Another update of this poor story that has been so neglected by the author...lol I apologize of course, but I WAS doing Dante related things. Working on HMN and KM making my beta reader salivate...lmao I have also been going crazy making DMC inspired AMV's...lol I'm a big fan of creating most anything DMC.

This was a very hard chapter for me for several reasons. Firstly, the scenes with Amy just weren't cutting it with me in terms of wording, so I was stumped for a long time on her scenes. I also wanted to add in two more scenes at the end of this chapter but felt if I did it would be throwing too much plot at you at once. The last time I overwhelmed a chapter with too much info I really wasn't happy with how it turned out so I'm trying to learn from that.

Also, things are getting darker. Originally I had planned to stick to a story with no real conflict or "big bad" to fight. Then I realized one of the key elements of DMC is the evil guys the characters face while dealing with their own personal demons. So now the arc is being set for some hard times ahead. I felt it was neccessary and that it adds to the story. So this chapter begins the "quiet before the storm" arc. Try to control your stone throwing hands. :D

Hopefully you will enjoy! -eyes bucket of throwing stones-

Bleed It Out

Chapter 10

"Hey, would you two wait up!" Vergil growled as he ran after Dante and Amy.

"Keep up slow poke or you're gonna be left behind!" Dante teased as he turned to run backwards.

"We should slow down and wait for him Dante." Amy interrupted, beginning to slow her pace to wait for him. Dante screwed his face up and sighed, finally stopping.

Vergil came up over the hill huffing and dropped against the trunk of a tree breathing deeply.

"Dude, you are so slow today!" Dante laughed as he tried to muss Vergil's hair. Vergil grabbed his arm and pulled him to the ground, pinning him.

"Not as slow as you brother." Vergil grinned, noting Amy was looking at them both oddly.

"Vergil and Amy sitting in a tree...," Dante sang up at his twin. Vergil clamped a hand over his mouth and looked at Amy who was grinning from ear to ear. He was only 12, he didn't like girls. Yet when she smiled at him...

Dante pushed him over and tackled Vergil to the ground.

"Amy! Count it down!" Dante yelled as he tried to keep Vergil pinned.

"Get off of me, Amy don't you dare!" Vergil growled determined he would not lose to Dante.

Instead of helping either she jumped on them both with a girlish laugh, causing their ribs to mash together and them to protest.

"I thought you were on my side Amy!" Dante laughed as he tried to push her weight off. She sat on his back as if he were a horse and bounced.

"I'm on no one's side but my own!" She chimed as she leaned forward and mussed both of their hair from her position on Dante's back.

"Gah! Not the hair!" Dante whined as he shook his head.

"Let's get her Dante!" Vergil growled, and Amy began laughing furiously as they made to get her off.

"No! Stay back!" She yelled as she got up and took off running. The two boys gave chase, running further into the woods after her. Her breath was heaving and adrenaline was coursing through her veins at being chased. She mustn't get caught!

Amy turned around to see the boys, but found that they were no longer chasing her. In fact, they were no where at all.

"Vergil? Dante?" She called to the empty forest, but everything was still and almost deathly quiet. Her breath hitched as she realized she didn't know from which way she came and suddenly there were too many pathways to be sure. She cried out again for them but still received no answer. Something twitched to her right and she jumped. "Who's there?"

From the dark trees a tall figure in black stepped forward. The hood on its head made it impossible to see a face, but Amy felt her blood run cold as she stared at the figure. Something was urgently telling her to run, but her feet were melded to the ground in fear. The hooded figure drew a long, rattling breath in her direction as if smelling her fear on the air and liking it.

A long robed arm came up to reach for her and it was then she heard the cries of Dante and Vergil in the distance. If she could just find them, she would be safe. She turned to flee, finally finding the strength to scream and run in her terror. She followed the sound of their voices, but could feel the thing gliding only inches behind her, its sweltering breath making the back of her neck sweat.

