You again? (Nero, others: PM if you'd like to join)

(OOC: Dante's first topic, chronologically)

Dante stepped off the boat at the harbor. If he was able to make it in this easily they honestly weren't trying to keep people out. He was here to kill some devils, and maybe investigate the Uroboros a little while he was here. He'd gotten a good tip from Lady that they were up to no good.

Hey, you there, which way to the beach? There was no reason he couldn't have a little rest while he was here. The man pointed in a direction and Dante set out that way.

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

Nero would recognise that voice anywhere. Turning his head, the young devil hunter saw Dante in his usual red coat. That was wierd. How strange that both Nero and Dante were here at the same time. Though, Dante was heading for the beach, obviously not doing any demon hunting right now.

Although he was going to find out about what was currently going on in town and see if there was any work available here, Nero thought he may as well go and see what Dante was up to. Obviously, there wasn't anything major going on at the moment, otherwise there would be screaming locals. A relax would probably do him good.

Nero had just missed Dante, he had gone already. But following the same direction Dante was given, he followed with a calm jog. As he saw him not far in the distance, Nero called out to grab his attention;

"Dante! Hey, hows it going...?"

Dante yawned, he was just thinking about how nice a nap on the beach was when he heard his name called. He turned around slowly. Yeah? Whattya want? His agitated face let up a bit, just a bit though, when he saw it was Nero. Nero. I haven't seen you since that time in Fortuna. How've you been? he said with a yawn, making it seem as if he actually didn't care.

In truth Dante just wanted to take a nap, he couldn't sleep on the boat because everybody was talking so loud. What're you doing here anyways? Lady said that I'd been the only Devil Hunter called down here. Unless...you've taken up a new trade. Lemme guess, you make pretty little necklaces now. a mocking tone in his voice, Dante made a low chuckle. So...how long've you been here? See anything unusual?

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

"Yeah, you want one? I've got a great necklace for ya, a pretty pink one."

Nero responded sarcastically. Dante never could take anything seriously, though Nero wasn't much better himself.

"And, nothing's going on anywhere. That's why I'm here, looking for some work. But so far I've got nothing, not a devil in sight."

He said with an agitated kick in the sand, clearly showing how bored he was. It was almost as if he wished for a demon attack now. Clearly, he didn't want people to get hurt, but he missed the demon slaying.

"So, you were called here? There isn't anything hapening. That's just your excuse for a quick vacation isn't it?"

No thanks, you keep it. It fits you better. Dante said with a wink.

He looked off towards the sea. I was sent here on a mission, if there are no devils here I might as well relax until one shows up, right?

He yawned again, and plopped down on his back, kicking up a small cloud of sand when he hit the ground. You caught me. He said with another wink. Nothing like a little R&R to restore the spirits. He wasn't being serious, of course he actually was on a mission, he was just playing around with Nero. Dante closed his eyes.

If you're just gonna stand there, do ya mind moving a little to the left? The sun is kind of bright today.

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

It made sense, there was no need to go running round when there was nothing going on. Relax until a devil showed. Seemed like a pretty good idea to Nero.

"Yeah right. You want shade? Then find your own."

Was all he said in response. Though, Nero did move to the left, but not for Dante's benifit, he strolled over to tree not to far from Dante's spot. He leaned against the trunk and slid down it until he hit the ground carelessly. He sat there gazing round the area for something of interest... he found nothing. This place was dull. All Nero had to entertain himself was Dante. But all he got from him was sarcastic comments.

"Boooring..."

Nero said with a sigh...

Dante made an exaggerated sad face. Well thats no fun.

Dante lay there on the beach, just listening to the waves. Boring, huh? Then why don't you find something to do? I sure don't want you hanging around. He teased. He actually rather enjoyed Nero's company, though he'd never tell him. Pretty soon, he was close to falling asleep.

(OOC: Sorry for the rather short post, you can add some action in the next post)

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

"Alright, that's enough..."

Nero said as he quickly jumped back to his feet. He had ben sat there for a minute, two at most, and was already bored out of his mind. He couldn't bear to be just sat around doing nothing. Relaxing wasn't for him. The only time he could relax was when he was around Kyrie.

"Get up."

He said suddenly, obviously refering to Dante,

"Come on, get up."

