Title: On Your Knees
Fandom: Devil May Cry
Characters: Dante
Prompt: #30; Grovel
Word Count: 2702
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Pre-DMC 3. Dante has a run in with one of the demons released by Vergil, the one calling itself "Pride."
Author's Notes: Written for a challenge, but it ended up long enough that I decided to post it as its own story.

---

A regular job. Right.

Dante was used to being lied to, by everyone, at every turn, all the time, but even for him this was a little much. Hack and slash was fun, sure. But give him three and a half hours of hack and slash, and Dante started to wish he was doing it at the controls of an X-box.

"All right, come and get some!"

He chuckled darkly, spraying the courtyard with dual fire and dancing out of the range of the scythe attacks. Lesser demons, all of them, but there were about, oh, infinity of the little pricks, each batch bursting out of red portals just as he finished off the last. He wasn't just tired, he was also hungry, and the sun was due to rise any moment.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd had to work after dawn, and it pissed him off. He twirled Ebony and Ivory in his hands, took out a few archers in the distance before blasting the little pricks that tried to land on him from above.

"Nice try, suckers!" he crowed, using the moments pause to switch from his guns to Rebellion. Demons were one thing, but monotony would fucking kill you.

A Vanguard took advantage of his distraction to plant its scythe into his throat.

Blood poured out of the wound and the creature brought its weapon down, shredding the collar of his jacket and severing the strap that secured his gun holster, and Ebony and Ivory clattered to the ground behind him. Dante was now sucking in air through his God damn throat, and he found he couldn't voice the words he really wanted to say.

Go to Hell. And fucking stay there.

Two swings of Rebellion brought it down, and as it screamed its death throes and vanished into a cloud of sand, Dante dropped down on his knees. Christ, man, he should have brought a holy water to take out all these things – but just a regular job, right?

The demons circled him as he recovered, slower than he'd like, but what could he expect? Those gruesome fatal wounds always did take their time. He cracked his neck with his hands after he felt the skin close, and then he scooped his guns up off the ground.

Finally convinced that his display of weakness wasn't, in fact, some sort of trap, the demons pounced on him. He shot them up without a problem – and then he took out the next wave. And the one after that.

"Fuck you, too, Vergil," he muttered. Of course, Vergil wasn't here, but if he hadn't come around none of these demons would be here, either. Dante hadn't been lying before, he did like the money; he also liked his stuff. And his neck.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he dove, just in time to avoid an explosion of rubble and debris. Several pieces of rock went flying through the air and whacked him in the back of the head. "Ow!"

He turned. "That hurt, you stupid…"

In the center of the crater stood a demon, and not just the regular kind, either. It stood taller than the buildings around them, maybe thirty or forty feet high, built out of bones in a mockery of a human skeleton. Giant wings sprouted from its back, and on its head it wore a crown, which was filtering the light of the rising sun. Pretty. Almost.

"Holy shit, are you ugly." Dante wished he was surprised, but he really wasn't. Big long battles like this were always build up to something.

"We meet again, son of Sparda," the thing rumbled, its voice echoing off the walls of the courtyard.

Again? Dante was pretty sure he'd remember running into a big freaking monster like this, but then again… "Bad enough getting mistook for my dad," Dante said. "But do I gotta get mistaken for my brother, too? That guy is such a fucking poser."

"We meet again," it repeated.

"Yeah, I heard ya the first time."

"Son of—"

"Alright, already! Jesus Christ, can we just get to the fighting?"

He wasn't quite sure how he was going to go about the fighting – as much as he depended on Ebony and Ivory, they didn't usually cut it when it came to the heavy hitters of the Underworld. That left Rebellion, and Dante had no idea how he was supposed to get up to the head. Run up one of the walls? Climb the building?

Oh, well. Something would come to him. Always did.

He shrugged, dropping his guns to the ground. They'd better be there when he got back. He pulled Rebellion off his back, grinning up at the thing as he stared into its vacant eyes. "Hey, let's get this party star—" His voice froze in his throat.

And then he knew he'd made a critical error.

Hell, how was he supposed to know that meeting its gaze would put him under a spell?

He felt his sword slide out of his grasp and clatter onto the concrete ground, and then he blacked out.

---

"What the—huh?"

Dante had only been out for a few seconds, or so it felt like. He supposed it could have been longer, but were that the case he was sure he'd be demon chow by now.

