Mission 25: Shepherd Of Fire
Vergil furnished his hands confidently. The fury of Balrog nestled within his spirit, wholly comfortable. It was a suitable replacement for Beowulf, a weapon he'd tracked down and used for separate-purposes following his return. He'd beheld such fire before, when the dark prince Mundas held call over his soul, and bound him to a dark angel's flesh. But that was another time, another body. One long since abandoned. When Dante destroyed his form, his spirit escaped at last from the emperor's crooked clutch and stole itself to another realm, the realm of hell, Sheol. A land of the wicked, a black pit of despair, where plastic flows of magma boiled humanity in rivers and lakes, or at least the paltry weaklings of this dimension. His mind came unbound by the limitless space of astral doom, and to his awareness came the sudden understanding that the world was not as it felt to be. He found in the eye of hell's gaping maw the one who'd set his mind loose all those years ago, the one with whom he had raised the tower of darkness, a succubus for all his own; Jezebeth.
With her at his side and his spirit unbound by physical attachment, he felt like a god in this blackened land. And with his aid did she so show him the way forth, the way to the seeing stone. He broke her chains and followed her through undeath to the lands of unknown time, to other dimensions hidden within his lowly universe; the hell of the north, unyielding cold and viking men whom died dishonorably, Hel. From the frostbitten planes of such horrid overflowing gates they came upon many a wicked place whose designations had since become lost to time, the hell of southern testaments and bygone Pagan instruments, through dark pathways and shadowed nexus, till finally upon one altar did they find what she sought for him, an orb that told time and reality, the tapestry across not just this one universe, but a million others like it and more. The texture of an omni-verse right at his fingertips.
To become alert, to acknowledge the spatial awareness of one's twisted fate, is to experience the death of limitation. It was, to Vergil, the death of his own defeat.
And through her hands he came to see what he must do to set things right. So he set forth to return her to earth, to open a doorway which she could not with the sword of his father's blessing, the Yamato. All that he had left. That the witch could return and find him a body worthy of his possession was but the first step in his glorious plan. Lo-and-behold, she found one such being in a village in the mountains of Japan, and bound his will to the superior ninja's unique power; the cells of adaptative endurance became his own; and he became a wraith in the human world, a bright flame that would glow to lead the weak and simple.
Better than the twin he despised. Such a miserable fool. And yet he had lost so many a fight with the man in red. What use was wisdom when it brought no profit to the wise? A tough braggart's consequence; dropped into fruitless dying. Vergil was no stranger to death. Indeed, he had felt a fascination for it for many years. He'd died more than once. Oh yes. Mundas saw fit to that. A metaphorical death was just as crushing as a physical one. Taking what he sought from the people that stood in his way felt quite similar for them, he imagined.
So too now did he seek to take more from the Black Spider Clan.
They were a pitiful bunch. Archfiends and Tengu from another reality aligned together with corrupted humans. He'd come upon them before. In his past travels, yes. The wraith knew. Their bodies did not putrefy like the creatures of their reality. Tengu stayed immortal even in death, never rotting, or so at least humans presumed. Perhaps in the future he would experiment to see if this functionality was merely an advanced form of decay.
So onward he trudged up the sacred hills. What remained of the Black Spider had sought refuge in the shadows since their last encounter with the black ninja Ryu.
Rebuilding themselves was no simple task, but they had tried. Couldn't blame them. Besides himself or Dante, Ryu Hayabusa was likely one of the strongest men this lonely planet had ever seen.
And now fate delivered them to his own hand. He pitied such pointless efforts.
Having climbed the perilous peaks of Mount Hotakadake and arduously traversed the slopes of the village's frostbitten castle, Vergil had found his way to a snowy village new to his sight. He stood before their prefecture beneath the blackened sky. A storm brewed, flashing emerald light of unholy origin. The wind fiercely howled, blowing back Vergil's black coat, seething at his eyes and cheeks. Yet the slayer still strode onward, unaffected. He was a ronin to these people, becoming aware they stood on snow-covered trees and small building tops. Vergil ignored them, as if they would not attack.
And they did eventually.
To his blade did they die, steel rending through flesh and shearing limbs from bodies. They fell dead from cosmic slashes, his might but a candle's glare in their last night's eye. Transfixed became the slayer, his gaze falling upon large doors of the castle's front steps. The grungy structure was sprawling, teeming with evil. This date in history would prove whether the ninja could match the mettle of demon spawn of the western flair.
And heavy feet crashed behind him.
