The Furious Five are characters owned by DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc.

Vergil is a character owned by Capcom

The Heartless

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A Meeting of Power

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"He profanes the land with ill intentions and disturbs the peace with a lust for power."

Guidepost for the Hunter, Chapter 3 - Clause 5

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The Valley of Peace. A place that for centuries had lived up to its name. And yet, to this day, it continued to do so…

Sounds of footsteps on the dirt were replaced by for those of stone as the blue-coated young man walked his way into the village. Other than that, only the sound of the wind under the sunset sky, flowing through the structures on the sides of the streets, could be heard.

He walked, carrying the small black bag hanging by a strap on his shoulder, his eyes dead set on the destination that stood directly straight at the end of the long street and beyond. Besides him, the silent village remained ignored.

The centuries-old houses never looked so tranquil and the streets never so undisturbed. No signs of conflict, only serenity.

The white of the walls had turned into a corrupted grey. The empty and half-broken crates once carried goods of all kinds, edible and otherwise, but the only goods that they contained were now collections of dust. The colorful signs that invited the people to purchase from a humble business were far from inviting at this moment; all they said 'go away, there's nothing in here anymore'.

He continued his march, not looking at the shady silhouettes of the structures that once stood thanks to hard working handymen, now cruelly cracked and destroyed, incomplete, with their missing pieces uselessly lying as debris below them. They had stopped being hospitable many, many years ago.

He walked and the only sounds he heard were still the steps of his brown boots against the uneven stone floor and the whistling sound of the wind. No children playing on the streets, no vendors promoting their goods, no friends nor families having a pleasant discussion at their doorsteps, no neighbors bickering angrily through their windows, no one. They were all gone.

The Valley of Peace was indeed at peace. Peace in silence. Peace in emptiness. Peace in death.

But Vergil had no interest in ghost towns. He walked and paid no mind to the aged and decayed village and continued his path through the road.

By the time he had put the village behind, the sun was halfway-hidden behind the large mountains. Right in front him were now the so-called Thousand Steps, a tremendously lengthy upward stairway that led to the structure that stood powerful and vigilant over the entire valley:

The Jade Palace, his destination.

He had read of this place. In the book of 'Legends of the Far East', it was mentioned several times, most of which involved the name of the Furious Five. There wasn't any mention of the Dragon Warrior ever setting foot in this place, but the Furious Five were undeniably linked heavily to him. Ergo, the clue to finding about the Dragon Warrior and the location of the powerful Dragon Scroll must me hidden within the walls of this legendary complex.

Once he reached the top of the stairway, the sun now laid behind the mountains, leaving a glowing orange twilight around their silhouettes. A broken wooden gate rested crumbled at his feet. Nothing stood on his way into the structure. He walked in and finally made it inside the walls of the Jade Palace.

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A few steps in and his mind finally settled in halting his march. Something about this place intrigued him now. He found himself in the middle of the palace courtyard, which also doubled as an arena, according to the written stories. This was the place where many important ceremonies were held at.

What exactly surprised him was how kindly time had treated this place in comparison to the rest of the village. While showing hints of decay and missing fragments of its structure, the palace, or this section at least, and with the exception of the front gate, still remained stable. Could it be that this place where heroes lived and trained had become a holy ground not to be tainted by the passage of time?

Whatever the reason was, it didn't end up being important. In the end, there really wasn't anything else to look at and decided to proceed.

He resumed his way into the palace through a new path of stairs, which soon split into a couple of sidewalks, leading to opposite directions, and another stairway, this one leading towards the most remarkable building of the palace, a structure of big proportions that stood omnipotent atop the complex.

If he recalled well, that would be the Sacred Hall of Warriors.

The hall stood there, tempting him, but since the moment had arrived at the valley his intention was set clear, and the Sacred Hall was not that. But he could return here, should he need to. After all, there was no one here to stop him (no one who would attempt to anyway) and he had all the time in the world to search this place.

He turned to his right and continued the road in front of him. The Sacred Hall would have to wait for now.

The path had suddenly turned into another stairway that led towards a cliff top where a small building stood. Could those be the barracks of the warriors that inhabited the palace? Whatever they were, he concluded that there was nothing of interest in that place.

The path seemingly ended at this point, right in front of the barracks. His walk all the way here had been as seen completely pointless, however, had he not caught the sight of a faded path of dirt that led him into the woods of the mountain.

It was a curious sight, he had to admit. Every significant place in the palace was clearly visible and unconcealed in the open. Why would there be something hidden inside the forest?