He shook his head to clear it, and then he looked down for his sword.

And all he saw was moss and mud.

He was standing in a graveyard, nothing special about it; it was creepy and old, and yet there was something here that was tickling his brain in decidedly the wrong way. It was night when it was supposed to be day, storm clouds when the forecaster had predicted sunny skies.

So he'd been transported. Or, more likely, trapped in an illusion. He couldn't decide which possibility pissed him off more.

"That's funny," he said. "I don't remember signing up for your screwy Halloween special."

There wasn't anyone around to hear his jokes – not like it mattered, since no one appreciated them, anyway. Sighing, he started trekking to the heart of the cemetery. The center of things was normally where one could find the freak shows, and he was eager to get this game over with.

His thoughts were interrupted by a child's scream.

This was only an illusion, he had to keep that in mind, but still he tensed, and he started scanning the graveyard. A kid in trouble, that'd be just the kind of trick some demon scum would pull…

And then he saw it.

A crowd of demons, skeletons by the look of them. That'd made them match the old man, the creepy, tall… whatever. Crowding what, he couldn't tell, but them being demons, they couldn't be up to anything good. He picked up his pace.

A small figure burst out of the mob.

A tiny child, naked and carrying a sword, one he couldn't use. He swung it blindly, panic in every motion, he screamed in horror as a skull clamped onto his arm with its teeth. He was afraid, he was young, his hair was white—

Dante's breath caught in his throat, and the ground seemed to tip and sway as the recognition passed over him.

"Vergil!" And it didn't matter that his voice was suddenly so high and fragile – he didn't notice how much closer his vision was to the ground. He tore through the graveyard, and tripped over a crumbled headstone and slammed his face into the ground. He tasted blood in his mouth, dirt between his teeth – but he pushed back up to his feet.

Just in time to see a demon stab Vergil through the chest.

He couldn't tell which of them was yelling more – both the same, maybe. With a spear through his chest, just below his heart, not even Vergil could run or fight anymore. He wouldn't die – Dante already knew he didn't die, not real, this had happened before – and even though Vergil was stronger than Dante even all he could do was lie there pinned as the skeletons stabbed him again and again and again.

And all Dante could do was cry.

The demons crept back, finished with their work, or satisfied, anyway. Vergil's face was so so blank, not dead, because he didn't die – he'd come back angry and hating… because of this? Dante was close now, he could hear Vergil whimpering, when did Vergil ever make a noise like that? And then he slipped in the mud, was it still raining? Because he couldn't see, not very well.

"…no, no…" He was so, so scared of the demons but all he could see was his brother, shuddering and shaking, bleeding from his mouth. So many swords, so many cuts and wounds and blood. "Vergil, please…" He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, crawled through the mud with tiny, child-like hands, as close as he could until the swords were all standing in his way.

Vergil's head was rolled to the side, his eyes almost closed, not seeing anything, and Dante was lucky Vergil was strong enough to live through this because he did not want Vergil to be dead, more than anything, almost, and he had to remember he wasn't really here and this wasn't really real but it was really hard—

Suddenly, Vergil's eyes widened.

At first Dante thought Vergil could see him, because Dante was right in front of him, wanting to touch him but knowing he couldn't because he wasn't really here, but no. Vergil wasn't looking at him, his eyes were strangely bright despite his injuries and he was looking right through him. "Da—DANTE!"

He turned his head and followed Vergil's gaze, he saw a house in distance. Burning. It was their house where they lived and it was burning, and Vergil thought Dante was inside. Vergil had run away, so he didn't know that Dante had run, too, and there was so much pain in his voice he must have thought Dante was dead, too, dead like Mom. Vergil didn't know that he was hiding, staying away from Mom because she'd said—

And in a flash he was there.

No more Vergil, just Dante wet and hiding, naked but not bleeding like everyone else was, like he should be. He crawled out from his hiding place and slipped on the mud, stained his face but he didn't care. Mom was, Mom was—

He found her body like he knew he would, stayed in the same place, he'd been here before.