Nero repeated, just to make sure Dante got the message. And, because he was feeling considerably impatient at the time. Reaching over his left shoulder, Nero grabbed the handle of his sword, Red Queen, and brought it around to his front. He then pointed the very tip of the blade towards Dante with a smirk;

"First one to draw blood wins, got it?"

Dante growled. He was almost asleep, and here came Nero to drag him back to the waking world. Could you at least let me sleep for a couple minutes? He said with a yawn, as he slowly draggged himself to his feet.

As he stood completely, Dante yawned again. First to draw blood, huh? I guess I should hold back then. He glanced out over the sea, then was suddenly behind Nero. Oops! I forgot to hold back. He was right next to Nero's ear when he spoke. He then slowly walked around in front of Nero and drew the Force Edge. For real this time. He swung his blade lazily through the air, and the sword appeared to be just as lazy as Dante.

He yawned yet again. You can go first...

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

As Dante's blade came through the air fairly slow and without effort, Nero simply slashed his weapon down upon the flat of the Force Edge's blade. This was an attempt to smack Dante's weapon down to stop his attack, and with the complete lack of effort he was putting into his attack, it was likely to work.

"You could at least pretend you're trying."

Following this, Nero swung Red Queen horizontally aimed for the side of his foe's head. This way, his sword was down so that he couldn't defend the attack. However, Nero knew that this strike wouldn't connect, Dante would surely evade it; but, perhaps it would wake him up a little. That was the idea anyway.

Dante's arm jolted a bit as his blade was knocked down. He then tilted his head back, narrowly avoiding a decapitation.

I told you, if I don't hold back, you're going home on a stretcher. Remember that time in Fortuna? And the time at the Order's headquarters?

Dante was pretty sure this was true, after all he never had fought Nero without holding back. However, if Nero was to reach his full potential, Dante was likely to be the one going home on a stretcher.

Dante then stabbed towards Nero's head, stopping the blade a few inches from his face. He then pulled back and took a quick nip at Nero's shins, after all: blood is blood, no matter what part of the body it's from. His feint towards his face was bound to work, Nero was a straightforward kind of guy.

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

Going home on a stretcher? Yeah right! Nero wasn't just some kid with a sword, he knew what he was doing and his skills just kept improving. He wanted Dante to go all out, to see if Nero could match his power yet. Though, knowing Dante, even if he tried his best and lost, he would probably say he was going easy anyway. He liked to be the best, it suited his cocky attitude. Nero wanted to show how good he was now, and that was why his next move was quite important.

With Force edge coming straight at his face, Nero tilted his head to the side and reached out with his demon arm, Devil Bringer. He had no way of knowing that Dante was going to stop it just before hitting him, so he had reacted before hand, having to assume it would have struck his face. With a light glow emanating from his arm, Nero kept hold of the weapons blade to hold it up as he swung his sword horizontally just beneath it at Dante's stomach height.

Nero was holding Dante's weapon where it was, that gave the defense two great qualities; he had unknowingly prevent his opponent's second attack before it started and made Dante's evasion particularly hard. Unless he was willing to let go of his weapon. Though, this demon hunter was a slippery one. No doubt he would have some way to evade and keep his sword. Nero knew this would be difficult, and thought that it may take a little while before a hit landed. However, Nero was just going to keep attacking until he struck, or was struck...

Dante was startled when his blade was stopped by Nero. He then smirked as Nero brought his own weapon into play.

Dante decided to be a little stylish, and did a front flip landing on the blade of the Force Edge itself. Why, hello there. He said, his face only inches from Nero's. Was this your big plan? Pretty smooth move. Dante drew the Ebony with his left hand. But not smooth enough. He fired the gun at Nero's arm, hoping to just graze the flesh.

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

The bullet was fired, exploding from the gun with collosal speed. Only to fail miserably. The bullet hit Nero's Devil Bringer and did nothing but ricocheted straight off to the side. It was a good shot, Nero wouldn't have been able to dodge it at such close range, but with it hitting his demon arm - no blood. The fight continued...

"A hit, I'll give you that, but no blood. Unlucky, you ought to aim a little better..."

Nero decided that getting Dante off of the sword and not so close to him would be benificial. So, with a quick swing of his arm, the young demon hunter threw the blade Dante was stood on; the most logical thing to do would be to jump off of the sword and it spun through the air. Though, not neccesarily what Dante would do, his fighting style was too unpredictable to guess what he would do next.

