//------------------------------// // Touching down // Story: Devil May Cry: A New Battlefield // by Lazy_ //------------------------------// Equestria: A land of un-paralleled beauty, colour and personality. Home to a vast array of wildlife and the base for stunning settlements, it is the pinnacle of peace-time-harmony. But on one day, at one fateful hour, in one destined second, it gained a new title. 'The worlds loudest scream.' "-...IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-" *CRASH* Nero hit the floor with so much force that he bounced off the ground and 5 foot into the air before finally coming to rest. He moaned in pain and shifted slowly on the soft ground as pieces of stone rained down around him. The grass tickled his fingers and the wind disturbance swirled around the area where he rested. He lay there for a moment, letting his aching bones cool down and the letting pain fade away. Once his body was one again usable, he rolled over onto his hands and knees and took heavy breaths of the new and thick air around him. Finally he remembered that he had just been sucked through a portal to... somewhere, and he jumped up to a standing position, ready to take on whatever came his way. But the only thing that came his way was the calm and soothing sounds of nature, and at that point Nero almost had a stroke and died. Almost. As far as he knew, this, wherever it was, was supposed to be the demon world. So unless Hell is actually a really nice place to be, then he didn't have a clue where this was. He twisted and looked around in confusion, but all he could see was trees and bright green grass. He turned another 90 degrees and was greeted by a captivating sight. The ground gradually fell away into a soft slope, and in the distance he could see naught but a luscious green forest canopy and picturesque mountains that rose up into the clouds. The songs of birds hummed and tweeted in his ears as the wind rustled on by. He started forwards with caution, still not willing to accept that he was anywhere but the demon world. Every footfall was light, with Nero thinking that at any moment a platform would fall away or then millions of trees stretching out into the distance would transform into an army of demons. He reached the top of the hill and narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the tree-line. To him it looked like the perfect place for 'Scarecrow's to ambush him, so he decided he would stay well away from it. While he stood there, he noticed a new sound. Distinctively the sound of feet impacting the ground, except he could tell this creature had four legs. It was quiet, like somebody was creeping up behind him. He remained his oblivious look and let the sound get close enough so that it would never get away when he turned to strike. After a while, the sound was coming from directly behind him. He counted from 1 to 3 before drawing Yamato and spinning around. He was about to slice and cut the 'demon' in half when something stopped him. The creature withdrew quickly with a frightened cry and fell over. It scrawled backwards and started running. Now Nero was beginning to doubt his previous thoughts as to where he was, and decided it was now or never to find out early.He drew Blue Rose, his double-barreled revolver and fired at the creatures feet, making it jump sideways, away from where they landed. "Stop!" He shouted. The creature stood still, shaking in fear and whimpering. From behind he could see that it was equine in resemblance, a pegasus with a butter yellow coat and a pink mane and tail. He judged that it was roughly 3 feet tall from head to hooves. "Come back..." The creature turned painfully slow but Nero noted it's large eyes and short snout in comparison to a standard horse. "...I need to know where I am. Can you tell me?" He holstered Blue Rose and sheathed Yamato. This seemed to ease the pegasus as it trudged slowly towards him with it's head held low. He frowned at the equines stance but after some thought he concluded that if a creature with an extra 3 feet on him pointed a katana in his direction then he would be pretty reluctant to approach it as well. He kneeled down to get more on it's level as it closed in. "You can stop there if you want." The pegasus halted it's movement, still looking down and trying to avoid eye contact with him. He thought that maybe he should try and be friendlier to it rather than interrogate it. He wasn't Dante, he did think about things before they happened instead of improvising on the spot. "I'm sorry for scaring you there, I thought I was in danger and I that you were going to hurt me." The pegasus then look at him with un-easy eyes and managed a weak smile. "My name's Nero, glad to meet you..." He gestured with his non-demon arm for it to give it's own name. "I-im