Perhaps, he thought, something so important it had to be concealed into a place where all sense of safety would abandon all those who dared to search it…

That thought was all he needed to prompt his way into the path, confident that there'd be no obstacle strong enough to even be regarded as a threat for him. He followed the dirty path through the dark forest. His keen sense of orientation led his way.

Whatever is that I find here, it better be worth it…

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And it was.

In fact, not just that; this was the place he had been looking for since the moment he had made to the Valley.

The path reached a clearing in middle of the forest. Somehow, he could sense that very few people had known of this place, let alone come here at all. The reason why was clear for him to see. The significance this location held for those who resided in the palace was obvious.

Distributed across the old dirt and the few remaining patches of grass were the graves of the warriors that had long ago resided in this palace, all died heroically in their quests to protect the Valley and all of China.

This was the cemetery of the palace.

He made his way through the marble tombstones, most of them being mere flat stones with the names of the fallen hero written on Chinese characters, with the occasional more decorative ones in between. He knew he'd find them. There weren't many graves in here to begin with and, besides, being regarded as the mightiest heroes of the Valley, he presumed the bodies he looked for would have been given a more privileged spot on this graveyard.

He wasn't wrong, as further in to the cemetery he sighted the ruins of an old mausoleum, considerably distant from the rest of the graves. The decay on the structure was more than apparent: the door that closed the entrance was destroyed, moss had grown at the base of the columns and the entirety of the ceiling had fallen and now rested as debris.

Now without any cover, a set of five tombstones, surrounded by the remaining pillars, rested.

This was it. He had found them at last!

Speeding up his pace, he set foot into the ruined floor of the mausoleum. The violet sky signaled the final step of transition before the night would finally cover the land, but it proved to be no issue for his sight. He stopped once he found himself standing in front of the graves of the ruined mausoleum.

All five graves looked just as decayed as the structure that housed them, turning the engraved characters into nearly illegible characters. However, an inscription had been written on the floor in front of the graves. Having been written in larger characters, the words were clear enough for him to read.

'Here rest the bodies and souls of the Furious Five, mighty and brave defenders of the Valley of Peace and all of China.'

Yes, this was it! He had finally found them!

The Furious Five proved to be more than legends now: they were real! And if they were real, so had to be the Dragon Warrior and the Dragon Scroll.

He was so close now. Soon enough, the power of the universe would be his.

No time to be hasty. He reminded himself, calming down his eagerness. First, I must know if the scroll is indeed real. And that means, I must ask some questions first…

He opened the small bag he had been carrying since his arrival to China. Only three items were contained in it, all of them crucially important, but only of them was of need right now.

It was the book under the title 'Advanced Necromancy: Summoning the Long Deceased', written in a language forgotten by mankind.

Since his childhood, Vergil had come to learn and understand the nature of the dark power that flowed through his veins, the inheritance of his father, Sparda, and with years and years of research and experimenting, he had acquired the knowledge to use it in many different ways, most of them forbidden and forsaken by humans, who feared such power the moment they realized it was too much for them to handle. But Vergil was above them. He had become proficient in the occult arts and the use of dark magic. One of its branches, necromancy, had just recently gained his attention. Though interacting with the death was nowhere near his priorities, he concluded that it could become potentially hand. It was power, after all, and the more power he obtained the better.

To his dismay, however, there was a huge inconvenient regarding his powers: they were still limited. Until he found the ultimate power he sought, he'd have to continue managing the usage of his power, specially this time of all times: though strong, his power was not fit for necromancy.

Within the pages of the book there were the instructions for a powerful ritual. It would allow him to reach the knowledge he sought, but should he use it, he'd spend an immenseamount of his power. It was very unlikely that he'd be able to perform the same ritual a second time should he need to.

He understood the risks and he had come this far, so close to achieve the goal of his existence. He'd not back down at anything. Even though it might weaken him, he was decided to go through the ritual.

Without effort, he proceeded to toss aside any other debris near any of the other graves. For this to work, he had to make sure the floor was free of any object that could interfere.

Setting his bad aside, Vergil picked a particularly long and sharp-pointed fragment from the debris beside one of the pillars and placed it carefully a few feet in front of the middle grave, having the pointed end facing straight upward.

He gave one last quick read to the text on the book. Everything was ready.

He dropped the book back into his bag. "Let's get this started then."

Without hesitation, he impaled is right hand all the way through the pointy stone in front of him, kneeling down until his hand nearly reached the bottom, letting out small grunts of pain.

