FicWad

Chapter 8

Dante and Vergil quickly made their way across the first level, looking for a way up. Vergil sighed, seeing no other way than the broken elevator, "Dante...we might-" Vergil didn't even get to finish speaking as Dante came to the same one-way conclusion and grabbed him by the collar, twirling around three times and then hurling him up into the air, "Alley-oop!"

Vergil flew straight up, smashing into the ceiling of the fourth level. Dante took several steps back, and then ran forward, kicking off of the wall and flying up to the fourth floor as well. "That was easy, eh?" Dante sighed, smiling. Vergil slid out of the ceiling, smashing into the floor, "Dammit! Dante, don't do that!"

"Oh hush ya pansy." Dante smiled, looking over to Vergil, "Alright, you go down one, I'll go up one."

Vergil looked over the edge to the floor below, "What are you down here for?"

"Who the hell cares? I'm supposed to kill a few demons and destroy a few things." Dante nodded.

"So simple-minded." Vergil sighed, and hopped down.

Dante chuckled and jumped up one more level. Upon landing, he felt an immediate sense of danger, and seemingly answering his sense, a large, slimy spike tore through the wall, cutting Dante's jacket. Dante jumped back, pulling out Rebellion, "Man...that was sure quick of you. Don't you want to have a nice chat and some tea?"

A howling screech escaped through the gash in the wall, followed by the wall itself crashing down. Sludge slithered outward as the head of the colossal being poked out of the hole, and deep, guttural sounding laughter pierced Dante's ears.

"**, you look different than the other guy." Dante smiled.

Sludge spat out from what was apparently the things head as it began to speak, "You encountered a small portion of something great! Nightmare A, which is who I presume you encountered on Mallet Island, was nothing more than a sentient weapon. I am a God among demon-kind. I am Nightmare C! Bringer of Death and Destruction!"

Dante scratched his head, pretending to be confused, "A, C, B, D...D? I'm not absolutely positive...but I think you got'cher ABCs all mixed up. You see, it goes A, B, C, D, E-"

"YOU DARE JEST WITH ME?!" The demon screamed in unhindered fury.

"I'm just pointing out a simple fact...no need to get mean with me." Dante glanced around.

"I...you...BAH! PREPARE TO BE OBLITERATED!" Nightmare screamed as his arm, which now seemed to be gigantic, smashed through the rest of the wall, and morphed into what looked to be the original Nightmare. The beam on the front side of the arm rapidly powered up and blasted Dante before he could even move. Dante flew across the floor, sliding into Nightmare's other arm, which grabbed him tightly and began to crush the life out of him, before hammering him into the ground. The hand clenched tightly together, and raised into the air before falling back toward Dante.

Dante rolled out of the way, and threw his sword at Nightmare's head, impaling what he thought was an eye. Nightmare yelled out in pain, before charging up his weapon arm. Dante took advantage of his size, and jumped on his back, hugging up against the wall. He pulled out Ebony and Ivory and began pouring bullets into the small amount of Nightmare's back that was protruding out of the wall.

The weapon arm on Nightmare then detached itself, and turned to face Dante, releasing the beam on him anyway. Dante smacked the wall and bounced off. Nightmare laughed, as tentacles slithered out of his arm stub, and reattached the weapon to his body. Dante rolled over and fired more shots at Nightmare's head, loosening his sword until fell into the ground. Dante slipped his pistols in their holsters and rushed over to Rebellion, grabbing it and swiping upward. Nightmare's head slid off, and splatted on the ground.

"And so the giant falls." Dante laughed, dusting off his jacket and walking away. Then Nightmare's normal arm flew into him, flinging him back in front of the rest of the body.

Nightmare's head rolled over to face Dante, "Ha, not quite!" Nightmare laughed once more before his head split into two halves and began morphing. Within moments, two human-sized, sludge demons formed, both wielding a smaller version of Nightmare's weapon arm, and a small blade in the other.

"This fight just got fun." Dante smirked.

Chapter 8: Part 2

Both of the demons that formed dashed forward and jumped, letting their knees plow into Dante's stomach. Dante grunted, but simply kicked them away. Landing on the ground like a pair of cats, both of them began firing their weapon arms rapidly, almost faster than Dante could fire both of his pistols.

Dante knocked away some of the beams with his sword, before getting hit with a dozen more. His body hit the ground, smoking, but Dante jumped back up, spinning his sword around as a trick, and smirked, "That all you got?"