F-Fluttershy" "I'm sorry, what was that?" Nero cocked his head. "A shy one, eh?" "Fluttershy." "Fluttershy, was that?" It' nodded slowly "Fitting name for the personality." "Well Fluttershy, mind telling me where I am?" "Y-you're in Equestris right now." "Okay, so Equestria isn't full of demons then?" "W-What? No, of course not!" She almost seemed offended, suddenly becoming more forward. "What made you think that?" "Well me and some friends got sucked through what we believed to be a hell-gate, so I thought I was in some sort of hell for a bit." "Oh that's terrible! Where are your friends?" "Dunno'. Probably somewhere causing a commotion." "Why would they be causing a commotion? Are they always troublesome?" "Sometimes. Dante is the least reasonable among us, so I don't think It'll take him too long to get in some kind of trouble. I don't know much about Trish but from what I do know, she's supposed to be alright. And Lady is... well, I don't know Lady." "Why don't you know Lady if she's your friend?" "Well we're more acquaintances than friends, but we've met briefly once or twice and she seems friendly enough. She's a bit like Dante except with less tongue and cheek cockiness. Oh, and by the way, is there any way you can get me to somewhere where I can get myself patched up? I literally just fell from the sky and I feel kind of crappy." When Dante started to regain consciousnesses he became aware of some strange sensations. The air was rushing over his back, the blistering cold penetrating his coat and making him shiver. He yawned and his eyes slowly fluttered open. And to his surprise the first thing he saw was a seamless blue sky and he frowned. Looking around he found himself falling through the air and the ground was nowhere in sight. "Huh? What the fuck? Looks like Hell's interior designers finally worked out what the sky is!" He twisted so that he was falling face first in a streamlined position. He searched for Trish and Lady, finding them falling a little bit ahead of him, he drew Rebellion and pointed it downward to use it as a nose cone and increase his speed. Accelerating towards the ground, Dante quickly started catching up with the two falling women ahead of him, coming neck and neck with them. He tilted to Lady and shoved her. She mumbled something inaudible and curled up a little bit more. "LADY!" He got no response so he shouted again. "LADY, WAKE THE FUCK UP!" He had to shout through the rushing wind in order to be anywhere close to loud so that she could hear him. She started to stir and moaned loudly before swallowing and opening her eyes. "Urgh, Da..." Her sentence was cut off short by the realisation of falling setting in for her. "AAAH, DANTE HELP, I'M FALLING!" "YEAH, NO SHIT! LISTEN TO ME, YOU GOTTA' STAY CALM WHILE I WAKE TRISH!" Without waiting for an answer he tilted in the opposite direction and strafed through the air to Trish. He punched her shoulder and then all of a sudden, Dante found two knife sized razors being held to his throat as she 'awoke' in a blind panic and almost killed him. His near death experience ended quickly as Trish finally worked out what was going on. She looked down for a moment and then back to Dante before nodding him away. Moving back to the flailing Lady, he tried to get close to her without being knocked out. "LADY, LISTEN TO ME! I NEED YOU TO STOP PANICKING SO I CAN HELP YOU!" "EASY FOR YOU TO SAY WHEN YOU'RE HALF DEMON!" "LIKE I SAID BEFORE, BITE ME!" He tried to get into a position where he could pick her up but she wouldn't stop moving. He decided it would be easier if she wasn't awake for him to help her. "HEY LADY!" "YEAH!?" "SORRY IN ADVANCE!" "WHA-" She was stopped by Dante's fist slamming into her head and knocking her out cold. He was finally able to pick her up and continue falling in peace. "TRISH!" "YEAH!?" "HOW FAR UNTIL THE HARD STUFF!?" "I DON'T KNOW!..." She looked down at the rapidly approaching ground."-We mustn't be too far off by now, so...-" "...I GUESS ABOUT 10000 FEET!" "SO THAT'S ABOUT 40 SECONDS, RIGHT!?" "I DUNNO! IT'S NOT OFTEN I END UP FALLING THIS DISTANCE!" She returned her attention to the forest that seemed to be getting too close for comfort. The trees were a very dark green, something close to a very dense forest sat waiting for them. "-Great. If we do survive this, then there's probably some sort of nasty demon lurking in there to finish us off.-" She searched for other places to land. Over in the distance, a city lay at the base of a mountain and there appeared to be a castle of some sort built into the mountain itself. Averting her attention back to the forest, a section of the trees directly below them looked a little different to the rest. The pattern was off, like the ground beneath it was blue... "-A lake! There's a lake below those trees.