Five Years Ago:

Hazel got off the phone with her brother. She hadn't been able to sleep or keep any food down since her panic attack last night. "He's coming to get me." She reported to Dante, holding her knees to her chest. She hadn't been back in the kitchen since and she just wanted to get out of here. She wanted to be back in her own room, not sleeping on some stranger's couch. She felt simultaneously embarrassed and exhausted. Her brother had to cancel a deal with somebody- probably earning bad notoriety. She hated that she had panic attacks. She hated that she couldn't just calm herself down like a normal person. Hazel felt like she needed something constant- even if it wasn't her home, she needed her brother.

"That's good." Dante said slowly. He had no idea how to console somebody- especially when it's their own brain attacking them. He felt for her- he had had nightmares and obsessions for years after his Mother died. This was of a different sort- but he understood how she could be feeling. They spent the day watching TV, until Dante got a call in the afternoon. He stepped onto his porch to take it, seeing it was from Jay.

"Hey, man. What's going on?" Dante greeted easily. He just heard panicky screams and gunshots before Jay picked his phone back up again.

"Dante! There are Demons everywhere. I'm safe for now- but you gotta hurry here. Get Hazel out of there."

"Whoa, calm down. Tell me where you are."

"I just passed mile marker five on interstate forty-one. One of those bastards knows something he shouldn't." Heavy thuds were in the background. "Make sure that you or Vergil stays with Hazel at all times. We can all meet up here. Hurry Dante." Jay whispered the last parts frantically and hung up his phone.

Dante hung up and immediately called his brother to meet him over here as soon as possible. After Vergil agreed, sounding bored and put off, Dante rushed back inside. "Hey, babe, pack up. We're going to go meet your brother as soon as Vergil gets here."

"What? Is he okay?"

"I don't know. But that's why we're leaving soon."

"Okay." Hazel pulled on a sweatshirt and stuffed her books and laptop back into her bag.

Dante, unsurprisingly, took longer to get ready. He grabbed handfuls of green orbs and threw them into a sack and then stuffed his pockets with them, before strapping on Rebellion and Ebony and Ivory. He looked dangerous and ready to strike. Hazel had started to feel normal again in the past few hours, but the situation made her stomach start to twist again.

When Vergil arrived, she was ushered into the back seat of Dante's car. She fell asleep and woke up only when Dante woke her up. "Hey, I'm gonna give you the keys to my car. You stick with me or Vergil, but if we tell you to, take off and drive away."

Hazel nodded. "Good. Come on." This Dante was not the one that she had been flirting with. This Dante was scary. She thought that at least Vergil was constant- he was grumpy last night and now he just had somewhere to point his anger.

When they got out of the car, Dante led her by the arm, holding her too tightly. She was too nervous to tell him to loosen his grip. When the first demon appeared, Dante roughly threw her away, making her smack her head on a tree. Soon more followed. Dante flashed a bright red and then there was only a grotesque monster before her. She looked to Vergil, who apparently had transformed as well. The twins were surrounded by demons and more were coming even as some turned to dust. Hazel stood up slowly, her back against the tree. Her glasses had fallen off and broke and her ears were ringing.

"Get out of here, girl!" She heard one of the twins shout to her. Hazel ran back to the car on unsteady legs and with fuzzy vision. She felt a warm liquid trail down her face and she wiped it away, red staining her vision even worse. She got into Dante's car and started it, starting to drive away and unsure where she was supposed to go. There were demons in front of her, but she put her foot down hard and saw them either get trapped under or get out of the way. It was hard to tell where the road was, her vision kept getting stained with blood and her head ached, as well as the fuzziness from her glasses being shattered. It was hard to tell the gradual runoff she did from the road, but she wound up hitting a tree off the side of the road.

The steering column drove into her ribs and right arm, breaking several bones with a loud crack. Hazel slumped out of the car and pulled out her phone, unsure if she should call Dante, Jay, or an ambulance. Before she could decide, a shadowy figure picked her up tenderly, wary of her injuries.

V***V

"I thought it was one of you two that picked me up. The pain from the crash… was overwhelming at the time. Now I know that I would live that through one hundred times if it meant I didn't have to go through that ritual to get these powers." Hazel looked back down at her arms, the burnt flesh disgusting her. She felt her stomach lurch and she started to cough, her stomach trying to expel contents it didn't have. Vergil slid a bucket in between her hands and felt her forehead.

