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Hope you guys like this new and improved chapter.
Chapter 1 - A Wraith Within
For the looming countrysides and there colorful peaks and valleys, the time of year held little affect for the attacks on integrity.
The sweetness and fine expression of her voice attracted the man's attention to her figure, which when examined, held an attractive grace and a dominant allure.
Those mismatched eyes were hypnotizing, one blue like the ocean, the other fiery like the sun.
Hard to believe she'd be a demon hunter. Though he knew more than anyone that looks can be deceiving.
So much indeed was he fascinated by the voice, that a painful curiosity made itself deathly apparent. She expressed all the sensibility of character one could desire.
Ethan was a simple fellow, despite the curious nature of his existence. His mere existence was a statistical impossibility, and his parentage was all the more strange.
He listened to Lady express her thoughts with rapt attention, hardly withdrawing smitten eyes from her figure till her speech had concluded.
When he observed her leave the place with a brown-haired man, who leaned upon her arm, and who appeared to be her friend, he felt within a strange motion take place.
The man immediately followed their steps, determined to discover the home to which she should retire.
Down the crowded streets they went, the bustling streets packed full of noisy, grungy automobiles and narcissistic citizens walking about ignoring just about everything but their smartphones.
What a turgid existence this all was, he thought to himself. The grime and the fake self-worth of trash culture and it's sullen embrace of doom.
Was this what human's liked to live? A lie? Maybe, it would explain who they'd elected, who they'd looked upon as leaders in recent days.
Destruction was an inherent self-resistant bias within the disease of this species, but not her. No. This woman was unique in her approach.
He never anticipated anyone like her in all the days he'd ever existed.
The duo walked quickly through the city, the dirge of traffic serenading every step insistently. Looking neither to the right or left, they turned into the right alley.
He had nearly lost them, but, quickening his pace, and relinquishing the cautious the distance he had, he overtook them upon the rooftops as they entered the Market Street.
It ran along Sparda's old statue, an archaic memory of a different in trying times, so much so it had depicted his ugly nature so humanistically.
They headed in the direction of the Inn, an old place that stood for an absurdly long degree of time.
It had nearly fallen apart at least twelve times so far in as anyone could see.
The obscurity of it's design was seemingly purposeful, the care taken to it's rebuilding was haphazard and warranted too many styles.
They both stopped for a moment, talking to a worker in the inn at it's front desk, and he knew not how to introduce himself to her.
The dark haired man waved goodbye and walked down the steps, away from this place.
Ethan wasn't anyone probably worth looking at, he certainly upheld the notion of a societal 'reject.'
Long black hair adorned his head, tied to the side in a ponytail, and he held two piercings in his left ear.
One lock of hair dangled carelessly in front of his forehead and he had an odd limp in his walk.
The look of his eyes were odd, they seemed purple at some angles but looked to be made of silver from others.
Not unheard of in this world, but not exactly too common either. His physicality suggested a very stocky build.
His shoulders were definitely broad, more broad than a typical man, but he wasn't overtly muscular, it was just a naturally robust frame.
Beyond these physical parameters, he wasn't probably the smartest or the strongest, simply a very crafty individual.
He was embarrassed by a respectful timidity that mingled with his admiration, and which kept him silent, notwithstanding his desire to speak.
He jumped over the edge of the vaulted roof and waited on her deck for her to be inside her room. It felt like forever, but he saw the two enter.
That feeling remained again. He thought that man had left.
Ethan was perplexed and agitated between the wish of seizing an opportunity, which might never again occur, and the fear of offending, by intruding upon her retirement at so sacred an hour.
And yet, while he hesitated, he heard her sigh, and then with a sweetness peculiar to her accent, pronounce a name. The man came toward the bed, and Ethan felt a the unnamed feeling.
Jealousy.
During the trembling, he listened to what might follow this mention of the name, but disturbed the clematis that surrounded the window, and she turned her eyes towards him.
She saw nothing as she stared, only the shrubbery and a vague but small shadow that did not appear humanoid.
Ethan was quite talented at hiding himself.
She rose to close the contraption, unnerved. As she approached, the stranger outside could no longer control himself. She placed her tired hands on the windowsill, intent to shut them when he appeared.
