I hope you guys enjoy this one as much as I did. It's a lot of talking, which I know can get boring after a while, but I worked hard trying to make it as interesting as possible!

June 22nd

A week has passed since the gang first discovered Aglæca. During that time, Dante stayed in Fortuna rather than returning to his shop. Lady and Trish were more than happy to take the jobs, and money, he would've gotten, so there wasn't an issue with who would take care of things while Dante was away. Since he needed somewhere to stay, the Order allowed him to take up residence in one of their member rooms on the second floor. Generally, these rooms were reserved for Order members only, but of course, Dante was allowed an exception. The rooms were free to stay in, but the catch with these rooms is that at least two members had to share a room to save space. They'd have their own bed, but they'd still have to deal with sharing the rest of the room. Luckily for Dante, Nero decided to bunk with him. He figured it would be best to stay at headquarters rather than going home each night, just in case Aglæca tried to escape during the night. Kyrie wasn't very happy with his decision, but agreed that it was probably safer if he stayed at headquarters.

"Do you think we should do it today or wait a little longer?" Nero was sitting on his bed, slowly and carefully cleaning Blue Rose. Nothing exciting had happened in the past week, so even though he hadn't used her in a while and had already cleaned Blue Rose a couple times before, cleaning her again at least gave him something to do for a while. Meanwhile, Dante was laying down on his bed that was on the other side of the room. He had his head propped up with a pillow and had his legs crossed as he read a magazine. Dante preferred to occupy his time with reading instead of repetitively cleaning his weapons.

"I'm flattered, but I don't think your girl would like that very much." Dante smirked behind his magazine.

Nero looked up from his gun to look at Dante, shooting him a glare. "I meant if we should go ahead and question Aglæca today or wait a couple more days."

Dante shrugged. "He should be feeling good enough to talk. Probably not as strong as he could be, but it'll take a few months before he's back to how he used to be." Nero took a few seconds to think about what to do.

"Well, I'm going to go see if he's willing to talk." He stood up from his bed, putting Blue Rose inside her holster on his waist. Nero opened up his bedside table's drawer and grabbed out a small device from it.

"Have fun."

"Whad'ya mean? You're coming with me." Dante looked over at Nero.

"What, can't handle it by yourself?" Dante teased.

"No, I can. But it's always better to have some extra muscle come too."

"Oh, so now you're looking at my muscles?" He chuckled to himself as he sat up and swung his legs off of the side of the bed. "Calm down, I know what you meant." Dante said before Nero could say anything, instinctively able to tell that he was about to get defensive. He tossed the magazine onto the bed and stood up. Nero just sighed and shook his head, probably in disbelieve that he agreed to bunk with Dante since it meant they were forced to be around each other more often. He headed out of the room and towards the staircase that led down to the basement with Dante following behind him. Once they got to the basement, they could see that Jack and Willow had found a table and put it up against Aglæca's cell bars. Jack and Willow were outside of his cell, sitting around the table with playing cards in their hands. Aglæca was sitting on a chair inside his cell, though he was beside the bars that had the table on the other side. He was sticking his arms through the gaps in the bars with playing cards in his hand as well. Nero looked at them with utter disbelief.

"Are you serious? You taught him how to play cards?" Dante could be heard laughing behind him.

Jack looked behind himself to look at Nero. They didn't notice Dante or Nero had come into the basement. "Well... I mean... we needed three people to play... and he offered to play with us.." Jack and Willow looked and acted like they were kids caught doing something bad.

"It is quite fun. They never had such games before I was sealed away." Aglæca's voice had changed tremendously. After a week of resting, healing, and regaining strength, his voice went from sounding fragile and soft to deep and intimidating, much like how a demon is stereotypically supposed to sound. His previously cracked and weak-looking skin had healed and now looked tougher. It looked like he had even gained some weight. Overall, he looked much healthier, and as a result, he posed more of a threat than before.

"Well, since you're feeling well enough to play games, I guess I can assume you feel good enough to talk about what happened to you?"

"Oh yes, I am ready. I must warn you though, it's a long story." Aglæca put his cards down onto the table. He stood up from his chair, then grabbed the chair and placed it in front of his bed. He sat down on his bed in front of the chair.

"That's why I have this." Nero held up the device he had grabbed from his room. He grabbed the keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door.

"Can we go in?" Jack asked anxiously.

"No, just me and Dante. It's not like you won't hear anything if you're not in with us." Nero had a good point, the entire cell was made up of metal bars. There were no solid walls. He walked into Aglæca's cell, then closed the door once Dante was inside as well. Nero sat down on the chair in front of Aglæca while Dante leaned up against one of the bars, since there wasn't another chair for him to sit in.

"What is that?" Aglæca pointed to the device in Nero's hand.

"This is a voice recorder. I probably won't remember everything you say later on, so instead of asking you the same questions over and over again, I'll just listen to what was recorded." Nero turned on the voice recorder and handed it to Aglæca for him to look at.

"Interesting... It sounds very useful." Aglæca examined the recorder with a child's interest.

"It is. So, tell me, why did we find you sealed away in a crypt?" Jack and Willow put their cards down and turned their chairs towards them.

"My brothers sealed me away. They found out about my intentions and turned the people of this city against me."

"Who were your brothers? And what were your intentions?"