"Dante, you're on better terms with Lady than I am, ask her to come over and tell her to bring her supplies." He said as he rubbed the girl's back slightly. "She has a fever, and if she was anybody else, I would suggest we take her to the Hospital." Dante nodded and walked out the room, dialing the number. "Hazel, we have to bring your fever down." He explained to her. "An associate will come over and she can give you medicine for pain and something that will help with your nausea. Until then, you're going to have to have an ice bath. Your fever is too high and a witch having a seizure or stroke is not something I desire to be around." Hazel nodded slightly as the water she drank spilled into the bucket. "I will go draw the bath now."

Vergil came back a few minutes later and picked the girl up carefully, leading her to the bathroom. She shivered and screamed after Vergil set her in the bath, large chunks of ice floating around her. Vergil dunked her head under the water quickly, Hazel shooting up sputtering and coughing. The water ran red as some of the blood washed out of her normally auburn hair. He pulled the plug out and turned the shower on, the water pelting her and forcing her to scream more, the rush of cold painful.

"Keep calm, Hazel." Vergil said, though she wasn't sure if he meant it as consolidation or a threat. "You're not trapped. I'm trying to help you." He added as he held her chin up and washed more of the blood out of her hair. "Take deep breaths. The door is right there and it's open." Hazel felt the blurriness that was panic ebb from her mind- something that only Jay and Midis, her dog, had ever been able to do.

In a few minutes, some of her hair hung limply, but most was still matted to her scalp. Vergil put his hand to her forehead, feeling that her fever had gone down he turned off the water. He held a hand down to her, which she gladly took, and helped her out of the tub. When she stood, Vergil wrapped a towel around her and helped her back into the living room.

She wasn't entirely sure if it was possible that she would ever be warm again and she shook so badly Vergil picked her up after a few steps. "Were you able to contact her?" Vergil asked Dante as he set Hazel down.

"Yeah, she'll be here soon. You two done playing bath time?" He asked humorlessly.

Vergil shot his twin a nasty glare and stepped away from Hazel, retaking his seat in a chair across from her. The silence was tense and it made Hazel wonder if she missed something. The time seemed to drag until this "Lady" showed up. A short-haired brunette with a rocket launcher on her back, a briefcase in one hand, and long metal pole in the other hand. She looked at the girl and sighed, kneeling in front Hazel her and pulling out a four-legged base on wheels for the pole she carried.

"Is this another damsel you rescued, then?" She asked Dante. "Where did you find her?"

"I'll tell you later." Dante dismissed the hunter.

"Whatever." Lady rolled her eyes as she hung a bag of saline fluid from the pole. "Give me your arm, hun." Lady asked nicely, but snapped at the girl and twitched her fingers. "Are you on any drugs?" She asked as she stuck a needle into her arm, hooking up the IV. Lady ignored the burn marks and managed to find a useable vein. She had seen far weirder shit in the years she's known the twins.

"No." Hazel stuttered out.

When she said that, Lady pushed a plunger that Hazel didn't notice she had set up. As Hazel's eyes grew heavier, Lady chuckled and turned to Dante. "I hope she wasn't lying. This shit will kill her if she's on any depressants."

Dante filled her in on Hazel as Lady injected several more things into her. "I'm not a nurse, Dante." Lady chuckled. "I can barely help humans- I have no idea how she'll react to this shit." She looked down at the unconscious girl before bringing her legs onto the couch. "Go get her a blanket- her fever has broken and I gave her medicine that should help. Also if you have dry clothes, that'd be good." Lady shook her head. She understood why the twins seemed so set on helping her now- she relied on them and they failed her. For five years, she was at the thrall of demons- something that Lady would rather die than face and she knew the boys knew that Hazel likely felt the same. Vergil was all about honor and Dante was about helping people- this failure was a strike to both of them. Beyond that, she also knew that both of the boys had taken something of a shine to her- even if neither of them would admit it to Lady.

Dante put clean clothes on the couch for her and draped a blanket over the small girl as Lady mixed half a green orb into Hazel's IV bag. "Would you mind changing her?" He asked Lady quietly. "I don't want her to be too embarrassed when she wakes up."

"Sure," Lady said as the boys walked out of the room. Lady ripped the sleeve of her robe and peeled it off the girl, an eyebrow quirking at the tattoos across her chest and stomach. "So, what do you intend to do with her after she's recovered."