Lady blinked three times, and she stood back. Her eyes fixed themselves for a small instant, while her complexion changed to an ashy paleness; with dignified haste, Lady slammed the window shut.
She yelled at him a bizarre obscenity and the force of the shut flung him from the premises violently, almost like a bridge collapsed on his back as he was thrust backwards by an odd method.
Ethan felt as if all his hopes had vanished with her.
The man walked on down to his ride, content to mope his way to his ride.
He emerged from the dark arch of ruin that extended over the entrance of a backroad, his steps crossed by a person clad in black, grey, and darker shades of blue.
Their face was shrouded by snowy hair, shocked still by the twilight's frozen wind. His frosty eyes turned upon the man and knew their purpose as Ethan recognized him.
Vergil, the son of Sparda, and formerly Nelo Angelo, addressed him promptly.
"You'd be wise to keep your distance, lest you desire a violent end. Your steps are watched, young one."
They stood there quietly, half their selves bathed in shadow, the other illuminated by the lamps within the sleepy courtyard. The slayer was visiting the object of Ethan's obsession.
Ethan stood sternly and said nothing, his black jacket hanging loosely around his broad arms, and his black slacks looked like they'd seen better days. The moonlight was brighter than usual.
It was oddly exaggerated, almost strengthened by the dark slayer's presence, and Ethan dared not to challenge that.
Still, Lady was a specimen he very much desired, seeking to understand.
But Vergil's glare terrified him deeply, still Ethan simply watched in silence.
Slowly, but still sure, the dark slayer turned his back, and those dagger-eyes left the man in silence, alone.
. . .
A heavy black shade had been overwhelming the sky for many hours, intensifying in color with each long, drawn-out minute that passed.
The only visibility of his surroundings that he had was from the tiny spark of light created by his small flashlight.
But he didn't need any of this, his green eyes could see perfectly clear in the deepest darkness, even through the thickest fog. In that way he was gifted beyond mortal men.
This delicate light was keeping him company and, at the very least, offering him a source of comfort in the back of the rickety, jolting car. Looking up at the sky was a treat.
The lights of the stars dominated the sky so vividly, fighting back the urge to disappear under the strain of the cities polluting lights. In his mind, he could see the constellations better than anyone else.
It was that demonic little boost he could afford, but the stars always entranced him, the slight warmth produced by it drawing him in.
He sought to study the shape and their beauty.
He'd never been one to be afraid of the dark, he was born there, not that it didn't matter much anyway; the still of the night was a beautiful contrast to the lively daytime.
Nightmares were things created and concocted within the mind. Mostly. The idea of fear was simply a product of an over-active imagination.
He'd been instructed to suppress the idea of any impossible creatures created in the darkness of his room.
His childhood years seemed to be a distant memory, almost fabricated by his modern self simply to fill up the gaps in his soul. Still filled with questions and confusion he was.
Despite the reality only being a few years prior, he still sought understanding of why he existed. A lot had changed since then; he'd grown too fast, far greater than he could rationalize.
Something was wrong with him, wasn't there? He knew it, intrinsically. None of it felt right to him, not in the slightest.
Now he was making way for a mysterious manor, a house to which he'd been invited. He had never met the person, nor heard of this manor, though he knew not all were famous.
Nevertheless, he had to be forced into this place. Part of him felt apprehensive, but the others were filled with intrigue about where this would lead him. An adventure?
Lord knows his life was boring otherwise. Maybe that was the tragedy of him, that he wasn't interesting enough to be of importance.
If this visit had occurred under happier circumstances, perhaps better feelings might have been at hand.
His heart beat fiercely against its constricting prison of a ribcage, intending to break free at any given moment.
For a split second, the air seemed to have escaped his lungs, leaving him feeling faint and gasping for breath.
The car had jolted him out from those thoughts, and he trickled back to reality so slowly as the engine died with a flick of the wrist and a turn of the keys.
The driver was a reasonably small man who'd been sent to retrieve him for this event.
He was dressed in full black attire, with the exception of a pair of brown gloves, and he appeared a slender man of Maltese descent.
The journey was long, and not one he enjoyed.