Soon enough, blood began to flow out of the big wound on his hand. He shoved his hand a little further to let more blood out, which flowed down the stone all the way to the floor where a small bloody puddle began to take form.

He lifted his left hand to then smash it against the ground with immense force. Such was the force, in fact, that he ended up burying his arm halfway through the forearm.

He further wounded his other hand with all the strength he could manage. For this to work, he had to spend a large portion of his power, and lose all the blood he could lose.

And this was only the beginning…

"Listen to me, souls of the dead!" He spoke with a loud, commanding voice. "I call you forth, you who have long ago left this world, to rise once again and awake from your endless slumber!"

The puddle beneath the pointed stone grew bigger and bigger. This amount of lost blood would have been enough to cause an average human to pass out, but it was nothing that Vergil couldn't handle. That said, the process was not entirely painless.

"You who perished long ago in the past, I summon you back to life, to be bound into your mortal shapes once again!"

As the puddle of blood increased in size, a dark aura began to surround Vergil's body. It was at first subtly, almost invisible, but little by little, it showed itself.

"Though your bodies still remain underneath these graves and your souls continue to exist within the universe, the power that once held them together has faded from existence. That is why now, in order for you to return to this world, I give you part of my own power!"

The aura around Vergil then began to concentrate on his left arm, the one buried into the ground.

"For you to come back fully alive, I also give this blood, my blood, so it can be your blood as well. Let it flow through your veins; let it form your bones and flesh; let it give you back the body you once possessed so it can house your soul one more time!"

His right hand had bled so much by now that the puddle had grown to large proportions, effectively covering the front of all five graves.

"You shall awake from your eternal slumber again, for I am not requesting your presence." He pushed his left arm further underground past the elbow. "I am demanding it!"

The energy that flowed through his arm was siphoned by the earth, expanding all across the floor of the mausoleum, which was covered by the inhumanly impossible large pool of blood.

"I command you all to live once again! I drag your souls to this place and force them into your bodies for them to rise; I force them to move and feel once again! You are without a choice, for my will is immense and my will is for you to rise from death!"

The pool of blood began to react to the glowing aura on the ground, akin to the ebullition of potted water reacting to the fire underneath it. Just like that, the blood of Vergil began to boil violently.

"Master Mantis, Master Viper, Master Crane, Master Tigress and Master Monkey," the ground underneath him began to shake and Vergil breathed heavily as he felt a large amount of his power abandoning him. This was the point of no return. He would finish the ritual, no matter what consequences it would bring.

" LIVE AGAIN!"

With that last shout, he released his power into the corpses that rested under the graves and the blood that boiled above them.

The powerful and bright aura engulfed the entire mausoleum. Even Vergil's eyes suffered temporary blindness from it. Yet despite that, he felt how the ground opened to let the lifeless bodies of the legendary warriors to rise from their resting place. As they rose, they were engulfed by Vergil's blood. The aura surrounded each of the bloodied corpses and served as catalyst for the process of restoration, infusing the blood with the bodies and regenerating all rotten flesh, bone and organ.

Vergil retracted his right hand from the piercing stone and his left arm from the ground. He bandaged the wound with a piece of cloth from his bag. It wasn't vitally important, but it would help his wound to regenerate quicker, much quicker.

He felt as if he had been emptied. No exhaustion of any kind, but although he still retained a good amount of power, he had undeniably lost most of all that he had in that ritual. It would take a long time for him to recover all he had lost, so the sacrifice had to be worth it.

The aura dissipated slowly and Vergil recovered his sight once more.

Once he could see perfectly, he saw right in front of him the reanimated bodies of those he had brought back from death: the Furious Five.

…but wait, this wasn't right…

… In fact, this was strange.

In front of him were living bodies, yes. He knew they were alive. Their bodies showed no sign of decay or injury whatsoever. They looked healthy and, strangely, young, for what they were. On top of that, he could see them breathing, so they had to be alive.

But alas, there was something that still dumfounded him. He looked attentively at the bodies to assure that his mind wasn't playing dirty tricks to him, but even when he had made sure his mental condition was more than perfect (as he was confident it always has been), what stood before him was still a matter of total perplexity.

The Furious Five were all named after five of the styles of hung ga kung fu: Monkey, Mantis, Crane, Viper and Tiger (actually Tigress, wasn't it?). All along, he believed their names to be a mere homage to the respective styles that each of them had mastered.

It never occurred to him that their names would be more than that. As it apparently turned out, their names were…indicators of their actual species.