After tossing the sword, it stabbed into the tree that Nero was previously sat at. However, by that time, Nero had dashed a few steps away, turned and pulled is gun up to aim at Dante. He pulled the trigger three timesin succession, a total of six bullets flying at the half-demon in pairs. Run, Dante, run!

The blade flew through the air and Dante jumped. Well, it wouldn't be accurate to say that he jumped, but it more of just seemed that he stayed where he was while the blade flew out from under him. He stretched out his legs and landed perfectly on his feet, drawing his other gun as he fell. Dante twisted around and fired both guns twice, shooting Nero's bullets right out of the air. Nero's final 2 bullets were deflected by the guns themselves.

Once again, you're pretty slick. But it's gonna take a lot more work to defeat me. I'm just too...stylish for you.

Dante aimed both his guns at Nero's legs and fired them both multiple times. Run, run, run.

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

Well, shooting at him hadn't worked... obviously. Dante had shot down the bullets whilst in the air, a trick Nero was quite familiar with and one that he used often too. However, this time, to keep things varying during the battle and keeping a sense of 'style', Nero chose to react to Dante's return fire differently to simply shooting back.

Instead, Nero extended his right arm as quick as possible whilst Dante was deflecting the last of his bullets so that, as soon as he began shooting at Nero's feet, he zipped away suddenly. The Devil Bringer's 'spiritual' form had shot from it and grabbed hold of the very same tree that had Force Edge stabbed through it. Nero pulled himself over to it, allowing Dante's bullets to spit up sand as they hit the beach where Nero once stood.

Once at the tree, Nero planted both feet against it and leaped from it in his opponent's direction. He pulled his sword back, preparing to swing. Or so it appeared - a false attack, much like Dante had done previously. As soon as he got within range, Nero suddenly jumped up again off of a newly created platform. This time he jumped up and over Dante with one hundred and eighty degree flip over his head. Whilst upside down and above him, Nero quickly shot for Dante's shoulder before landing crouched a short distance behind him...

Nero vanished when Dante shot him, and it appeared that he had been planning ahead. Next Nero leaped at him with a sword, Dante simply bent over backwards, as if playing "limbo" and ended up dodging Nero's false move as well as his real one, from that angle. Dante bent back upright and crossed his arms around his chest, so that his right hand stuck out of his left armpit and his left hand stuck out of his right armpit. He then fired at Nero without even looking at him.

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

Nero had planned ahead, however, not this far. Although it wasn't likely, he had hoped that the bullets would have hit Dante that time. But, they didn't and this left Nero in a crouched position getting shot at. Being half-demon, he had naturally quick reflexes, but there was no way he could move out of the way this time. So, he was left with the shooting back option - one that Dante had already demonstrated. Nero wasn't usually one to copy, but he wasn't left with many option if he was to remain unscathed.

Pulling the trigger repeatedly in the blink of an eye with astounding precision, Nero shot down the bullets fired at him. Although he was out-matched in number of guns, the fact that Blue Rose fired two bullets at once allowed him to keep up with Dante's shots. After a few shots, though, another quick plan formulated in his head. Whilst continuing to shoot, Nero extended his Devil Bringer towards Dante. And with him facing the other way, there wasn't any logical way that Nero could think of that his opponent would know it was coming. So, he reached to grab Dante's ankle, and upon grasping tightly, Nero planned to yank back hoping to pull his legs back from under him so that he would fall flat on his face...

A nose bleed would from impact would be, although fairly unlikely, the perfect result from the attack. Yet, Nero planned to keep hold of his ankle incase for any reason it didn't work or so that he couold follow up depending on Dante's reaction.

Dante continued to fire, with maddening accuracy even though he was facing the other direction. He smirked, almost certain that one of the bullets would strike home. It was then that he felt something grab his ankle and pull. He was launched into the air, where he dropped the Ebony and used his left hand to push himself back in the air, where he twirled and fired his remaining gun only at the perfect time, each bullet flying straight at Nero, mostly at the Devil bringer, trying to remove the noncorporal hand grasping his ankle.

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

With all these continuos shots, it was beginning to get harder and harder to shoot them down. Especially with him concentrating on his demon ams as well. So, to be sure that he didn't get shot, Nero leaped aside performing a perfect side flip. He continued to fire a little bit as he did so just incase Dante's aim followed him as he moved, though, with movement a few would miss, making it much easier to swat the bullets out of the air. And, as soon as he landed back on his feet, Nero pulled on his Devil Bringer again. But, this time, with much more effort!

