Mission 4: Powers and Abilities

[twogunsonesword]

Demon father, angel mother; we are Nephilim.
□ The Nephilim are a race of hybrid beings within the DmC: Devil May Cry continuity. They are the offspring of angels and demons and are thus considered "the third race" after angels and demons ("fourth" if you include humans). However, despite being equally-to-more powerful than either race alone, the Nephilim are a severely endangered species, as any and all known existing Nephilim were hunted down and slain by demons in a war of genocide out of fear of their power. There are only two living Nephilim known to currently exist: Dante and Vergil, the twin sons of Sparda and Eva.

□ Thanks to his half-demon/half-angel heritage and biology, Dante possesses a myriad of superhuman powers and abilities enjoyed by demons and angels alike that make him a force to be reckoned with, such as preternatural strength, agility, coordination, precision, and regenerative abilities. But while their hybrid blood combines angelic and demonic powers strong enough to slay the king of demons, Dante and Vergil are the only known living Nephilim specimens and still young at that, so the full range of their abilities are unknown.

★ Superhuman Strength: Dante has immense physical strength and vitality, able to toss weights as heavy as automobiles and deflect metal blades more than twice his size with ease. He punched Mundus’ building-sized giant form with his bare hands hard enough to knock the demon king back and has enough power in his legs to jump many times his own height, from the ground to the tops of buildings. Even as a youth, his raw physical strength was sufficient to fight off demons and even human authorities; it took a whole battalion of armored police officers to restrain him as a prepubescent teen.

★ Superhuman Speed: Dante possesses both enhanced senses and reflexes as he is able to avoid almost any attack that come his way with little effort. From dodging bullets and sword swipes to recognizing a portal opening behind him and effortlessly avoiding the attempt to skewer him all in the span of a second. However, when large, fast-moving objects come his way, unlike his classic counterpart, Dante tends to exert the barest minimum of effort required to dodge an incoming attack; he moves just far enough that they miss, nonchalant dodges such as merely tilting his head or stepping to the side rather than do some showy performance.

★ Superhuman Agility: Dante’s reaction time, strength, and speed allow him to perform a variety of acrobatics including flips, twists, slides, and vaults. He has the coordination and skill to locate and grab his clothes and then get dressed in midair in the scant seconds it took him to pass through the wreck of his motor home crashing all around him. When in Limbo, he performs impressive parkour-like maneuvers while making his way through the ever-shifting landscape, complete with sudden land upheavals and building collapses, without a scratch.

★ Superhuman Stamina: Dante's nigh-limitless stamina allows him to run and fight continuously without need for rest or recovery. He fought through an entire demon-filled floor of a building with no sign of wear or labored breath and can pass between dimensions with little more than a shrug of discomfort. However, he does have a lazy or logical steak (depending how you want to see it) in that instead of fighting his way through floor after floor of a skyscraper dungeon, merely took the elevator and skipped the first five floors. He also has no problem enjoying sleep or napping when he’s bored or tired.

★ Superhuman Durability: Dante is able to withstand immense amounts of blunt impact and physical trauma without showing injury. He’s been knocked through brick walls, crashed onto buildings, and even tackled out of a skyscraper by Mundus, but had no visible harm on his body when he got back up. This also allows him to eschew using weapons on his enemies and just beat them barehanded if he feels like brawling. Despite his durability, however, he still feels pain and isn’t shy about commenting on it. For example, he shields Kat from assault rifle fire with his own body and says it hurts like a son of a bitch. Also, non-physical trauma, such as electrocution, burning, freezing, and other such elemental or magical attacks can leave him injured.

★ Accelerated Healing: Dante has a very potent rejuvenation power, enabling him to not only survive, but regenerate from injuries that would be instantly fatal to a mere human. He's perfectly capable of surviving and recovering from being shot or impaled with normal weapons, minor wounds like scratches, cuts, burns, and bruises heal in seconds, and major injuries like broken bones, torn muscles, lacerations or impalements take up around a minute. When he was younger, he ripped open his own chest to see if he had a heart with seemingly no long-lasting damage, and later healed from Mundus digging his fingers into his chest seconds after they were removed. However, this ability is not passive. Dante has to consciously trigger it once he’s awake enough to do so, explaining why he has a few notable scars on his face. So it’s still possible to kill him if he takes more damage than his healing can compensate for. Likewise, things like dismemberment, beheading, bisection, evisceration, or intense damage directly to his heart or brain will likely cripple, maim, or kill him despite his healing ability.

★ Nephilim Immunity: Dante’s ethereal heritage, combined with his accelerated healing, renders him immune to all human illnesses and diseases. As a child he was told he got meningitis and lost his memory, but this proved to be a lie. As a young adult, he has a very active and unprotected sex life, but lacks any STDs, ironically spiting the demonic propaganda slandering him as a disease-transmitting sexual deviant. It’s unknown if he can still contact ailments that are of magical or supernatural origins, as his father gave him temporary amnesia to keep him safe and he’s briefly affected by various demonic powers during his fights, not to mention spitting out the the succubus-spiked soda he was given as a sample by his brother (much to Vergil’s disgusted amusement).

★ Demonic Power Manipulation: Dante can channel demonic energy into his weapons to empower them with different effects. He can also use this energy to enhance himself, temporarily giving himself a boost in raw strength and enhancing his stamina and durability. His demonic power and its effects are colored orange or red and relate to elements of fire and rock.

