Page 80
Lara Stephanie Taylor
Lara readjusted her slim yellow-framed sunglasses to hide her exotic emerald green eyes, as she walks down the partly deserted, but well-lit street. This was Emanel City, close to the neighboring Capulet Town, in the state of Maine. Emanel was a city that was a shore-sided city close to the borderline of Canada and was more famous for historical sites and the history it had depicting the Legendary Dark Knight, Sparda. Anyway, the night was colder than usual, and there was a bit of a dense fog drifting in the industrial district.
She wore a pair of brown leather boots almost to her knees, and a medium-length denim jean skirt. She wore form-fitting biker shorts under the skirt, and strapped to her left thigh was a holster for her customized .50 caliber magnum in a M1911-style, with the magazine chamber rune marked for an extended capacity of one thousand bullets per double-split chamber (so it really holds 2,000 of ammo). Strapped to her hips was a pair of medieval-designed daggers which also doubled as throwing knives. Her sleeveless shirt was form-fitting fishnet, and she wore under a violet tube top that exposed a great deal of cleavage. Of course, she also wore over a wide black vest, which leaves her fishnet-clad lightly toned stomach exposed. Her hair was long and fell like a black silk curtain. She kept it held in a styled ponytail. Her hands were clad in fingerless black and crimson-strapped bracers, and she wore a leather choker around the neck with a short charm of a gold and silver-lined lightning bolt.
Right now, she was regretting not wearing her custom-designed dark green and black trench coat. She didn't like how cold it suddenly got right now. A violent gust of wind blew through, followed by the sounds of low growling. She reaches up and decides to take her sunglasses off, and places them within a special pocket on her skirt that acted like an expanded magical moleskin bag. In the shadows between closed-down industrial buildings, red eyes glare at the sixteen year old hot teen.
"Well, well, well, so the rumors are true. Monsters lurking out here... or should I say a couple of hungry demons?"
The young lady gave a wicked smile as the demons reveal themselves. They were a cross of Hellspawns that had bred with a Scarecrow only with frayed leather wing-like scarves, and eyeless visored helmets with demonic markings etched on the black gray surface. Demonic triple-curved horns grew from the sides and back of their malformed heads, and their lower jaws were revealing sharpened saw-like teeth. They were armed with double-bladed red scythes, held in their spider-long three-fingered claws, with broken chained shackles clamping their wrists and ankles.
"A young human... with no fear? We'll change that quickly once we carve you up and devour you... you radiate energy, and we enjoy devouring humans with high spirit power!"
She grins as they charge her, and she surprised them by crouching quickly, and then bounding high into the air. With an acrobatic forward flip, she brought her hands together in a cupping motion, and thrusts forward. A blast of concentrated Ki causes an explosion, injuring the closest in the epicenter of the blast. Landing on her feet, she draws forth her gun she dubs Lady Saint, and unleashes a rapid-fire assault of bullets. The large bullets tear through the demons, making them scream in pain. After all, all her bullets are blessed and washed under Holy Water, which makes them much more effective towards demons and lesser devils. Five sprint away and converge upon her in a flank, forcing Lara to discard her attack and avoid their swinging blades. Using one of her daggers to block three blades at once, and her gun angled to block a fourth, she kicks the fifth before it could attempt to slice at her neck.
The ones she held off had their heads blown apart, and she stands quickly as the slain demons burn away into burning ash and gore.
"Shit... did you follow me, Dante?"
Behind her a short distance, was a man with white hair holding two smoking guns. He wore a red coat, and had a wicked-looking sword clipped to his back somehow.
"I was just in the neighborhood, is all, Lara," he responds, grabbing Rebellion and drawing it.
