Scene #7567: The Divine Comedy 2

Owner	Pose
Vergil	The demon's base, Pandemonium, has only grown in the intervening time, Amii and his crew having continued work. Black stone walls and black stone structures built in the Medieval style. The dug stream now feeds a farm with sprouts starting to poke through, and cows and pigs occupy the fenced fields. But the demons themselves do not look celebratory. The mood is serious as they gather up in a circle. Tony Redgrave and Vergil are also here, the latter staying distant. "Thank you all for coming," Amii says grimly. "We will be venturing into the demon world to obtain a stockpile of Demon Arms. These are weapons formed when a demon is defeated and surrenders their power to those who bested them. It is our goal to see these demons restored. We hid them away within the demon world so the natural miasma can quicken their essence once more. But now that we have a base that provides that need, we must retrieve them." He raises his clawed hand and adds, "I have the means to open a door to this world. But only in places where the veil is thin. So there will have to be a short trek to the stockpile and back again. But make no mistake; this will be a gruelling endeavour. Demons will see us and attack. The smell of you all will draw in even more. But with numbers, I believe our safety is assured." He plunges his hand into the air, stabbing a purple wound into space itself. Vergil finally walks over, a gleam in his eyes, as a portal is brute-force opened by the demon. "It will be war the moment we enter. Follow me, and don't wander off, least you become lost." He steps through. Going in after him lands you in an ashen hellscape. The sky is black, streaked occasionally with flashes of lightning. The ground is choked in soot and dust, but chunks of it that rise up above this thick carpet look disturbingly organic and pulsing. And as per Amii's word, demons set upon them instantly. Ghoulish figured, clad in rags and swinging crude yet sharp scythes. "Well, how's this for a homecoming?!" Tony exclaims, immediately firing his paired handguns into the masses. "Did you expect anything less?" Vergil asks, sidestepping a swipe and cutting the offending demon in half.
Hesinca	"Yeah, demons are jerks," Hesinca affirms. "Ah, no offense to any demons here," she adds. She summons her crew - a small army of prinnies, armed to the teeth*. "We'll be fine," she adds. "It's not like there's gonna be a thousand demons waiting for us as soon as we step through the portal, right?" Hesinca's group steps through the portal. Immediately, they are set upon by a thousand demons. "Looks like you were wrong, dood," says one of the prinnies as the battle is joined. "A-prinny-whose-been-promoted-to-grendade-duty-says-what?" says Hesinca. None of the prinnies are stupid enough to answer, so she just picks up the closest one and chucks it into the midst of the masses regardless.
Cantio	"Demon Arms..." Cantio repeats to herself as she recounts Amii's explanation of today's venture into the demon world, sword already drawn and transformation already plasticky as she steps though the portal opened by the broken horn'd demon. "Will we know them when we see them, or do you think they've blended into their surroundings by now? Considering their power, it should be easy enough to figure it out, but..." She rubs her forehead lightly for a moment, then raises the handle of her sword to her shoulder as she gets into a fighting stance when the swarm of ghouls approaches. "R-right, that should work just fine. If we stick together, we'll be fine!" As Tony fires into the mass and Vergil gets to chopping, Cantio joins the latter in the front lines. "Is this really your old home? They don't look that happy to see either of you!" As she speaks, she stabs her weapon into one ghoul before swiping one hand sideways to bash another clump from the side with a wave of telekinetic force.
Staren	There's a familiar-seeming catperson among the group gathered here. "Wait, we're going to actual hell?" Staren considers this as she pulls a pistol and a magazine from her bag, swapping the mag before putting it back. "Are demons vulnerable to silver in this world? I forget. ...All systems go, commencing field test of remote armor system." As she speaks a bunch of camera drones warp in around her, and then the familiar armor -- smaller now -- warps right onto her body: Similar in style to Reploid armor, but a bit bulkier since it's worn rather than built in. Curved plating, consisting of white helmet, breastplate, gauntlets, crotch piece, and tall boots, combined with slightly thinner, also-white armor on the upper arms, upper legs, and belly to allow mobility. Five small crystalline discs on the front of the chestplate serve as forcefield emitters, and a noticeable but not quite bulky enough to interfere with movement 'backpack' unit holds the armor's power source and has clips that hold some kind of scoped rifle. A pistol and a slim cylindrical device are holstered in clips on the side of the armor. The helmet has a transparent, pale blue visor. Pointed protrusions in the helmet allow room for her ears, and her tail is covered in armored segments. There is a rectangular, flat blocky bulge behind each shoulder to the sides of the backpack, and the dual particle beam cannons appear as a pair of cylindrical bulges on the sides of the right forearm near the wrist. Last but not least, of course, hanging at Staren's side is the trusty messenger bag of holding -- for combat, it's inside an armored cover and secured to her side by clips on the armor. She moves arms and legs a bit, testing that everything is working. "I'd like to redesign it, but I'd just /really/ feel more comfortable going to a hostile dimension wearing armor, you know?" Staren oohs interestedly as the portal is opened, no doubt gathering some interesting scan data, then follows Vergil through, the drones clustering together to fit through and then spreading out to try and cover multiple angles on the battlefield. And... the demons attack immediately. Staren doesn't even have time to sight enemies or calculate anything, there's just demons already almost in melee! Being equipped with familiar weapons serves her well, as without thought she raises her right arm to blast with the beam cannons and draws a laser sword with her left to try and skewer any getting too close! "It isn't gonna be like this the whole way, is it?!"
