" Dante questioned pointedly, getting on the bike and gesturing for her to climb on after him. "The longer we hang around debating it, the longer it'll take to get to the pizza." And any delay to getting to the pizza was a terrible thing indeed.
Clambering on after him, Hermione bit her lip, wondering if she would later regret saying what she planned to say. "Since you brought me and all... I'll pay for it," she offered.
After this meal, if nothing else, Hermione would know not to underestimate demons; at least, not their eating habits. A satisfied grin appeared on Dante's face and he nodded. "Done deal."
Where: Devil May Cry, and assorted other locales.
When: Sunday April 8, middayish.
Summary: Hermione goes to see Dante about time travel. Drama, comedy and both of them showing off ensues.
A lone girl stepped out into the street, rubbing her arms in the chill air that seemed to catch her. Even though the weather had been described as 'bright, warm and sunny' she certainly didn't think so - rain clouds were toying with the edge of the horizon, and she wasn't exactly dressed in anything waterproof. From any passerby, she looked like a regular girl, just out to the shops or running an errand. But Hermione was on her way to much more important things.
Rounding the corner and scanning the many shops surrounding her, she kept her eyes wide. This area wasn't exactly the most safe to hang out in, and she'd only been here a couple of times before. Eventually, she spotted it - the sign to Devil May Cry. This is it, then, she thought to herself, summoning the courage to walk to the door and give it a swift push before stepping inside.
The inside of the building didn't really look much safer than the outside, probably due to the demon heads impaled on the walls and weapons scattered carelessly about. Dante was sitting at the desk; or, rather, balanced precariously against it, his chair tilted back at an angle that made it look as though it could topple over at any time. Glancing up as light streamed into the room through the open door, Dante sat up properly, recognising Hermione quickly. "Hey, so you finally came."
Hermione squinted slightly in the diminished light, finally making out Dante sitting across the room. At his remark, she flicked some hair out of her face. "I apologise. I had some... things to attend to."
"Doesn't matter," Dante shrugged lightly, standing and pushing the chair back. "Stuff's been pretty busy here anyway, now's probably the best time in awhile." Seeing her squinting and glancing at the ceiling, he added sheepishly, "Lightglobe's out. My brother's meant to be getting a new one, but he's probably gotten mixed up in another high-profile murder by now."
Hermione sighed. She'd seen the entire Sylar thing all over the city - only to know that that wasn't really Sylar at all, only someone else, and Dante appeared to be getting a lot of the blame for it. "How's that going, by the way?" she asked, before glancing up at the ceiling.
Without much show of emotion, she reached into her top pocket, pulling out something that looked little more like a stick - even though it was, in fact, her wand. Muttering a spell under her breath, light filtered at the end of it, making things appear at least twice as brighter. "There. Now I can see. If you want, I can fix that as well," she motioned to the light up above her. She didn't intend to brag - only be helpful.
Dante's eyebrows arched, and he made a mental note that magic was probably not quite so useless. It did, at least, have practical household applications. Maybe there's a spell for automatically calling for pizza, or finding lost remotes. "It's going alright. It'll go a lot better when someone catches the real killer, though. I'm not sure if the police force are vengeful, or just plain stupid." Probably the latter.
Nodding in agreement, she flicked her wrist slightly, muttering another spell under her breath, and pointed her wand to the ceiling - the light seemingly repaired itself, and coughed out specks of light a few times before once again, lighting the room. Hermione placed the wand back in her pocket, and returned the conversation. "The police.. well, they aren't that good. They're out of their league, half the time," she mused, thinking about all the magical and demonic incidents recently - too much for the police to handle.
Definitely," Dante agreed. "'Course, if they were competent enough to take out the supernatural, then I'd be out of a job, so I'm not complaining too much. They should just stick to mortal crime, for their own good." And from how it sounded, this Sylar didn't exactly fall under that criteria.
Hermione weakly smiled. "They'll have to admit it one day, though. That everything supernatural... exists," she mused. It wasn't like New Sanctum was, anymore, able to live with two seperate sides of the coin. They kept on clashing together. Again, bringing her reasoning back to why she was even here in the first place.
Sighing slightly, before replacing her expression with a more determined one, she said eventually, "... still... as I said before. We could figure out all the strange goings on recently." Or at least, try to make sense of it all.
Dante nodded, leaning against the desk. "So, you've got that thing?" The entire situation still seemed a bit surreal to him, even despite all he'd seen in his life, this was taking it to the next level. "Mind if I take a look at it?" Although it's probably naive to think they'll ever admit it. People would go into hysteria, it wouldn't really help anyone in the long run.
Hermione pulled a chain that was hanging around her neck, gently retrieving the golden coloured... watch shaped mechanism. The Time Turner. "Not at all.." she said, but her face was serious. "Just... don't... turn the center part," she motioned to the discs. Those were what turned back time, and, in the hands of someone who didn't know how to use them, could seriously mess up the stability of the universe, at least.