The demon on the left howled before leaping forward, slashing away at Dante with it's blade arm. Dante deflected all of the attacks and then sliced the demon in half. Both parts of it's body hit the ground and then bounced back into eachother, forming a whole again. The other demon landed on Dante from above, enveloping itself around him, and then seemingly super-heating it's body with the beam particles.

Dante devil-triggered, sending bits and pieces of sludge and metal in every direction as the demon around him exploded. Surprised, Dante was hit by Nightmare's arm, and knocked away. He flipped over to once again see both demons flying towards him, and now see Nightmare's body, minus the head, crawling the rest of the way out of the hole.

Nightmare A split itself from the body and started slithering it's way to Dante, to assist the other two. Dante pulled out his pistols and began unloading a hail of demonically enhanced bullets at the demons. One of them managed to get shot down, but the other landed on Dante, putting it's weapon in his face and blasting. The shot formed a crater in the ground around Dante and the demon, and was increased by two when Nightmare A fired it's beam at Dante as well.

Dante jabbed his sword through the demon on top of him, jumping out of the hole, and slung it at Nightmare A. The two melded together, and Nightmare A became slightly larger. Dante growled, before the other demon jumped on his back, recovered from the swath of bullets that Dante hit it with earlier. It's blade slid into Dante's lower back, before it was ripped away by Dante's powerful grip. Dante then threw the demon into the ground, pulling off a Stinger strike from the air. The demon exploded once more, and this time, it did not reform. The larger Nightmare's body had finally made it out of the hole, and now it was sliding down the levels, landing on the first one.

Dante's eyes widened as the thing stood up, so immense that it managed to stand the full length of the entire work-site. Dante stared up, seeing that even without a head, it towered above the bridge that Sparda and Credo had stayed on to fight Tiamat. Then another beam from Nightmare A sprayed into his side, and he was sent over the edge, knocked into the side of Nightmare's leg. Trying to escape, Dante clawed at the leg, but it was no use, and he was sucked in.

-----

Sparda and Credo had now been fighting something upwards of a dozen Tiamat's when the gigantic, sludge-like being made it's headless appearance. Sparda, Credo, and even all of the Tiamat clones, were now staring at the huge demon. Then it's arm smashed into the bridge, utterly destroying it. Debris, along with Sparda and all of the others, was now free-falling. The same arm that destroyed the bridge grabbed them all up from the air, and sucked them in.

Everything went black, and Sparda began hearing screams of pain and agony. Sparda still felt as though he was falling, until he hit something flat and organic feeling. Vision coming back, Sparda was stuck in an area that seemed to be the insides of the thing. He looked around. Gassy, hazy clouds floated about, and drops of goo and other liquids sprinkled down on him as distant pulses and beats could be heard. Dante grabbed Sparda's leg, "Fancy seeing you here...whaddya say we get reacquainted over a beer?"

Sparda shook his head, still looking around at the inside of the demon, "I...think we should find away out of this thing first."

Then Credo's voice was heard, "Agreed, Sparda. But just how do we do that?" He asked, crawling over to them from behind what looked to be a massive, fleshy rock.

Dante smiled, "I...have done this before. It's kinda like a game at the arcade. You just gotta find the big guy...and viola! Beat the ** out of him and we get out."

"It's not that easy boy!" Phantom screamed out, crawling over the edge of the platform they were all on. Griffin and Tiamat flew up above him, accompanied by around twenty, flying skulls.

"I remember those things too!" Dante smiled, "Let's get this party started!"

Chapter 8: Part 3

Vergil had been stalking around on the third level when the giant sludge demon appeared. He simply paid no mind to it and continued on through one of the few doors. Walking through the door, a thought actually did strike him, and he spoke out-loud to no one in particular, "How does something that big fit in the walls?"

Vergil actually stopped in the middle of the corridor, and pondered on the subject for a while, before shrugging and advancing through the large hall. He passed many doors along the way, but none of them seemed important enough to go through. He was on a single-minded mission to go destroy Mundus, and this time, he would not be possessed.

It was upon reaching the end of the hall, and meeting a large pair of fancy, hand crafted, stone doors, that he finally took the initiative to open any doors, and of course...it was the fancy ones. The room Vergil stepped into was absent of any sentient being. There was a rather massive quantity of torture devices, statues of Mundus, tools that performed unknowable things, and tubes protruding from the ceiling, all leading into a small pod. Save for a few, dim torches, the pod and tubes were the only things glowing, and they glowed a very, bright blue color.