★ Angelic Power Manipulation: Dante can likewise direct angelic energy into his weapons to give them various enhancements. He can also use this energy to augment himself for better speed and agility, such as pushing himself through the air and performing short teleports. His angelic power and its effects are colored white and blue and relate to elements of ice and wind.

★ Hybrid Power Manipulation: Dante is able to manipulate his demonic and angelic energies together as he wills in different ways. He can switch between his angelic and demonic blood at will, toggling his powers and enabling him to use angelic and demonic weapons, magic, and other such abilities with ease without interfering with each other. The speed at which he can do this is nigh-instantaneous, but isn’t fast enough to be considered instinctive yet. This combination of his powers gives him a subset of abilities impossible without the interchanging of the two.

★ Dimensional Shifting: Dante can cross between the demonic world of Limbo and the human real world along the parallel planes they reside in, because he possesses demonic and angelic blood. This presumably means he is able to cross between other realms, dimensions, planes, and worlds, angelic or demonic or otherwise, as well, if he has the knowledge and means to.

★ Pseudo Flight: Dante can’t fly like classic demons and angels, lacking either angelic or demonic wings, but he is able to glide through the air by channeling demonic energy into an angelic weapon and propelling himself forward. Normally he telegraphs this power via a dash-then-jump action or simply freefalls after a leap and drifts through the air with the momentum. He can also channel demonic energy beneath his feet and push off it to jump or dodge a second time in mid-air to avoid attacks.

★ Evasion Enhancement: Dante’s evasion isn’t as smooth or refined as his classic counterpart, but he can augment his dodges with extra abilities based on which powers he’s using at the time. A successful Demon Dodge boosts his strength for a short period and grants his next physical strikes greater power, while a successful Angel Dodge increases his reaction speed and lets him instantaneously teleport through Limbo and back again to quickly flank his enemies.

★ Devil Trigger: As a Nephilim, Dante also possesses what’s called the Devil Trigger (or DT), an empowered stated created by channeling intense amounts of his hybrid energy. When he activates this ability, it unleashes, or at least manifests, the full force of both his angelic and demonic abilities simultaneously. despite its name. His body undergoes a transformation and increases his power tremendously. The effects of this power seem to vary due to him still getting used to wielding it, but he’s showcased increased strength and speed even beyond his normal supernatural limits, even more potent regeneration of his health, vitality, and endurance, and the ability to ignore the invulnerability and shielded states of his enemies, so long as he maintains the state.

Dante's Devil Trigger unleashed sends the world into chaos, slowing the flow of time and causing the world to be flooded with flowing light, while giving Dante access to limited gravity manipulation abilities. When he activates his Devil Trigger, all surrounding enemies are launched helplessly into the air by the shockwave, where they float aimlessly amid the surrounding environment, allowing Dante to unleash a flurry of aerial combos using his weapons and powers against his locked enemies. Manipulating gravity in this state allows him to slam all his floating enemies against the ground and then relaunch the entire group once again using different weapon skills or another shockwave. Against bosses and stronger enemies who can resist the gravitational manipulation, Dante’s Devil Trigger adjusts by providing additional combat options, like new grapple points becoming available and slowing down the enemies’ attack speed and movements.

The Nephilim’s Devil Triggers are powered by the pendants their mother Eva gave them, rendering Dante and Vergil unable to enter the state if they lose their necklaces. While they are both still young and adjusting to their powers (more so in Dante’s case), it’s unknown if they’ll ultimately outgrow this limitation. The Nephilim’s Devil Trigger isn’t something that can been maintained forever either; upon activating their DT states, the intense power quickly begins to deplete while in use. Additionally, a “chunk” of this power is needed to activate the state and will be eliminated even if the DT is prematurely ended. However, after that initial “payment” burst, the DT’s energy consumption drains at a slower pace, and Dante and Vergil are able to replenish their DT’s energy by dealing damage to their enemies, giving them potentially infinite usage of the state if they have an unlimited number of enemies to kill.

However, as noted by Kat, the continuous use of this power seems to slowly devour the Nephilim's humanity, little by little transforming them from the inside by the vast amounts of demonic energy they are channeling, erasing morals and restraints and turning them more into a demon as the demonic energy allows their demonic blood to consume them. Upon leaving the state, however, their angelic blood once again flourishes and heals their corroded humanity (as seen by Dante), unless the Nephilim in question deliberately suppresses his angelic blood and gives into the demonic (as seen by Vergil).

★ Other Possible Powers: Dante’s skills are not fully explored but deceased Nephilims in canon have been shown using other powers beyond his. One displayed the power to endure her spirit well beyond her death, lingering in a statue of herself until Dante encountered and reawakened her. She was able to converse and teach without issue in this state, suggesting Dante may also possess some form of "spirit-based" or "astral" power yet untapped. His brother, Vergil, was shown to possess a form of teleportation and the ability to summon ghostly swords by depleting his Devil Trigger, but it’s likely these powers are unique to Vergil due to his greater time and experience honing and refining his powers than Dante. As stated by another demon, Dante and Vergil still have not reached their full potential, implying that the Nephilim twins may possess much greater levels of power than they’ve shown so far.