Dante Caeus

Dante Caeus was originally born in the 80s, but after being indoctrinated into the Time Police’s forces that didn’t really matter much anymore. He has been part of their ranks for the majority of his life, and has become slightly numb to all of the time bullshit everywhere. Due to his position, his perspective on life and time is very warped compared to most, especially since he has the ability to view any course of events that could possibly occur. Under most circumstance, he is not to interfere with the on-goings of the a particular timeline, but as he’s become more and more jaded, Dante has popped in and out of certain timelines more so than others just to dick around. Outside of his job, his current main motivation is in relation to alcohol. Specifically, he wants to eventually try every last alcoholic beverage that has been created throughout all of space time.
For some reason, he seems to have a strange, semi-ironic fondness for a certain timeline's Destruction Bench Agreement Tournament, that timeline being the one of the Fine Dining Extended Universe's main continuity.
== Powers ==
Dante, being fairly high up in the Time Police's ranks, is a very powerful person capable of utilizing time travel to its fullest.
His main weapons are a "Time Taser", which can potentially freeze targets in place, and a baton with which he demonstrates martial arts prowess. However, his main strength comes from the specialized gear he has received as an officer, as well as his innate time control prowess.
His Passive, "A Stitch in Time Saves Us Nine", allows him to declare that he will travel back in time to his current turn during a future turn in the combat. This allows for a second version of Dante to appear in the present, essentially doubling his power and chances to succeed. On its own, this is riddled with potential, but Dante is able to act on that potential like nothing. His abilities include:
What a Riot! - Allows him to pull out a riot shield to block attacks and send them into the future, allowing him to reflect them at enemies.
A Time and Place for Everything - Allows him to travel to any time period, grab something or someone from said time period, and have them do something when he returns to the present.
Crossing the Timelines - Causes two timelines of Dante's choice to converge temporarily.
Chain of Events - Lets Dante rearrange the order that events take place in.
Shackles in Time - Dante's trusty handcuffs which, when placed on someone, locks their position in space time.
All the Time in the World - Gives Dante to ability to initiate a brief Time Stop, allowing him to take one turn for every person on turn order.
All of this combined makes Dante one hell of a threat to deal with. Plus, he drinks a metric shit ton of alcohol, and therefore can stomach any drink and has tolerance through the roof.
=== Ultimate Form ===
During the events of Episode 50, Dante was granted an "Ultimate Form", which boosts various aspects of his kit. His passive is given one "freebie" usage where he can promise to travel back after the session is over, meaning that he can effectively get one copy without any downside. His riot shield can now send parried things far into the future, stored for later use. A Time and Place for Everything can pull things from their regular time periods for much longer, and Chain of Events loses its restriction on the number of events it can effect. Most powerfully, Dante can bring in one of his allies into stopped time, creating a significant burst of action economy. He also got a general boost to his stamina, like all Ultimate Forms.
== Destruction Bench Agreement ==
=== Episode 8 ===
Dante's first appearance in DBA was as an announcer alongside Nova Sakuga in this episode. The gimmick this time around was that each of the participating fighters in the PvP received a Pokémon Partner to assist them in the fight. Each of the announcers also received a Pokémon, and Dante's was a Gliscor. 
After experiencing prolonged exposure to Nova, along with the copious amounts of DBA nonsense that occurred (including, but not limited to, Allan Paris falling into the depths of Hell), Dante officially declared this timeline as "The Worst Timeline" before he promptly walked off/warped away.
This marked the first time that the Time Police were mentioned in DBA.
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=== Episode 12b ===
Dante showed up very briefly in this episode within the aquarium themed DBA basement, commenting on the current disaster that was unfolding. He stated that he has seen this event go down many times before, and that he was quite curious as to what was going to happen in this timeline.
More importantly, though, Dante was after Valeria V., who was a member of the party this episode. He secretly attached a tracking device to her, which she eventually found and disposed of.
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=== Episode 17 ===
This time, Dante appeared to apprehend the Valeria inhabiting the alternate universe the episode took place in. In this timeline, Valeria never discovered the tracking device he placed on her, and thus he was able to reach and arrest her without much effort. Of course, he let the party beat her up a little bit first.
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=== Episode 30 ===
After the party barely escaped the under-construction and also poison infested DBA Arena, Dante and Meridian Lightyear popped in to debrief them on the current situation. More specifically, they gave information on Nagito Komaeda, who was the one that literally gas-lit the poison situation in the first place. He's a notorious space-time anomaly, and, therefore, a major target of the Time Police.