-" "Dante!" "WHAT!" He cocked his head at her in confusion. "Oh... DANTE!" "YEAH!?" "BELOW THAT AREA OF TRESS THERE'S A LAKE! WE CAN LAND THERE!" She pointed to the area where the lake resided under the canopy. "BUT ISN'T FALLING INTO WATER AT HIGH SPEED SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE FALLING ONTO CONCRETE!?" "YOU CAN USE YOUR SWORD TO BREAK THE SURFACE TENSION THEN!" Dante's expression dropped briefly and he muttered something along the lines of 'I knew that' under his breath. "HERE, GRAB LADY! THIS BETTER BE A DEEP LAKE!" Trish took hold of the unconscious Lady and position herself behind Dante, trying to make herself as streamlined as possible while grabbing hold of Dante's waist. The large Clay-more style sword was removed from the the back of Dante's long red coat and was pointed forward. Their speed increased dramatically in a short period of time, and all of a sudden the ground didn't seem so far away. Trish braced herself as the canopy grew close. "BRACE YOURSELF!" The sound of trees breaking apart lasted only a split second as they collided with the lake. The water's surface tension had been broken by the force of the huge sword hitting it first, but not to the extent that she had thought it would. When she hit it, it was like being smashed in the face by a wall. The massive hit made her vision distort and the murky waters that were already full of bubbles seem even darker. All of the nerves her body dulled and numbed, making movement ineffective and her limbs practically useless. A red and white blur shifted in front of her, grabbing her arm and tugging her unresponsive body though the water. She couldn't tell if it were up or down as her senses were too shocked to work properly and her balance was thrown all over the place. But after a couple of seconds she began to recuperate a she could see the shimmer of the lake's surface approaching her. She helped by kicking her legs and adding extra propellant to hasten their ascent. She burst through the surface of the water and took a gigantic gasp of air as her eyes re-adjusted to being out of water. She floated there for a moment, breathing heavily to oxygen to her body and regain her senses. Her moment of rest was interrupted by screaming from ashore. "You fucking mad-man!" Lady wailed, punching Dante who just stood there, taking it with a smile. "Take this! *SMACK* and this! *SMACK*" Dante tried to say something, but every time he got the start of a word in, a punch would hit his chest and cause his lungs to jerk, stopping him mid word. "You could have killed me!" "It wasn't my idea, you can go punch Trish for that one." Dante shrugged with a shit eating grin. "I don't care!" She went back to punching Dante in the chest and Dante just standing there and absorbing the blows. Punch after punch came in and he just smiled all the way through, waiting out Lady's adrenaline high. After a while her throws slowed, and eventually came to a stop. Lady fell onto her backside and breathed heavily. "Got that outta' your system yet?" He asked the exhausted young woman. "Yeah, I think so." She laughed a little bit and pulled herself to her feet. "Alright then! I guess-*SMACK* Argh! What the hell was that for?" "That was for knocking me out!" Dante said nothing, only shrugging and turning to Trish who had just got out of the water. Once she got settled, she got up at the lakeside and started ringing out her hair. Lady went to join her, checking her weapons for any damage. "Like I was going to say, I guess i'll leave you ladies to it. I'll patrol the area for demons." He twisted melodramatically and walked away humming loudly. "-This is insane...-" Nero thought as he listened to the little yellow pegasus talk about her friends and her home. "-...So there's an entire kingdom full of small, talking, mythological horses that is ruled by two big mythological horses who just happen to be immortal and have the power to control the sun and moon's daily orbit around their world. I take back my doubts, I AM in hell..-" He sighed as he came to a realisation that he no longer held any sanity whatsoever. "Ok Fluttershy, so where's your cottage?" He asked her while not looking where he was going. "It's just down this hill, not much further now." She said like he couldn't make a 200 meter walk. "-Although her shy and flattering personality is kind of irritating when it comes to conversation, the fact that she's completely selfless and genuinely caring for others is a refreshing change from the guys I had to deal with back in the Order. So glad they're are gone.