Then he throws it, making it fly right past Lara and into the demon that almost killed her. Keyword almost, as she was bending back just slightly that the scythe was looking like it was resting just under her breasts. With a smile, the blade is kicked and she puts five bullets into its face before it explodes. Grabbing Rebellion she throws the sword back to Dante who easily catches it, and joins Lara in exterminating the rest of the demon horde. Cold steel flashing through mutant flesh, and bullets spilling loads of blood; it was a deadly dance Lara and Dante played. Hailstorms of bullets from Dante's guns Ebony and Ivory will scream through the air, and flashes of the steel blade carving through the wave of demons. Bullets from Lara would join the flight, or she would easily slide, step, twirl, and punch and kick in good defense, and lash out with her impressive offense of Ki-timed attacks or her gun Lady Saint.
The final demon staggered back, as Dante killed its partner. The two lined their guns up, "Jackpot!" and each bullet from Ivory and Lady Saint, transforms the last demon into sandy ash, and the spilt blood dissolves.
"Well, you've gotten better, jailbait."
Lara's response is to punch a chuckling Dante in the arm. "Be careful Dante, I'm not legal yet."
"Heh... so Lara, we're you bored or actually doing something?"
"Oh I was just in the neighborhood myself. Of course, I was going to crash at your place for the night before I leave and head off to my next destination."
Lara joins Dante in walking out of the industrial district.
"You don't mind if I crash at the DMC would you?"
"Hm... not really. If it keeps Lady, Trish, and maybe even Patty, off my case, it'd be good."
She grins. She soon gets aboard Dante's motorcycle, and grabbing onto him tightly, he races off towards the Devil May Cry shop, which is located in the business district of Emanel.
The date is May 18, 1996.
She was the firstborn twin of her parents; her fraternal brother was Harry Potter. However, a couple months later her family was attacked, but then Voldemort died trying to kill Lara; Dumbledore mistook the backlash of magic that splashed off Lara, carving a scar the shape of a lightning bolt upon his temple, and proclaimed him as the savior of the Wizarding World. Then her family drifted away and doted upon Harry while she was left in the darkness. Lara was just four years old, and able to speak a bit, but her uncle's Sirius and Remus had caught her with a large garter snake in the Potter Garden, and she had been hissing at it. Immediately her father had been furious with her because she apparently had a dark wizarding trait to speak to snakes. Her mother was also horrified, that such a dark wizard trait was in her genealogy. Because of Dumbledore, she had been seen as a dark witch in the eyes of her "family", and the feelings of ignorance and showing little love to her died completely. From the emotions of abandonment, she ran away.
It was here that her magic flared due to her emotions of feeling abandoned by the family, she Apparated across the ocean and ended up in America. She was found by an elderly witch in the alleyway near her home in a hidden wizarding community in Kansas, and took her to St. Lorelei Hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The woman adopted her into her family and she found love regardless of her little Parseltongue trait in her DNA. She discarded the name Adrianna Potter when she turned seven years old and replaced it with Stephanie Taylor, after her adopted mother's maiden name and the new family that took her into their lives. She was also a prodigy and blazed through her years at Sunnyvale Magical Academy. By the time she was thirteen, she had graduated and decided to go on world travels, her adoptive family getting her a magical visa that allowed her to travel the world, and also showed she was an official U.S. citizen.
On her trip that took her to Japan, she met a family clan by the name Kusanagi. The young man she met, Kyo, took a liking to her. She learned how to defend herself and took a liking to the King of Fighters tournaments that are held annually. She became the youngest champion when the tournament held a first-ever Junior Division when she was fourteen, and had also tapped into the power of Ki.
And all the while, the problem with the Dark Lord Voldemort got worse in magical England, with his resurrection during the final task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and having crippled for life the so-called Boy-Who-Lived; Harry survived, but the damage to his core left him from Half-Blood to Muggleborn, as well as crippled and left in a wheelchair. Voldemort declared war on Wizarding Britain, and destroyed the Potter Family by revealing he had intended to kill Lara Potter, the missing "dark child", but fate intervened and shielded herself to reflect the curse back at him and ended his first life. The marking of Harry Potter with the scar was because of the shield of magic that fully protected Lara.