Dante took the Time Turner, examining it with curiousity. "So, your school just gave this to you?" he questioned eventually. Even without the time travel aspect, it certainly looked valuable. "Do they know what you're planning to do with it?"
Hermione looked thoughtful before answering that. "I got it from... taking so many classes," she decided. "... they don't exactly know about this." In fact, they don't even know about this at all... She was probably breaking countless school - no, wizarding - rules, but it was for a good cause - wasn't it?
Dante's eyebrows arched. "And what exactly do you think they're gonna do if they find out? I mean, I figure that if they give these things out to students, they'd probably have some means of keeping track of exactly what's done with them, or at least seeing changed effects." If they didn't, then they were extremely stupid indeed, at least in Dante's view.
"Did I mention I'm somewhat the most trustworthy kid in there?" Hermione asked, knowing she probably hadn't. "They only gave it to me because they could trust me." At least, she hoped they didn't keep track. But due to some events at the end of last year... she doubted it. Looking to reassure her arguement, she said, "... I've... been back for things other than school before. No one found out."
"Yeah, but if they did find out?" Dante questioned, shrugging. "All I'm saying is, if anyone found out about this, there'd probably be hell to pay." It was times like this when he was glad that the rules of the demonic world amounted to 'kill stuff, a lot'. It was much simpler that way.
"I know that. It doesn't matter," Hermione said briskly. Truth be told, she was bothered. But why be bothered when New Sanctum could switch right back to being abnormal any second? She walked up to him, taking the Time Turner from him, and holding it up by the chain, the main watch figure swinging. "You coming, or not?"
Dante gazed at her, eventually reaching out and snatching it back, resorting to the (extremely childish) method of holding the Time Turner over her head. "It's a bad idea," he said flatly. "Yeah, sure, it sounds good in theory, but there's a lot that could go wrong, and that's just assuming we didn't accidentally end up outside the city." Because of all the grand majestic deaths Dante foresaw for himself, dying of radiation poisoning thanks to a time-travel mishap wasn't on there. "I'm thinking that if something like this would really work, one of your teachers probably would've done something already, if they've got access to this stuff." At that, he fell silent, realising with dismay that he'd just used the 'your teachers are right' argument.
Looking disgruntled, Hermione frowned, giving the most menacing glare she could muster - which, for a girl, could be quite menacing. "Despite what you say, they won't have. And I'm going anyway," she voiced, sounding all the more stubborn. Once her mind was set on something and with good reason, Hermione was not one to be messed with.
"And if you end up in the Old World, circa disaster period?" Dante questioned, responding with his own menacing glare; ie, mimicking his brother. To an onlooker, the scene would probably look quite comical. "Even if you don't end up getting yourself killed, what do you think you'll be able to change? It's the past, it's over and done with. The whole problem with everything is that people are too hung up on stuff that happened in the past instead of fixing the present."
"I don't want to change anything back then," Hermione pointed out. "Only see how it can be fixed." If she figured out what made she and a few selected people invisible for a day, the next time it happened, she'd be able to stop it.
"What if it can't be?" Dante retorted, shaking his head. "Whatever caused it's probably in hell anyway. There's only one way down there, and it's not through time travel." Actually, half of it was hanging around his neck, but that would probably just give her more ideas. "Go by yourself if you want, but it's a really terrible idea," he eventually conceded.
Hermione frowned, reaching up and snatching the Time Turner back up of him, and placing it around her neck. Before Dante gave her any more reasons to doubt the possibility of finding anything out. "But what if it's not? What if you let the chance slip away?" she questioned, teasing with the chain slightly.
"Then I'll live with it," Dante shrugged, taking a step back. In his experience, these kinds of things created portals, and the best way to avoid portals was to distance one's self from them. (They also usually caused debris, which was a shame because he'd just bought that new desk last week after Vergil had a training mishap.) "If something shows up here and causes trouble again, I'll find the cause then and kill it. For all we know, someone else has already dealt with it, and going back could mess all that up."
"I doubt it," Hermione sighed, half resigning to the fact he wasn't at all too keen to come with her. She shrugged, once again messing with the chain before letting it drop slightly, deciding whether or not to be brash and have him wear it as well - like she'd done with Harry. Her face seemed to show she was planning something, though she didn't move.
Dante felt that it was now time to make her aware of one key fact. "Hey, if anyone can kill whatever's been doing that stuff, it's me," he grinned. He really, really didn't like transforming into his devil trigger form, mainly for the vain reason that he looked like a hideous monster and that really wasn't conductive to his badass image. Nevertheless, he changed form for a few moments, just long enough to hopefully deter her from dragging him along with her. Changing back to his human form, he added, "See?" In theory, it would be assurance.
