Okay, yeah, so this plot isn't quite so formulated yet, but We'll figure it out! We're doing a lot of research for this thing, so you might notice some parallels, We think. Hell, We might have to buy a /Bible/. -has never touched a Bible in her life except for the few times she's gone to church- xD -so uneducated- We'll just wiki it all. xD

Yeah, so lyke, this is like modern. No alchemy involved, either, unless We decide that's a good idea which We don't think We will. We've like... always got alchemy. xD So nuh, not this time. We may or may not be stealing ideas from the Devil May Cry novel, so if you notice anything that seems to be similar to it, you can assume it's either an original idea or We got it from that.

And just so We don't get any corrections, if you see something that's not correct, We've probably done it on purpose. We know the series quite well, thank you, and this is AU anyway, anything can happen. And yes, We spell it 'Aru', not 'Al'. Not that he'll show up much but We figured We should clear that up. But other than that, We think it'd be awesome if in the case We had typos, you guys would pick up on them and tell Us. :3

Pairing: RoyEd, bits of HyuRoi, some others

Disclaimer: Don't own it! Rose, of course, belongs to Rose. FMA belongs to Arakawa, blahblahblah. Dividers are Vampires Will Never Hurt You by My Chemical Romance. DMC ideas are from DMC, as you know.

prologue

He levels his pistol.

The prey darts forward.

He pulls the trigger.

His target, undeterred by the silver bullet that has penetrated its stomach, plows into him.

Caught off guard, the hunter falls.

The vampire bites down, lapping at the stream of red that flows out immediately.

His world grows dark.

CHILDREN OF CAIN

two years later

He's struggling through the blackness, trying to regain a sense of balance. Even as he knows it's futile, he keeps trying, trying perhaps to find a hold of white in a world of black.

He can't do it.

He sinks -- or maybe sink is not the right word -- there it is. Plummets. He's plummeting through the dark, and there's no holds, nothing to grab onto.

And then... him. Eyes as yellow as gold narrow into a smirk, and a fang gleams, and he wants to curse this person for laughing at him. How dare he be pleased over this?

But then a length of yellow braid flicks across his field of vision, and a hand extends into his view. He grasps it hastily, frantically, but gratefully all the same. There -- a hold. And then --

"Uncle!"

His eyes snapped open, and Roy Mustang sat up to find his niece looking at him worriedly. Roy ran a hand through tousled black locks, as if they could possibly be tamed by such a gesture. "Then again, they looked the same as ever -- handsomely messy, that controlled-yet-wild bedhead look the women loved. "Yes, Rose?" he asked, rubbing a fist past chips of what seemed to be obsidian, but in truth were darkest sapphire.

Rose crawled onto the bed, linking her arms around his neck. "You were convulsing," she informed his shoulder. "I thought you were having a seizure in your sleep, or something -- I didn't know what to do, so I woke you up."

Roy sighed, stroking the long red locks that were really all he could see of his niece at the moment. "I... apologize, Rose." He'd always had some trouble apologizing. "But I appreciate it. Don't worry, either. It was only a dream I was having, all right?"

She nodded, but when she looked up at him her eyes were still troubled. However, she put on a smile, and he was taken aback at how much of his own technique she'd picked up -- the way of masking one's emotions so that only the skilled could detect them. He, of course, was the skilled. "Get up soon, okay -- Oh! The eggs! They'll burn!" She squeaked, purple-with-orange-polka-dots pajamas blurring as she darted out the door.

The man chuckled, sliding out of bed. Bare feet padded across the blue plush carpet as he moved to the dresser and pulled out some slacks and a pair of socks, beginning to get changed for 'work'. Or, that was, work as the public saw it. His post as a New York City cab driver, he liked to think, was just a hobby, because his real work was in the underground and didn't have anything to do with what he did in the day. In truth, Roy Mustang was a bounty hunter, and his bounties were no ordinary crooks. Vampires. The offspring of Cain, rejected brother of Abel.

He was a skilled hunter. Of course, every great figure had someone working behind the scenes, and Roy was no different. His backup was his partner, Maes Hughes, who collected information on locations and profiles of bounties. Roy, on the other hand, collected the bodies. Neither man minded their post. Hughes was more accustomed to pushing paper, being a journalist, and Roy had liked shooting at targets since childhood. Their positions in their partnership fit. Not to mention that they were, well, friends with benefits.

