[Thread] The Flinch in Your Eye Calls Your Bluff || Closed
Characters: Dante, The Princess (Anti-Helena)
Where: DMC city (iow, the section of city that is from Tony's world)
When: today more or less, nighttime
Summary: Dante's checking out his city familiar territory. The Princess just happens to be around to catch his eye.
Warnings: Probably language, possibly violence.
( Feel free to die when you've had enough. )
Where: DMC city (iow, the section of city that is from Tony's world)
When: today more or less, nighttime
Summary: Dante's checking out his city familiar territory. The Princess just happens to be around to catch his eye.
Warnings: Probably language, possibly violence.
( Feel free to die when you've had enough. )
She tilted her head up towards the tall figure before her. Handsome. His hands were on his hips, that was weird. Gay? She stared at his hips for a moment, he didn't look like the type who would be walking around these streets unarmed, maybe that was it. Maybe not. Who knew.
The Princess stood up, just under average height, nineteen, black lipstick, dark eyeshadow, a short black skirt hugging her hips, a tight black shirt with multicoloured sleeves and a pair of rainbow chucks on her feet, black fishnet stockings trailing up her legs. She stepped forward, unafraid, not at all intimidated, and smiling.
"As a matter of fact I am. This is a very interesting city. I had not been to this one yet so I decided to take a walk and see what I could see."
The Princess placed her hands on her hips and a small smile crept up her face, "What about you. Are you the creepy man that haunts the dark alleys at night?"
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The hunter wasn't intimidated by anything that went on with the girl's weird appearance obviously, either. He'd seen worse. Much worse. Besides, she would be lucky if she never had to glimpse his eyes when they flared with demonic light. Neither was he fooled by her young, seemingly 'innocent' appearance. Although he had to admit a certain distaste for her chosen clothing--to him she simply looked like another whore. Harsh, perhaps, but it wasn't as if it mattered since she wasn't really a girl as far as he was concerned. As he thought about it in fact it just began to make more sense; like one of the Seven Hells she was dressed for something demons and devils represented in the human world: a sin.
What went on in his head though didn't effect him on the outside in the least. A second after his initial quip he was right back at it. "You shouldn't play in the dark, little girl. You might get hurt."
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"Besides, the darkness is not what I fear in a place like this. It's the people." She turned her head away when she spoke, taking another look at the shadows behind her. At her last word her head turned back to the tall stranger. She smiled up at him.
"I'm The Princess. I know it sounds silly but I wasn't really given a name where I come from."
She removed her hands from her hips and let them rest at her side. The man in front of her was quite intriguing. He had taken the time to stop and inspect her so he either really is a creep or some kind of official. Either of these not being a big deal, but The Princess wasn't really in the mood to be harangued by ignorant strangers.
"Now. Down to business, you are either some kind of official or a creep. You stated earlier that this was a possibility so I won't put it past you. However, I don't really have that much time so if you are going to attempt to move me on my way, harass me, or otherwise bother me in any way I suggest you get it over with now."
She by no means sounded her age. Her conversation hinted of an observation intellect, however, her manners and rash behavior was that of a punked out teen. Which ever she was or was trying to pretend to be could not really be ascertained. At least, that's what she was aiming for. She knew the man in front of her was no mere idiot. He was too suspicious of her to be just another passer by.
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His eyes closed for a second and when he reopened them a much more evil looking smirk was plastered on his face to simulate the lost playfulness. Despite his act and words, he seemed all business now. "Not that kinda creep, babe. Try something a little more scary." He said with his voice getting lower as he went on until the last word was dripping with richness from the deep, guttural growl of his tone. He sounded more bestial than human when he went into such a state and for a moment his eyes flickered with something...more.
"And look at me," he said with fanfare, his voice back to normal sarcasm. His hands finally left his hips and slapped at the red coat hanging around him, making it flare. "Do I really look official to you?"
He shook his head. "Come on, doll. You need to get with the program."
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Her eyes begin to fill with a thin black liquid appearing substance. They began to look as they had when the man had first happened upon her. Her eyes were completely black. To any normal person they would look soulless but to anyone else with a more keen eye, they would see something that looked like a soul but was something far more sinister.
She began to laugh, a welcoming homey laugh, deep in her throat and bubbling up through her teeth. She quieted down when he began to talk again but the amusement still shown on her face. Amusement and pleasure. It was no secret now that the character before her was suddenly more interesting than he had appeared to her before. The excitement was glowing in her features.