"That will take a while." Vergil replied. "But I suppose she is free to go if she doesn't pose a threat to us."

"She doesn't have a lot of places where she can go." Dante frowned at his brother. "Especially not if the demons are still after her. I think we owe her enough to help her with that."

"Well let me know when you're going after them." Lady insisted. "I'll help if I can."

"We don't even know where they are, if any still live, Dante." Vergil reminded his rash twin. "We will hear the rest of her story when she is well and then we will make a decision." Dante was surprised at his twin. Normally Vergil made plans upon plans and he didn't like to delay in the making or carrying out.

"Okay- well I have to go." Lady began. "Mix the other half of the green orb in with the next bag she gets. She'll run out and need a refill in about six hours. Give her a syringe every four hours. I left enough bags and medicine for two days- she'll be tired the whole time, but she should wake up in a few hours." Lady bowed slightly before going to collect her other belongings.

V***V

Hazel woke up in the same fashion as she had been for months- but this time was different. She had a blanket around her and an IV in her arm. She remembered Lady coming over earlier and giving her medicine. Hazel felt like she could smile if she wasn't so tired. She tried to sit up, but she couldn't feel her neck. "Hi Vergil." She greeted the dour twin, who was currently changing her IV bag.

"Are you going to stay awake this time?" He asked with a slight smirk.

"No!" She threw back at him. "Is that a problem?"

"Not for me, Hazel. You've pretty much been asleep for two days, though."

"Am I feeling better, yet?" She asked angrily. "Or do you do nothing?"

Vergil's smirk flicked back into existence for a second. "If you aren't, you very soon will be." He pulled the cap off a syringe and hooked it into her IV.

"Are you here to kill me?" Hazel said as she licked her lips.

"No." He pushed the plunger slowly. "This is the last syringe. When you wake up again, you can have plain soup."

"And we can play risk. We never finished our game and I still remember the layout. I finished the game over and over in my head. There is no way you'll win." She said with an awkward amount of energy.

"You still have it memorized?" Vergil asked and wondered if she was saying this because of the drugs or not.

"Of course." She said and poked him in the stomach before listing off the amount of troops and ownership of each country. "And you had three Calvary in Argentina." She finished as her blinks were getting longer.

"When you wake up, Hazel." Vergil promised, doubting that she would remember. Her listing off the troupes sounded right, but Vergil had forgotten about the game entirely until she mentioned it the other day.

When the drugs wore off, Hazel sat up slowly and flexed her fingers. Her arms were healed, but the lightening-like scars remained. She noticed that her fingernails had started to grow back in, little nubs of mushy nails. She wasn't sure that they would ever grow back completely.

"So she awakes!" Dante jokingly celebrated. "I was starting to think Vergil had been kicking you- you've only been waking up on his shifts to watch you."

"Maybe he was kicking me." She slurred her tongue heavy. "I feel hungover." She swallowed and wiped at her mouth.

"You are, in a sense." Dante said. Hazel turned around and saw Dante leaning back in his chair, his feet propped up on his desk. He had been flipping through a magazine that now lay abandoned as he got up. "How're you feeling?"

"Alive. Safe." Hazel said with joy. "Hungry." She ran a hand through her hair and didn't get even an inch through it. "Disgusted." She added when her hand came back greasy and dirty. "I don't remember the last time I showered, save for the other day." Hazel yawned. "What did Lady give me, anyway?"

"Something effective." Dante laughed. "I don't know where she gets all the medical stuff, but she wouldn't put somebody in danger."

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Hazel asked after a moment- not wanting to face silence again.

"I can't promise I'll have an answer."

"Did you guys ever look for me?" Hazel looked up to him and brought her knees up to her chest.

"Yeah." Dante sat on the coffee table in front of the couch. "For months- Vergil and I both did. We… assumed you were dead, after a while."

"I'm sorry about your car."

"I'm sorry about your life." Dante countered, a rare moment of seriousness fluttering across his face. He wasn't sure if she understood that she could never have something normal anymore.

"Oh. You don't need to be." Hazel plucked at the blanket and looked away from him. "I was taken on your watch, yes- but they would have sent all of Hell after me. They were just trying to kill two birds with one stone, I suppose." Her green eyes were bloodshot and it made her look rather frightening- the colors popping out against each other and against her pasty skin.

