24 Chapter 23

-[Dante]-

As much as he disliked acting so differently, he couldn't help but be reminded of the reason why he was doing so.

T.O. Morrow created Mister Twister to find out where Red Tornado was. Due to Dante's intervention, M'gann didn't impersonate Red Tornado and the search continued. Morrow was also the creator of Red Volcano, Red Inferno and Red Torpedo.

To be more specific, the real Morrow created Tornado, Inferno, Torpedo and his android duplicate while said duplicate was supposed to create Red Volcano.

'That won't be happening anymore.' Dante thought as he looked at the sniveling man on the floor, he almost sighed.

Morrow's assistant, Brom Stikk, was human. As easy as it would be to simply turn him into paste, he didn't kill. Well he didn't kill real people, robots and androids don't count.

Whether or not he killed him, word of what happened would eventually reach the light seeing as how Morrow was one of their pawns. That was his main reason for assuming the form he was currently using.

Cameras, Magic…the light always had some kind of convoluted way of figuring out things that happened and he'd rather his visit not be linked to his actual identity.

At most, they'd be chasing Ryomen Sukuna who didn't exist in this world. He focused his attention back on the man in front of him.

"Tell me, where's Morrow? The real one, not this fake." He asked. Seeing the man's fear increase, he added. "Don't fret. I'm not here to kill you, at least not if you do as you're told."

"R-right this w-way!" Brom stuttered as he scampered out of the lab.

Dante followed him as he led him to a different room. It didn't take long for them to reach a room with a hospital bed in the center. An aged frail looking man lay on the bed, hooked to a life support system.

'He's practically a vegetable. I guess it's to be expected from a hundred year old man.' He thought as he looked at the real Morrow who lay like he could die at any moment.

"Well done." Dante said as he turned back to Brom. "Your services are no longer needed."

"W-wha…" the man's words were silenced as a wave of telepathy temporarily shut down his mind, falling unconscious on the cold floor.

He then turned back to Morrow, using his telepathy to delve into the aged man's mind. Other than his goal of preventing the creation of Red Volcano, he had a side goal.

Finding what he was looking for, he began extracting the man's scientific knowledge into his own mind. The library in his mind was ever expanding and he felt a shelf with Morrow's name on it appear as the packets of knowledge filled the shelf in the form of books.

He didn't know how long he was at it but he didn't stop until he got everything. Incomplete knowledge was just as bad as not knowing it.

Though it may have been redundant, he repeated the process for Brom, extracting his knowledge as well as he felt another shelf appear with the man's name. The information would be sorted out and redundant information would be tossed out.

He felt regretful that he hadn't done this during his mission with Ivo and Roquette but he had his reasons. With Roquette working on the virus, it was unknown whether she would be affected if he tried to extract it. Ivo's case was more of forgetfulness on his part.

With the needed knowledge extracted, he moved to his next objective, reaching into Morrow's mind and wiping it clean. It wasn't the most moral thing to do but he had no choice.

The fact that the android Morrow had his memories indicates that there's a way to transfer memories from his mind into a machine or someone else like Dante had just done. If that happened then his success here would be meaningless.

It was either this or kill him…which was something he wanted to avoid. 'You can't transfer memories when there are no memories in there. He's already lived his life, it's not like he's going to be having dinner with someone in this state.' He thought as he heard the frail man groan lightly.

Soon, he was done with his objective. While he had wiped Morrow's mind, he was a bit more delicate with Brom. He only wiped out the man's knowledge of his scientific skills as well as anything related to Dante's visit.

Voice, appearance, smell…they would all seem ambiguous should another telepath attempt to restore his mind. Unlike Psimon and M'gann who tended to fry people's brains where pieces of their mind were still, Dante's method was more permanent.

They weren't shattered, they were deleted.

Leaving the two in the room, he walked back to the lab he entered from, moving to one of the computers. He pulled out a hard drive from his pocket, inserting it into the port as he quickly downloaded the data onto it.

As expected of a supercomputer, it didn't take long for the process to be completed. Taking out the hard drive, he tapped a few keys on the computer, navigating his way through the system until he found what he wanted.

A prompt popped up, which Dante wasted no time in confirming as a progress bar appeared, quickly filling up as another prompt popped up.

{FILE DELETION COMPLETE!}

With the computers now as empty as Morrow's brain, he was satisfied. Shifting his density, he exited the same way he gained entry.

-[Later]-

-[Mount Justice]-

His entire escapade had taken him a few hours but it was assumed that he went on one of his usual flights. It was why he was surprised when Robin called him to meet him at the cave.

"What was so important that it couldn't wait until morning?" He asked the boy wonder in confusion rather than frustration or annoyance.

"Oh it's important." The two of them were currently in the mission room with Robin navigating the cave holographic computer, bringing up some files with some pictures.

"What's with the mugshots?" He asked in confusion as Robin pointed to the first picture which was a male.

"David Steward, genetics expert in Ohio City. He disappeared last month." Robin explained as he pulled up pictures of each person as he called their names. "Sarah Smith. Ryan Kim. Emily Cintron. Maxwell Johnson. All of them have gone missing within the last month and the one thing all of them have in common is that they're all top geneticists."

Dante's eyes narrowed briefly. "So someone somewhere is kidnapping geneticists. Do you think it could be like with Roquette?"

"There's a high possibility but I'm not sure. If it is, whatever they're trying to achieve must be really important." Robin said, causing Dante's eyes to widen.

"When was the earliest kidnapping?" He asked, getting a confused look from Robin. "The exact date the first person went missing. When was it?"

"July 24 but what does that have to do with it?" Robin asked after skimming through the files.

"Our mission to Santa Prisca was on the 22nd, two days before the first kidnapping." Dante said, Robin's eyes widening as he caught on.

"We never found out who Sportsmaster was supposed to give the Kobra Venom to. You think it might be connected? How'd you even think of that?" Robin asked.

"When you said that they were geneticists, I figured they wanted to create something that had to do with body enhancement or anything similar. Then I remembered Mammoth and Desmond. We stopped Kobra from delivering to his clients so it's possible that they're trying a new method to create something similar to Kobra Venom." He explained.

"With that number of genius scientists, I'm betting they want something even stronger than Kobra Venom." Robin added solemnly before turning to Dante again.

"Call the rest of the team. We've got a mission." He said, already knowing the question he wanted to ask. The grin on the boy's face said that he'd given him the perfect answer.

'A new concoction that's probably worse than Kobra Venom…and so the ripples begin.' He thought solemnly.

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Author Rant: Just because I said that Sword Birth gear from DXD seemed interesting, I'm being forced to watch the anime. I'm at season 2 and so far…..I'm not amused…

…Send help…please…

…I can't take this much longer.

Random Question: Does a dual pairing count as a harem?? (Not related to this story before anyone comes at me. I'm just curious.)