She felt the fingers, hard as bone lightly touching her shoulders and it made her scream despite still running. The light of the clearing was suddenly within view, and if she could just make it there...

The fingers closed in on her shoulder, and she felt her skin ripping under the pressure of it. Tears rolled down her face, yet somehow she was still pushing forward and soon she was breaching the woods into the clearing. She tossed herself onto the soft grass to see the thing was no longer there. It vanished as if it had never been in the first place.

Amy turned and stood, her eyes going wide as she saw the reddish orange blaze of fire lighting up a suddenly night sky. The house in the clearing was on fire and from within came the cries of Dante and Vergil! She took off running all the while calling their names and trying to find a way in. The front door was not yet consumed and so she grabbed the knob.

"AHH!!" Amy screamed as it burnt her hand from the sheer heat on the other side. She whimpered and placed her sleeve over her hand, using it to fling the door open. Smoke engulfed her and she suddenly broke into frantic coughs as she called out to them. She bowed her head against the intense heat only to see a figure lying at her feet.

Slowly she knelt down to the figure whose long blonde hair glowed in the light dancing around them. The figure was lifeless, and Amy reached a hand out to touch her, fingers lightly taking hold of the hair to remove it from the face. As she pulled back the entire head of hair came off as if it were a wig with black hair just beneath.

The lifeless body sprung to life, grabbed her ankle and pulled her into the burning house, the door slamming shut behind her.

Amy sat up screaming in bed, still feeling the flames licking at her flesh and shivering with horror. Her widened eyes looked wildly around the room but she was no longer in the burning house being spirited away by a black haired figure. She felt like truly crying for the fear that was pulsating in her body. It was so raw and real, as if someone were hiding now in her closet patiently waiting for her to drift back off so it could finish what it had come to do.

Her first thought was to call Dante. It was a heavy feeling of needing reassurance from someone close, but she tried to suppress it. It was only a dream after all, and yet it wasn't the first that had scared her like this. They seemed to be getting worse.

When it seemed her heart had stopped trying to crawl its way out of her throat she sank down against the pillow to breathe in deeply. Despite it she still wanted to talk to someone. Well, not someone. She wanted to talk to Vergil but he hadn't taken a single phone call from her despite numerous attempts at calling to check on him. Somehow she knew hearing his voice would somehow soothe her troubled mind.

She pulled the covers back and got out of bed, padding out into the hall and to the kitchen where her phone sat. She stared at the blinking light indicating it was charging almost hypnotized. Should she call? She reached out, took the phone in hand and slowly dialed his number.

brrrr...

Amy bit her lip nervously.

brrrr...

She tucked her hair behind her ear.

brrrrr...

She felt her throat beginning to constrict.

brrrr...

Then the tears began.

"Pick up someone," she said into the receiver.

brrrr...

Amy hung up the phone with a sob.

--

"Wait!" Dante called as he ran down the stairs and practically leapt onto the desk to grab the ringing phone. "Hello?" He asked before the line hung up and went dead. "Damn prank callers. And YOU!" He turned to see Vergil sitting calmly in a nearby chair. "Why didn't you pick up the phone?"

"It's not my business, or my job to answer the phone. Besides, it's 11 at night, who would call?"

"Dude, we don't keep normal hours around here. Besides, it could've been Ames!" He snapped back at Vergil.

"I doubt she'd call at this hour..."

"...unless it were an emergency you moron." Dante finished for him.

"It's your own fault for having a rotary phone. If you would upgrade to something with caller ID you wouldn't miss any calls." Vergil smirked, never taking his eyes off the paper he was reading.

"People won't even give me their real names half the time. A caller ID would be useless, because it would always come up as 'private' or 'out of area'. Moron," he mumbled as he leaned against his desk.