The bodies in front of Vergil were not human: they were animal.

"What is the meaning of this?" He frowned in annoyance. Was this some sort of occult prank? Had he performed the ritual improperly?

No, it couldn't be. This book was of complete legitimacy. He had made sure of that himself the moment he acquired it! He couldn't have misread the instructions for he had head read them several times with complete attention.

It was a bothersome occurrence, yet he continued to stare at the bodies that he had just resurrected in search for any indication that the resurrected beings were those he had been looking for.

There was a small praying mantis, apparently one of a wingless variant, with a small blue tattoo on its back, as well as a stylized Chinese character written in it.

Besides it was the much larger body of a bird (only slightly shorter than himself, Vergil deduced). A crane, to be precise. Its neck and head were covered by black feathers, while its torso and majority of its wings by white ones. It was…wearing a pair of blue loose pants with a purple sash wrapped around its waist. Its legs were long, but very skinny and very fragile-looking. He noticed also that under its beak rested what looked to be a typical Chinese straw hat.

Did my power also bring back clothing…to an animal? This is ridiculous!

The third body was that of a bright green snake. It was unclothed, but it sported an array of Chinese characters tattooed all the way through its back. What amused him the most was the sight of two lotus flower blossoms resting on its head in a seemingly decorative fashion.

The last body was an orange-golden furred monkey with a black-skinned face. Its forearms were protected by wristbands and just like the crane it was wearing pants, maroon ones instead of blue.

It was strange and unbelievable for certain, but this couldn't be wrong. These had to the Furious Five. Masters Mantis, Crane, Viper, Monkey, Tigress…

Wait a second…

Something else was wrong. Something else was very wrong. How could it be that he had come all this way to find the Furious Five resting on five identical graves and surrendering his power to bring back the five beings…just to find, right there, only four of them!

"What? How did this happen?"

Had his power not been enough? Did he lack the strength to bring back one more of them? Was all that power only enough to bring back four, not all five?

Things were not turning out as Vergil had envisioned them. However, in the back of his mind, he acknowledged, there could be no room of doubt and denial. These had to be the Furious Five (four of them at least), the real ones, back to live just like they were during their prime years. They had to be, or else he had traveled so far and wasted a precious amount of power for nothing!

Well, what was done was done and all he had left was to proceed as he planned. He would need to manage with just four of them and even if they were not human…not like their species mattered, actually. Dealing with non-humans was customary for him (and may more preferable now that he thought about it).

All he needed now was to make sure that; somehow, he could communicate with them and hope that they still retained all the knowledge they possessed before they passed away.

First, though, he better had to ensure they were alive at all.

His involvement wasn't required, though, for soon enough, the bodies began to awake, just like a living being would normally wake up from a deep slumber.

The first to awake was the snake.

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Her bright blue-sky eyes opened slowly and weakly, but it was evident she was slowly regaining conciousness.

"Where…"

She spoke with a soft feminine voice.

"Where…where am I?...w-what happened?"

She sounded disoriented. It had to be normal, being back to life right after how knows how much centuries of being dead.

"V…Viper? Is that you?"

As if reacting to her voice, the monkey began to recover consciousness too.

"Monkey?"

Turning to her right, she saw her fellow warrior slowly rising up to his feet. "What, how?"

It didn't take long until the mantis and crane also awoke to the sound of their comrades' voices.

"Uh, ah…this is one heck of a headache…" The mantis said starkly as he rubbed his head with his pincer. "Wait, was that you, Viper?"

Their eyes all open, the confused animal rose sturdily. Such must be the feel of being back to a physical body after centuries of being nothing but an intangible spirit.

In a matter of minutes, however, their psychomotor functions seemed to look normal as if they had just remembered how to use their bodies again.

The crane spoke now. "Mantis, Monkey, Viper…it is you." In his voice there joy. "It's you!"

The long-time comrades –no, friends- shared a small-rejoice over their reunion.

"I can't believe it…it's all of us, again..." The reptilian warrior seemed to want to cry in joy and rejoice...but something held her back.

Why did this not feel right? It's been an indescribable amount of time since they have been together and now fate had provided them a chance for a long-cherished reuinion. Then why wasn't this the moment of smiles and embraces they had been wishing for? Why did none of this feel fine?

There was no celebration, for soon enough questions would fall upon them like a vicious shower of meteorites.

"Yes…" Crane's cheerfulness cracked in his voice, followed and replaced by mystification. "…but how? And why?"

Any fondness of regathering was abandoned that moment.