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=== Episode 33 ===
Once Tyrone was defeated, Nagito Komaeda appeared once again to reveal that he was the "mastermind" behind the episode the whole time. Almost immediately, fellow Time Police Officer, Cam Era, called Dante and Meridian as back up, which was even more needed after "Shadow Nagito" was created. On their own, they weren't very effective, but by teaming up with the remaining party members they managed to trap the Twin Nagitos in The Lockerverse, where they were soon arrested and taken to The Citadel.
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=== Episode 50 ===
Dante acted as a follow-around NPC for this episode, spurring the party to investigate the set of time anomalies that had sprung up within the DBA Building. Upon appearing in the locker rooms, Dante called Meridian, Cam, and even Clarisse Octavia Ksindra to action, claiming that this was a time issue he actually had to deal with. He also invited the rest of the party to come help out, completely disregarding the other three time travelers' attempts to keep the time travel stuff a secret from the public.
Before MatPat's gauntlet of past events began, the party was visited by a Time Construct version of W, who decided to fulfill the original intended gimmick of Episode 50 by giving the party Ultimate Forms. As such, Dante received his very own Ultimate Form and used its boons to his advantage. Specifically, the "Ultimate" version of All The Time in the World proved to be particularly useful, allowing Dante to choose one his allies to also move and throughout stopped time. Due to his role as an NPC in a party of players (in a game meant to spotlight the players above all else), Dante mostly provided support, but also managed to have plenty of fun moments of his own. Despite his fairly prevalent bad luck, he showed off his skills in moments such as when he bopped [REDACTED] into The Switch Witch Pot since he "knows what happens", and the various times in which he used [Ultimate] All The Time in the World alongside either Meridian or Clarisse to amplify the time shenanigans even more so. In the fight against MatPat fused with & Knuckles & Knuckles X, he used to this great effect alongside Meridian as well as Happy, who used one of their abilities to copy the time stop effect (thereby allowing them to move within it), in order to initiate the combo that utterly decimated & Knuckles and turned him into a buttered croissant.
At the end of the session, Dante gave Meridian a special gift, the Lævateinn: a weapon of great prestige within the ranks of the Time Police. After this, he invited the entire party (except for Clarisse) to try out testing to join the Time Police's forces, with special mention going to Venus Vanderbelt, who received an acceptance letter to a "Time Police Training Academy" through the effects of Wild Magic earlier in the session. Dante understood that something like that was time's way of telling Venus to give it a shot. He then had a quick talk with Liana Deathbringer about her future with her family (to no avail), began arguing with Clarisse again, and then brought everyone back to the standard DBA Arena.
Another Dante also appeared by technicality as a Time Construct created by this chain reaction of temporal anomalies at the heart of DBA. He showed up during the fourth and final DBA PC Mob Rush, where he made up part of an audience of NPCs.
== Banana Slamma ==
Dante's first appearance, he showed up in the Banana Bar where he was very clearly trying to get hammered. While there, he started talking with Morris Rummsworth, Big Kong, and Creta Magister. He hit it off with Kong and Creta in particular, mostly due to the fact that they were all time travelers. Eventually, he gave them his "codec" number, which Big Kong abused thoroughly during the rest of the adventure.
Dante also appeared at King Sundae's Celebration Ceremony, where he drank more alcohol.
== Madness Ensues ==
=== Part 2: A Grade-A Performance...Actually, More Like Grade-F ===
Dante made an incredibly brief cameo in Part 2, appearing after the party defeated The Banana Slamma Illusion Crew. He was mainly here due to the relation of Banana Slamma, and the fact that Part 2 featured many references to past and future campaigns, and only made some vague comments about "this timeline" before leaving.
== Trivia ==
* Dante was created to be a fun NPC to talk to in Banana Slamma, specifically for Creta. Patronix was not expecting half of the party to reveal themselves as time travelers by the end of the adventure.
* Dante's inclusion into DBA is was sparked increased interest in more time related shenanigans and characters for the ongoing series.
* Dante, despite originating from an adventure made in 2017, did not have a character sheet of any kind until April 26th, 2019.
* Dante's inclusion as an NPC in the final round of the final DBA PC Mob Rush of DBA Episode 50 was a fun way of including the events of Episode 50 itself as part of the celebration of the anniversary of DBA as a whole.
Category:Characters
Category:Madness Ensues Characters
Category:Destruction Bench Agreement Characters