-" The little two floored cottage sat nicely near the edge of the forest and it was surrounded by fields and meadows. The local wildlife population seemed to have flocked to the area and Nero spotted deer, rabbits, squirrels, a multitude of colourful birds and several other types of small land mammals. As they neared, some of the animals kept their distance from Nero, probably having never seen anything like him. They parted into a pathway for him to go through and he gladly obliged. However Fluttershy stopped to tell them something. "Come on now, there's no need to avoid him. He's new here so you should all make an effort to be friendly." She finished her motivation and some of the creatures closed in hesitantly on Nero, causing him to stop walking and hold still. He rolled his eyes and and crouched down to meet the otter approaching him. "Hiya' little guy." He held his hand out to it and it looked at him suspiciously for a second. But when he started scratching behind it's ears, it happily let him touch it and exposed the spot so that he could reach it more easily. He stopped after a couple of seconds and stood up, continuing on his walk. The otter squealed in delight at somebody else to pet him, and Nero only just got to the door of the cottage when the other animals started coming towards him from behind. Nero noticed this and brought up his demon arm in a 'Stop' motion. They all held still and looked at the glowing blue arm with bronze armour. Fluttershy however, had a different opinion. "Oh my! We have to get that checked out!" She rushed over to him, pulled the door open and somehow managed to throw him inside despite her small size. "Sit right there and don't move, Fluttershy's going to have you all better soon!" She shoved him onto the couch and started rummaging about in her cupboards. "Er, Fluttershy?" "Shhh, no need to strain yourself." She put a thermometer into his mouth and went back to her cupboards. Nero pulled the thermometer out of his mouth and set it down on the foot table at the couch's side. "Fluttershy, i'm not sick. My arm... well it's not normal but it's not doing me any harm. In fact it sometimes helps me." She stopped looking in her cupboards and looked at him sheepishly. "Oh...erm, sorry for...well... forcing you into my house." She shy'd away and started putting her things back in their respective places. "It doesn't matter, to be honest if I saw someone with an arm like this without knowing what it was, I'd probably be worried about them too. You did right by being concerned." "You really think so?" Her ears flicked and she brightened up. Nero just smiled and nodded. "Thank you." "You're welcome Fluttershy." There was silence for a moment as they both thought of something to talk about. "So... Why is your arm like that? That is, um... if you don't mind me asking." "Not at all." He laid himself out on the couch so that he was lying down on his back. "But if I tell you, you have to promise that you won't go nuts, ok?" Fluttershy paused for a second to think and then nodded slowly. "Well Fluttershy, my arm has looked like this ever since I became... half demon." There was silence and both of them said nothing for a brief period. "Like I said, this isn't normal. Although it does bug me, it and my demon heritage grant me abilities that are life saving in my line of work. Such as my body can take and deal a whole lot more punishment than a normal person. That's why my bones weren't turned to powder after that big fall. "My physical strength is higher than normal, and if I siphon enough power from slain demons then I can activate my demon half and become practically unstoppable for a short period of time. A really cool ability is that I can use this arm to throw larger demons around like they were nothing by dolls. I can use it to effectively 'store' items as well which can be kinda' handy when i'm over burdened with things. Watch." Nero got up and walked over to a more open space within Fluttershy's home. He grabbed Yamato in his demon hand and held it out, enveloping it in a blue light and causing it to disappear. Fluttershy watched very closely as he paused for a moment with a smile and opened out his hand again like he was holding the swords sheath. A blue light came from his palm and the sword materialised within his grasp. "Wow! That's amazing!" "I know, right? Downside is I can't store anything I wan't. Only objects with some sort of demonic power can be stored. And it only gets better! I can-" *KNOCK* *KNOCK* *KNOCK* "Fluttershy? You in there?" A loud female voice shouted from behind the door. "Oh, that must be Rainbow Dash." "Am I okay if I stay here? You said she can be quite defensive about her friends." "Well... yes. I'll tell her that your not harming anypony before I let her in." Nero flinched at that word. "-So they have their own ways of referring to people. That's gonna' get old pretty quickly.