His head was filled with thoughts he'd rather suppress, and yet his mind kept wandering. At this point he felt there was a hole in there in dire need of fixing.
Throughout the travel, he'd only uttered a few abrupt and harshly whispered words, which came about from his futile attempts to silence his own bad feelings.
To make matters worse, it was a summer's night, but the air had an eerie chill.
A thick shield of fog clung to the narrow dirt road, as though crouching in anticipation; an army of trees surrounded the area, peering over the lone path menacingly.
The night of August was pierced by the thought of blackened bodies burning, haunting memories of a different era, perhaps not even his own.
A faint outline interrupted the cloak of darkness that consumed the warped sky a few minutes prior, although he was unable to decipher what it could be.
His eyes strained to concentrate and focus on the shape in front of him. Minutes passed and the formation was still unclear.
Ethan closed his eyes, defeated from the aching caused by deep concentration, leaving his mind to wander on what could've been. Still he tried to conjure up different possibilities.
What he envisioned was somewhat unusual; he pictured a wall that stretched all the way to the furthest reaches of the sky, and extended itself as far as the eye could see width.
Unable to go around this wall, he'd be forced to turn back and go to the place he used to call home, returning to his old life. Anything was better than that.
Gripped within this vision, reality suddenly pulled at him, forcibly dragging the man back to it's downbeat rhythms, and so he saw; the size of a castle, it was an old plantation.
Before them stood iron gates so immense they dwarfed the archways of the Pantheon in Rome. Behind it stood a lavish courtyard with cobble pathways that made the car tremble.
They had arrived.
. . .
Glaring at the imposing doors, he saw they were also befittingly large, adorned with wolves of a Nordic style. Skoll and Hati, he recognized them . . . Ancient beings they were.
He wondered why they were here now, what did these statues symbolize? He felt tiny in comparison to the towering wood construction which would mark the start of a new era.
He held his breath and closed his eyes, curious to what would lay behind the opening.
The story was all too foreign to him, this entire place was caught out of time, contradicting itself.
He elevated his hand, hesitating for a brief moment before finally lifting the ring inside the wolf's jaw.
Slamming the weight of it back against the door sent a thunderous tremor through the building.
He stood waiting, clutching a bag that contained his only possessions firmly in hand.
The echo of footsteps coming from inside added to his anxiety and caused his hands to quiver.
He felt like a fire was running through his veins, and within minutes a surge of power overcame him.
Every bit of dead growth slowly revived itself in the surrounding area.
"Hmph . . . again." He said to himself. Absolutely, to his inner most core, he hated his power. It reminded him that he wasn't normal, there was something wrong with him.
A muffled screeching noise came from the opening of a spy hole in the door.
Someone was more than probably watching him currently. Of course.
The thought of someone staring at him made him uneasy, and he looked at the ground, squirming slightly at the thought of a beady eye gazing at him.
Finally, he heard the grate of a rusty latch being lifted after what seemed like an entire hour. The door let out a deep groan, and then slowly opened, revealing a stranger behind it.
"So there you are, the spawn of hell itself." A tall, spindly old man welcomed him with obvious mockery, "Who would've thought Mundus would produce such a weakling?"
He stood awkwardly staring, examining the unusual features of the gentleman before him. Ghostly pale skin contrasted his jet black hair, which only contained a few slender strands of grey.
The man was wearing a dusty black suit with a crimson tie and black-rimmed spectacles that covered his washed-out grey eyes. Respectively, the man a complete foreigner to him.
"Who are you? What the hell are you talking about?" Ethan asked him, demanding to know, "Who the hell is 'Mundus?'"
"You poor boy . . . So it seems you're blind completely to your true nature." The man spoke casually, "I'm really not surprised. Like father like son."
"Alright, you better start giving me some answers now or you're going to start eating that door."
"Now you really resemble him, always trying to solve problems through aggression. So big: so dumb."
"You know this 'Mundus', he's my father?" Ethan said, skeptical.
He knew he was born of darkness, it followed him everywhere, but he never knew anything of his parentage. Someone dropped him on the street and that was where he started.
An inquisitive expression fell on his face, he seemed to be cross-examining the man the same way, trying to gather some form of a first impression.
