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“When was the last time we did a job together?” Dante asked as they ran out of the office, locked and loaded, and rearing to go.
“Fortuna wasn’t that long ago,” Lady reminded him.
“Ah, but all the fighting was done by the time we met back up,” he reminded her.
“Less talking more shooting!” Trish said, “If I have to do more work like last time—”
“No one asked you to go under cover,” Dante said.
“Oh please, it all worked out the way it did because of me,” Trish said.
Dante and Lady shared a look that Trish missed. Still, Dante knew they agreed that while unnecessary, Trish’s undercover work hadn’t hurt them much.
“Still, there are a lot more demons than I expected,” Lady commented, reloading under the cover fire Dante laid down with Lucifer. “Could it be aftershocks from Fortuna?”
“That could be,” Trish said, dodging an attack, kicking the demon in the head so hard that its neck spun and twisted. “major breaches like that spread through the underworld like wild fire, attracting all sorts of demons. Temen-ni-gru isn’t far from here…”
Lady fired off a few shots. “Temen-ni-gru is destroyed.”
“Well, yes, but small fry can still sneak through,” Trish pointed out.
“Does that look like small fry?” Dante asked, pointing towards a demon ahead. He’d been trying to get to it, not liking how it just floated there without making any moves to attack. It was a two faced goat headed demon.
“A janus?” Trish asked, and then cursed. “Just don’t get—”
Before she could finish her sentance, Lady tried to pull Dante out of the way of a blast of energy. Unfortunately, while Dante had noticed the blast, he hadn’t noticed it was magic in nature, and had settled into a royal guard stance, making him functionally immovable. The blast hit both of them, but didn’t seem to harm them.
“That was it?” Dante mocked, and continued to swing his sword only for… it felt a little heavier. He noticed Lady’s hair had turned silver, while his own turned black, but didn’t comment on it. Lady didn’t seem bothered at all, and in fact seemed to be moving even faster.
They had just finished wiping out the demons when a stray demon slashed at Lady in it’s death throes. Dante ran to stop it, but he couldn’t move fast enough—the slash caught Lady’s side, sending her blood across the street. Dante unloaded a clip into the demon without thinking, running to Lady.
To all of their surprise she was still on her feet, brows furrowed, hand over the wound.
“Lady, lets go to the hospital,” Dante said, nodding to Trish, “Trish get the motorcycle—”
Slowly, Lady lifted her hand, and it was Dante’s turn to be confused. The wound was already closing. Before his very eyes her flesh knit together leaving smooth skin. Not able to help himself, he reached out and confirmed through touch it was healed.
“The curse of janus,” Trish said ominously.
“Curse of janus?” Dante and Lady asked at the same time.
“Janus are a breed of demon adept in magic,” she explained, “their trickiest form of magic is called quid pro quo.”
“This for that?” Lady asked, “Are you saying…”
“It’s unpredictable, but it seems to have swapped your natures,” Trish said, “Dante, can you transform?”
Dante reached for that power, and found it gone. Not in the sense that he didn’t have enough, or that he was distracted, but just… gone. It was like when he was young, before he had most of his abilities besides healing.
“Lady, can you—”
Lady had already grasped the power and exploded into a demoness. She looked different from himself and Vergil, different from his father as well, she was…
She was beautiful, but that went without saying. Her body was covered in armor-like scales, her feet now taloned like a bird. Her hands were also talon-like, and talon-like appendages came out of her hair. Glowing wings erupted from her back covered with eyes and feathers. Much like how his armor resembled his clothes somewhat, her armor created a skirt-like form, making her quite formidable.
“How do I turn back?” Lady roared with alarm, her wings flapping in concern.
“It should turn back on its own,” Dante coached, “although if you can turn it on, turning it off is basically the same thing.”
After a moment, Lady returned to herself, and sighed in relief. “I never realized…” she started, but never finished the thought.
“How do we turn back?” Dante asked Trish.
“Once the janus is dead, the spell will dissolve in a few days max. Especially if its something as innate as nature,” Trish said, “So this will be fun.”
“A few days?” Dante asked.
“Wondering how you’ll manage without your superhuman reflexes?” Lady asked.
