[Site Meter] have fallen
Pandemonium
Prologue A - Dante´s thoughts
When Dante and Vergil were still children, their mother made sure that her boys had the best education possible. She wanted to know that, in the likely possibility of her sons´ banishment from the public school system, they would never be judged as inferior to those who accused her boys of being nothing more than stupid monsters. It was already difficult for them as it was, suffering because their demon heritage was in a constant battle for dominance with their human heritage.
As much as she wished otherwise, there was nothing that she could do to help her sons but accept what they were and to do everything in her power to prepare them for the tumultuous future. She had to make sure that her boys became good and intelligent men; there was no reason to wish they grew up strong since their mixed heritage made strength a given. There was no reason why the Sons of Sparda couldn´t be good people even though they were demons, just like their father was.
But then, suddenly but not unexpectedly, the family left behind by the legendary Sparda was attacked and everything changed.
Dante was forced to find his own way; his mother and brother were dead or worse and there was nothing he could do. With nothing left of his old life, Dante fell back on the things taught to him by his mother and learned the painful lesson that world outside his mother´s home was something entirely different. He learned that, despite her best attempts, his mother was too idealistic. Many of the things that she taught his brother and himself just couldn´t be used in the world that the Son of Sparda resided in. Politeness, manners, courtesy... he tossed aside all the so-called Rules of Social Interaction drilled into him and followed to only rule that counted: the strong live and the weak die. Niceties were only fit for the ignorant and the ignorant refused to recognize that the real world was soaked in blood and vengeance.
Dante was not ignorant.
Dante was a Sparda and a damn good demon hunter --Paranormal Investigator, according to his business license-- and was the best there was since his old man bit the dust. And in the interest of continuing to be the best, Dante had to muster every possible advantage he could get to properly defeat opponents, even if his advantage was gained through insults, dirty tricks or plain old knowledge. First off, it was just plain stupid to make a career of hunting monsters that were stronger and meaner than a human could ever be and, secondly, even if he was a half demon, they were full-fledged Monsters and it´d be suicide to fight something you knew absolutely nothing about.
That´s why Dante needed to find his own unfair advantage.
He couldn´t always assume a demonic form at will and was ignorant of its real power until the job on Mallet Island, so he manufactured a different kind of advantage. It was always easier to kill a demon you knew about. That´s why Dante kept studying, even though he had more than enough strength to kill the odd demon that he wasn´t familiar with. Knowledge saved him from a more than a few close calls. It was too dangerous to rely on information from a single source but somehow, Dante doubted that demon-kind would willingly give a traitorous, half-blooded kin-slayer access to information that detailed their weaknesses. The last thing they needed was a more efficient hunter, so he had no choice but to rely on human records.
One thing Dante discovered early in his studies was that languages were astonishingly bad at describing things originating from outside their country of origin. But, of course, he knew that some discrepancy was to be expected. He just didn´t expect to find the amount of errors that he did. The thing about languages was that only things that were encountered often or that were of great importance were given adequate words to describe. Things that the people didn´t know or care about, weren´t.
That´s why Dante made it a point to learn as many languages as he could.
It was bad enough that he had to rely on second-hand sources that he knew were biased without having to worry about the translation. He needed to eliminate as many dangerous factors from his line of work as possible, which included his research material. The last thing Dante needed was a fatally misinterpreted term. It only took one such mistake on Dante´s part to make it painfully clear to the demon hunter that it was in his best interest to use direct sources.
Fortunately, Dante was always better at studying opponents than his brother was, which was probably why Nelo Angelo couldn´t actually kill him. Dante just knew his brother better --although he didn´t actually recognize Nelo Angelo as Vergil until it was too late-- something inside him must have recognized his brother´s fighting style and found the inherent weakness. Dante prepared for every eventually, that´s why he didn´t falter in the fight when Nelo Angelo did.
That´s why he was able to kill Nelo Angelo.
That´s why he killed Vergil.