Without warning, Ethan grabbed the snotty stranger by his lapels and flung him up against the wall, forcibly holding the smiling man against his own door.
He continued to laugh at Ethan, the cacophonous sounds fracturing the silence that previously invaded his ears, and he ground his body into the wall.
"Who are you!?" He yelled, "How the hell do you know anything about me?"
The bizarre man smirked, this was going to be so much fun.
"I know everything about you, we all do. I guess now it's simply time to watch you struggle." The man said.
Hearing those words made anger course through his fists, and he angrily drew the man off the wall, then smashed him back into it as hard as he could.
Yet the man could only keep laughing, and his smile persisted. Ethan grew angrier and angrier, throwing a punch into the man's gut and letting him slide back down to his feet.
"You were born for a purpose," The happy stranger said, spitting blood at him, "And you better follow through."
Ethan growled and continued to beat the man as hard as he could, thrashing his iron fists at the man's face until it disfigured him, and the laughing began to cease.
When that got old and the laughing continued, Ethan forced his knee forward into the man's face and broke his nose.
He then hung on the iron circlet and used it as leverage to batter the stranger with boot heels in his warping cheeks.
Ethan stopped briefly but the chuckling didn't cease.
"Ah!" The enraged man said as he dragged out his fists slower and slower, bashing them into the stranger's misshapen head, changing it's shape even more as he put his full weight into the blows.
They kept coming, growing heavier and precise till he pounded a final blow into the man's crushed jaw and his whole body broke through the wood of the door behind him.
Into the abandoned darkness the body went and finally the stranger had stopped laughing.
Ethan stood haggard and furious, his brutish fists drenched in gore. One hand cast shadow, the other flame.
Self-loathing set in. A set of footsteps began to walk towards him.
Out of the darkness came the same man, all the grotesque damage undone by some other power somehow. Risen again, the man now bore a serious face.
"I'd advise you didn't do that again." He told Ethan.
"What are you?"
"I am eternal and you are nothing. Goodnight." The stranger said with a shut of the door, it's physical properties also restored somehow.
The hapless driver tapped on Ethan's shoulder.
"Does that mean we're done here? I gotta get home soon."
Ethan arrived at his dumpy house with a mind occupied by this violent incident and tormented by the jealousy to which it's predecessor gave rise.
For, after indulging various conjectures, he concluded with believing the notice of which he had been warned to be that of a rival. A rival to Vergil.
A son of Sparda was with her. Why?
He entered his single-room-roach-box-of-a-condo, and he could feel his power pulse within him. Once he expanded upon this inner potential, he could make her his woman, his Queen.
Now was the wrong time, he had to grow stronger from this point further.
. . .
Lady had been in her bedroom for an hour, unable to drift to sleep, gaping at the silhouettes fashioned by the light from the window behind her bedside.
Worried about that figure who kept appearing to her every once and awhile, she couldn't put herself at ease. She never feared demons, but this man was different.
The window drapes were slightly parted, permitting a beam of moonlight to shine throughout the wide room, slightly misty by the presence of the murky lake's condensation nearby.
A breeze from the exterior rattled her window lattice, and the sound unnerved her considerably.
The draft tickled her face with a chilling breath. She did not associate summer twilight with use of heat constricting methods, such as the pile of blankets resting near her.
If there was one thing she disliked, it was the presence of things she felt would go to waste. It was something from childhood carried over, the idea that it wasn't going to use irked her.
Suddenly she heard her front door, someone banging the surface roughly.
Lady jumped off her bed, bootless and pant-less, all she had on at the moment was basic underwear, a bra and her jacket loosely worn and open, exposing her chest and flat stomach.
She kept her ungloved hand wrapped around her personal pistol, a modified Beretta, and trained it at the barrier between herself and the visitor outside, "Who's there and what the hell do you want?"
"Why don't I just scream it out loud so the whole world will know?" A very familiar voice said.
Oh, it was him.
She dropped her weapon, aggravated at having been so worked so easily. Frustrated the woman lazily strode towards the door and opened it an inch.
Right outside stood a rugged man wearing a dark black coat that drooped to his knees, and a silk grey shirt underneath it.