Twisting his head slowly, Vergil flung Yamato from the sheath with his thumb, and watched as bold, green-skinned creature unfurled its muscular body, spiked war hammer in hand, twisted face glaring rage at the slayer's trespassed imposition. It roared obscenely, elongated beak of a nose horrid in its construction, a Tengu of giant stature and mighty strength.
"Who trespasses upon this holy ground, unwelcome one," it bellowed.
Vergil's stone face cracked with a wicked smile. "Vergil, the loyal son of Sparda. Who might you be?"
"We," it corrected, as two more assailants appeared, "are the guardians of the Black Spider's home."
"Then you will die defending the Black Spider's home," said the dark slayer, blade in hand.
As a thunder clap shattered the sky, a searing bolt struck the ground and blinded all but the devil's son, whom tore forward, unleashing the full length of Yamato.
Slicing at the enemy, Vergil let loose five different, well-placed slashes. They cut down the Tengu beside the green tank as it looked for the fast moving samurai and smashed the killing blow on its companion as Vergil disappeared in a blur. An army of the damned emerged from behind the walls, falling at the silver slayer's mighty hunger as two captains fell to the wayside. Several more closed in, but the son of Sparda stood his ground, turning a flock of foot soldiers and a black bear they had trained to their whims into chunks of crimson gore and obsidian slime. Next upon him came the viridescent commander's left hand. A shift through space cut faster than sound as he sliced and came free from the hand of the beast.
It tumbled, arm severed at the joint, and it growled horribly as the other remaining Tengu tore forward its black-scaled might.
Vergil fenced off three pounds of its pitiful blade and stabbed through its hip. Immobilised, it fell to a knee, and there came the fluid stroke of Yamato on its throat, taking its head from the shoulders.
The rest fell like insects, trampled under foot of the dark one's vicious efficiency.
In time, all that came to be was the green beast and its ugly face horrendously defiled by pain.
"Why have you come here?"
"To kill you," the slayer replied, and steel pierced its forehead through brain. It fell then upon the ground, lifeless. "Take them."
At his command, a black-tinged lilac power consumed the corpses, the bodies of each fallen Tengu rising and vanishing to thin air.
And he turned back toward the doors. He placed one hand on the locked wood and focused. They blasted off their hinges with the force of severe wind, low howl beckoning those that remained to tread lightly, lest they too fall to the dark slayer's might. Vergil walked inside. He slid Yamato back comfortably into its home and marched forth to find the leader within this dull palace of combat; the doors shutting behind him.
Along the walls through to the high spire, he came finally upon the ultimate challenge.
The heavens swirled with rage.
Below, the keeper of light, the king of all kings; ancient warrior's wrath within his soul; turned toward the man in black and its metal plated garb spiked luminously in the storm's light above. They rounded well and opened the spire to the swirling skies as wind tore apart the roof. The being glowed infernal rage from his chest, a core of power within the plated breast that Vergil eyed ominously as the two prepared for battle, wordless in their unspoken comradeship.
The storm shook the castle with mighty gallops of wind and the wraith summoned Balrog's fire to his aid, as he noted the Fiend to be swordless. The serpentine knight manned his head with a cobra's hood of pure steel, spikes jutting from his forearm's samurai plating. His greaves and gauntlets were alike in their silver appearance, harem slacks decorated in blood, and knuckles covered with curved metal thorns in coils. He seemed to have come from some other reality, a nightmare imbued into flesh and made whole by the moonlight's lustrous glow, sapped clearly from the night sky as tumult replaced serenity and upon the back of time.
Vergil smirked and cracked his knuckles. "And who might you be?"
The death knight growled, "I am the one who leads this clan in its darkest hour. I am the Archfiend of the eastern gates that guard the border between our realms, or at least, I once was. They summoned my spirit and placed me at their head when the old man who functioned as my predecessor could not deliver them the power they sought. It is an honor to meet you, son of Sparda."
It took the slayer by surprise at that moment. To be recognized by an intellectual equal. Not only did this general not pain him with weakness, but the speech of his tongue was truthful and noble, honest. Pity in watching the others suffer likely lead them to battle even though they would likely make fanatical bedfellows under other circumstances. The beast was a monstrous eight feet tall, a giant among his peers, and likely a wraith much as himself, a spirit of evil possessing the body of another.
Vergil bowed his head to him and replied, "Yes, so it is."
"I had expected your brother first, if not the Shepherd of Fire. I only hope that you could live up to the legend."
"You are a well-read one," Vergil grinned. "You honor me with that old name. Sad that we haven't met under better circumstances, but you will be happy when I give you the honorable death you deserve."