The sound of air escaping a pressurized space was heard, as steam rolled out of the sides of the pod. Menacing laughter followed. A laugh that Vergil recognized as his own. The pod's door slid open as a tall set of black, blue-accented armor stepped out. Horns curved outward from the things head, and a purple cape fluttered from it's back.

Vergil snarled, "Nelo Angelo. It's been quite a while since we've graced eachother with the others presence. I didn't think Mundus would be so desperate as to animate a set of armor though..."

Nelo seemed to grunt at the statement, before extending his arms out to either side of himself. Everything in the room smashed into the walls on the side, leaving a nice, wide-open area in the center.

"We're just meeting for the first time in years, and you're already wanting to fight? Foolish. I'd hoped maybe you'd see things my way, and just go ahead and die. This fight won't be in your favor."

Nelo laughed once more before a long, black, broadsword appeared in his hand, and he jumped forward. Vergil hopped back, unsheathing Yamato and deflecting the first wave of powerful attacks that Nelo threw at him. Each strike of swords sent out massive shock-waves, knocking everything in the room around even more.

Vergil retaliated with his own group of swipes, managing to get past Nelo's sword and slice him several times. A few shards of armor fell off before Nelo kicked Vergil away, and formed several blue blades in the air around him. Vergil raised a brow, "Have no moves of your own?"

Vergil chuckled before the three blades rammed into his chest, pinning him to the wall. He laughed, devil-triggering, destroying the blades, and then formed his own. He concentrated all of his power into making one, huge sword. Then he threw it. It hit Nelo with such explosive force, that everything around the area of impact was disintegrated.

A shriek of anger let Vergil know that Nelo was still there before he came flying out of the dust that was kicked up. Vergil kicked off of the wall he was still on, and brought Yamato up high into the air, coming down on Nelo's blade, which was being swung upward. Their swords clanged against eachother several more times before Nelo bounced back, sticking out one of his hands. A blue ball of fire ignited in his hand, and expanded until it was about as large as Vergil's chest, and he chucked it forward.

Vergil cut through the fireball, splitting it into two halves. Nelo growled, rapidly throwing more at Vergil. Vergil effortlessly dodged them all, getting closer to Nelo with each attack, until he was finally close enough to destroy the lower part of Nelo's head with a powerful upward knee. Nelo flew back, cracking the tiled floor as he landed. Vergil walked over to him, and kicked him into the nearby wall. Nelo ricocheted off and caught the bridge of Vergil's nose with the tip of his sword.

Vergil stumbled back and growled, infuriated at the occurrence. Taking Yamato, he jumped forward and thrust the blade into Nelo's gut. The suit of armor paused, not moving for several seconds, when Vergil was hit with another magical sword from behind. Nelo took advantage of the surprise attack, and grabbed Yamato, Vergil still clinging onto the hilt, pulling it out of himself, and slinging it away. Vergil followed, hitting the ceiling. Falling down, he sliced at Nelo. Another shard of armor fell away, and blue light began to peek out of Nelo.

Vergil smirked, but was hit but Nelo's sword once more. The strike knocked him out of his devil-triggered state, but it wasn't enough to hinder his fighting abilities. Vergil spun through the air, letting the back of his foot slide across Nelo's face. Nelo spun as well, hitting the ground. Flipping over, Nelo threw another fireball at Vergil, hopping up. Vergil smacked it back with the back of his hand, and it hit Nelo instead. Nelo's helmet flew off, revealing nothing but a mist of blue.

The headless suit pounced on Vergil, punching him before getting knocked away. Vergil stabbed Nelo in the gut again, and ripped the sword from his side. Nelo fell to the ground, losing more of his armor. Nelo's sword slid from his hands, as the demon possessed armor attempted to crawl away. Vergil strode forward slowly, planting his foot on Nelo's chest. Sheathing Yamato, he put one finger up, and waved it from side to side, "Tsk tsk...at least you put up more of a fight than I expected."

Vergil jabbed his hand into the chest of the armor, and devil-triggered once more, absorbing the suit. The armor appeared on him, and he moved around, just to make sure that he was still in control. He smiled in approval, transforming back into his normal self, "A nice addition, but still not what I wanted."

Mundus voice echoed through the room, "Well done, Vergil. You'll have to do more than that to get to me, though."

Vergil frowned, as a small portal appeared in the room. Looking through it, Vergil could see a chess-board on the other side.

"I don't want to play games..."