"Do you want something to eat? Vergil told me that you can have soup when you get up." Dante changed the subject.

"That'd be great, Dante."

Vergil came back soon after Dante gave her some soup. The trio sat in Dante's living room awkwardly, none of them wanting to bring up the second part of the story. "So… I guess I should continue the story." Hazel said while looking down into her bowl.

V***V

Hazel woke up from her bones being re-broken and set. She screamed as the pain shot through her and choked on a dirt-tasting liquid. "Sallow. It'll make you better."

"Jay?" Hazel asked out after she swallowed.

"No. He's dead."

Hazel realized she didn't recognize the voice. "Who are you?"

"Your new master, girlie." The man stepped into the light and she saw wicked looking horns coming from his head. His skin was a sickly green and his eyes a dark purple.

V***V

"A demon claimed you? Was he very powerful?" Vergil had leaned towards her, intrigued by the story.

"More than claimed. And I don't think so; I was able to kill him before I even trained."

"You trained?" Vergil was sure he heard her wrong, but then she nodded. "Why would they give a prisoner and a slave the tools to escape?"

"I'll get there, Vergil." She smiled weakly.

V***V

He took very good care of her and the five other girls that were there. He said they were waiting for something. And that things would change soon. Many demons passed through their rooms to see the girls, commenting about how pretty or feisty they were. They were all about the same age, but that's where the similarities ended. They weren't allowed to talk to each other often, but Hazel was good at noticing things. One of the girls had been pregnant- the demon killed the baby at the start of their imprisonment. Two of the girls were still in high school, one was deaf, and one of them had an English accent.

They were different races and they didn't look anything like each other. One of the high school students was always tapping her fingers on something. Hazel supposed she was either a smoker or a piano player and missed the habit.

They were all there for forty three days before she saw the lab that she woke up in again. Until then, they all had separate bedrooms and only saw each other for meals. Hazel spent most of this time cowering and crying, afraid of every sound and every shadow. When the demon brought her into the lab again, she saw that all of the girls had been restrained and gagged on their own gurneys. The details were fuzzy, but Hazel remembered being injected with something incandescent and then screaming for days. During this time, the marks on their chests were burned into their skin.

He explained to the girls that they were special. They all had a history of magic in their families. They just needed to awaken their magic. After the ritual was completed, the other girls disappeared. Demons came by to get them, often giving them new names. The piano player was called Bastion by the demon that picked her up. Everybody except Hazel.

"You're the most special of all." He said and kissed her. "So pretty. I'll call you Diligence."

Hazel was with him for another month before things started to change. More and more demons came by. One night, she recognized one of the buyers came back chuckling, saying that it was time.

She was led somewhere, but unsure where. The buildings seemed to swell from the ground and the streets were slick. Off in the distance, she could see various towers and spikes. She knew she was in hell. A crowed of lesser demons followed her and the other two men around, sometimes being swatted off.

She saw the other girls and their masters gathered in a circle below a swirling green spot in the otherwise black sky. "Diligence. You're going to be the first of the girls to go." He whispered to her. "I may not be powerful, but I'm the one who found you all and found the ritual. That was enough for me to buy you."

V***V

"They took us all back." Hazel explained. "To our world. I don't remember many of the details, but I remember I killed him when we got back. Everybody arrived at different places, so I could run. I spent six months running- stealing money from people and never staying in one place for very long.

"Natalya found me, I don't know how. I was eating breakfast at a fast food place and she sat down across me. Told me she knew what I was. Offered to help me learn if I went with her, so I did. She took me to the coven- there were mainly women there, but also some men too. I learned all the spells I know today. Demons caught me though. I had two years more than the other girls, so I can't complain. That's when I was brought to the prison. The demons there were trying to produce a child. Another half-demon to be born past the seal- but they said it had to be a witch's child or the seal would still affect it. It had to have a claim to power in this world. I was at the bloody prison until I escaped the other day." Hazel finished.

"Did they… succeed?" Dante asked carefully.

"Not that I know of. I don't know if they had any confidence in what they were doing. I think… I think they were just experimenting. We were just pets. One of the demons that guarded me said that they intended to train us and make us fight for them, but when I escaped- they realized how dangerous they had made us."

"Well it's over at least for now, babe." Dante offered with a smile.

"We don't know that." Hazel frowned.