As soon as Dante to jog to catch up to Mirko, "suit up!" She barked even though she was wearing a very strange outfit, a headscarf, sunglasses and a long trenchcoat. "First training starts now, we're going to infiltrate an illegal underground fighting ring! You have thirty seconds!"
Dante blinked, his chest still on fire from the fight. He opened the suitcase left on the floor, popping the locks—
Then he froze.
Inside wasn't his usual grey vest and dark red shorts.
No, he was greeted with something completely different.
Bright pink fabric glared up at him like a slap to the face.
There were fucking pink bunny ears.
A bright pink vest with a heart pattern on the chest.
Extremely tight short shorts.
And another pair of normal black shorts?
Tucked neatly on the top was a small handwritten note.
Dante snatched it up, unfolding it quickly.
"Heard you didn't submit a costume, dumbass, so I helped you out. Not sure why they think I'm your parent, but oh well. Don't worry, it's charming, it will suit you just fine.' — Kazuya."
For a long moment, Dante just stood there, staring down at the suitcase with disgust.
His eye twitched.
"Kazuya."
"Of course it was Kazuya."
"What's all the hold up, rookie?" Mirko called from behind a wall, bouncing impatiently on her heels. "We don't got all day!"
Dante's whole face ignited in pure embarrassment. He let out a strangled scream, muffled behind his suitcase.
Mirko's ears twitched.
Her grin sharpened.
Without warning, she zipped across the room and snatched his suitcase right out of his hands before he could react.
"Hey!" Dante yelled, stumbling after her, even sending tendrils of sludge to grab it.
Mirko dodged all of his efforts and flipped open the case and stared at the disaster inside.
Then, she threw her head back and howled with laughter.
Not a polite chuckle.
Full, barked, doubled over, gasping laughter that echoed throughout the entire empty factory.
"Holy crap! That's adorable!" She cackled, practically wiping tears from her eyes. "'Knew there was something soft under all that fighting spirit!"
Dante wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
Right here, right now.
He snatched the suitcase back and fumbled through it desperately.
"No. No way. I am absolutely NOT wearing the ears." He barked, ripping the bunny ears out of the suitcase and throwing them across the room.
Mirko just grinned wider.
"Okay, we need to hurry. Just wear the vest and shorts, lose the ears. I'm sure you'll still look like my sidekick without it, I think it'd be better if you wore them though." She winked. "Maybe I'll call you bun-bun."
Smoke started to pour out of Dante's mouth and nose, he growled under his breath, pulling on the ridiculous outfit as quickly as he could, his face still red.
Dante was too flustered and his guard was down thanks to the normal pair of shorts among it all to notice the small, soft, fluffy pink bunny tail stitched onto the back of the shorts as he pulled on the tight pink vest.
"It suits you!" She said, clearly having noticed the bunny tail on Dante's backside.
Dante shot her a death glare, slamming the suitcase shut and throwing it aside.
"It does not."
"Sure not, Bun-Bun." Mirko cracked her knuckles. "Now move it. Let's get going to the underground, whole lotta people going missing down there recently!"
Dante muttered every curse word he knew under his breath before he followed her down a small alleyway.
Above them, the storm clouds thickened, thunder rumbling as if it were a warning.
They ended up at a large building with a back entrance.
They both walked in and Mirko led Dante down a winding, rusted staircase that seemed to go on forever, deeper and deeper down into the earth.
The further they descended, the air got thicker and thicker, it was buzzing with energy too.
"You sure were going to infiltrate? To look for villains? Not just to fight?" Dante muttered, tugging at the collar of his stupid pink vest. That's when Mirko shoved something on his head.
It was a bright pink luchador mask.
"What—?"
"Shush, you'll need it." Mirko said casually, hopping down the last few steps. She shoved open a heavy door and music blasted out. Rough, violent and alive.
Dante stepped in and froze.
This place was familiar, well it felt familiar, Dante hadn't actually been here but it was an underground fighting club and he'd been to plenty.
A huge, bartered cage sat at the center of a grimy room, surrounded by shouting spectators, flashing lights and vendors selling everything from drugs to kids toys. Any pro hero would have lost their minds being here.
"Hey sir, my son here wants to participate in the tournament. The names 'Bun-Bun'."Mirko said in a weird accent to a small man sitting at a table with a sheet of paper infront of him.
"Ah yes… one second please." The man whimpered, wrote down bun bun and said, "there's a fight right now for him, go over there…" he pointed to a large cage in the centre of the room.
Mirko smirked, looking at Dante then jerking her thumb toward the cage.
"You need to win, so you can meet the owner of this place."
Dante blinked at her, overwhelmed. "Win what? What do you mean? What is this?"
She shoved him further on. "Not asking for an age was definitely suspicious, and the fact they seem desperate for fighters too… anyways, show me what you're made of, Bun-Bun!"
Before he could argue, she pushed him into the cage and a group of rowdy announcers spotted him.
"A NEW CHALLENGER!" one bellowed into a mic, hyping up the crowd. "Fresh blood, fresh meat and very pink! Let's hear it for… the disastrous… BUN-BUN!!"
The crowd roared with laughter and drunken cheers.
Dante rubbed his face under the mask, groaning internally.
'Why am I going along with this..?' He thought.
"Cmon bun bun! Let's go!" Little Dante barked as he started throwing fists into the air.
Then again…
Cage fights were easy.
It was all simple.
He was a literal champion cage fighter.
And this was wayyyyy better than sitting through endless lectures or stupid hero paperwork.
So he shrugged, stepped fully into the cage and let the door clang shut behind him.
His opponent stepped out… a massive, muscle bound guy with stone skin and a cocky sneer.
The kind of guy that would show up and have a huge ego because he thinks being big meant being invincible.
Dante cracked his knuckles.
What Mirko didn't know… what none of them knew… was that this wasn't his first underground fight.
If they had seen his face, maybe a few would've recognized him as the Ghost of the Underground.
He was a champion after all.
The bell rang.
The biggy lunged.
Dante vanished, like a ghost.
He reappeared infront of the guy.
A twist of his hips, a perfectly timed hardened low sweep that sent the guy crashing to the ground.
Before he could recover, Dante grabbed him by the hair and smashed a bone crushing elbow into his jaw, breaking it.
The crowd roared even louder, not laughing anymore.
Mirko leaned against a wall in the far back, wearing her really bad disguise.
"Well well…" she muttered. "I guess Bun Bun isn't a stranger to the underground fighting game after all…"
Inside the cage, Dante stepped backward, letting his opponent stumble drunkenly to his feet.
Heat emanated from his body, not enough to ignite but enough to fire him up.
His opponent, with his jaw hanging in a disgusting mess, roared and threw a wild haymaker.
Dante avoided it easily, pivoted and drove a hardened knee straight into his ribs.
A sickening crack echoed out from the cage.
Stone skin or not, Dante hit like a truck.
His opponent dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.
Silence fell.
Then the whole room exploded into savage cheers.
The announcer literally screamed into the kid, "BUN BUN WINS AND MOVES ONTO THE NEXT ROUND!!"
He tugged the pink mask again, giving himself some breathing room.
Little Dante burst out laughing, 'I can't take anything serious with that outfit!'
Deep down, Dante was loving this.
He missed this thrill.
This rush.
This pure, unfiltered fight.
Mirko grinned wide from outside the cage, gesturing for him to come over.
"We're just getting started, Bun Bun." She said.
Back in the ring, another opponent, even bigger, stepped into the ring.
And Dante, against all better judgment, rolled his shoulders and stepped back into the cage.
Fine.
If they wanted a show.
Maybe he'd give em one.