It would have seemed that the circumstances that had led them to this moment were of little importance, but something about this felt too strange and mysterious for them to ignore. They felt strange, found themselves at an unknown place and they didn't even know how. It bothered them so much it itched.

"And…where is Tigress?"

Monkey's question prompted all four to look all around the place, but they found no signs of their missing fifth teammate.

Their fruitless search let them gain awareness of their location. That said, they had no idea of where they found themselves at. The moonlight could only do so much for them tonight and the shapes of the moonlit trees and ruined architecture around them didn't give them enough hints.

"And just where are we?"

At the lack of answers, they let silence to sink in. The breeze of the summer night flowing and rustling the trees of the woods was the only thing to be heard that moment.

Then Mantis broke silence.

"Uh, guys…" Crane, Viper and Monkey looked down at the insect who looked astonished at the stone formations in front of them. "you might want to see this."

A cold shiver ran through all of them when they recognized them as tombstones.

Yet it wasn't only the fact they were graves, but that there were five graves, right in front of them.

Plus the additional fact that, right now, they were standing on each of them.

And if that hadn't been enough, there were also the revealing inscriptions carved in each of the tombstones…

They were old and faded, but looking close enough, they could make out something particularly scary in them.

Names.

Their names.

Disbelief invaded their minds.

They were unwilling to accept it as real…, yet the possibility of being true could not escape their minds.

"Could these be…ours?"

Monkey spoke with uncertainty.

His doubts and those of the rest were sealed shut when they discovered the terrifying inscription underneath them.

Clear but hesitant, Crane read it aloud.

"Here rest the bodies and souls of…the Furious Five, mighty and brave defenders of the Valley of Peace and all of China"

It was true then. These graves, in right in front of them, were their graves.

"B-but, we're here!" Viper bursted out in denial. "We're standing here alive! We can't be d-!"

"Wait, Viper." The simian warrior interrupted her friend's hysteria. She quieted down to hear what her comrade had to say, but she was far from feeling any better. "These…" Monkey stared off into nothing in particular. His mind was wandering off into places he didn't remember.

"These…graves, I think…I think I've been here before!"

"What?"

"Yes. I really can't help but feel like this place is so familiar…"

"Hold on a second." Crane spoke up. The statement that he would speak came out insecurely.

"You…could be right. This place feels familiar. I think I know this place too."

"What are you guys talking about? I have never been in this place before." Viper's perplexity was further aggravated.

"I know that." Mantis said suddenly with confidence. "I know…"

He spoke the most confidently of all. It was that assuredness on his words that draw his comrades' eyes at him, mystified at what their smaller fellow meant with that statement.

"I mean, I think I know why you don't know this place, Viper, but why also you two guys" he addressed the other two male warriors, "seem to, even if just vaguely. And that's because…I do now remember this place."

"Mantis, from when do you remember this place?" Viper pushed the questioning into the insect. He momentarily averted her gaze for he felt hesitant to reveal this knowledge to her.

"Mantis!" She demanded his answer.

"…from the day we buried you, Viper."

"What!" The words of his insect were just too stunning for her to believe.

It was at that instant when Crane gasped at the return of stray memory into his mind. "I remember now."

"W-what? You mean, the day you say you…?"

"Yes, Viper. You don't remember this place because you… died before you ever knew of it."

"…" Astonished, she found herself at a loss of words.

"Yes. I remember it well now…" The reminiscence of such painful memory brought a past back and old burden and the others could see that well. "This" he placed his wing on the tombstone right in front of her "was your grave."

Viper stared at the stone that marked the spot of her grave…her grave. She couldn't grasp this. How could she have a grave if she was there, alive!

"And I'm afraid this one here" he walked to the next grave, the one at the right of Viper's "was yours, Monkey." The simian was at an equal befuddlement. "And you don't remember this place very well because you were the next to go. You've only been here once, so to say…"

"And the one here at the middle, Crane," Mantis spoke up as he perched atop the middle tombstone "is yours. You were third to go."

It seemed like reality began to reveal itself to them, finally, and a truth hard to swallow and difficult to digest appeared at their eyes.

"So that means this one here" The insect warrior jumped to the grave at the left of Crane's "has to be mine and that leaves us with this one" he said as he moved towards the fifth and final grave "is Tigress', who left this world after all of us did…"

"So there's no doubt then." Monkey spoke like he'd be ready to accept the truth of the matter. "We are dead, aren't we?"