A little bit. As much as he hated his demon half sometimes, it was pretty useful. At the same time, he’d always wanted to be fully human. Also…
Lady abruptly jumped extremely high into the air, landing hard. “Damn, it still hurts, huh?”
A bitter smile came to Dante’s lips. “Maybe don’t push it too hard.”
Trish glanced between the two of them and said, “Well, I’ll take an advance, I was waiting around so long for the Fortuna pay… Only for Lady to gyp us.”
“I didn’t gyp anyone!” Lady declared, “It took a lot of negotiations to get even that much!”
Trish held out her hand.
Dante looked at it and then asked, “Trish, is the only left now to wait?”
“Yes,” she said, “Although being close couldn’t hurt. Once your hair colors swap back, so will everything else.”
Lady held up her silver hair with an amused look.
Dante held out the cash to Trish, who snatched it and was on her way.
“Hey Lady, you want the night to be over?” Dante asked.
Lady bit her lip and then said, “Well, no, but we don’t need to go out to have some fun, right?”
Oh and that… was an idea and a half, now wasn’t it?
“Besides, someone needs to keep an eye on you, if you have a human constitution now, you can’t do half the stupid stuff you do normally.”
They made their way back to the office. As soon as they were inside, Lady slammed a hand next to his waist and the other gripped his collar.
“Guess we get to find out if you ability is all from your demonside,” Lady whispered close to his face. With her new strength she managed to pull him down, and Dante found there was little he could do to resist. Not that he wanted to.
Dante didn’t want to talk, but if he did, he’d have to admit that he kept most of his demonic side locked up when it came to sexy times, the only thing he maybe did was use his regeneration ability to recover, but the last thing he wanted to do was harm Lady. Even with Lady’s exceptional sturdiness and strength, she was still a woman.
To his surprise, she lifted him by his thighs, stepping between them, his back to the wall. It was a reverse the position they favored when especially impatient, something they’d tried a few times before Lady admitted it was too taxing. But now…
Being held was so foreign he hardly knew what to think about it.
“Your hair is so weird,” Lady complained, reaching up with one hand to card through his now raven locks.
“I dunno, I sort of like yours,” he replied, toying with the tips of it. It was a glimpse of her future, if she lived that long.
“I’m not going grey yet!” Lady declared, and tossed him over her shoulder. It knocked the air out of his lungs, and he wondered how silly they looked purely from how much bigger than her he was. She slapped his rear and hit his head on the door frame.
“Ow!” he complained.
“You big baby!” she said, and tossed him onto the bed. Before he could complain more, she crawled over him, kissing the side of his head. “There, better now?”
“I think it was the other side,” he said.
Lady indulged him, and he relished in the care. Finally, she perched over him, and declared, “I understand why you like doing that so much.”
Manhandling Lady was a lot fun. She always seemed to like it when he did it, and he could see why.
They started kissing again, Lady grinding down on him eventually. Dante let out a hiss of pleasure, chasing that friction her tiny shorts constantly reminded him of.
He managed to unbutton her shirt and took in the sight of her breasts with a smile. Lady leaned back down to kiss him. He’d shed his jacket downstairs, and was just left in his harness for his weapons and his shirt. Lady made quick work of his harnesses, but then the zipper on his shirt got caught.
Lady sat back up and glared at the zipper like it had personally wronged her. Then, a gleam entered her eye and Dante knew he was going to love whatever she did next.
Lady grasped either side of his shirt and pulled it apart, ripping it like tissue paper. Dante’s smile returned at full force. She immediately went to touching and kissing his chest.
“We’re really doing everything in reverse?” he asked.
“Not everything, but…” she admitted, looking up, and kissing him while she unbuckled his belt and pants.
From there they had a very productive night.
…
In the morning Dante somehow woke up before Lady, and wanted to have another round when the bell for the front door rang.
“Who even is here this early?” Lady complained.
“I’ll check it out,” Dante told her, rolling out of bed and throwing on a pair of pants. To his surprise, Nero stood in his office, eyeing everything with suspicion. The kid’s hand went to his gun in surprise, but he released it as soon as he saw it was Dante.