Vergil only continued to smirk at the day's headlines and Dante cocked his head to observe him. It had been a couple of days since they had reconciled and it had made quite a change in the over all feel of Devil May Cry. The tension was gone, and with it Vergil seemed to actually be comfortable. From his stance, to the way he walked was different and somehow more relaxed. Even sitting on the couch he seemed rarely aware of much except Dante who he was sure wasn't a threat anymore.

"I like you this way Verge." Dante said as he watched his twin. Vergil glanced up at him out of the corner of his eye before returning it to the paper.

"Speaking of Amy..." Vergil said suddenly putting his paper down and turning to incline his head at Dante. "... I think it's safe to speak on this matter now."

Dante blinked at him for a moment before a wide toothy grin split across his face.

"You finally gonna tell her?" Dante asked smugly as he came to sit by his brother.

"Must it always come back to that? I did not mean I wish to talk about her. You mentioning her reminded me of something I wanted to speak with you about." Vergil groaned as he gave Dante a shove on the shoulder. Dante shoved back for good measure because now he could get away with it and he loved that. "I would've mentioned this sooner, but I had to be sure what I saw was real. Remember when I went back to the hotel alone?"

"Sure..." Dante replied uncertain where Vergil was going with this. Vergil had gone back to the old hotel without saying why at the time. No matter how much Dante had pushed previous Vergil kept silent, eyes always casting around to look at whoever was in the room with them.

"The night we rescued that young girl I saw someone up on the second floor, someone who knocked that pillar down that almost flattened you."

"Ahhhh, so that's why you ran off. I thought you were scared to take my thanks... So did you catch them?" Dante added when Vergil narrowed his eyes in his direction.

"No, because I admit they caught me off guard." He said calmly, not liking to admit such a flaw existed within him. Dante too look confused to this fact. "All those years ago when the Amy...thing... happened and that man who tricked us all came to collect me from where you left me it was the same. He could change form at will, and so rather than show his face as Joseph or even his real face he chose instead to mimic my own."

"A doppelganger?"

"No, just a cheap imitation. At the time I confused it with a delusion of the poison you gave me," another hard look at Dante who looked guiltily away. "...so I never thought much of it until whoever that was did the exact same thing."

"You think it was Joseph?" Dante asked curiously.

"I do not know who it was. I scoured that hotel and found nothing to indicate who had been there prior to our interference aside from the demons. Which brings up another good point. All we had killed was gone from the room when I returned."

"Gone, as in dust or..."

"Gone as in removed from the room and taken out back to be buried." Vergil continued his sentence. "I cannot say now if it was the same person whom I saw that night, but someone buried demon corpses as if they were precious to them."

"Dude that's creepy. Burying demons in graves like pets?"

"More like family if you ask me. Out of curiosity I dug one of many graves to find not only were they lovingly wrapped in white sheets, their severed limbs sewn back together, but flowers were placed inside." Vergil responded as he glanced over Dante's shoulder to the window outside. He had an uneasy feeling about all this, but could not place his finger on it.

"Duuuude... That is nasty! Ok, so maybe whoever this thing is was the "bigger" evil Narc was talking about?"

"I don't see how. Neither of us sensed them at all, and even as he stood before me I couldn't sense anything. Hell, I was so taken back by seeing that face again perhaps I didn't notice. If there were demonic origin there though it was faint. Too faint for you and I to pick up on."

Dante looked thoughtful for a minute, his face beginning to match Vergil's brooding one.

"Well, we always have that girl we took from the place. I can see if we can't locate her and maybe she'd be willing to answer a couple questions about her captor."

"That might be worth while." Vergil agreed.

"Should we tell Amy?" Dante asked, eyeing Vergil closely.

"No. No sense in alarming her when this thing could've just been messing with me. Joseph was just the first thing to come to mind at that moment. Regardless I don't think we should ignore this. We'll do the work on our side and leave her be. If it should become necessity then we'll inform her."

"So I guess we'll list this one under "freebie for the good of mankind" then?" Dante sighed, not liking how little paying jobs they had been taking on as of late.