"You are confident. I do indeed seek such an end, but you as well know we are above such lofty ambitions as the Dark Knight's care for these humans."
Vergil clenched his fist.
"Only through might shall I protect what he protected."
The beast snickered at that. "You believe yourself to be some hero? My boy, you are a shadow of your father's nobility. You are the betrayer. They have damned you till crack of doom, can you not see? I have watched you battle and batter your way through enemy after enemy, and you care not for the creatures Sparda spent so much of his time protecting."
Vergil growled, and the smirk erased itself from his face, now scowling with white, furious hatred. "I am more than my father, mongrel!"
"No. You are not."
Vergil struck first, fast and strong. Balrog's flames seared the rain away and steamed fist battered its head, the slayer a streak of talent, skill, and prowess. The general spun and capitalized on momentum. The back of his hand swung and swiped down on the silver-haired slayer's cheek. Coiled hand tore flesh and Vergil grasped the ground with his flaming fingers, swing his charcoal boots inside twisted metal grieves into dropkick fashion; the Archfiend staggered, batting away furious punches in sweeping strokes. The creature was the wraith's pride, the agent of wealth and the chains of the divine, his darker half's greatest inhibitions. The fiend and the devil were together a fan of devastation.
Wood walls cracked as Vergil struck furiously and with rapid abandon, roundhouse finally taking the guardian off its feet as it grasped the wall and scuttled higher like a spindly spider.
Art of infernal fires crackled and blasted where it had gone, sent in salvos of furious spiritual dexterity.
Though it escaped flames with ease, unbeknownst to the general, there laid a trap. A summoned sword pierced the small of its back and it fell to the charging slayer's uproar, fist-crunching-jaw and knocking the guardian sky high above this trash-heap castle. In a rage, the Archfiend of the eastern gates twisted and summoned power within his fist. Straight down he plummeted spectral energy and caught the slayer's guard on contact, floor splintering beneath them in an explosion of energy as they crashed through the structure together.
The castle walls came apart, and they fell to a small courtyard outside; flaming wreckage rained around beside them.
To their feet they crawled, and next came exchanged blows. Vergil rocked the earth with every movement, and his opponent splayed each attack with finesse and skill in defense. They were even.
Soon it gained the upper hand, cornering Vergil near another wall before releasing flailed thorns as claws and caught the wraith off guard. Steel plucked flesh and made him wince as it dug into the son of Sparda's cheek. The Archfiend grasped his lower body and flung him forward through the partition, back into the castle as the partition gave way. He kipped up and matched a fist with a slug of his own, indigo crushing against scarlet in the soaked air.
The slayer grimaced, but his wounds healed.
The power of his spirit imprinted onto the ninja's well-adaptable cells and he had made the power of his host his own.
Meteor of scarlet burst forward and charred his enemy. He held himself and growled.
"You are powerful," the Archfiend said. "Maybe you will be the one!"
More fire came, summoned at the slayer's beck and call, and the Archfiend lurched back but ate the flames with ease, his tainted body stronger than expected. With power siphoned from his core, the creature threw back its arms and smashed its palms together in front of itself. A massive well of power sprung loose. Vergil felt its terrible force and hurtled at the wall, his back striking hard wood harsher than usual. He stood and exploded flames, eyes on fire, the Balrog's flames scouring outward bound on the wings of wind blades.
Blood from both sprayed, yet they fought on.
Vergil charged onward, and the Archfiend stood strong.
Forced to be defensive once more, Vergil solidified his arms and took a myriad of hammered strikes. Those arms felt like war pistons coming down on twigs.
He blotted out the pain and pressed forward, hooking and throwing a leg around at the Archfiend's jaw just as he ducked under another swing, heel colliding with face; and the Archfiend cartwheeled over, sense beaten when a fist plunged through its side. The metal separated flesh and perforated bone. The slayer opened him up with a nasty cuff, molten fist wrenching out of its wound. Breaking through space, he beat him with those metal fists, teeth gnashing like an animal, afterimages left in the wake of his godlike wrath. He scorched and tortured the Archfiend's flesh, Balrog seething with power as he let out a growl at what sounded like a furious animal.
He pounced a mighty downward thrust, and it failed to guard correctly, leg crushing down on the nape. The Archfiend hacked and crumpled down the way. He rose, but both of Vergil's palms met his sight. The wraith slammed both up into its jaw, ripped them downward along the skin and against his throat, and stepped under into the instep, shooting an elbow upward into his abdomen, past his flailing arms, taking his center; transitioned to a fist to the groin that sent knees weak; and back into a rising elbow to the underside of his chin, scraping off flesh; arcing down into a last punch down onto the bridge of his nose.
