Memnon

Beatrice was successful in bringing back Dante whom she considered to be her savior thanks to the belief ingrained by Ursus into her.

She had an almost blind faith in Ursus who had shown her the way to walk out of her greatest ordeal.

Her desire to meet Ursus once again grew past the normal bounds and was on the verge of becoming her obsession. She thought that she wanted to thank him for showing her the way but it was no longer the reason for why she happily went to sleep every night despite the fear of nightmares eating away at her.

But what greeted her every time she landed into the dreamscape was the constantly recurring nightmare that haunted her and tortured her in new ways.

After failing countless times she lost her hope of ever seeing Ursus again. As an alternative, she had to rely on the only person she had at the moment; Dante. Even Ursus had vouched for him so Beatrice felt that he could be trusted.

She leaned on him when she felt low and asked for his help when she was in need. He even ran errands for her whenever she needed.

Beatrice didn't care if Dante did it out of the obligation he felt towards Vergil or because he felt pity towards her. What mattered weren't thoughts...but actions. And based on his actions, Dante was anything but unreliable.

Despite complaining all the time Dante was very diligent in taking care of her.

At first Beatrice had been on guard against him but even she was eventually won over by his comical antics and the way he looked after her and comforted her after she awoke from her nightmares.

He even brought her meals and satisfied her cravings in the middle of the night all the while complaining and running his vulgar mouth all over. No matter how idiotic he looked, she knew he could be relied on since Ursus had assured her of that.

Other than her recurring nightmares, she lived a very peaceful life without fear. She didn't have to worry for her life and the safety of her child at every turn.

A month had passed and Dante was still the same as ever. Something did change along the way though and that was what Dante thought about her. At the beginning she knew that Dante believed her and was constantly worried about her well being. He used to pretend to be carefree but was actually constantly on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary.

But lately that had changed.

Dante had started to think that all of this was just in her head and she had been suffering from delusions all along. Although he didn't say it outright, Beatrice had felt the difference. She had gleaned it from his expressions and body language. This caused her tremendous grief even though she didn't show it to him.

Seeing such an expression on his face for the first time, Beatrice had actually started to consider whether she had truly gone mad. Once again, she started praying for the appearance of Ursus in her dreams to confirm whether the previous time had been a dream or just the product of her mind.

To her horror, she wasn't able to see even his shadow after their first meeting.

...

Afraid of the constant disappointment that the non-appearance of Ursus caused her, Beatrice tried her best to avoid falling asleep because the more she slept the more disappointment she had to endure.

It was late into the night and Dante had already fallen asleep on the couch which was his designated place of duty at night.

She could hear his carefree snoring sound. How she wished she could sleep like that, but she had her burdens to bear and nightmares to fight against.

Unable to hold her droopy eyelids from closing shut, she eventually drifted off into the dreamscape where endless torment awaited her on the norm.

What she found was not the familiar scene of her bloody body but a rather different but hellish world. It was like a merger between the world that she was familiar with and some dark world. It felt as if her world had been taken over by a shadowy darkness. Endless shadows squirmed around her and in the distance two huge bloodshot eyes stared at her in an eerie manner. The gaze was like the prickling of a thousand needles and her whole body twitched just by looking at it once.

"So you are the imbecile who dared to conceive a child bearing that traitor's filthy bloodline." A tyrannical voice unlike the cool and calm voice of Ursus welcomed her in the dreamscape.

Although she could not determine the exact source of the voice, she knew the voice belonged to the owner of those eyes. At the same time she had a hint of the identity of the voice which also confirmed the reality of Ursus's existence once again to her.

She calmly faced the gaze no matter how irritable it felt and responded, "So you must be someone from the underworld. Ursus warned me before that one of you might be making contact soon. So are you Mundus or one of his henchmen?"

As soon as she said this, the eyes revealed a fierce light that seemed to burn her entire being causing her to choke on her words. She desperately tried to get herself together as she waited for an answer from the owner of those eyes.

"How dare you take the name of the exalted king of the underworld? You lowly ant, you think YOU deserve to be in the presence of His Majesty." the voice thundered.

The light in those eyes eased up after taking out its anger and Beatrice was able to breathe again.

"So I can exclude the possibility of it being Demon King Mundus and that...that leaves me with a gazillion demons to sort through if I want to determine the identity of the one in front." deduced Beatrice in her heart sarcastically. She had hoped that the demon would reveal its identity itself. Now she had no other option but to ask directly.

"Then who are you?" the calmness in her voice had yet to fade despite the torture she had endured just now.

"I am His Majesty's servant, Memnon. I am one of the swords at his beck and call."

"So you are just a little punk pretending to be awesome…hehe" Beatrice was doing everything in her power to piss him off in order to understand more about this demon.

"Impudent. How can a puny ant like you know what I am capable of? Even Sparda would not dare to say such a thing in front of me." raged the voice as if it was barely holding back from tearing Beatrice into pieces.

"What do you want from me?" She had confirmed that this Memnon was not some low ranking demon but someone among the top level of the food chain but she still couldn't understand what he wanted from her by making his appearance.