Vergil	"None taken," Amii says to Hesinca. It's hard to tell under that chitinous mask, but he might be smiling forcibly. Tony, Vergil, Sabnock, Leraje, Stolas and Haborym are all silent. "We concealed them. But don't worry, I know where they're hidden. And they're not so concealed that it would take me time to extract them," Amii answers Cantio. "Just focus on keeping the hordes off my back." "Not the Judeo-Christian hell, or anything of the sort," Amii reassures Staren. "It is not an afterlife. Merely another realm occupied by demons." Within the chaos of battle, the demons fight and answer questions. "Oh no, it will get much worse!" Sabnock answers Staren, swinging his giant head around on a chain to carve through the crowds. "Nah, this was our Dad's home," Tony answers Cantio, burying his gothic broadsword up to the hilt in a demon. "And him being our Dad is exactly why they're not happy to see us." "Father was the mightiest of all demons, and we have inherited that power. It is no more than mere jealousy," Vergil adds as he conjures blades to rain down on the horde. Hesinca's Prinny blows a hole into the crowd that is swiftly filled by more demons pouring in from the back row. Cantio slices at some, but they swiftly juke to the side, only to run themselves onto Vergil's blade. "Focus. Demons are not mindless. Combat is everything they live for. You must meet that single-mindedness with your own to stand a chance." Meanwhile, Tony is surfing on one of said demons, laughing up a storm as he does 360s while shooting both guns. Staren's hi-tech weapons do indeed cut through demons, but they don't seem surprised or confused by them. Evidentally, energy blades and piercing lasers aren't that unusual in whatever society exists here. "Clear a path!" Amii roars, and his companions respond. Haborym slithers through, knocking demons flying with his serpentine bulk while immolating them with fire breath. Leraje fires arrows the size of javelins and skewers five at a time. Stolas takes to the air and rains down razor-sharp feathers to cut them to pieces. And finally, Amii scatters a barrage of purple lasers that come down in a straight line, cutting through the crowd. "Go!" he shouts, pointing through the gap in the crowd. Some progress is made as the demonic crowd is thinned and slow to chase. Those scythes were evidentially made for cutting and not transporting, as the demons have to drag them behind them as they move, slowing them down. But as the group advances into a canyon between two mounds of whatever the ground is made of, high pitched cackling comes from above. More demons. These ones have white porcelain faces and forms made of what looks like when you combine hair, sea urchins, and metal filings. Spindly hands clutch enormous, nicked scissors, which they use to snicker-snack through the group while giggling.
Hesinca	"Oh - they're not happy about nepotism, I get it," says Hesinca casually, as if she wasn't in the middle of fighting a horde of other demons. "They're mad because he hired you two and they wanted the position, or whatever." "So I didn't ask - or more likely I just wasn't paying attention, what do these demonic arms do? Are we talking literal arms, or swords and guns and such?" She moves forward through the gap as it's thinned, realizing that not even she can keep this up forever. "Ah, these-" She gets winged by a pair of scissors, which leaves a big gash in her armor but doesn't seem to have actually hurt her. "Hey, these seem pretty emotionally unstable - you all wanna see a trick?" she calls. She gathers her authority. "Hey, scissor things!" she calls at them, trying to get them focusing on her, at least for the few moments this needs in order to work. "HATE EACH OTHER!"
