Anathema's Vengance

[King Avallach]

Prologue

The dungeon stretched from horizon to horizon, A neverending surface of grey and black. It had no walls and was not a true dungeon as such but the pillars of grey and black supporting the ceiling of steel, out of which rank liquids seeped and foul smells oozed from more than compensated for this. That it had no walls was not an oversight either it stretched on as far as the eye could see, the mind could approximate and then only more. The only light within the macabre structure made of black and grey stone structure was its only denizen. The fiendish Anathema. Several centuries before Sparda had stopped the demonic invasion of earth, whilst his alliance was with the demons of the realm that to him was home, he had been tasked with imprisoning this renegade. Initially ambitious and calculating, every passing era scraped away at Anathema's sanity until destroying Sparda had become a poisonous obsession.

Every moment not spent pummeling and maiming his enemy had become something that choked him but as his hatred grew, inkeeping with the realm where he resided, so did his power. Yet even the most perfect darkness is vulnerable as long as life, organic, celestial or demonic resides within. In Anathema's insanity hundreds of ideas for escape were tried and dismissed. With each stage gaining more confidence he was getting closer and as this happened, the darkness waned, as did the time Anathema would be imprisoned. He knew of only two beings who could stop him once he escaped. The first being the Son of Sparda, the other was the Hero of Fortuna. In his warped, twisted and demented mind, whilst in his efforts to escape, Anathema began cogitating the downfall of the two threats in existance and how to exact his revenge on the spirit of Sparda.

A small cut appeared on his monstrous left arm. His amber eyes flashed dangerously and he raised it to the audience of several of the string like sensors arrayed around his face. They acted as tongues and from the taste, he knew it not to be his blood. This was an omen of sorts but why he had received it, and whose blood he would yet have on his "hands" was not clear to him.

 

[King Avallach]

Part 1: Ill Omen

The wind blew, hushing and clashing with all it came into contact with, like a stormy sea of darkness. The neon red lights of Devil May Cry blinked and fizzed in harmony to the other street lights and the streets flickered between an unsightly orange and a slick, polished black. The stars did not shine in the sky and the three occupants of Dante's office felt a preternatural shudder go down their respective spines.

Aside from the wind, the night was still, no stars, no moon and a silence that somehow drowned out most of the noise of the wind. It was no ordinary silence, for the gale force wind would have broken such a silence many times over. No, all felt that this silence was borne of something not belonging to the world of mortals.

Dante, Trish and Lady all stared, transfixed by the window. Many times had each of them fought against the hellish hordes and armies of the underworld but nothing they had faced thus far carried the sinister presence that they were currently witnessing.

"I've heard of things like this." Trish said, but her voice too was muffled by the powerful silence, but the others could still just about hear her.

"What are they?" Dante asked.
Trish, turned around and laid her right hand on her heart.
"I think these are the emissaries of the ninth circle. Formless, featureless, yet sinister and inherently evil. Their coming signifies that something terrible will happen soon."
"How soon?" Asked lady, concern obvious in her voice.
"Apparantly, after three weeks, areas they mark fall out of all human knowledge. Beyond that, what happens is anyone's guess. Maybe they send something to wipe out the populace of the area, maybe they serve simply as a warning. I don't know."

"Well..." Said Dante "Then it seems we know our deadline to find out what the hell went on in the other places they marked, let's head to where we're sure to find out."
"Do you mean the archives of the divine library in Temen-ni-gru?" Asked Lady.

"Yes, provided none of your stray rockets or bullets destroyed the book we need." Replied Dante. Lady blushed as she recalled her battle with Dante all those years ago.

"You do know what this means?" Asked Trish sternly.
"What?" Dante shrugged.
"It means that in order to do this we'll be risking this area anyway, you know the sorts of demons that appearalong with that hellish structure."
"Nothing that I haven't fought and beat before." Replied Dante.
"Well, my guess is that the matter is settled then, I do hope for everyone's sake that this works." Lady concluded.

 

[King Avallach]

Part 2: The Terror Revived

The ritual to raise Temen-ni-gru was not as convoluted as the trio had expected. They followed each motion detailed in the tome they had obtained two years previously, muttering each fey incantation, circling the ground where Temen-ni-gru would appear, staying an equal distance away from each other.

The ritual continued until just before dawn. The ground trembled and a scream burst from the ground and it was followed by the tower. Dante and trsh were on the platfor as soon as it surfaced but Lady thought the better of attempting to join them, the tower rose at such a rate that there was no hope for her, as tough as she was, to join them without being severely injured.

"I thought I'd seen the last of this place." Dante sighed
"Don't worry, you'll be fine." Trish said, her voice more than bordering on patronising.
"Hey, I'm not worried. I just don't have too many fond memories of this place."
Dante had a brief flashback as to what had happened last time he was at the top of the demonic tower. The battle between him and Vergil, Jester's all too regular appearances and being shot in the face by Lady.
"Nope, not too fond memories at all." Said Dante shaking his head.
"Well, at least you won't have to worry about being shot by Lady this time." Trish said as if having read his mind.
"She told you, did she?" Dante chuckled.
"Yeah, she told me just how much of a prat you were back then."
"Jesus .H. Christ... I didn't think she'd go that far."
"That and more, I'm sure you can remember though. You don't need me telling you surely."
"Hey, you know, she wasn't exactly the most charming of people either back then."
"Some things never change." Trish laughed
"Yeah, hey, me or her?"
"Both."