"I guess so, unless you feel justified allowing this one to go free after seeing what he did to that girl." Vergil said seriously.

"Right right... I'll get Lady to check on the history of the hotel in more detail and I believe Trish handed over a card to the girl just in case. She should be able to track her down."

They both sat side by side in silence, not moving or really even able to breathe properly as they listened to nothing at all.

"You feel it too Verge?" Dante asked.

"I do," he replied without turning.

Something was off about this job. They had felt it too the night they came to stand on the hotel grounds but neither had spoken a word of it then. It was the knowledge without reason that they were headed for a rabbit hole quite possibly going in a direction not to their liking. As much as they wanted to believe it was unrelated to their past, both of them couldn't help but feel a familiar foreboding they had saved for the memories of Amy, her brother, and the father who had become a "thing" in the end. Maybe it was seeing the girl tied and left as she was that set them at unease, or the fact whoever it was tortured with the intentions of keeping her alive as long as possible only to endure more. It was calculated and cold.

"It's almost like back then, just like..." Dante paused uncomfortably as he remembered the sick feeling that gripped him at the manic gleam in Joseph's eyes. Amy's horror... It was all too fresh in his mind. "We killed him right?"

"I hope so Dante." Vergil said tonelessly, those words reverberating off the walls in a hollow way that made them both feel empty.

--

She tried to get back to sleep, but for the life of her she just could not do it. Pale moonlight poured in from the windows and the wind outside made the glass shudder with the weight of it.

Every time she closed her eyes, she thought she felt someone grab her ankle. Remembering that clawed hand as it sliced into her shoulder all the way to the bone made her shiver under her covers and her hair stand on end.

She turned over and caught sight of the three photos on her night stand. Two of which had been moved from the living room into her room not long after Dante went away for the first time. She had taken down so many photos' that reminded her of that man... she had kept two.

The first was the photo of her and her brother Nathan as they sat side by side with their arms over one another. No matter what had happened, she could never put this picture away. It represented the way she wanted to remember him, not the bloody and broken body she had held in her arms the night everything changed, but the quiet child who loved her unconditionally.

The second was one of her and her adoptive mother, her Nana who she always thought was just a stranger who had been kind enough to take her in. The truth of her origins though was that of the only mother she knew, the mother she thought she'd lost as a child. Who's once beautiful appearance was reduced to a haggard old woman at the greed and selfish whims of the man who once claimed to love her. Her family history was twisted, but it was all she had... Well, not ALL anymore.

The third picture was the only one she had of herself and Dante taken a few years back, which she kept in a gleaming silver frame at the center of the other two. It shone brightly against the wooden frames of the others, as if it knew how special it was. Amy felt a little better at the thought of how the frame was like Dante. Just too cocky and loud to not be noticed. The memory of the day it was taken brought a smile to her lips.

Dante had gotten her a digital camera for her birthday because she always managed to forget to bring a disposable one whenever she visited him and was bummed to not have any pictures of him. He had surprised her with it and then pulled her outside to take a bunch of pictures of him outside of Devil May Cry. He posed and crooned for the camera, making sure she got the sign he had just purchased in the shot with him for "effect".

"You'll have to send me those. Great advertising material." He'd laughed as he paged through the ones she'd taken. "Now we need one of us together."

"How are we supposed to manage that?"

Dante looked around and suddenly pulled the arm of a passing stranger, demanding he take photos of them. They got into position with Dante's arm around her and just as Dante counted to three the flash went off and so did their "camera man" taking Amy's new camera with him. What came after was Dante giving the guy a heart attack when not only did he catch up with him within 2 seconds, but being pinned to the ground and berated about stealing from him. The guy had managed an apology at Amy through tears and sobbing. Amy tried hard not to laugh at the odd situation with the guy being held by the back of the collar a few feet from the ground in front of her. He gave her the camera back and Dante had let him go at Amy's request.