Cantio	"Gh... Look on the bright side. It might not be a thousand!" Cantio tries to raise Hesinca's spirits with an awkward chuckle, although it's somewhat stilted what with the ghouls proving to be more evasive than she had expected. Murmuring a silent apology to the unlucky Prinny on reflex, she turns her attention to Staren's armor with a knowing nod. "Reminds me that I should really add some more pieces to this one..." She sighs once, shaking her arm briefly as though it'll help her recalibrate her aim with that large-ish sword. "We'll give you whatever time you need, Amii. If they're really that mad about Tony's and Vergil's father, though, then..." "We might be able to use this." It sounds good to Cantio in theory, at least. In practice, she's finding herself with little time to actually think at all, and she's forced to adjust on the fly with Vergil's advice. She doesn't adjust quickly enough, though, as the scissor-wielding demons slice into Cantio's sides with painful gashes and startled yelps as she backs up to regain her bearings. "That could have gone better... But I think I've got it now!" Twisting the sword's handle, multiple pieces of the blade blast themselves right off as they start pulsing visibly, firing volleys of tiny lasers at the (enemy) demons to rake across the min multiple directions at once. The lasers themselves aren't particularly powerful, but they're certainly flashy and annoying, ideally providing Cantio with sufficient distractions that she can get in there and start carving through them with far more accuracy than the ghouls! Those damned, evasive ghouls.
Staren	"Yeah, going to a /world/ full of hostile demons is the part I'm worried about!" Staren explains. As battle commentary continues, and it's made clear these aren't mindless beasts but denizens who are indeed not happy to see Vergil & Friends, she asks, "Wait, really? Are they suicidal, or is this one of those things where they just reform somewhere else if we don't kill them with holy stuff?" Single-mindedness is required? "This isn't my first time dealing with this kind of fight, I'll be fine. Just wasn't expecting it today." If she's surprised that the demons aren't amazed at her weapons, she doesn't show it. Although it's hard to see any expression through that armor, anyway. The armor electrifies when touched, Staren kicking demons off with enhanced strength if they have to, mixing attacks from the beam cannons and energy sword, firing missiles from those shoulder racks when needed to clear room, even detonating them /just/ outside her own forcefield. Once the demons thin out she pulls the laser sniper rifle off her back and tries to keep demons from getting close. Until there's a rush of new ones. Staren holds the rifle close and jukes to the side, the scissors taking a slice out of her forcefield and sending her spinning for a split-second before maneuvering jets arrest her in place. "I don't suppose those masks are some kind of weak point? Let's try an experiment..." Staren looks around, tagging targets in an interface no one else can see, and then the missile racks pop up and turn forwards and a salvo of mini-missiles launches -- new ones must have been teleported in to reload them -- twisting and turning through the air as they home in on those masks, airbursting before contact to try and pierce them with high-energy physics, superheated heavy metal-turned-plasma appearing like short-lived lances of piercing light!
Vergil	"It is not 'nepotism.' Our power comes from his blood!" Vergil corrects Hesinca crossly. Amii interjects to answer her next question. "Devil Arms take a form that is most pleasing to the victor. This can often be a simple weapon, but others can become more... esoteric." "Demons just love killing. They see something they might be able to kill and go for it. They don't have much of a survival instinct!" Tony shouts to Staren. Considering his half-blooded nature, it's unclear if Tony is including himself in this summation or not. Vergil is conspicuously quiet. Cantio's lasers are blocked by those great scissors, the metal neither heating nor melting from the pressure, but it does force the wielders to keep them committed to a defensive position and not using them to cut things. Staren attempts an experiment and finds it wildly successful. The missiles blow the masks apart, causing the demons to shriek and dissipate. The scissors go flying, and always come down blade first near the group, but everyone else manages to dodge them just fine. Upon seeing this, everyone else starts doing the same, Tony and Vergil slapping the scissors aside with their own blades to get clear shots. Hesinca barks an order, and those that remain immediately turn on each other, giving the group a chance to move on ahead. They reach the bowl of this valley, an area surrounded on all sides by fleshy hills. "They're here," Amii calls, falling to his knees and parting the ash and dirt with his hands. "Keep them at bay as I extract and account for them!" Unfortunately, surrounded as they are, this is easier said than done. Those scythe-bearing demons have caught up, and now block the only exit. And they've brought friends. Massive, hulking creatures, like crocodiles with only the hind legs to support their girth. Their great maws are wrapped with chains to keep them shut, and metal plates have been haphazardly screwed into their flesh as armour. "Behemoths," Stolas hisses, worry evident in their large eyes. "Whatever you do, kill them without breaking those chains." They charge, like tanks with mouths, to barrel into the group. Sabnock catches one, and even with his strength struggles to stop it. Tony and Vergil chose to simply evade, but the beasts twist and flail like the nature of their own skeletal structure was never explained to them, smashing and thrashing and just always being too close for comfort.