The jacket held a design of subtle blue trim on it's cuffs and resembled the design of his earlier sleeves, the same that he wore that night so many years ago.
That first meeting was far more hostile than this one, tonight seemed a combination of disdain and defeat, and he was rightfully feeling responsible for it.
"What's up, what do you want to bother me for?" Lady was completely disinterested, scoffing and not even looking behind her as she laid back on her bed and put the gun on the dresser.
The man's black boots stepped forward inside, their design only high enough to meet his upper shin. His pants were of an excessively dark color and seemed to be borrowed from Dante.
The man's hair, when worn down like this, made him look just like his brother. It was like looking at a straight ghost.
"Sorry to disturb you. I would've called, but . . . We both know you wouldn't answer me." He said, regret looming in his eyes, "We have a problem."
She laid there so beautiful in his eyes . . . What a shame. He had the consideration to close the door behind him as he took a seat at the room's desk.
He turned the chair to face her as he couldn't help but be distracted. He felt it impertinent to stare, so he chose to look at the black reflective surface of the TV.
"Yeah? What problem?" She motioned with her hand for him to speak, reaching up off the bed as she put her other forearm over her eyes and moved her legs back toward her, bending her knees.
Vergil stayed silent staring at the TV till he could no longer bare it and finally returned his cold glare to her tan flesh. He felt the need to move almost without end.
If his limbs were moving, then the anxiety was gone, or at least he could ignore it for a little while. The clock on the wall ticked on like a bomb-trigger. He can't stop it, reverse it or slow it down.
Each tick dragged him forward, helpless and nervous to the allotted time. He could no more avoid it than the beating of his own heart, as though he were a lost child, wandering lonely nights.
The dread took to him as an invisible demon sitting heavy upon his shoulders, sinking him further and further down beneath itself, and only he could hear the sharpening of its claws.
"Are you alright?" Lady asked, looking at his strung out, bloodshot eyes, "What's going on, what problem?"
For a moment, Lady remembered something else, a different day. It was that day that started this all for her, this new life they were all living.
. . .
She stopped mid-walk in front of the steps, still finding it hard to move inside.
What was wrong with her? Clearly, the problem had to be with her, since everyone else came to grips so soon.
Yes, she just had to be the weird one, never mind a friend of ten years just plopped out of existence one day.
Lady slowly opened the front door and entered. The scene before her was surprising, to say the least.
Vergil was sitting near a redhead woman sleeping at the couch.
"Welcome Lady, good to see you!" Patty cheered.
Vergil was silent, unsure what to say to this unexpected visitor.
"I've come to talk . . . and stay for a while if you would have me," Lady said in a quiet voice.
A moment of silence passed.
"Come on in." He answered her.
. . .
It's been a week since the two started to talk and be around each other again. It still felt weird, they felt incredibly uncomfortable around one another.
Lady turned herself and sat opposite of him on the bed wither arms and legs crossed.
Vergil took a moment to breathe, he was trying his best to remain calm for the moment.
"This might be hard to believe, but I think you . . . ah, well . . . You might've become another demon's target." He cleared his throat, "I saw someone walking away from the Inn."
Lady's posture tensed up, and she looked at him scornfully.
"A man?"
"Yes, he looked around 6'1, 6'2." Vergil said, referring to the man's height, "He's pretty heavy set."
"Ya mean the peeping tom outside my window? Yeah, he was here earlier, dressed in black. Kinda looked like a mafioso." Lady replied, growing increasingly unnerved by the slayer's eyes.
"When I passed by him . . . I could sense the demon king himself."
"Mundus?" Lady wondered, "Isn't that the same guy you told me about?"
Vergil hung his head low and put a hand on the back of her neck.
When he sighed, he said, "Yes, the one who imprisoned me."
The man watched as her expression changed, Lady's soft wispy features becoming brazen. He didn't want to do this to her, but she had the right to know.
If anything, it was a chance to make up for his past mistakes, and the chance to at least ensure that what happened to his mother would not befall another.
"Who is he? Is that man . . . Is he Mundus?" She asked.
"I don't know. He feels too . . . young." He scratched the palm of his hand, "How did he even get here to begin with? Demons are trapped in hell unless summoned, and they don't look human."