"It may seem like, but…" Mantis shut his eyes for a moment. Somewhere in his deepest memories there had to be some information that would conclude that he had passed away long ago. He tried his hardest to gather back any important recollection…

"Urgh" he grunted in frustration. His mental search had been fruitsless. "I can't remember well. I can't recall any moment I could have died. I mean, I do remember just about everything else! My battle with the crocodile bandits, the day I first came to the palace, my battles and adventures with you all and, heck, like I said, I even remember the day you guys were buried in this place! But everything after that is vague…I can only remember feeling a weird sensation of…emptiness and silence."

"Well…I believe do remember most of my life too." The reptilian warrior spoke out. "But just like Mantis, my last memories are blurry and unclear. The only that comes to me I is a sensation just like the one he described, but nothing else."

"The same goes for me. What about you, Crane?" Monkey asked to the avian.

"Yes, that's true." He went pensive for a minute, processing the little information they had collected regarding their situation. "So…I guess we could say that we, indeed, passed away time ago."

"And judging by the current state of this mausoleum," Mantis followed, "or rather, what's left of it, that time ago must have been a very long one."

"So we all died, one after the other." Viper continued. "First me, then Monkey, then Crane, then Mantis and, finally, Tigress." She paused at the mention of her last comrade. "Wherever she might be right now…"

"Perhaps she's still down there, buried." Mantis theorized.

"But how come all four of us are back to life, but she isn't?" A much better question sprouted from the last one into Crane's mind.

"Though, I guess the real question here should be…how did we come back to life?"

"And why?" Mantis finalized the round of questions with the most crucial of them all.

Silence again. The answers for the masters' questions where nowhere to be presented.

There remained little room for thoughts now as they began to contemplate the possibility that this mystery may not ever be revealed to them at all…

"That I could gladly answer for you." At last, the blue coated observant stepped from the shadows of the night and revealed his figure by the moonlight. His unexpected presence provoked a must surprised reaction from the kung fu warriors who stared in bewilderment.

He spoke in Chinese, just like them, but the looks of him told them he was from nowhere near the Valley of Peace or anywhere from China at all.

He was nearly around the same height as the avian master, if not taller. He stood perfectly erected in two legs. He covered his feet with a pair of brown boots and wore dark blue pants, matching the equally-colored leather vest. His most prominent piece of clothing was a large indigo-blue coat, made of an unknown silk-looking material that fell down all the way to his ankles. The only thing he carried was a small black bag hanging by his shoulder, its contents impossible to tell. He had no tail, no fur or no claws of any kind. His hands were relatively small as was his head comparing it to other species the masters were familiar with. He had no tail, no fur or no claws of any kind.

His face had to be the most intriguing feature of his entire body: it looked nearly flat, except for a pointy protuberance in the center that seemed to be his nose. A small and simple mouth composed by two lips, two odd-looking ears at the side of the round-esque head and a pair of small blue eyes underneath an exposed forehead. The visible hair on his body was the peculiar looking white hair growing on his head, which looked like it had been swept back, as well as a pair of white eyebrows above his eyes.

He looked like no one they had ever seen before. His sight was of the most uncomfortable kind. That, coupled up with his unexplained presence at such inconvenient time on a place like this, gave the four warriors a very unfriendly sensation about this man. They turned themselves to face the stranger directly and positioned in a steady stance. They tried not to suggest any bad intentions to the mysterious man, yet prepared themselves should he happen to have any of his own…

"Who are you?" Crane asked boldly.

The stranger walked a few steps ahead, further revealing his figure with the moonlight. "The name is Vergil"

He then came to a halt a few feet away from the warriors. "And just like you, I have questions that need to be answered."

His subtle smirk was caught by the trained eyes of the four warriors. There was something in him that was evidently not good. Did this man know them? Did he have something to do with their apparent resurrection? Could they trust him at all?

Vergil could see their uncertainty in their faces. They would not trust him so easily. Likewise, he wasn't going to easily trust them either.

One way or another, only conflict could be outcome to this meeting of power.

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"Evil must be opposed and destroyed."

Guidepost for the Hunter, Chapter 12 - Clause 9

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Author's notes:

This chapter ended up being longer than I anticipated so I guess this means the following chapters might be just as lengthy. Things start to get quite bloody already, but nothing that demands an M-rating for the story just yet. Whether the rating gets pushed or remains this same will be definitely defined by the next chapter. Hopefully none gets effed up if I ended up increasing the rate of this fic. But again, I won't know that until I start writing the next chapter soon.

And since it's unlikely that I will have chapter 3 ready before the end of year, I say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you all!

'til laters!