It was also around this time when she left and reluctantly decided to go to Europe; she crossed paths with a young woman named Lara Croft. She and Croft got along well, despite their age difference. This is the second place where she gained her love for dizzying heights and acrobatics like Croft. But her short stay at the Croft Mansion went long, when she got pulled into the adventure with Croft regarding her missing father, and some ancient treasure named Triangle of Light. And all the mystical things she saw while being a ride along in the adventure, she knew would have baffled the Wizarding World.
A year later returning home for awhile and then leaving again, she met a man named Dante in Emanel City, Maine. Her encounter was purely by instinct when she heard loud roars coming from some abandoned theater. Inside, she saw demons being attacked, and then some creepy-looking man took a knife towards a young girl. Dante at this time had finished killing the demons, but it was Lara who stepped in and saved Patty from being killed, whilst kicking the man's face into the ground. He was then scared off by Dante's gun. Afterward, she stuck around and got involved with the Abigail Incident. By then, she learned how to use firearms, and crafted her own with Dante's help. She also got along well with Trish, Lady, and even Patty (much to Dante's displeasure and Morrison's amusement).
When Dante and the girls headed off a week after the Abigail Incident, Lara also disappeared, but not following the trio of devil hunters. She still however kept contact with Morrison.
"Well, we're here, Lara. You can use the bedroom upstairs, as I never use it at all."
"Yeah, you always sleep on that old couch of yours."
The twosome had pulled up to the building, where inside it looks like something was going on. As Dante chained up his motorbike so thieves wouldn't steal it, she walks into the Devil May Cry, the bell jingling alerting company inside.
"Hello girls, missed me?"
A cheerful cry sounds as Patty rushed to Lara, hugging her.
"Lara! You're back!"
She hugged Patty back. The girl didn't change much, but she was a bit taller now.
"So, what are you doing back, Lara?" Lady asks, also hugging the teen.
"Just needed a place to stay for the night, and then in the morning I'm heading off towards the coast of Santorini. If you saw the news lately, they reported about an earthquake that happened there that revealed some ancient temple of sorts. Lara Croft sent me an e-mail asking if I'd like to join her, and I am."
"Going treasure hunting, eh?" Trish spoke up with her usual smiles.
"Eh, what's going on here?" Dante asked, referring to how girly his office had transformed.
Patty just gave a smile. "We're having a girls' party only, Dante. I hope you don't mind."
Dante grunted, as Lara laughed at the amusement of the situation.
=0=0=
Harry was alone in his bedroom. For a year, his life went from bad to worse. For everything the dual-haired teen believed (mostly black with swirls of red along the top and frontal sides), he was supposed to be a savior. No, instead his twin sister, who the family all but abandoned and disowned, was the real target of Voldemort's failed killing. His lightning scar was no longer marring his face, as it had finally been healed, once of course the very tiny fragmented shard of Voldemort's soul (his Horcrux fragment) was destroyed.
And now, even a year after the real truth was disclosed to the public, Lara Adrianna Potter was nowhere to be found. It's as if she had vanished into thin-air, never existing in the first place. And it tore his parents apart. He felt like scum. He always believed Slytherins were evil, that those with dark traits (unlike his uncle Remus) were evil. His sister having the trait of a dark wizard made him hate her, and always wishing she never existed. And now... his sister's gone, disowned from a family that now is trying to find her and take her back into their arms. Not even Dumbledore could find her. She's... gone forever...
Well, she's not really gone forever. No, she just arrived via Portkey assigned to her from the United States Department of Magic to meet up with Lara Croft. Once she's heard on the news about some hidden temple being discovered after the earthquake, she got email from her friend Lara Croft. And here she was... joining the young woman in yet another expedition. Why did she have a feeling this strange earthquake and temple uncovering was going to be more trouble than it's worth?