Mustang dressed quickly, then headed downstairs, picking up the newspaper from its usual spot on the side table in the hall, just beside the kitchen door. Despite Rose's earlier panic, she seemed to have cooked the eggs perfectly as usual, and as was their ritual, he sat, opened his paper, and she placed a plate of bacon, fried eggs, and toast alongside his mug of coffee.

Despite being only in her teens, around sixteen, Rose Mustang was quite the little housekeeper. She was related to him by her late mother, who was his sister. She'd been killed by a werewolf a few years prior, and it was then that Rose had sought out Roy. And in return for his allowing her to board at his home, and his spending quite a lot of money for her to do so, she kept the house, morning till the time she went to the private highschool nearby, and then when she came back till she went to bed.

Rose was used to Roy not coming home until early in the morning. She knew what his job was, and would keep her mouth shut at all times. That, of course, didn't mean she didn't worry, far from it. Just because she knew where he was didn't mean she wouldn't be anxious, and lots of crossword books had been filled in feverishly until Roy got home, since Rose was often unable to sleep when he was out like that.

Roy finished his coffee, put the newspaper down, and stood, stifling a yawn that seemed to have caught up with him late. "All right, then, Rose, I'm off. I've got to head over to the old lady's place." Rose giggled. If the 'old lady' heard Roy say that, she was positive there'd be quite a few holes in his forehead.

"All right," she replied, beginning to do the dishes and nodding. "Will you be coming back soon?"

Roy shook his head, pulling on his shoes. He had a cab shift pretty soon after his errands. "No, I've got to drive. I'll see you tonight, though -- no jobs today." He lifted a hand in farewell, hands in the pockets of his black slacks casually.

/And now the nightclub sets the stage for this -- "They come in pairs," she said/
Roy left the apartment building, stepping to the old blue '60s style Corvair that was seated contentedly in his usual parking place. No one bothered to take his space, because the building's residents, aside from he and Rose, were mostly older and concrete in their habits and ways.

He seated himself in the leathery interior, pulling the door shut with a muffled slam. This was a nice car, and it looked quite good alongside Maes' Mustang (also from the '60s -- both had been restored a few years ago), which was something Hughes liked to tease him about. Always saying that Roy should be the one to own the Mustang, but Roy loved his old Corvair, even if it took a lot of work to get it up and running. He turned the key, listening to the car start in its usual way before he pulled out of the parking lot.

Traffic wasn't too bad, and Roy made it from the apartment building to the gun shop in a record fifteen minutes. He parked, stepping out of the car and entering the store.

Hawkeye's Arms and Ammunition (at least, that was what it was supposed to be called -- the sign above the shop really said HAWKEYE'S ARMS AND AMMONITION, EST 1973) was a small shop on the east side of town, not actually too far from where Roy's apartment was. It was positively tiny, overshadowed by the grand, popular nightclub and pub that stood beside it. (Barrel Soul, Ambrosia's little bar, was the favorite let's-go-have-a-drink-and-reminisce site of the hunter partners.) Hawkeye's was owned by Ms Riza Hawkeye, the daughter of the original owner. She was youngish, in her twenties, the same as Roy, but she was strict, serious, and didn't take well to jokes played on her. She was Roy's personal gunmaker, so far as he knew, because she seemed to refuse other clients. Of course, he paid her quite well, so it didn't matter either way.

It was here Roy entered, wiping his shoes as was custom in Riza's shop. She looked up at him from the work she was doing behind the counter, amber eyes indifferent, before blonde obscured the view of her face again and her head dipped down. "Eh... Hawkeye?" he said warily, knowing full well she'd probably shoot him if caught offguard.

Luckily for Roy, she was in a good mood today, or at least, seemed to be. The blonde woman lifted her head again, putting what she'd been working on down on the counter -- a Colt Python .357 Magnum that she seemed to have been adding a scope to. The scope itself was complex, he could see just from the build -- inside was probably an added feature for heat sensory, or something. Hawkeye was weird like that. "Yes?" she asked simply. "If you're here for that order you placed last week, I'm not finished with it yet."