“Huh, we’re seeing each other sooner than I thought,” Dante said.
“Why is your hair…” Nero started, but Dante shrugged.
“Just something that’ll wear off sooner or later,” Dante explained.
“And why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”
“It’s early,” Dante said.
Nero’s furrowed brow seemed to say that he didn’t think it was early, but instead of commenting about that, Nero said, “about the Yamato, I was curious if you…”
“Are ya having issues with it?” Dante asked.
“Not issues, it’s just… it’s in my arm and I don’t… you can do the same thing, right? How do you make sure you don’t accidentally hurt someone you care about?”
“I see,” Dante said, grinning and leaning in to look at Nero better, “You and your girlfriend… What was her name?”
“What?” Nero asked, “I didn’t—”
“It’s not that much different from what you were able to do before,” Dante said, “Did you ever have any accidents with that?”
“Well, not where I hurt someone, but Kyrie’s just a human. And the children, they really like getting picked up and thrown into the water when we go to the beach, but what if I accidentally throw them too hard?”
“You’re over thinking all of this,” Dante said, “It’s all about will power. There are a thousand things a normal person could do to kill or hurt a ton of people, but they don’t do it. I mean, you were beating the crap out of me and I held back my Devil Trigger.”
“Is that what it’s called?” Nero asked.
“What were you calling yours?” Dante asked.
“Well… the grab-y arm I called a devil bringer, because it brought things to me and then the punch-y arm I called a devil buster.”
Dante nodded. “Those are good names.”
“But you’ve obviously been doing this for longer than I have,” Nero said, “how can you be certain of your control.”
“You gotta have more confidence Kid!” Dante assured him, “It’s as simple as that, Lady didn’t—” he shut his mouth. Lady had managed to be gentle despite her new strength. Well, relatively gentle. The right amount of gentle.
“What?”
“Just that you seem to already have a lot of control. I really wouldn’t worry about it. It’s just anger or a lot of damage that triggers it for me, and you don’t seem the type to ever get mad at your girl.”
Nero seemed to agree, and Dante asked, “Was that all?”
“No, actually, I was sent to ask about—What’s wrong with your back?”
Dante blinked, and then tried to get a glimpse of his back.
“It looks like you were attacked by a wild animal!”
And it came back to him. Ah right, he wasn’t healing as fast as he normally did, and Lady had done what she usually did. And maybe then some… Dante turned to face Nero again. From what he could tell, Nero didn’t heal quite as fast as he did, and Dante hadn’t been injured in front of Nero before.
“Your neck too,” Nero said, “What sort of demon does that?”
“A she demon,” Dante said, “A dangerous one too. I’ll be fine.”
“What was she after?”
“What else? My very life force.” Lady was demanding in bed. It was a wonder she hadn’t worked him to an early grave, although dying like that was probably the best way to go. Granted, it’d probably make it awkward for Lady to have to move his dead body… He’d try to die afterwards.
Nero seemed to buy all of this, and Dante supposed that with how everyone dressed at Fortuna, maybe the kid hadn’t even seen hickies before. Well, Dante may probably be his uncle, but he wasn’t about to have a birds and bees talk with him. “How did it get close enough?” Nero asked.
“Ehh, I do have one weak point,” Dante admitted, “Probably similar to yours actually.” Dante leaned in and gave some decent advice. “Don’t approach a dangerous woman without protection.”
“I mean, I don’t really…” Nero started.
“You do realize that demons can take the forms of your loved ones, right? Oldest trick in the book—usually because it works.”
“Oh I didn’t know that,” Nero said. “So that’s what got you?”
“No,” Dante said, and asked, “Was that all?”
“No. We need the money back. There was new damages that were discovered.”
“Why were you sent?” Dante asked.
“Kyrie thought it might be good for me to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know,” Nero responded, turning away and scratching his nose.
Dante had a feeling he knew what Kyrie wanted Nero to talk to him about and Dante was not about to have that conversation. He was still riding the high of his night with Lady, he didn’t want to think about Nero and how that implied—
“If that’s all you got then I guess you can—” Before Dante could finish his words Lady came downstairs, mostly dressed with a grin on her face.