Hermione flinched slightly as Dante triggered, but didn't back off, though seemed to show some fear from it by dropping the Time Turner - of course, it didn't smash, since it was around her neck. She had never doubted Dante wouldn't be able to deal with anything. And as time went on, the plan did appear to be more.. reckless than at first glance. Maybe she was just desperate to do something with herself. School was... boring. Looking back at Dante (and feeling somewhat relieved he was back in human form), she said quietly, "What would you do, then?"
"Fix the problems," Dante replied nonchalantly, flicking his hair out of his eyes. Somehow, triggering always managed to mess with his hair. "There are plenty of problems with everything. Understanding how they came about is all well and good for history books, but most of the time, it doesn't do too much to solve the problems themselves, especially not when the problems are hostile." Essentially, he was advocating 'shoot first and ask questions never', but it applied perfectly in demon-hunting, at least in his opinion.
"But that's your way," Hermione pointed out, pointing a finger at him. "I do things differently from you. Why? Because we are different. I do things by books and magic. You do things by fighting," she said irritably, once again reaching to big up the Time Turner and actually get around to spinning it this time. She was admidst so much pent-up rage she was daring to go against any common sense and be as stubborn as she liked.
"So fight with magic," Dante responded. "What, are you learning all that stuff just to make day-to-day life easier? You've got that power, so use it." What looked to be a tense situation was mercifully distracted by the shrill ringing of the phone. Reaching over and answering it with a simple, "Devil May Cry, password?" Dante eventually leant over the desk, scrawling something on a scrap of paper, punctuating the phonecall with "Yeah," and "Uh-huh," every few seconds. Hanging up, he glanced up. "I'd love to continue this little ethical debate, but I've got a job to do."
Hermione folded her arms, seeming all the more annoyed at the fact Dante seemed to be dismissing her abilities. I can fight. I can. I've given someone a right headache before... but... she sighed. Not with magic.
Raising an eyebrow, she looked up at him, the stubborness shining more than ever, as if to prove a point she was not worthless. "I'm going with you."
Ah crap. Perhaps this was what Vergil meant when he said Dante talked too much. He did seem to have a habit of giving people bad ideas. "It's dangerous," he warned, internally factoring it all in. If the client was right, the demons should be weak enough for him to balance making sure she didn't get killed and taking them out, so it wouldn't be a monumental disaster if she tagged along. Then again, there were few things more dangerous (to themselves) than reckless teenagers with something to prove. (Dante had been one himself and was still a reckless twentysomething with something to prove, so he felt he had an authority on the matter.) "They're Hell Prides." If she didn't know her demons, she probably wouldn't pick them as one of the lower rungs on the demonic foodchain. At least the name sounded intimidating.
Hermione knew about the existance of demons, but little about any ranks or status. She shrugged, seemingly less put off. "I've had worse," she commented - which was true. She had been through a lot worse, or could have been killed a couple of times without applying some sort of sense. "Since you won't come with me. I'll go with you."
"Fine, fine," he held up a hand, walking over and fetching Rebellion, his greatsword, from where it was leaning against the wall. "Can you at least shoot a gun?" he questioned, shoving the piece of paper into his pocket after consulting the address a final time. It was only a short while away.
Momentarily pleased at the fact she could accompany Dante, her face fell. "No," she said, casting her mind back. She'd never actually really fought with anything besides her wand. "Magic only, I'm afraid." Which isn't all that bad, I know quite a few spells...
Dante looked less than convinced at the strength of her magic, although he nodded, gesturing for her to follow him outside. "Just try and not get hit. Keep your back to the wall, stops 'em from sneaking up behind you." Pausing at the door, he questioned somewhat belatedly, "You ever ridden on a motorbike?" He didn't even have one helmet, let alone two, but he did have a license. ...it was an expired learner's permit from when he was sixteen, but still.
Hermione followed Dante, stopping suddenly when he mentioned the motorbike. "No," she said eventually, feeling all the more dismayed. Gee, I really need to get out more often.
Dante grinned cheerfully, leading her outside and gesturing to the motorbike parked in the side-alley next to the shop. "First time for everything," he responded, climbing on and gesturing for her to get on behind him, affixing Rebellion to the side of the bike in a way that was surely illegal but mighty convenient. "Just wrap your arms around my waist and don't let go." For her benefit, he decided that perhaps he'd consider respecting the speed limit, given that she had a much lower chance of surviving any possible crash.
Somewhat embarrassed by what Dante said, Hermione blushed slightly, but everything that was happening was a bit too overwhelming anyway, so she followed without a response, gingerly getting onto the bike after he did so. "So where are we going?" she asked, curious as to where the outbreak of demons was.