Hesinca	"Oh man. Blood powers are the worst kind of nepotism, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but everyone knows it's true, and they're just too polite to say it to your face," says Hesinca cheerfully as the group presses on. "Hills made of flesh - a bit too modern in a hell for my taste," she notes. "A bit too McMillen, not enough Alighieri, am I right?" "Mistress Hesinca, dood, please stop making references and deal with the behemoths!" says a prinny, right before it gets torn apart. "Fine, fine, then... let's try breaking those chains!" "They just said to not break the chains dood!" "Fine, fine, fiiiiine." She eyes one, lines up and charges straight at it, making an opposed charge. However hard the behemoths hit - Hesinca at full steam is like a runaway freight train!
Cantio	"Nepotism is a real problem, but it's also a convenient bogeyman to distract people from actual problems." Cantio comments, seeming to mirror Vergil's annoyance at the idea. For entirely and definitely unrelated reasons, she even starts wading further into the thick of things, apparently having a bit of a chip on her shoulder that has't quite been resolved yet. If anything, she might have just been reminded of it. Still, it seems to work out relatively well for her as the group reaches the center of the flesh bowl, focusing healing and supporting magics on herself and the group to prepare for the worst. As the giant crocodile-like behemoths crest the hell, she recalls her laser-emitting bits to her blade, then nods once at Stolas' warning. "Don't break the chains.. Got it. We'll just have to cut through the rest of them!" Leaping forward, she tries to kick off a behemoth's face to get some air, but only ends up getting spun around repeatedly with a nasty bruise on her legs for the attempt. Hissing sharply, Cantio rights herself in midair before letting herself hover in place, identifying her possible targets first. She opts to go for the easiest target: The one in Sabnock's grip. "I'm coming in!" She shouts in warning to the headslinger, blasting herself upwards to get some extra height before diving straight down at the behemoth to aim a massive stab right into its giant, meaty head. Just in case that's not enough, Cantio even fires off some more lasers out from her sword to really pile on that damage. With any luck, the light show it might help distract her a little bit from all the bloodshed.
Staren	Staren fires lasers and beams at the approaching hulks but they are not deterred. Staren tries to fly out of the way but gets slammed by the giant monsters bending impossibly! "Gah!" There's a cracking sound as the sparkles of light making up the shield mostly fall off and dissipate, the shield projector sparks, and Staren's sent flying by the impact. They arrest their movement with jets again, hovering by magic. The shield goes offline to recharge. "If I dump enough firepower to kill those things I'm not sure what I'll have left... Maybe I can slow them down, though!" She clips the sniper rifle to her back and holds up a hand, and... a double-barreled shotgun appears in it. One with wires and gems attached to it. Staren dives down, firing one-two at the alligator-demons, each barrel firing a burst of freezing ice magic instead! Hopefully it will chill the reptilian demons' blood enough to slow them down...