"Well, they're all humanoid, are you sure?" She asked.
"I'm sure, they can become humanoid, but never exactly human in appearance. They have to be either extraordinarily special, or they have to take another human's body only after being summoned."
Lady sighed and put her head between her hands. How many years of pain endured, how many times had she cheated death, and still bad luck followed her like a plague of locust.
Who did she kill in a past life, Gandhi?
She felt Vergil's hand touch her bare knee.
"I-. . . I know that I'm not the person you hoped. I'm not the man who should be here, but . . . I am." He whispered gently, "I won't let him come near you."
She sat there, not caring about her state of undress, not even caring that he had most definitely inspected her visually, she simply took in the words.
For a man that she knew very little about truly, beyond that which she despised, Lady began to feel as though he were at least commendably honorable.
Her reddened lips moved into an almost playful smirk.
"Well, thank you." She said, and she placed her hand on his.
Times like these drove home emotions over logic, and when ration fell by the wayside, chemical instincts took over. He started getting lost in that, those odd eyes and her devil-may-care attitude.
Maybe after what had happened between them, they could honestly make it work, somehow-someway. If only, they both knew it was a perversion of what was meant to be.
A reflection of the true world in a cracked mirror, pretending as though their lives were someplace they were truly meant to be, but sadly this was never supposed to occur.
This time, at least she wasn't alone in this, and that was a comforting idea.
It was funny how one's heart really did feel strung up when opposite someone else, especially those that were lonely.
She reached forward and played with his left lapel which had begun to fray, and his hardened stare went soft.
"How do you do it?" She asked, breaking the silence, "How do you cope with the loneliness?"
Vergil sighed and ran his fingers through his silver locks shimmering under the light of her dresser lamp, the only illumination in the room.
The definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, and yet his hair never returned to it's spiked shape.
He looked back up at her and told the honest-to-god truth:
"I pretended like I didn't need anyone. I lied to myself everyday of my life, and that created a case of ice around my heart." He replied.
Lady let go of his lapel and leaned in closer to him. She remembered what they had done before, and her bare foot inched closer to his boot.
She left his hand to smolder on her knee and leaned back on the bed, supporting herself with both of her elbows and shoulders behind her.
Her jacket lightly ruffled and fell away from her chest to reveal everything, covered in that simple black brassiere.
"And what about now? You feel anything cold in your chest still?"
"No." He replied flatly, "I've been feeling rather wholesome lately."
"Sounds like a 'you problem.'" She said.
"Perhaps. I have many of those currently. For instance, I don't how to break the truth to Patty." She could plainly hear the torture in his voice.
Her hand graced his cheek as he explored her thigh, both caressing their respective affection.
Her thumb grazed over his cheek and her smirk intensified. Old habits are hard to break.
"I forgot to take a shower earlier, it was a hot day." She said.
"Do you need supervision?" He asked her.
Not a clue was etched on his face.
"Not exactly." She said.
"Surely you have some sort of loofah here, this is quite the quaint abode." He said with some discomfort, it was getting more difficult for him to speak as he used to.
She chuckled.
"I'm asking if you wanna have me."
"Say what?" He leaned in and spoke almost exactly like Dante.
"Don't look so scandalized." She said, running her toes along the inseam of his right pant leg, "We're both lonely, you're a familiar face . . . in more ways than one."
"Listen . . ." He told her, "I'm not- I didn't come here to take advantage-"
She put a finger on his lips and came close to his face.
"No one's taking advantage of anything." She said.
His hands had found their way to her other extremities and found a fun, comfortable home for themselves, at least for now.
She kissed his cheek, leaving behind a red blossom and her foot had reached his own suddenly eager member.
"What's wrong with me . . . ?" He whispered.
"Nothing that isn't also wrong with me." She said, then stood up off the mattress and led him astray to the shower.
To Be Continued
Thank you for reading, this is the result of hard work and multiple revisions.
Feel free to review, I'm no stranger to constructive criticism. Share your thoughts, let me know how this impacts you.
Thank you Angel wolf.
Sorry if there are any grammar mistakes, english is not my first language.