"It's a couple of districts away, close to the industrial zone. This kind of thing happens a lot around there," he answered, revving the bike afterwards before starting it up, keeping his speed more controlled than usual, although he was still verging on the illegal side of the speed limit. It was all for a good cause, he reasoned; if he didn't speed, they wouldn't get there in time and the people would be killed by demons.
Nerves seemed to finally be catching up with Hermione, but she dismissed them, concentrating on keeping herself steady instead. Now was not the time to start regretting being rebellious.
***
When one was in the midst of an attack by bloodthirsty demons, it was perhaps a better time for regrets, not that Dante seemed too worried, grinning wildly and swiping at an advancing demon with Rebellion, glancing back at Hermione. "Having fun?" he questioned, looking back to the demons as his grin widened.
Hermione, somewhat, seemed to be experiencing a mixture of emotions, and beginning to think that holding her wand out in front of her was little more than an owner holding out a stick for a dog (except, that she could use magic with it, but that's what it looked like). Truth be told, this was bit much for her, though she wasn't about to give up. "Depends what you define 'fun' as," she said, casting another spell at a demon in front of her, then proceeding to jump back out of reach.
"Enjoyment, happiness, that sort of thing," Dante skewered another demon through Rebellion, the creature exploding into sand as the blade split through it. "Looks like we've hit the last of the cavalry," he added, eyeing the remaining demons and quickly parrying as one of them made to strike at Hermione. "You blast that one, I'll deal with these three," he gestured to one demon approaching from the side, turning to face the others quickly.
Deciding then and there this was definately not much of her idea of fun (though it was somewhat interesting, since she hadn't used spells with this effect for... god knows how long), she nodded, turning to the remaining demon and (hopefully) eying it with something similar to remorse, briefly sending a stun spell at it to attempt getting closer, in the mean time looking back at Dante, who seemed to be doing perfectly fine.
Dante looked to be perfectly within his element, killing the three demons in the flashiest ways possible, jumping and slashing one, twisting in the air and landing on the second and then promptly decapitating the third, grinning like a maniac the whole time. Turning to Hermione and eyeing the one remaining demon, he questioned, "You want to do the honours?"
Sighing slightly as she realised this was probably a field trip for Dante, Hermione nodded, turning once again to face the demon, tracing back with her mind for a suitable spell. She came up with one pretty quickly, pointing her wand at the demon and a flash emitting from the end of it - next second, the demon was gone.
"Well, that takes care of that," Dante looked satisfied, flicking his hair from his eyes and sauntering to the door as though nothing had happened. "This is demon-hunting, pretty much. Get a job, go exterminate, tell the client, get paid. Most people don't enjoy it," he admitted, noting that Hermione was most likely among those ranks. "Most people either have a chip on their shoulder, or are too screwed up to do anything else."
"It wasn't that bad," Hermione admitted eventually. True, she wouldn't want to spend her whole life doing it, but it was... fun for a change of pace. "Probably because I find it... well, different," she said slowly, following after him to the door - somewhat suspcious that there could be more lurking for her in the dark corners, though she knew she was just being overly paranoid.
"It's pretty different," Dante agreed, leading her out through the darkened hallways, to the back alley exit where the motorbike awaited. "I guess it's all the fun of deadly combat, without the whole 'killing people' issue. Guess that explains why so many demon hunters are complete sociopaths." Vergil, for instance, not that he shied away from killing humans anyway. "Anyway, want to go for pizza?" he grinned, walking over to the bike.
Hermione was so distracted by mulling over what Dante was saying it took her a few seconds to realize what he was saying. "... what? A pizza?" She said, somewhat surprised that that had managed to slip into conversation.
"Yeah," Dante clearly felt that the question should be self-explanatory. "Celebratory pizza, it's the best thing after a successful job." Pizza was the best thing after anything according to Dante.
"Right," Hermione replied, pretty much unconvinced, thinking it was more or less just an excuse to go and get one in the first place. Guess guys really do think with their stomachs, she thought, feeling somewhat bemused.
"Hey, it's good energy food!" Dante held up a hand defensively, grinning. "Well, of course, if you don't want one, I guess we don't have to bother."
"Hey, I never said I didn't want one," Hermione replied, folding her arms. "Besides, I don't think you'd let the opportunity of getting one in the first place pass you by."
"Well, if you want one, then what are we standing around here talking for?" Dante questioned pointedly, getting on the bike and gesturing for her to climb on after him. "The longer we hang around debating it, the longer it'll take to get to the pizza." And any delay to getting to the pizza was a terrible thing indeed.
Clambering on after him, Hermione bit her lip, wondering if she would later regret saying what she planned to say. "Since you brought me and all... I'll pay for it," she offered.
After this meal, if nothing else, Hermione would know not to underestimate demons; at least, not their eating habits. A satisfied grin appeared on Dante's face and he nodded. "Done deal."