Nero pulled hard enough to yank Dante straight to him this time, pulling him down hadn't worked, but maybe this would. Though, another reason for this was to take him away from the other gun he had dropped so that he was left with only one. During the time that Dante would be either flying through the air, or being dragged across the floor towards him, Nero switched his gun back for his sword and planned to swing it down down on Dante as soon as he arrived before releasing his grasp...

Dante continued to fire as Nero dodged and weaved through most of the bullets. He got another tug on his ankle in midtwirl and flew towards Nero. He quickly aligned himself midflight, so as to be perfectly feet first. Just as he got close to Nero he fired the Ivory right at Nero's sword arm much faster than he'd fired it when he had both guns out, it was as if he still had both guns with the speed of the shots. Just for good measure, he prepared himself to kick off of Nero's chest when he got close enough.

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

Nero had to change his plan as Dante came towards him with another stream of shots. Instead of swinging his sword at him like he had planned, Nero had to defend himself from gunshots; he released Dante's leg and pulled the Devil Bringer up to block the bullets speeding towards him. They simply bounced off of the impenetratable arm scattering in various directions to either side. And, as soon as the bullets ceased, Nero lowered his arm just in time to see how close Dante was . Only it was too late...

Dante's feet slammed against Nero's chest with a mighty thud. Without a chance to react, Nero was thrown down to the floor and slid through the sand leaving a fairly deep trail before he managed to put his hand down and use the momentum to launch himself up into a backflip. He landed back on his feet and immediately pulled up his gun to aim at Dante once more. This time, before shooting, the Devil Bringer's glowing charge flowed through Nero and into his gun at incredible speed as he opened fire - a total of three pulls of the trigger. And with each one fired, the charge of light blue wrapped around the bullet as it flew. These were not normal bullets, they were faster and more powerful, making counter-shooting an impossiblility...

( Charge Shot I x3 --> -30dp = 0dp left )

All of Dante's shots were blocked by Nero's blade, but they served their purpose, distracting Nero until he was close enough to kick off of his chest. Afterwards he backflipped into a position were he landed on his feet.

Once he was back on the ground he looked up and saw Nero's arm glowing, just before Nero fired his gun. The shots were moving much faster than usual, Dante's bullets wouldn't be enough to stop them, especially with one gun. Luckily the shots weren't spread as wide as Nero's usually were, probably because he pulled the trigger faster than he could move his arm to change trajectories.

Dante's idea worked. He held his gun sideways and used it as a shield. The Ivory was stronger than the average gun, as it was imbued with demonic energy, the Ebony was built the same way. Sure enough, it blocked all the bullets, Dante glanced over the side he had used as a shield and groaned. A small dent had appeared.

Dante leapt towards Nero and did something that was probably a bad idea in the long term, he used the Ivory to try and pistol whip Nero in the nose, trying to cause a nosebleed. As the Ivory was optimized for quick draw scenarios it made this VERY difficult to avoid.

Posts : 70 Join date : 2009-07-10

( ooc: Sorry for the delay... )

Very difficult to avoid? Nero certainly didn't make it look that way. A simple backwards arch of the back insured his safety and allowed him to evade the attack with seeming ease. In the time it took Dante to leap over towards Nero, he had plenty of time to carelessly lean back. And whilst he did, Nero reached for his half-demon foe's wrist of his gun arm. Taking a tight frip of this arm would render Dante weapon-less as he had already lost both Force Edge and Ebony.

If he was quick enough to get this grab as he had hoped, Nero had plans ahead for what would follow; this involved a rapid swing of his leg to sweep Dante's out from under him so that he was left with no choice but to fall. However, Nero planned to hasten that fall with an outrageously powerful punch with Devil Bringer.

If not, well, Nero would have to think again...

Dante was startled for a split second as he missed his foe and his wrist was grabbed by the fellow devil hunter. He smirked and then twisted his wrist around, not breaking free, but aiming his gun at Nero's hand/wrist. He aimed and pulled the trigger fast enough to prevent any follow-up attacks by Nero. He wasn't quite as helpless as Nero might have thought.

(XD I had to wait, what? Half a day? You had to wait over 24 hours! Sorry bout that.)

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