When he returned to normal, she did not. Her eyes were still as two large coals in the place where her eyes should be. She looked over his clothes as he spoke, actually taking notice for the first time and realizing with ease that no, he was not anyone "official".
"Well, I suppose if this is going to turn into anything other than a polite conversation I should know your name."
Apparently the mother word had struck a chord. Interesting. If he had said anything like that to her, she probably would have done the same thing.
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An evil spirit he was willing to give her. Some sort of dark shadow creature. That was close enough to a demon in his book, and he would gladly hunt one down and destroy it. Actually, she almost felt like a...doppleganger? But she wasn't taking on the form in front of her. He didn't know.
He also didn't care at this point in time.
"...Dante," he answered. There was nothing in giving out his name--contrary to popular belief just having a person's name wasn't enough to harm them. And especially in Dante's case she'd need a lot more to do him any damage.
His hand reached back behind his shoulder and grabbed the hilt sticking up there. "You shouldn't have revealed yourself to a devil hunter, sweetheart." And with that the sword was out and swinging down towards her, purple lightning crackling along its edges.
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"Well, Dante, I am not a devil so there is no point in hunting me." The playfulness still danced in her tone, sarcasm on the edge of everything she was saying.
She shrugged her shoulders, tilted her head. "People like you. Oh how I do detest them. You act without thinking, always assuming you think what you've seen must be something you've seen before. You do not take the time to question it, wonder if maybe it has feelings and a life of its own or even thoughts in its head."
She stood up, backing up a few paces, ready to hurl herself in any direction. "I'm not a monster. I'm just different. But I wouldn't expect and unfeeling illogical quick tempered idiot like yourself to understand that."
The smile never left her face. Though she was trying to look cold and complacent as she normally was, she was having a devil of a time doing it. This little incident had struck a nerve. Yes, she knew she was evil and cold, maybe even a monster based on "normal" people's perceptions of good and evil and what a monster looked like but to her own self she was exactly who she wanted to be, exactly as she was raised to be with her own personal modifications.
She was created to be everything selfish and wicked. She knew no other way of life. This however, did not stop her from thinking or feeling or having hopes and dreams the same as any other person.
And so she felt hurt. Judged as some kind of devil meant for the slaughter. She laughed nervously and the hurt shown in her eyes, which were now normal. And if he was paying attention, Dante would notice the hurt there, the honesty behind her words. The confusion would also be present in her features though her attitude tried to cover it up, tried to hide it.
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Anything for a little fun.
But he was a serious person underneath all the flashy bang bang and showy kick-ass moves, too. There were things in his life that meant sometimes to him; lessons learned by too much experience. His father was a devil but loved by the people whom he saved so very long ago. Dante himself was a half-devil and yet he prided himself on being as human as humanly possible. He'd seen others who acted out of spite and jealously and revenge and--and all of those things, in the end, hadn't settled very well with him. Between his lost brother and a demon created in his mother's image meant to destroy him who betrayed its master... Dante had learned important lessons in his life.
"...The last time I hesitated to kill a demon based on its 'pretty' image I got stabbed in the back." Not literally as far as the stabbing went, but a good voltage of lightning did about the same trick on a person's back. "You think I'm not aware that demons think for themselves, have an unholy life, feel a mockery of human emotion? My business name and motto runs on the principle: even a devil may cry. Especially when I come to hunt them down."
His voice was serious when he said this. High and mighty, with his head tilted upwards a bit, and a knowing gleam in his eye--yet the usual cocky gestures were still present in the rest of his body movements. His sword was resting on his shoulder now as he pointed forcefully with his other hand.
"You're no different from them! You say these things to mock and confuse me but if you really understood any of those 'emotions' you feel you wouldn't do the things you do. And I know you do them just by looking into your dark-filled eyes. You're a monster and there's no hiding the fact. There's no excuses for those kinds of things!!"
At the final yell it seemed whatever hesitation he had about her evaporated immediately. He felt his words to be true and unless she suddenly pulled a Trish she was as guilty as all demons to him. He was suddenly in motion, quicker than the eye could focus, not even a blur of motion but rather there one second and then here the next. His sword was held out in front of him as he was leaned forward in a powerful thrust--Stringer, he called the move, and when it hit he usually stabbed a hundred times over before the maneuver was finished. All within a fraction of a second.
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She had tried to get out as much to him but his yelling was breaking up her sentences and when he finally seemed to snap she could only think of one thing to do. She didn't like doing it because it was still a new trick for her but oh well.
