(Author's Note: I love the Devil May Cry series; all of them, even the newest one which a lot of people seemed to dislike. I missed Trish in the newest DmC though…so here she is! I tried to re-imagine her as a Scarlett Johannsson-esque young adult).

The Children in Hell

Chapter One: The Gilded Girl

Dante could feel his bones creaking as he moved from the pew to the aisle. The flow of blood from his heart to his limbs was an uncomfortable hot rush after nearly a month of lying naked and immobile. He shrugged off the dust and shuffled toward the sound of knocking.

In all honesty, his life was in terrific danger. For all he knew, whoever was scraping at his front door was something that would find delicious pleasure in tearing him to pieces. But Dante was out of fucks to give; if death was waiting behind his front door, he would welcome it all too gladly , especially if it would stop the noise. He was completely weaponless, unclothed, save for the pearly white pendant that rested heavy on his chest. Dante was at the mercy of fate. His heart throbbed.

Not having seen light in months could do terrible things to a persons' eyes and Dante groaned aloud as the sunlight poured onto him. The warmth nearly made him sick.

"Nice body you've got there." The tone was duly amused.

His eyes adjusted and he dropped his hand. The Dante of two years ago would have been more than pleased to catch this woman's eye. It would have been considered a personal victory if he had gotten her to the point where she could view his impressive body unclothed. He was not the rake he once was, but even so, she was gorgeous.

Unlike most residents of Raptor City who had dark features and slim, muscular bodies, she glowed an angelic golden in the light, mostly thanks to her long wavy red-blonde hair. Dick-sucking lips took on a whole new meaning as hers barely seemed to be able to close under their weight, and her thick curvy body seemed to bounce even when she was motionless and breathing. It was amazing that her breasts and thighs didn't rip through her clothes. The only thing dark about her was the mysterious glint in her dark eyes, a color somewhere between green and blue.

"I could same the same to you." He was painfully aware of how dusty and unused his voice sounded. "What the fuck do you want?"

She moved slightly and Dante could see the lacings on the black leather vest she wore straining against the ample flesh. "Dante, was it? You don't look like your latest wanted poster." As if to affirm her statement, she yanked the paper out of her back pocket and unfolded it.

The Dante pictured seemed worlds away from the one who stood in front of her now.

In the picture, he had a wide, white grin that cut across his face like a scar; his dark eyes crinkled with wicked delight and the way he held himself radiated careless swagger. His hair was still cropped short and displayed some patches of stubborn black. It was taken before…before everything went up in flames.

The man standing now was a hollow shell. His stubborn demonic and angelic blood refused to let his lean body wane and waste away, but his high cheeks were sunken and there were dark hollows under his eyes. Gone was the easy assurance, the spark in his dark eyes. All that remained was the heavy pendant around his neck and hair grown long, as white as the ghost of this man.

The woman looked as though her hopes were disappointed, but she composed herself.

"Are you going to invite me in?" She asked, tilting her hip.

"Are you here to kill me?" He was almost embarrassed about how desperate he sounded.

She grinned. "It depends."

Dante ushered her inside and followed the glow of her reddish hair.

"Jesus," she murmured after crunching through several skeletons and empty liquor bottles with her high boots. "I've been tracking you down for weeks and I find you rotting in an old church. At least you haven't lost your flair for the dramatic…"

Dante could hear the mocking tone in her voice and it somehow made him feel something like anger. He stormed in front of her and tossed himself across one of the surviving pews, spreading his arms and legs so that she could easily obliterate him. "Are you going to kill me or not?"

Her smile, even as mocking as it was, could make angels weep. "I need your help first."

Dante could feel his will to live diminishing again and he curled in on himself. "Get out."

In a movement so fast he could barely perceive it, she had him by his hair and on his feet. Her blue-green eyes were blazing and heat pulsed from her body into his cold skin. The feeling was exhilarating and he could barely breathe. "At least listen to what I have to say, you fucking asshole. I've done a lot to hunt you down and I'm damn well not going to let you get away when I've got you in my grasp."

With one hand she slammed the center of his chest and he stumbled back into the pew.

"What are you?" He gasped. He had gone out in hopes of dying and was beginning to regret his decision. She was troublesome.