-" She walked over to the door that was still being struck furiously by this 'Rainbow Dash' who was on the other side. Opening the door, a pegasus of a similar size with a cyan coat and a rainbow striped mane hovered in front of Fluttershy. "Sup' shy'? Hows' your day been going so fa-" She stopped dead in her sentence when she saw Nero, and an awkward moment broke out between them. He hid his demon arm behind his coat and raised his other hand in a friendly 'Hello'. "Hi?" He said nervously and the flying pegasus kept staring. "Fluttershy, there's a monster in your house!" She lept in-between Nero and Fluttershy in a wide fighting stance. "Umm, Rainbow, he's not a monster and he doesn't mean any harm." "Then what's with the swords? And what's he hiding behind that coat?" She pointed her hoof to where his arm disappeared behind him. Nero decided he'd answer that one himself. "I'm a demon hunter, I need my weapons to hunt demons. It's pretty simple really." Rainbow Dash looked at him skeptically and narrowed her eyes."-And this is was going so well until she showed up-" "I don't believe that for one second! Show me your... what's it called on something with two legs? Oh yeah, Show me your arm!" Nero sighed and slowly showed her his demon arm. She looked at it for a moment and her face turned sour. "Monster!" She came flying towards him at a fast pace, fore-leg reeled back ready for a punch. As she lunged forward Nero rolled sideways and her strike missed him, hitting naught but thin air. "Come back here!" She gave a powerful flap of her wings and span round in a karate styled flying kick, coming at him to fast to dodge. Nero put his left leg back in a short stance to better balance his weight and thrust his demon arm out to meet her kick. As they collided, Nero locked his fingers around her hoof and used her weight to spin himself round. He pulled back the arm and used the gathered momentum from the spin to throw the offending pegasus back out of the door. She went spiraling out of control until she managed to regain level flight 100 meters or so away from the cottage. She hovered there, eyes spinning comically in a confused daze. He went to the door so that they could take their fight out-doors, where they couldn't damage Fluttershy's home. As he walked past the shocked animal lover he kneeled down to her. "I won't hurt her unless she hurts me. Do you think you can help me convince her to stop?" She calmed her breathing and closed her eyes. "I'll try." She nodded slowly, shaking a little. "Good." Nero patted her on the head and headed out of the door to face his flying attacker with Fluttershy at his side. "I don't want to have to fight you. Can you just calm down, please?" The rainbow maned mare glared at right at him, like she was staring into his soul. "And let you hurt Fluttershy? No chance buddy!" She came flying at him again, this time using her whole body like a super fast battering ram. Nero prepared himself to act and as she came close, he thrust up underneath her with his demon arm and got the timing just right to grab her on the chest. Then he tensed his arm to stop her from going fast to stationary instantaneously, a difference that looked to shake her up a little. And finally he flipped her upside down and slammed her into the floor. He held her there as she rubbed the back of her head and giving him a look that could kill. "Look. Fluttershy here was only trying to help me find a spot to get some rest. I mean no harm, right Fluttershy?" He looked back to her for an answer. She nodded again and he turned back to Rainbow Dash. "See?" Rainbow glanced between the two, putting things together before resting her tensed muscles. "We cool?" He asked her, tilting his head off to the side. *SIGH*, "We cool." She huffed and crossed her forelegs. "Can you let me go now?" Nero released his grip on her and she pulled herself to her hooves. "Don't think this changes anything though." "Why?" He threw his arms up for emphasis. "What have I done? I fell from the fucking sky and Fluttershy helped me by taking me here to rest. That's all that happened! And then you come in all guns blazing and accuse me of being monster, then to top it off, you start throwing punches! What did I do wrong!?" The pegasus' head drooped a little bit and she let out a sigh. "When you put it like that, I guess it does sound bad." She looked back up at him with her big adorable pony eyes. "I'm sorry, sometimes I act before I think and things like this happen." "Don't get yourself down. I've let people off on worse." She cocked her head curiously. "Like what?" "Before we were friends, this guy called Dante started a sword-fight with me." Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped. "A sword-fight? That's a bit extreme!" "Well at the time I was trying to save my girlfriend who had been kidnapped by a group of warriors that I belonged to. Needless to say I wasn't very happy. Turns out this group I was with, called 'The Order of The Sword' wanted to use a powerful being like me as fuel for a giant demon made from stone, and my girlfriend Kyrie was the bait. "Dante was and still is a demon hunter like me. He knew this was going to happen and he saw me all frustrated and using Yamato here..." He pointed at the katana sheathed around his waist. "... as a weapon of immense power to get Kyrie back. He explained to me that Yamato was his brother's sword, a long lost family piece, and if I wasn't going to use it properly then he wanted it back. "My patience was short due to my anger and I threatened him, he responded by drawing his sword and challenging me to a fight. A fight which he won, by the way. Once he won and I had been put at his mercy, he let me gt because I had 'cooled off' and was ready to go on. So yeah, I have an interesting life." Both pegasi looked at him astounded. Their jaws hanging open and staring at him with shocked expressions. "What?" He shrugged. "I-is Kyrie o-okay?" Fluttershy stuttered with concern. "Oh yeah! She fine. However that's more than I can say for me when I get back to her. She's gonna' slap me half to death for disappearing on her like this. Anyway, lets go back inside. My bones are still aching from my fall and I need to rest, besides, I'm sure you came her for something other than fighting people, eh 'Skittles'?" "My name is not Skittles!" Skittles said defensively. "I know, I'm just trying to lighten up the situation, that's all." They all headed on back into the cottage and Fluttershy closed the door behind them. Rainbow lounged out on the couch, taking Nero's spot, so Nero hat to sit on the space next to her. Fluttershy sat down on a soft looking chair opposite them and they rested while Rainbow Dash explained what she was going to explain before she started attacking Nero. And by the sounds of things, the land of Equestria was apparently in a state of reparation after a recent attack from a demon they called 'Tirek'. According to a joint explanation between the two pegasi, Tirek came from 'Tartarus', a place that served as the pony hell, to steal Equestria's magic so that he could become the most powerful being that ever lived. And after he had sucked most of the ambient and unicorn magic out of Equestria and it's inhabitants, the princesses which he now knew to be called Celestia and Luna, gave their powers to a third princess called Twilight Sparkle that Tirek didn't know of in hopes that she could use the element of surprise to defeat him. However a chaotic being by the name of Discord had been working with Tirek in order to gain control that he gave up in exchange for not being turned to stone for he third time in a row. Discord told Tirek about the third princess, but then Tirek betrayed Discord so that he could control all of Equestria for himself and went looking for Twilight Sparkle to finally gain all of the power he could ever want. Apparently what he didn't count on though was Twilight's abilities with magic. They told Nero that she is one of the most, if not the most talented magic user in history, and was able to use that magic to defeat Tirek and banish him back to Tartarus before saving the regal sisters which he had locked in Tartarus prior to looking for Twilight. After that, Celestia and Luna were understandably furious at Discord, but when some investigating was done, it turns out that Discord had planned the whole thing from the start. He had released Tirek, helped him suck up Equestria's magic, helped Tirek banish the royal sisters to hell, and purposefully allowed Tirek to betray him. Just so that the newly crowned Twilight Sparkle could learn a life lesson about friendship that may or may not prove useful in the future. Harmony was restored, peace was reinstated, 'yardy, yardy, yar', all of that good stuff. And then there was now. "So, why are you here again?" Nero had to stifle a yawn and remind the Rainbow pegasus after her story-telling. "Oh yeah, Celestia wants a meeting between all the important ponies including the Elements' in Canterlot tomorrow at 12am. I'm supposed to give you you this." She handed a scroll to Fluttershy. "Do you think I can come along? If these princesses are as powerful as they're supposed to be, then maybe they can find a way for me and my friends to get home." "Meh, maybe. Come along, but don't expect to get her attention until after she's finished with us. Wait, are your friends here? Like, in Equestria?" "I think so. We all got pulled through a portal together so I'd guess they're her somewhere." Rainbow shrugged. "Whatever. Anyway Fluttershy, I gotta' go." Rainbow walked up to the door and opened it up. "See ya'!" With that, the door slammed shut and silence followed suit. Leaving Nero to think to himself... "-What the fuck is going on in my life?-"