Vergil	Hesinca barrels into the advancing swarm and starts knocking them aside, sending them flailing into the dirt. Unfortunately, the consequence for just slamming into their faces full-steam is that those chains are going to absorb some of the impact. The worrying crack of fatigued metal starting to break is audible. Cantio comes down on the one Sabnock is struggling with and buries her blade within its head. "Fine strike!" the armored demon compliments her, holding it in place to her follow-up laser barrage finishes the job. He yeets the corpse into the horde and extends a fist for Cantio to bump. Staren gets the idea to use ice on the seemingly reptilian demons, hoping that normal biology applies. Frost forms over their maws, and it actually seems to have the opposite effect. They lose all interest in the humans and friendly demons and begin thrashing their heads against the ground on the spot, aiming to break the ice off. It seems they can't stand having their mouths shut any more than they already are. Vergil has assumed an iaijutsu stance, and small vortexes of visible slash marks begin engulfing the Behemoths, over and over. But they're always over the head, always scratching and breaking the chains more and more. "Verge, what are you doing?!" Tony demands. "There's no point in defeating them if they're restrained like this. I'd like to see what they can do unshackled." The chains break, and every single Behemoth opens their mouths. Each one lets two massive, fat tongues emerge, each the length of their own body, and begin running about to fit whatever they can in there. Several descend on their own battered or killed kin and begin tearing them apart. Even their own handlers aren't safe, several chasing them out of the canyon. And then in a flash of lightning, they are all scattered. New demons have arrived as a bolt from the black. Slim. Lean. Bipedal with vicious claws. Lighting trails from their heads like hair. Others join them. Ice begins to form and explode, revealing demons with a similar build within. Even more begin to gather at the mouth of the canyon. These ones are not elemental, but are clad in armor. "Blitzes. Frosts. And Assaults. The shock troops of Demon King Mundus himself," Stolas murmurs in horror. "I've got them!" Amii shouts, now clutching an armful of dull weapons in his arms. Only now does he realize their predicament. "Oh no..." "Well now. This is quite the predicament," Vergil says. He still seems very confident. "I'm sure you would like to make good your escape. And I can provide for that." His katana lazily glides through the air, creating a wound much similar to the one Amii tore open earlier. "Yamato allows me to come and go through the demon world as I please. And I can create a portal right here so we may all escape. The price is one of those Demon Arms you have retrieved." Even Tony seems taken aback by this. "Choose quickly. They do not seem intent on letting you have time to think it over. And my price is not fixed. It may yet increase." The Blitzes, the lightning ones attack first. Bouncing around the canyon as bolts of lightning, they slash in passing and never linger long enough to get a clean hit. The Frosts and Assaults present far more tempting targets, but they are fast and vicious with those claws.
Staren	Vergil offers escape at a price. Staren's not sure what the big deal is, but... the vote isn't unanimous, and the fight continues. She can't get the shield back up fast enough, and is attacked from all sides, crying out as she's buffeted this way and that, armor dented, blasted, and rent, electronics exposed in places and shards of armor shattering or being blasted off in sparks. "You asked for it... The rest of you better have a way to get us out of here!" She holds her arms out dramatically and missiles start warping in behind her and immediately launching into the sky. And then more missiles keep warping in. And more. And more! And more!! Mini-missiles as well as those that would require a shoulder launcher, the seemingly-endless-for-a-few-seconds salvos of missiles arc into the sky and then come down, some homing in on demonic targets, others just making an area of overlapping explosions so large that there is nowhere to run but cramped safe spots around Staren's allies! (Some of them might catch Vergil in the edge of their blasts. 'Whoops'. That's what he gets for insulting Hesinca!) As the rain of constant explosions rumbles around her, Staren gives her best mad science cackle! "Face the might of Staren Wiremu, demons!"
Hesinca	Hesinca tchs. "That's bad pool..." She glances at the arms, and then at Vergil, and forces her attention towards the oncoming demons - weathering the lightning storm, pun not intended. The prinnies don't fare nearly as well - they're all dead, for however much death means to a prinny. This conveniently clears the field of the comic relief. "In my world - demons are judged by the face they put forward," she says. "By words and by deed. If you want to talk fathers and family - that's how I was raised. And that's all I got, bloodlines ain't a thing where I'm from, all I got to start out with was the lessons in my head from my father, the truths in my soul from my mother, and a massive inferiority complex from my sisters. I definitely didn't get a magic sword or special blood or whatever." "You know who calls themselves an ally, and then at the last minute turns around and makes that alliance conditional in the middle of a mission, with the enemy literally charging from all sides? Fuckin' angels. An angel will tell you all the words you want to hear, put on whatever face you want to see, and then when the chips are down they'll go do whatever they were planning on originally. That's you. You're being a wingy haloed angel right now," she says, with the level of vitrol implying that this is a terrible slur. "Now me - I'm a demon through and through. I say I'm a bitch, you can expect me to be a bitch. I say I'm irritable, overly destructive, callous about the suffering and feelings of others- all that shit's true, and you go into this expecting anything else from me you're gonna be left waiting a long time." "But..." Energy gathers around her. "By the same token - if I say I'm throwing down with this lot..." She lifts a forehoof. "Then you'd better believe- -that I'm throwing down- -WITH ALL I'VE FUCKING GOT! GEO CHANGE!" She slams her hoof down, bring forth all of her energy, power, and effort, and channeling them into the ground - metaphysically seizing the ley lines of power in this realm and twisting it to her will. The battlefield changes in response - glowing panels granting buffs, beneficial effects, and movement-blocking protection appearing all around the group, while farther afield amongst the charging demons there's poison, silence, attack-down, and worse effectsj. "And you can just remember that when you take your precious Arm and shove it straight up your ass sideways, Angel," she says over her shoulder to Vergil.