When she saw the first flash of movement she had less than seconds to react. She closed her eyes and held her breath. Just as her eyes shut her entire body collapsed into mass of shadow that flung itself with great speed to the left and then just as swiftly upwards where it regrouped and reformed into The Princess standing on top of the nearest building. It wasn't a tall building, about three stories.
She looked down from her precipice, tried to see if she could see him or he was still flashing about where she had just been.
"Without waiting to find him she called down, "That emotion is called fear! And, yes, I feel it on occasion! Not that you would care you unfeeling jerk! Just because I live on the opposite spectrum of good does not mean I have no heart! I feel just like anyone else in your "world"!" She was angry, sarcastic, her lips dripping with disdain but the truth of her words still rung there.
If you had asked her two or so years ago, or even in a time more recent to now if she felt she would have either just smiled and nodded or she would have ignored the question. It was true she could be an actress if the situation called for it, but she did feel.
She had felt passion that had unexpectedly turned into something she herself could not describe. She had felt hatred and rejection, fear, etc. It was those emotions that had led her to this place now. It was these emotions that had forced her to decide who she was and why.
But things like that are hard to explain to someone. People automatically assume that people are evil just because they don't care about anything. Truth is, the evil people are the ones that care the most. They act out of a capacity that doesn't allow them to stop feeling whatever it was that left the imprint, that altered their ways of thinking and feeling though not taking away the capacity to feel.
That is also how it worked for the "good and pure of heart". It was the same feelings and emotions that lead people to become so good and dedicated to their work, to that "savior/hero" thing. It was just on the opposite side of the spectrum.
The Princess tried to communicate all of this for as long was as possible though she knew it would be in vain. He would attempt to kill her anyway out of his own "passion" for the death of anything that didn't look or act like himself.
At the end of the day it just fueled the fire for The Princess to set aside those human emotions and kill the unreasoning illogical cruel imbeciles that wandered around assuming that she herself was better off dead because she was different.
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He came back down with the sword in front of him, swinging heavily downward in a deadly arc towards the spot where she stood. Helmsbreaker--he could literally cut anything--human or not--below him clean in two with this maneuver, with his strength.
"Good, then feel fear," he responded coldly, the devil himself when he hunted so callously. It was perhaps his way of distancing himself from his prey--half of which his blood shared something in common with.
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He wasn't a thinker obviously. Just some zealous nut with a sword. She couldn't get a word out edgewise even though the thoughts and syllables all hung on her tongue.
When she heard his voice above him she instinctively spat from her mouth a small yet fatal amount of shadow matter. If it came into contact with him it would disintegrate anything it touched on his person and if he didn't get rid of it the matter would continue to crawl up his body, eventually killing him. Once it came into contact it never quit.
She anticipated him to move speedily away from this however, and in a blink of an eye had evaporated from the spot she was into a mass of shadow that quickly flowed and reformed onto the building opposite where she had been. Not waiting another moment she began to spew shadow matter onto the ground around her just in case he evaded her attack.
And very quickly and efficiently a large army of eyes rose up from the matter that instead of turning everything to ash clumped up into the eyes that were coming forth and giving the eyes legs. In short, it was a small army of spiders with eyes for bodies in various shapes and sizes climbing and scurrying around her body.
She watched stone faced.
Not even she would admit to fear.
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Dante didn't even attempt to avoid the shadow matter although he could have easily jumped to the side despite being mid-air. He came down the way he normally would have to complete the move, his sword slashing straight through the misty creation as he went barreling downwards. Whatever caught on the sword was disintegrated by an angry burst of purple electricity created by the sword itself--Dante did not call it up--and the hunter was left perplexed by the sword's vehement reaction. The devil soul inside the weapon seethed angrily and would not answer his silent question, either.
The way she moved very readily reminded him of a Shadow demon. So that's what she was--a living shadow. He wondered, then, if she had a core similar to the other demons that was her true weak spot. A place of undulating energy that kept the beast going. A heart, if you will. The perfect place to strike.
On a Shadow demon the thing was impossible to find without damaging the creature and forcing it to reveal this weak point on its own. In order to do that he always had to use his long range weapons--his guns--as anything else would hardly effect the creature. And, more importantly, any melee hit sent out a wave of crystal-like shards that would pierce him before exploding and causing him even further damage.
It was with that thought in mind that he relinquished the sword in his hands for the pistols at his hips. His fingers were as quick as lightning as he pulled the triggers repeatedly, the twin reports sounding less like two handguns and more like an automatic machine gun with the speed in which he moved. Impossible--for a human.