The tower came to an abrupt stop, almost knocking Dante and Trish over. As they were at the top of the tower they headed to the staircase, down into the main structure of Temen-ni-gru. As they ventured down. Lady entered the chamber of the ice guardian. And, for Lady, a familiar presence was about to make itself known...

 

[King Avallach]

Part 3: The First Hurdle

His eyes were ablaze with hatred. Lady looked on the figure before her in pained disbelief. Arkham, her father stood, suspended about eight inches above the ground. The bullet wound in his skull was still evident.

"How can this be possible?" Lady screamed at him.
"Well hello... Mary, how many years since we last met? Forgive me for saying so but I can say, without any amount of exaggeration, that I missed you like a hole in the head."
"That is not funny." Lady said coldly, struggling for self control
"No? Well, I've some news for you, young lady, neither was being cut down by two half demonic teenage brats and then being shot through the skull by my own!" Arkham showed an anger that Lady had never seen. He had been psychotic, murderous, callous, officious, obsequious, pretentious and more but genuine emotion of any type, she could not recall. This caught her off guard and she felt faint for a short moment.

"One more thing you should know, Mary, is that I'm bound by forces beyond my control to guard this chamber. That and... JESTER IS BACK IN ACTION!!!" Arkham had transformed into the asinine clown whom Dante's brother Vergil had (quite rightly in her view) called an "insane buffoon". Insane and buffoonish or not Jester was fast, strong and dangerous. He teleported around the ice chamber, lobbing orbs of infernal energy at Lady. Fortunately, lady was not exactly the slowest person in the world either and she started shooting at Jester, who, in turn, teleported out of the way. This sequence continued for some time until Jester, teleporting, landed a high kick to Lady's left temple, knocking her over. Jester landed in a bowing pose but in his overconfidence failed to see or hear the shot from Lady's silenced handgun. The shot hit him in the knee of his right leg. Lady got up and held the gun to Jester's head.

"It would be a bad idea to kill me, you know, hee, hee." Jester chuckled
"Oh, pray tell as to why that would be!" Lady said pressing her handgun into Jester's sickle-like nose.
"Firstly, as a mortal bound to this realm I will roam it forever, no matter what you do but aside from that, I've done a bit of redecorating in my time here, tricks, traps and a most charming paint job."
"In that case I'll come and visit when I need your help". Lady retrieved a piece of paper she had tucked away in her belt and spoke the incantation on it. All of a sudden demons of varying sapes and sizes dropped from out of the ceiling but each with a shared surfeit of limbs. The excess limbs were soon put to use, ensnaring Jester, who struggled and cried all sorts of babble and nonsensical threats but Lady knew that there was nothing he could do this time. 'The first hurdle has been passed' she thought to herself as she preared to enter the tower in earnest...

 

[King Avallach]

Part 4: Imbibing the Darkness

Dante and Trish now levels above their quarry jumped down to land. Moments before they landed, a cage of focused, violet, demonic energy ensnared Dante. Trish stood, momentarily stunned by what had happened.
"Heh, mind getting me out?" Dante said, trying to sound confident but his voice trailed into concern towards the end.
"Certainly, I can't leave you like that, we wouldn't want to scare the visitors, now, would we?" Trish replied. Trish used her own power, which was not dissimilar to the tower's. The kinship of the two powers cancelled each other out and the cage was dispellede but trish felt drained of all her paranormal strength and agility.
"Looks like someone's been doing some redecorating." Dante said, brushing off his coat.
"What do you mean?" Trish asked.
"Well aside from the new booby traps, this place is more... gross. Last I came, it was mostly the archetypal gothic tower without the red paint."
She saw it too, every inch that they could see was painted a very dark crimson.
"Who, demonic or mortal would have the time, bordom or insanity to try and redecorate a place like this. You don't think that this is what the people at Dulux do on their days off?" Trish asked
"No, I think that they would have wanted to paint it either magnolia, or possibly Shagrila Silk." Dante responded with equal sardonism.

The library was a mess, aside from the omnipresent, unanimously awful paint job, large darb blobs were crawling around the library. Dante and Trish held their breath and entered the divine library (it's celestial status seemed somewhat forfeit now). They began browsing the bookshelves for anything relevant to their task. They came climbed to the shelf labelled 'E'. After browsing through some dozen worthless books they came to a book that held promise. "Encyclapoedia and Bestiary of the Demonic Circles." They skipped to the index and found the one they were looking for: "Emissary, Ninth circle pg 7029-7429."
"Do we really have time to read two hundred and forty pages?" Asked Dante?
"No, let's just skim read for relevant parts."
They turned to page 7029 and read through as briefly as they could whilst still being able to scan the pages and absorb necessary information. Dante saw a mark on the bottom left hand corner of the page, next thing he knew, one of the dark blobs was engulfing Trish. He cleaved at it with rebellion with a series of hacks and slashes that would have decimated a fair horde of regular demons but it proved ineffectual against the blob. He then found himself being engulfed by the blob. He fought but in doing so forced himself to breathe and swallow its essence. He soon lost consciousness.