“I thought I heard a familiar voice,” Lady said, “Nero, how are you?”
“Good… I guess,” Nero replied, and then squinted at her hair.
Selfconciously, she pet it, and Dante swept in for the rescue. “Lady got hit with the same curse, inverted our hair colors, weird, huh?”
“But she doesn’t look nearly as beat up as you,” Nero noted and that was when Lady saw the marks she’d left all over Dante. A predatory gleam entered her eye, the kind of the cat with the cream. Oh she would love it, wouldn’t she?
“What can I say,” Lady said with a grin, “I am a professional. I got most of these when I was still a rookie.”
Dante decided on payback later, but sat down in his chair, attempting his cool demeanor, but it being ruined when he leaned back and his scratched back touched the leather. Dante hissed in pain, and tried to cover it with a sneeze. That only accomplished both Lady and Nero looking at him. He waved his hand as a signal for them to carry on.
“You’ve been doing this a while?” Nero asked.
“Just a little bit less than Dante,” she said, “probably about… wait, how old are you?”
“17.”
She looked at him again and absentmindedly said, “Real solidly built 17 year old.” To Dante she asked, “Did you look like that at seventeen? Because he might be about the same as you at 19.”
“How old are you?” Nero asked.
Dante purposefully knocked over a stray bottle, and managed to catch Nero’s eye and shake his head. Nero pivoted and asked, “I mean, how old is Dante?”
“I dunno,” Lady said, “Like 35?”
Nero seemed to be doing math in his head. Dangerous math. Dante tried to stop him with—"Geez, you don’t even remember my birthday?”
“Shut up, last year you totally forgot your own birthday,” she said, “You tried to hop on my birthday celebrations—”
“You just wanted to go bar hopping on my dollar like you always do.”
Lady smiled and didn’t deny it. “Can’t believe we’ve known each other for… What? 17 years?”
“Feels longer,” Dante admitted. They’d gone through their highs and lows together, but it was hard to think about before she came into his life.
“17 years?” Nero repeated in that dangerously contemplative tone.
“But Trish already took the money,” Dante said, “So you’ll have to track her down.”
“She’s probably going upstate to buy some designer brands.”
Dante hardly ever saw Trish in a non-tube top, but apparently her pants and shoes changed relatively often.
“Dammit,” Nero muttered.
“You could just start a line of credit through me,” Lady said.
“Credit?” Nero asked.
Lady explained the beauty of credit and credit cards to Nero, who seemed to be smart enough to say, “I dunno, I think I’d need to ask Kyrie and the elders before I agree to that.”
“Huh, he’s got more sense than you,” Lady quipped to Dante.
“Hey I paid you back,” Dante said.
“Yeah…” Lady said, that smile returning to her face, eyes bright, “You did…”
It’d taken a few years of helping her into a new tax bracket through marriage, and then scratching a certain itch to manage that.
“Smart, kid, letting your lady run your finances,” Lady said, “Dante still hasn’t figured that one out.”
“Well, I’ll go try to find Trish, I guess,” Nero said.
“Check out Prada,” Lady called after him, “she was raving about some bag from the new collection.”
Nero nodded, and left.
Lady slid into Dante’s lap the second Nero was gone, hands ghosting over her handiwork on his neck and his back. “I see why you like doing this to me,” she said.
“It makes me a little sad I heal so quickly,” Dante shot back.
Lady seemed to agreed, and kissed the junction of his neck and shoulders, Dante’s hands find her rear.
After a moment she sat back and asked in a serious tone. “Is it… is it possible that Nero is…”
“I didn’t lie to you,” Dante said, “Unless he’s yours and you lied to me about some things.”
“No,” Lady said, and didn’t press further. “I didn’t think you were lying, but just you did say… if you weren’t conscious when it happened… I understand not wanting to—”
“Nero isn’t my son,” Dante said firmly.
“Okay,” she capitulated, and then pressed closer, “but uh… until this wears off… I’ve thought of more things I want to try.”
Dante grinned.
He’d much rather think of all the things he could do with Lady with their natures swapped than how Nero was related to him.