Devil May Cry, Volume 1 Book

Where do I begin?
The Devil May Cry novels have some dear yet mixed memories for me. My interest in them blossomed in 2013, I'd say. I would often see them just neatly sitting there on the shelf in the Boardwalk library, in the area where I'd often hang out instead of the community room, or just browse through what they had there. Ah, the memories in that small area... Many, many dear memories with me and my best friend. Other memories reside as well aside from with only him, but any moment shared with him have always been the most important to me.
Anyway, moving on. I never really knew what these novels were aside from Devil May Cry. For a long time, I assumed it was pretty much a two volume compilation/adaption of the Devil May Cry story up until that point (so all four games). Boy, was I wrong, haha!
I actually did read some of it, like a random chapter out of one of the books while I was waiting for my dear best friend, back in I wanna say 2014, then I never read it again until last year, despite my reoccuring intentions to between those years.
It took me a while to get through the first arc, honestly... It just took me a while to get past Denvers, which is horrible because he's only in maybe 4 chapters at max. But about the time I got to Grue and his daughters and seeing Dante (or rather, Tony) interact with them, I was totally immersed. I loved Grue, and the relationship Tony/Dante had with him and his daughters Jessica and the other two whose names I forgot was heart warming to watch and I honestly wanted more. It was like he really had a family in his crime partner and his family.
Unfortunately, with the emergence of the suave and mysterious new mercenary in town, Gilver (whom we find out to be Vergil in the final chapter, surprise, surprise), things begin to go awry for Tony/Dante. Well, actually... From the very beginning of the book, demons wreak havoc throughout the night, some of which are very familiar enemies to the first, second, and third games (so basically iconic DMC small enemies). In the beginning, they live in the shadows and only come out during a certain time of night, picking off any unlucky civilians who happen to be out that late, which just so happens to be Denvers after his 99th fight with Tony. This fight was definitely a big one too, he had a butt load of paid mercenaries at his disposal, all armed and pointed at Tony. Reluctantly, Tony disposes of every single one of them in the time it takes for a dust cloud to clear, however, his beloved red coat suffers the necessary sacrifice for surviving such an insane barrage of bullets against one man. Tony tosses his coat to Denvers and tells him to get it fixed for him, then wanders off to go drinking at the dinkiest bar around, his favorite place, and the mercenary gathering hub-- Bobby's Cellar.
As for Denvers, he parts ways and begrudgingly heads to a shop to see if he can't get the darned coat fixed. As the air grows chillier, and the night grows darker, Denvers covers up with the red swiss cheese coat, anything to help warm his flesh. Unfortunately, that night would be his last, as demons emerge from the shadows, wailing "DAANTEEE" and hack Denvers into pieces.
Around this time, Dante/Tony is just doing his own thing, giving Nell Goldstein, his personal gunsmith as well as his unofficial surrogate mother (as stated by Gilver and demonstrated between both Tony and Nell's interactions and attachments to each other, as he resembles her son and is thus as much her surrogate son as she is his surrogate mother) a visit to modify a gun he took off of Denvers.
She's a curt old woman who is always focused in her work and always scolds Tony for being reckless, and yet she'll never turn him away. Even when she tells him to get out, she still won't mind it if he stayed, and she often lets him mooch food off of her too, and allows him to pay her in payments. For all the smack she gives him, he gets a lot of slack from her too. As for Tony/Dante, she's probably the one person he ever let his guard down around the most.
Now, as for Denvers. Being that he's dead, you'd think he wouldn't see of him again, right? Well, as seen with a couple incidents already that Tony and his partner Grue have had to deal with, something has been raising the dead in their small city. Tony encounters Denvers again, but this time he's just pieces of a corpse barely being held together, most of all his head, which hangs by a single vein or tendon. As he approaches Tony, he still dons that swiss cheese red coat, this time stained a far dirtier red than before. Tony is disgusted and mortified, but doesn't let it show. He considers this their 100th fight as he puts his self proclaimed "rival" of sorts to rest.

Shadow demons, or just demons, have been possessing corpses (and later on, they even possessed the living and had them gauge out their eyes and proceed to eat their own eyeballs as they screamed out Dante's name. This ended up being Grue's grave as he let off a bomb after Gilver had cornered him there while Grue was on a job to take out one kid, which he did, to get a lot of money for medicine for his daughter). Grue managed to take out all of these fresh zombies, but at the end of the novel, Gilver replaces those numbers by killing every single regular in Bobby's Cellar, including Bobby, and turning them into his zombie army, leaving them with a slight bit of consciousness and will so as to let the second and new Nexus feed off of their misery, as that is what kept the gate to hell open and growing.
The first Nexus was in the basement of the sanatorium which Grue's oldest daughter Jessica was taken to after he died. The source of the Nexus was Jessica's inexplicable pain, emotional and physical, not only with the loss of her father, but her strange unexplainable illness and the fact Gilver/Vergil actually turned her into a part of a tree, one which pulsed and grew with every pained breath she took.
Tony/Dante found her after he rushed there the moment he found out she was there, just to see her, then to save her when he found that the sanatorium had been overrun. Finally, once he found her, the only choice left to him was to kill her. He called her a princess one last time and ended her suffering, as well as destroyed that Nexus.
Soon after, he used the remainder of his savings to open two bank accounts for Grue's two remaining daughters. But who knows who would take care of them now. That was never quite touched on again.