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At the same time she flicked her wrist in a slight wave and half of the small army of one eyed spiders began to crawl down the sides of the building in swarms and lept up and over to the place where Dante was. Their hardened almost metallic legs were deadly sharp and could puncture most materials and most importantly, flesh.
The Princess then rolled over onto her back and spat more shadow into the air while the wall of black limbs guarded her. This mass of shadow started to spread out in the air and break apart into hundreds of creatures that looked like bats hovering above The Princess. Bullets would have no effect on them as their bodies were just reformed shadow, however, if the spiders were to be hit at all they would explode into a dark mess.
This took less than a matter of moments to do.
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It only meant he'd have to rely on his sword but that was truthfully okay. He didn't mind hacking and slashing things to death in the least.
When the spiders came at him he resumed shooting with the new trajectory in aim. He smirked when the tiny things exploded with each shot but he was still forced to back up a few calm and slowly taken paces as there were so many of the damn things. He was reminded of Phantom's baby demon-tarantulas and stopped with a sly smirk on his lips. He holstered Ebony and Ivory and from somewhere beneath his trench coat appeared a shiny double-barreled shotgun. He whipped it out and immediately began firing near his feet. Several shadowy arachnids were taken out at once.
Dante began walking forward straight into their mist, firing non-stop as he went, never stopping to reload although the shotgun had a recoil that made firing it a longer process than the two custom-built pistols. He stomped on the tiny creatures as he mowed through, untroubled by their scurrying presence. His attention focused once more on the cause of the entire mess--the Princess--once more, ignoring the bats completely for the moment as he stalked forward relentlessly.
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The man before her was interesting and she watched through the weaving vines of shadow in front of her how he never gave up. He was a believer. A person who would not quit until the job was done because he believed what he was doing was right and the only thing to be done.
This was fascinating in that The Princess had never seen someone so good and determined as Helena before. But he even more because he had the tools to physically fight her.
She smirked, snapped her fingers and the vines in front of her stretched out and forward, reaching out like hands to grab Dante from the front. And as those vines spread out to take Dante head on, the swarm of shadow bats split into two seperate groups. One mass went to the left the other to the right, intending on flanking him.
What Dante did not know was that if any of those bats managed to reach his face he wouldn't die. No. Rather, he would no longer be his own person. It was a form of mind control, a nifty little trick that she didn't use unless she really felt the need to. She had considered what it would be like to have Dante as a servant and the thought struck her as appealing.
The bats went to their flanking postitions and as soon as the shadows reached him in front they would began to throw themselves at him in a kami kazi formation, many going at once, but all aiming for him. If any of the bats missed they would crash to the ground in a splat and reform into more spiders.
The Princess smirked. SHe prepared her body to shift again, just in case her plans failed. She knew he would probably live. Whether he continues to live as a servant or as a vicious enemy was a whole different matter. But she had certainly had her fun with this one.
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He leapt forward into the mass, meeting it head on, and his sword glowed with its inherent purple element as he hacked and slashed his way through the shadow matter. He was not the least daunted as it tried and come awfully close to swallowing him whole--but to no avail as his swordsmanship would allow no such thing to happen. Whether or not the matter was destructible didn't seem to matter to the half-devil; no matter what it was, mortal or immortal, Dante tended to manage to kill things no other human could with his powerful aura alone.
In the meantime the bats had recalculated their trajectory and flanked him from three sides now--right, left, and behind. Dante's sword began to slow as he hacked an opening through to the Princess and his eyes gleamed a dangerous red for a second as he glared straight at her...
...and then he was hit from behind. He wheeled around and his left hand pulled the trigger on the shotgun still in his grasp and destroyed the majority of the bats there. The half-devil gritted his teeth as more bats from the sides hit him in their kamikaze run though. He slowed as his attention, power, and focus were divided amongst two on-going battles. The outside one was easy; point and shoot, point and shoot. Bam bam.
The inside battle was more complex but Dante was certain of one thing: he would never, ever be controlled by another being. He'd seen that in effect and--he nearly cried at what the end had meant. He would not become like his brother; he would not become some mindless puppet who couldn't control his own actions beyond the simple requests and orders of another being. He would fight it, or he would die; carve out his own heart if he had to.
But that was not going to be necessary. Dante was much too rebellious in nature, much too strong-headed and verbally opinionated to ever become someone's easy prey to mind-manipulation. His movements recovered their vigor and he hacked and shot the last remnants of shadowy matter into oblivion.
Then he turned his attention back onto the Princess. The look in his eyes was altogether murderous.
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