"I think he's learned his lesson." She said noting the guy wet himself before he ran off.

While Dante and she took other photo's that day, what Amy found upon returning home was a partial picture snapped when the thief tried to run off. Amy had a look of sudden shocked stupidity and Dante's mouth hung open in his attempt to yell "stop" at the guy. It was the least flattering picture either had ever taken, but Amy had framed it anyway. It seemed to encapsulate their entire relationship. Messed up, but funny regardless.

Some nights she wondered if she wished hard enough Vergil's image would fill the void on her other side of the picture. Her mind always managed to find him in these quiet moments. It almost wasn't real yet that he was back, because when she called them it was the same. Dante answered and she never talked with Vergil at all. She selfishly hoped he would pick up, but had to remind herself of her silent vow to lay off him and to not push. She hated being ignored, but she was sure she'd hate him cutting her off completely because she pushed too far too soon.

Amy turned from the photos to try and get comfortable again. The thought of the two seemed to at least ease the fear in her mind and comfort the rapid beating of her heart. Enough so she felt herself doze off for a bit.

She had no idea what time it was when she was startled from her sleep, and it didn't' register what had woken her. She tried to turn over to get back to sleep but felt something very heavy on her legs. It startled her into a sitting position as she searched for what it was that held her.

Her eyes widened in dumbstruck horror as she saw two bodies laying across her bed with wet blood smeared all over her blankets. The dead eyes wide open in shock and grotesquely malformed. The mouths were cut at the corners and sewn back together with a thick string. The abdomens were bare and extended in a twisted way with matching stitches done in a Y shape from collar to bowel.

The forms were motionless, side by side as she curled up to press herself against her headboard. She began shaking her head back and forth the longer she gazed. Then finally the scream that had been building in her came to fruition on her lips.

It was Dante and Vergil...

Amy leapt from the bed, knowing they were dead and mortified beyond belief. She ran for the door to her room, needing to get that sight out of her face. How, WHY? What was happening?!

She wrenched the door open and screamed when she saw the black hooded figure standing in her pathway. Its hand lifted and it sliced a large gash across her mouth. A grotesque grin to match that of the two in the bed.

Amy sat bolt upright in bed, because she could hear someone screaming. As she became more alert though she realized that it was she who was screaming. She didn't stop, or couldn't. Something was wrong... Then she remembered the dream. Her voice died almost as if it had been cut. Cut...

Someone began pounding on the front door before she heard a muffled call, then the sound of the door opening. She watched her bedroom archway with wide eyes before the superintendent of her building filled the doorway.

"Amy, what's going on?" Eddie asked as he held up a baseball bat. He looked hurriedly around the room as if he was going to find someone standing there then back at her when he saw no one.

Amy just blinked at him, suddenly unable to remember how to speak. The truth was she didn't know what was going on. She'd had scary dreams in the past but they were random and never with similar themes. This was the second time she'd seen the hooded figure. While she did not see Vergil or Dante die in her first dream there were heavy implications she didn't like. Then seeing them this time...

"B-bad dream," she whispered tonelessly as her eyes fell to the spot near the end of her bed where she had seen them only seconds before. She broke down in tears startling the super.

"Oh," he said with a bit of relief. "It sounded like someone was getting murdered in here."

When Amy's horrified gaze met his at these words he took a nervous step backwards.

"Y-you sure you're OK? Need anything?" Eddie asked. Amy could tell he just wanted to get out of there. Did she really look that bad?

"I'll be fine. Thanks Eddie." She said as she tried to clear her face reassuringly. It felt painful to do and apparently he could see it by the look he gave her. She waved him away though and sank to lay on her pillows as he left the room followed by the front door.

As she turned her eyes caught sight of Dante's photo again and she felt her eyes prick.

Screw this... She thought as she tossed her covers off and reached for her cell phone. She would call them all night if she had to.