Throughout the novel, Tony exhibits signs of a demon but is in fact mostly human, whereas Gilver, or Vergil, is mostly demon and posing as a human, covered in a suit and bandages.
I did skip over many details in the novel, such as the incident with the Oz Club where the two brothers do indeed fight together, but in Gilver's case this is almost entirely just to study Tony's skills and moves up close, not only that but Gilver ALWAYS chose Tony as his partner for every mercenary gig so as, again, to study how he fights. That way, there would be no way for Gilver to be caught off guard and therefore no way to lose to Tony/Dante.

What happens to awaken Dante within Tony Redgrave is the death of his surrogate mother, Nell Goldstein. Right after a visit with her where she was especially curt but Tony accepted she'd open up next time, Gilver pops in, gives her a fatal wound to the back, and sets the entire building on fire.
Roughly three blocks away, Tony Redgrave sees and hears of the fire and races back to the building, grabbing a hose and rushing inside to save her, where he finds her working away at her work bench, among the flames.
She manages to entrance him to forget all his surroundings and to come closer with her calm and maternal tone. She gives him a gift, having him assemble his new guns, Ebony and Ivory (he always broke everything else he bought from her that she'd make especially for him). We actually get in depth detail of the mechanics of these two guns and how they work and compliment each other, as well as the engravings she left on there for him. As she never knew him as Dante, Tony Redgrave's name was engraved into them, as well as her personal shop's name, original spelling error and all.
And there, Ebony and Ivory was born in the same flames that took the life of the mother that made them, and anyone would be certain that her soul rose to heaven, as Dante seemed certain it did as she died in his lap. She kept trying to speak to him about something...but I couldn't quite understand it. But I think she was asking him either to take care of her son...or to take care of himself.
Once he was finally able to leave her body, all he had to say was a whisper that disappeared on the wind, "Goodbye, Mother" and he promised to her body that he'd treat Ebony and Ivory more amazingly than any other guns there ever were. He also apologized to her body for having lied to her about his name and identity, for even he had forgotten who he was born as, as his real mother Eva had told him to forget it all and run. So he did exactly that. He forgot his name Dante and he forgot who he was and he became Tony Redgrave, even with a slightly different personality. But there was no more forgetting anymore. He was Dante the Devil Hunter, son of Sparda.
But even in his final showdown with his brother Vergil, he still never awakens as a demon. But even after he is missing four of his limbs, he still manages to defeat his twin brother Vergil/Gilver, who he finds out to be his brother only as Vergil begins to fade away back to hell, defeated and writhing in miserable agony. Dante continues to scream out his name but Vergil can hear him no longer, nor could he respond even if he wished to. Dante wanted answers, but he received none. Many hours later, Dante awakens again, healed but not fully, to a familiar voice. His friend and an informant Enzo (the ONLY survivor out of everyone Dante knew in the novel, even the slut who drug him home to sleep with him was possessed and slit her wrists and bled out for her contact with him).
Dante ends up moving to a new city and starting up a business called Devil May Cry, where Enzo will often still throw jobs his way, often jobs that nobody else will take but need to be done. Dante accepts only because he needs to keep the lights on and the toilets flushed. And then a crazy blonde lady crashes through his front door on a motorcycle...

Now, to better explain. This first novel of the two Devil May Cry novels takes place predating Devil May Cry 3, which is a prequel to Devil May Cry 1. The novel is meant to end where Devil May Cry 1 begins, but that's because it was written and published about three years before the release of Devil May Cry 3. This was the original prologue, but now it's the prologue to the prologue.
Fun fact? The informant Enzo is a reoccuring character originating from the Devil May Cry series, but he's never been in a single game. The most he was mentioned was "an/my informant" in the games, and by name in the game manuals. Other than that, he's been in every other medium, as well as even crossed over into the Bayonetta franchise under the same name, personality, appearance, and purpose. Does this suggest the two worlds could be connected? Probably so, but nothing has been confirmed. Maybe Enzo is just a god, haha.

For my own personal opinion? I spent more than the first half of what I read of this book in complete confusion but desiring more, desiring answers. I wanted to just drop the book after Grue died, but then I read on the Wikipedia page that the events of this book takes place all but directly after the death of Dante and Vergil's mother, where Dante has a forced amnesia. Another fun tid bit of information? My best friend told me that in the developmental stages of the first game, Devil May Cry was originally meant to be another Resident Evil game. But someone from Capcom took a look over it and thought, "this has a hell of a lot of potential to be its very own franchise. Do it. Give it a name and make it something of its own. I think it'll do great" and look at it now. It really has done great.
I also love how they make Dante out to be so super cool, but also a good role model for younger people. Such as how he's cool and stuff but thinks unnecessary killing and smoking is totally "uncool" and does his best to avoid both.
I like how Dante keeps his cheesy, dorky, but also cool "facade" while his morals still remain, even though he often needs to break them. A lot of what he does and thinks contradicts much of others thinks he does and thinks, but that's just how he is as a person.
The novel felt underwhelming after I found out all the spoilers, but it was still a fun ride, and I'll never look at the franchise or any of the games the same as I did before. This is a must read for any fan of the Devil May Cry series.