"My brothers were Canicus and Nicephorus. They are my elder brothers, with Canicus being the eldest of the three of us. I had intended to rally the townspeople and seal my brothers away with their aid. Unfortunately, it seems they had the same idea and began spreading false rumors about me. By the time I realized these rumors had come from them and that my life was in danger, it was too late to escape. They cornered me and, well.. I suppose you can guess the rest of the story."

"And why did you want to seal them away?"

"They had become corrupted. Originally, my brothers and I were neither good nor bad. We only wanted to live. Though, we were born in a much different time. A demon's goal was not to do harm to mankind then. Our goal was to make an empire stronger than the one our ancestors were banished from. In other words, we only wanted to make the underworld stronger than Heaven. When I was young, it had only been a couple millenniums since the first angels fell, including Satan himself-"

"Do you mean Mundus?" Nero interrupted.

"The devil has many names. But yes, one of his names is Mundus. Back then, we were still a very weak race. We had unimaginable powers, but no idea how to use them to our advantage."

"Powers? What powers do you have then?"

"I'm capable of many things. Most notably, I'm able to show others past events through my memories. I can also collect the memories of others. Not always a very useful talent in battle, but few demons remain who have this ability." Aglæca explained before continuing his story. "Several thousand years after my birth, we had become a powerful and feared race. My brothers and I thought that once we achieved the power our leader, Mundus, sought after, we would try to make the world a better place, like how Mundus had preached that he would do better than God when he was banished all those years ago. We were appalled when we were instead told to corrupt, enslave, kill, and generally harm the human race. He told us it was the only way to eliminate the Heavens." Aglæca paused to take in a deep breath. "Over the years, the three of us had worked with and even lived with humans. We couldn't imagine bringing harm to such an innocent race that did not deserve to get tangled in our own personal grudges. So, we hid ourselves away from our own kind. A very cowardly thing to do, but we did not think we would stand a chance against the armies of the underworld. Then, Sparda came along. He was a truly marvelous man."

"Man? Why do you call a demon a man?"

"Because that is exactly why he was marvelous. No demon of his power and strength had ever openly renounced his heritage before. He was the only one who had the courage to first stand up against Mundus. Though, I'm sure you've heard the tales of his heroism before."

"Yes... Many, many times." Nero said irritably. Him growing up in Fortuna meant that the legend of Sparda and anything having to do with him was deeply engrained into his head. Aglæca chuckled quietly to himself, Willow and Jack had told him about how the town worships Sparda. He figured the townspeople knew very well about Sparda and that hearing the same story over and over again got old really quickly.

"Most, however, don't know of those who helped him." Dante turned his attention away from an annoying hangnail he had and instead focused on the conversation between the two. He apparently had some interest in what Aglæca was saying now.

"That's because he didn't get help." After all, one of the main reasons the legend of Sparda is so well known is because he did it all by himself. Or at least, that's what Nero thought.

"Maybe not in doing the dirty work of slaying Mundus' armies and sealing Mundus away, but he did get help. Demons, humans, even an angel helped his noble cause. You can't win everything with brute force, some fights can only be won with precise planning. Sparda knew this. So he made plenty of allies before actually beginning his revolt. He did the slaying and dealt with the underworld as the others dealt with, well.. pretty much everything else. Including defending the human realm while Sparda was away, though that was mostly Cælestis' job. After all, many demons were dwelling among humans by this point. Once the rebellion started, Sparda knew they would go haywire and that somebody needed to be around to slay them if needed."

"Why aren't they included in the legends then?"

"Most of them did their work in secrecy. Sparda wanted nobody to die for him, so instead of making it known that they were helping him, which would have put their lives in immediate danger, he decided hiding any evidence of their help would be best and would hopefully spare their lives. Though, eventually the underworld found out others were helping him anyways and killed them one by one. Without their sacrifice, I don't think he could have done what he did."

"Are you able to name any names of who helped?"

"Well, it is hard to come by that information. Sparda often did not call them by their real names, in most cases, to protect them. One person that I personally knew was Cælestis. My brothers and I also helped, prior to my brothers betraying us, though we were primarily scouts or used to gather information. After my brother's betrayals, they would show up periodically, usually only to kill somebody that they found out was helping Sparda. I had finally tracked them down in this town and tried to convince them I too betrayed Sparda and wanted to join them again, but I must not have been very convincing."

"You mentioned somebody else, I think you said their name was Cælestis?" Nero reminded Aglæca, interested in this new figure.

"Oh yes, Cælestis. Out of everybody who helped Sparda, Cælestis sacrificed the most. Her story is a bit hard to explain. It would be easiest if I showed you."

"Showed us? Through your memories? Um, do we need to, like... touch your arm or something? So you can transport us or however your ability works..?" At first, Aglæca looked confused. Then he burst out in laughter, startling the entire room of men due to the sheer unexpected volume.

"No no, no touching is required. So long as I have your names, I'm able to show you my memories, no matter where you are at." Aglæca said once his laughter had subsided.

"That's so cool. Man, why can't humans have powers like that?" Willow complained.

"You have abilities of your own, whether you realize it or not." Aglæca stood up from his bed. "Is everybody prepared?" After a quick glance around the room and seeing each person nod their heads in agreement, Aglæca began the process of transporting them into his memories.

For anybody interested, Canicus means "born of fire", Nicephorus means "Victory-bearer", and Cælestis means "heavenly". I spent a good amount of time choosing names, since I can be pretty picky about having the right name. Which, I suppose, isn't a bad thing.