He snorted, leaning on the counter. "I'm here for ammo today, Hawkeye. I need something to take down, or at least stun, a powerful one. He's got shields around him, or something; most of my bullets are deflected about a foot away from him." Despite superior gunmanship that just about no one could match (being able to pull the trigger just about as fast as if he were using a fully automatic machine pistol), Roy had been having trouble with this one, and this resistance wasn't helping, considering when he went after that mark again, the vampire would probably taunt him with the usual annoying villain chatter. How troublesome.

"Aha, I see," she replied, shaking her head and reaching below the counter. "A couple of magazines of a higher caliber should do the trick. Here." She tossed a little box at him, which he identified as a brick of magazines. ".454 Cassull."

Roy stared at the brick for a moment before blinking back up at Riza. "They don't fit in my gun," he said blankly. How was he supposed to use a bullet like this if they didn't fit?

Hawkeye rolled her eyes, reaching below the counter again and handing him a rather oversized handgun. "Here you are. It's big, but it's nothing you can't handle. I thought you'd come across something like this, so I made it a few months ago."

The man took the pistol, looking it over. It had a very long muzzle, a square-ish triggerguard, and engraved on the side was HELLSING ARM454 Casull AUTO. He expected it was semi-automatic, which was a good deal for him, because he was actually quite lazy and didn't believe in more work than necessary. This was a good thing. "Hellsing?" he asked then, looking up from the gun. "Where's that come from?"

"Van Helsing was a famous man, Roy. And his most famous kill was Count Dracula. Cute, isn't it?" she asked, a small smile surfacing, but it was a little bit more smirk-y than he would have liked. "The double L is just an alternate spelling."

"Right. All right, thanks. You can put that on my tab." He was out the door before she could protest that his tab was two months overdue and he was just piling up interest.

/We'll shoot back holy water like cheap whiskey, they're always there/
Roy parked outside the cab agency a few moments later, stowing the new .454 under the drivers' seat and locking the door. He promptly entered the agency, slicked his bangs back with a bit of water, donned his little cabbie hat and snagged the keys to #36, the car he normally drove.

A few minutes later found him picking up a kid with a mostly shaved head and liberty spikes, who was off to Manhattan to do who knew what. Roy didn't care, just drove the teen there and took his money. Next was a rather tubby woman in her late forties that was 'lost' and needed to be driven to the nearest subway station. Roy drove her across the street.

And then came...

Leaning against the railing that surrounded the entrance to the underground station was a -- was that a girl? No, it was a boy -- with long blonde hair plaited into a braid that came down to his waist, arms folded across his chest. He was dressed in the usual 'emo kid' outfit: gray sweater , dark T-shirt and jeans, mismatched Converse and hot-pink gloves. Wonderful, just perfect. He spotted the iconic yellow taxi and promptly hailed it down. Roy pulled to an obedient stop and the teen got into the back seat. "Where to?" he asked, as was custom.

"Anywhere," replied the boy, and Roy turned in his seat to meet yellow eyes that were strangely familiar. Where had he seen those...? "Just not here."

"All right," replied the cabbie, dismissing the eyes for the moment and pulling away from the curb. "I'll take you to the Statue. Sound all right?"

The boy didn't answer, just looked out the tinted window. He seemed to only realize then that Roy had spoken, and looked back up, nodding. "Fine with me," was all he said, before he returned to gazing out at the street.

/Someone get me to the doctor, and someone call the nurse/
Roy dropped the blonde off a little while later, neither saying much. The blonde (whose name was Edward, Roy found out after quite a long, awkward silence) handed him a deal of money that was... quite odd, to say the least, for someone of his age to hold, not to mention it was far too much money for the distance Roy had taken him. He waved a hand at the darkhaired man, indicating he could keep all of it, and Roy sat in his cab and watched the boy leave, melting into the shadows below the Statue of Liberty.

Odd... he could have sworn he'd seen him before. But where...?

(eyes as yellow as gold)

His dream...?

(a length of gold braid)

Maybe... He wasn't sure. But now he had the boy's name, and that was good enough for him. "All right, dream-boy," he murmured, eyes fixed on the place he'd seen Edward last. "You've caught my attention. What do you want with me?" He'd find him again, he knew, because when Roy Mustang was interested in something, he wouldn't stop pursuing it. Not even a city of vampires and humans would deter him.

Now if he only knew where to start...

/And someone buy me roses, and someone burned the church/