He stumbled and he fell beside her, the demons were gone—gone to kill Vergil, son of Sparda—and Mom was just still and laying there. "Mom Mom," he said, cried. "Mom, Vergil is… You're…"

Wasn't moving, wasn't standing, wasn't saying everything was all right, that she was okay. "Mom, Mom Mommy Mom," tears wet on his face, blinding, stinging like pain, "please don't be dead, don't die, don't be dead—"

He pulled on her shoulders, her hair was wet and red and heavy. "Mommy, please be okay. Be okay and make Vergil be okay—he thinks I'm dead, Mommy, he thinks I'm dead and I don't know what he'll do—"

No answer, no answer and he had to leave now, he'd done this before and they'd come back and get him too. The demons were going and Mom had died to keep him safe, him and not Vergil, what about Vergil? "Mommy Mom," he said, and he kept shaking her, couldn't hurt because she was dead already. "Mom, don't be dead, we need you—need you to be okay, Mom—?"

She turned her head, swiveled her skull on her neck like a monster and smiled up at him with her empty smile and her eye sockets all hollow. "Don't be sad, Dante," she said, and her fingers closed like bones around his wrists. "You can stay with me, stay with me forever—"

Dante tried to jerk back, but the bones sunk into his skin until they tasted his blood. He screamed in her face and she leaned to kiss him, he screamed and screamed and screamed—

---

Dante's eyes snapped open as his knees slammed into the concrete ground. The pain brought him awake, reminded him where he was and that he was still alive.

"Your sin…" the creature growled. "Your sin… my name…"

His breath was coming hard and heavy – he was back, though he hadn't ever left. Everything must have happened in a second, as humans measured things. He stretched out a shaky hand, and closed his fingers over the handle of his sword.

"Your sin is… my name is…"

"Shut your damn mouth." Dante stood slowly. His legs weren't trembling from fear – the vision was gone, though he could still taste his own terror in the back of his throat. No, it was pure rage that was causing him to shake, causing his eyes to narrow, his fingers to lengthen into claws…

No. He stopped the transformation with what little self-control he still possessed. He was going to fight this thing as himself, not as… not as one of them.

"Your sin is… my name is…"

"I told you to shut—"

"PRIDE."

It dove at him, arms extended with nasty claws on the end. He swung Rebellion over his head, cutting off both of its hands, and then he dropped his sword and rolled forward, grabbing Ebony and Ivory as he did so.

Bits of bone crashed to the ground on either side of Dante's head, and the whole creature started toppling forward, right on top of him. But he had the time, half a second at least before he was crushed, and he grinned widely. "Later, sucker."

He raised his guns, aiming at the spine. And Ebony and Ivory ripped that thing apart.

He flipped backward, holding fire as he cleared the crash zone. He landed in a crouch, smirking as he watched the giant skeleton crumble. The head rolled to a stop at his feet.

"Aw," he said, casting a glance around the deserted courtyard. "Looks like your little buddies didn't stick around to watch."

"Your sin is Pride," the head rasped. "Arrogant son of a traitorous father."

He forced a yawn. "Ya talk big for someone who ain't got a leg to stand on. Literally." He brought Rebellion down, pointing it right at its head. "It was fun playing, but I gotta run."

"Broken by a memory, terrified of your other form."

"You know," Dante said casually. "I'm seeing why you've gotta fuck someone in the head before you're willing to fight them. 'Cuz you really suck."

The head shuddered, its teeth were chattering in its skull. "Fear put you on your knees, mortal."

They weren't memories – not his, anyway. It hadn't been real. A sick illusion forced on his by a twisted mind, and as desperately as he wanted to blame his brother he couldn't, not when he could still hear Vergil's screams ringing in his ears. Vergil didn't play like that.

Vergil hadn't called for their mother once. Only—

"How prideful are you now, Son of Sparda?"

It wasn't real, and he wasn't getting sucked into this again.

"How prideful are you now—"

He swung Rebellion, and cleaved the skull in two.

---

He found Ebony and Ivory buried under piles of fine sand and broken glass; they wouldn't need repairing but they'd certainly seen better days. His jacket was another story – repairs to that would cost a bloody fortune, and until he paid for that he had no holster for his guns.

It was tomorrow, too late to catch some Z's. "Damn," he muttered. Going on no sleep felt exactly like running on a hangover – without the benefits of having been drunk the night before. No girls or good times, just aching joints the taste of sand in his mouth.

He could take a nap, but he wouldn't.

Shit, he wasn't even going to blink if he could help it. He'd had enough of the images he found behind his eyelids.

He was sick of the nightmares.