"I'm like you." She was grinning again. "I'm a half-breed, although my mix is demon and human. My name is Trish." As she continued to speak, Trish began to pull out golden metal rings and slid them onto her knuckles and the joints of her fingers. "I need someone to take me into Limbo; it is absolutely necessary that I find the gates of Hell and I know you've been there before. Once you show me the way…" Trish clenched her fists when all the rings had been put into place and the gold fizzled bright blue with electricity that ran up her arms and fingers. "Then, I will kill you."

"Amazing." Dante whispered, watching the gentle crackling.

"You should be used to this." Trish replied. "I've seen your Holy and Demonic weapons on the news. All half children have unusual affinities with weapons and mine just happens to be with electricity."

Dante began to stand, enraptured with the lightning. "Why do you need to go to the gates? I haven't been…" His heart ached. "…in a long time…"

Trish released her fist and the lightning disappeared. With one palm flat, she slammed her hand into his bare chest and sat down next to him. Like magic, a Polaroid photograph appeared between her index and middle finger. She waited…

Despite his best efforts, Dante was intrigued.

With hands shaking from atrophy, he accepted the photo and flipped it over. He surveyed it and cradled it in his palm. "What...?"

Trish's hair, soft and red-gold as sunlight, brushed against his arm and shoulder as she also looked at the photo. "You may want to put on some pants. This story may take a while…"

Dante sat in front of a mirror, surveying what was left of his hair. After his fight with Vergil, all of the deep, lovely black had faded into patches, while the rest was snow-white. Dante didn't mind either color in particular; the black had always made him look rough and dangerous, and this white was striking in a whole new way.

However, the effect of both made him look like a calico cat. He hissed through his teeth and surveyed the mess.

Upon further inspection, when he yanked up the black patches, he found that the roots were white. He jumped slightly when a second pair of hands, much smaller, thinner, and softer, joined his. This set of hands played with his hair much more gently and he relaxed and let them after a moment. When he leaned his head back, it rested against a firm, warm stomach.

When the hands stopped moving, Dante lazily opened one eye. "It looks like shit, right?"

She smiled down at him, that soft, secretive smile that he liked, and curled a lock of her dark hair behind her ear. "I can cut those bits out for you. But it will still look nice when it's all white." Her hands scratched the place where his neck met his hairline.

Dante closed his eyes as she played with his hair…

"Your hair has gotten really long, you know?"

Dante jolted and the hands, Trish's hands, released his hair. They had managed to find a pair of his pants in the chaos of the church, and he was shirtless sitting in front of a broken mirror. He barely recognized himself anymore and the memories made him feel like vomiting. His shoulder length hair was now a shock of pure white, without even a single strand of black left over.

"I don't dislike it though…" She murmured to herself, stroking the ends. "It seems a waste to cut it all. I'll just trim the ends. Is that ok?"

"I don't care."

He felt gentle tugging on the end of his hair and Trish's honeyed voice filled his ears.

"I'm sure you've heard a thousand stories just like mine. I never knew either my birth mother or father, but whichever one that was demonic put me into one of those homes for 'half-children'. I guess you could call it an orphanage, but let's be honest, you and I both know that nobody ever gets adopted from those places…You just learn to deal with shit and try to find a way out… Anyway, once you blew the cover off of all the demonic presence here in the City, well…"

He felt her fist clench and he was half glad and half disappointed that she was not wearing her rings; even without them he could feel palpable electricity.

"Well, a group of us who had left that place decided that it would be better if we got rid of the management. Since they were demons, it seemed like a natural idea to destroy them and we took up the leadership positions. I was the vice chair; basically in charge of helping these kids develop their powers without hurting anyone…"

Dante looked at the picture in front of him. That explained the children.

The Polaroid depicted two kids, one boy and one girl. They were radically different; the girl was like Trish in her warm coloring, with auburn hair tied into a ponytail and wide amber eyes and she radiated innocence, even in the picture. The boy was small, sharp, and angry looking with thin gray eyes and a bandaged left hand. His hair was also a brilliant tuft of silvery white.

He looked like he could be the younger brother of Dante and Vergil.

"Those two are special." Trish said softly. "Their names are Nero and Kyrie."