A/N- this story is kind of a sister story to Always outnumbered, Never outgunned, but you don't need to read that to get this, I intend it to stand alone.

Just a warning- I apologise in advance if the characters in this story appear out of character, I have adapted them to fit my plot and while I attempt to stay as true as I can to the original characters, I can't always manage it...

Soldiers of Armageddon

The Prayer of the Damned

Darkness; Eternal, impenetrable and incapacitating darkness. There is nothing else.

I am alone in the shadows, I fear I am blind. Perhaps I hope that my sight has betrayed me for it would be easier, then, to accept the fate I must someday resign myself to bare.

I pray at times I've lost my mind.

I pray that this world of shadows is the warped creation of a twisted soul and nothing more. I pray the prayer of the damned, for I would trade my sanity for a moment of relief from this reality I must call my own. Sanity, my last defence, I fear will be my undoing.

Time is the cruellest mistress, a concept that I know I would do best to discard and yet I find I can not. Hours slip into days, days melt into months, and I fear that years slip away. Precious years lost to me. And yet no time has passed at all for in eternity, mere years are rendered inconsequential.

At times I wish, I dream, I pray to feel the cold hand of death on my shoulder. For I no longer live, not in the traditional sense of the word. I merely exist; I am the shadow among shadows.

I am Vergil.

I refuse to hope.

Hope is a human concept, it is beneath me to hope. Hope implies the possibility of failure, hope implies that one possesses a misguided faith in that beyond one's own control.

So I fight. I fight the darkness.

I will hope for nothing, I will fight for everything.

Fire is a strange thing for it burns brightest in the dark. There is fire inside me, fire born of hatred and that is the most resilient kind. I have nursed this little flame, fuelled it carefully, and clung to it in my darkest hour. For in it I see my salvation.

Fire of hate, fuelled by rage, and sustained by the promise of revenge.

His name has become a mantra to me, whispered over and over to the silence.

He will feel the pain I felt.

He will hope where I have fought.

He is weak where I am strong.

He will wish, pray, beg for death.

And I will have my revenge.

Fire born of hatred,

And I am consumed by flames.

The village of Warren boasted a population of seventy-two-It's claim to fame as this meant the town ranked about sixteenth on the list of the smallest villages in the United States. A small victory perhaps, but the people of Warren took their victories where they could find them. It was the sort of place where everyone knew your name, the community was your family, where you were expected to grow up and marry a local girl called Maevis or Mary-Ellen, and take over the family farm, and be content with your lot. They frowned on strangers, those unfortunate passers-through, with their short skirts, tanned skin and loose morals. They drank too much, ate too much, and were a bad influence on the local children, who were brought up with good Christian values. Very little ever happened in the town of Warren and so when the strange man first appeared in the village people could talk of nothing else.

All things considered it had not been a very good week for Dante Sparda, fifty-six calls in five days, he'd been bitten by a some kind of mutated dog demon, and now he'd had to drive for over eight hours to some backwards town that wasn't even on the map on the promise that things were going to get a whole lot worse. He sighed, slamming the door of the massive black jeep, watching the sand swirl around his boots as he walked. He was immediately aware of the many disapproving eyes on the back of his neck as he approached the merest spectator- an old man in dungarees with a wide brimmed straw hat.

'I'm looking for the Reverend' he began, already he felt it had been a mistake to come here.

'Wha' choo wan him for?' the man had only three teeth the air whistled through the gaps in his gummy mouth when he spoke.

'He called me,' Dante replied simply.

'Reverend Jones, he live up in that big house down the way. But I warnin you he not take too kindly to outsiders, he don't know siree.'

'Whatever, thanks,' Dante turned back towards the jeep, eager to leave, considering returning home. He didn't need the money, after the last week he had more money then he knew what to do with. In the end his curiosity got the better of him, and he set off down the road which was little more then a dirt track in search of the man who had called him, their conversation on the phone replaying in his head.

'Devil May Cry.'

'I believe you can be of some help to me.'

'Demon problems? You're the ninth this morning.'

'No not exactly.'

Dante had frowned at this.

'Well enlighten me, that's kinda all we do here.'

'I'm trying to find Dante Sparda.' The voice was throaty and deep, he whispered, as though fearful of being overheard.

'Yeah? I wouldn't advise that, doesn't end well for too many people.'

'So I've heard. I believe I have something that might be of interest to him.'

'If it's not a demon than I highly doubt that. Thanks for calling' he had made to hang up the phone.

'No wait, it's essential I speak with Dante.'

Something of the desperate tone in the man's voice had made Dante curious. He waited debating whether or not to end the conversation.

'I'll pass along a message' he said eventually, and the man on the other end of the phone breathed a sigh of relief.

And Dante had listened, his brow knotting into a deep frown as the man, who introduced himself as reverend Jones told him everything.