Cantio	Fist bumping! Truly, Cantio feels blessed this day. Right until Vergil decides to do the crazy thing, anyway. Still, that show of the swordsman's pride has her weighing her own options, although things don't quite turn out as she expects when they start eating each other instead of charging the group. "That turned out better than exp-" And then things go considerably worse than expected. Even more demons appear, and Cantio takes on a defensive stance in midair while trying not to let her own terror show at the reactions of the allied demons to these new arrivals. Thankfully, those fears are assuaged when the prospect of Vergil opening a way out for them is presented at the cost of one demon arm. "I have no objections. Vergil's been a steadfast ally throughout this." She answers easily, bringing her sword up in front of her as the Blitzes come charging right in to begin the assault. With the battle continuing as long as it has, it should be child's play to break through her defenses at this point. And yet, it's not. Perhaps it's just her getting more used to the fight as it goes on, perhaps it's some kind of ego thing, or perhaps Cantio's just feeling particularly annoyed about something. Whatever the case is, she actually manages to deflect the worst of the Blitz's attacks, tilting her blade to angle their attacks away from center mass or pushing forward at the right moment to defend against their strikes before momentum can build up properly. "Amii? Two, please. One as a show of good faith towards Mister Vergil, and one...!" Cantio says in a requesting sort of way, but her tone is obviously that of someone that's annoyed by something. It keeps her focused, though, as instead of taking ineffectual swings at range, she instead lets those bits of her sword fly out. The bits chase down the Blitz swarm with more of those small laser bursts. It's all a distraction from her real attack, however: Just trying to grab them with telekinetic force and pulling them towards her more allies for optimal wrecking. "... One as a late present."
Vergil	Staren barrages the battlefield with a small country's GDP of missiles. Blitz's are fast, and Frosts and Assaults slightly less fast, but with that degree of saturation, there's not a lot they can do about it, especially when grabbed by Cantio's telekinesis. Bolstered by Hesinca's panels, the destruction is widespread and evident. When the smoke clears, none of them remain. "Lady Cantio... you must understand my hesitation. To me, these are not weapons. These are potential companions. Allies. If I am to use them as bargaining chips... ah, but I suppose humans do throw away human lives to achieve their goals too." The demon leader seems to be grimacing, his fellows looking to him. "We'll accept whatever call you make Amii," Sabnock says softly. Finally, Amii offers the pile of weapons to Vergil. "We cannot afford to linger if we have drawn the eyes of Mundus himself. Any two you like." Vergil sniffs and says, "Did I ask for two? I don't need charity, even if it comes from the most sensible person here." That seems to be all Cantio gets as Vergil claims a zweihander from the pile and slings it across his back. "A shame. I'd have liked to clash with the Prince of Darkness." He swings that katana in a circle, cutting a hole into the world that bleeds with darkness that consumes everyone. When it clears, they stand once more in Pandemonium, the demon's base. "There. A pleasure doing business. Come along Dante." Vergil strides off. Tony gives everyone a slightly apologetic smirk and wave before trailing after his twin.
Cantio	"Ah... I didn't think of it that way. My apologies, Amii." Cantio says after the fact, floating back down to the ground to regroup with the rest of the crew. She looks surprised when Vergil only takes the one, although she also feels a brief swell of pride at being called sensible. That, or it's the fight adrenaline kicking back in once she remembers that they're still in hostile territory. Thankfully, with the group being pulled out of there by Vergil's portal creation, she can finally relax enough to transform back into her more human/less armored form. "You'll have your chance sooner or later, I'm sure. Thanks again! You too, Mister..." A beat. "Dante?" She sounds confused, but shrugs it off and waves lightly as Vergil and Tony take their leave. "Well... That happened. Now that we've secured your friends... Er. Minus one, we can get back to work preparing everything here. A new home for your people, and a new base of operations for our alliance."
Staren	Staren sighs in relief as their combined attacks do indeed clear the area of demons. The shield comes back up a moment later, just in case. "I didn't know these 'arms' were people. They shouldn't be spent, but..." She looks at Vergil. "It seems we have no choice. And I need someone to fill me in on what's going on here. Seems like I'm missing a lot of info. Home? People? Alliance?" She walks through the portal. She can't do anyone much good trapped in hell, after all.