No windups, no wasted motion. Vergil designed each movement to roll naturally into the next, careful brutality. Elegant.
The Archfiend's body jerked from one direction to the other in rhythm to the opposing lines of each cutthroat motion.
Suddenly, the beast leapt at him, tackling the wraith from the side through another wall, and out into the square they went; falling further fast into a courtyard far below.
It was a hundred foot drop. Briefly phased, the wraith rolled through grass and felt murderous hands clasp around his thick throat. Above him stood the frenzied malevolence, strangling him for all his worth. The wraith's flesh hardened against the Archfiend's fingers and soon he forced the old daemon off him. He kipped to his feet, though took an immediate drive to his chest, red power scalding his flesh. His knuckles crushing into his cheek, before a knee met his midsection and a left hook brought him back down. Dazed, Vergil barely had time to react as the warlord brought down his mighty weapon, summoned from nowhere, a giant broadsword. The blackened steel crashed against Vergil's armored forearm and stopped dead in its tracks, blocked, to the Archfiend's surprise, by the peculiar weapon's earthen fire, metal coating the flesh thicker than his blade.
Forced back a few steps, the Archfiend struck again with his obsidian tipped buster.
Vergil knocked it from his hands, leaving it scattered aside as he pummeled the demon with sledgehammer punches, beating the eastern deity's chest like a war-drum over and over, a fist for the flesh like a stone for the bruise. The slayer brought forward his boot into the resistant warrior's chest, but couldn't break him. The lines in the Archfiend's flesh glowed and turned red, demanding blood. He surged forward with his right hand and a bright light consumed devil's eyes, blasting his head back with unexpected force, and he next felt a fist pound into his stomach.
The beast struck in a flurry that cracked the hard skin of his opponent before grasping the shorter man by the throat and hoisting him over his head.
Vergil sailed across the yard and landed by a statue in a patch of now-crushed garden. The warrior marched to his prey as it stumbled to stand, and with confidence, he pushed forward a sickle taken from his waist-belt and prepared to gut the slayer much as he would a boar. Shaky, but on his feet, he exhaled pained breaths as he caught the warrior's stab and shifted it towards the pedestal the statue sat on. Clasping the back of the Archfiend's head, Vergil pulled with his weight and shoved his opponent nose-first into the stone.
It crumbled instantly as his face crashed through it, and he grunted, roiling back with a hand at his face as blood poured from a cut in the flesh.
The clenched slayer felt his entire body shiver, and rage filled him as he beat his bones back into place and embraced the pain. Balrog grew molten and the wounds on his person closed. He powered forward his metal hand, and a great burst of fiery stone blasted the creature across the face and backwards over the shattered statue to the ground. Sparks flew and set the grass alight, flames starting small but quickly growing.
Vergil grasped the warrior off his back and hoisted him to his feet, clasping the Archfiend's dazed head within his hands and squeezing hard against the skull.
The beast growled and slashed the sickle still clasped in his fingers across the side of the slayer's throat, tearing a gash that made Vergil choke and sputter. A kick to the side sealed the deal. Releasing the head, Vergil fell to his knee and grasped the side of his neck, bleeding hot boiling steel that steamed against the grass beneath them as it dripped to the ground. The general grasped the man by the back of his head and held his divine decapitator to the front of the big man's gullet. The flames had become quite bright now, illuminating them in the dark, almost as a surrounding circle.
A smile graced the old daemon's lips.
"Too bad all that work only went to waste," he said.
Then came the distinctive sound of a metal searing through flesh, and those eyes went wide.
He had sliced Yamato clean through with a stab to his lower chest.
A tremendous roar whipped the air, the beast throwing the slayer across this charred earth, zooming after him with a powerful elbow. Vergil spat saliva. The Archfiend tried to cleave the man with his sickle, but molten hands grasped his wrist and squeezed till veins burst. The sickle dropped from the bloodied hand. Vergil landed his feet swiftly, swinging his fist at the gaping gashes already made. It felt like striking the side of a mountain. The general grasped Vergil by the throat and released another surge of hard light from his other hand that knocked back whatever attempt at a rebuttal the slayer made, and the core on his chest grew brighter.
"You will burn for this, cretin," it said, and from the hand came a brimming light that stung at the cambion's flesh, the warrior's grasp keeping the man stuck in place.
Power from the earth rose beneath him and enclosed itself around his feet a spectral blue. The Archfiend looked down and found himself locked into place. Vergil growled as smoke rose from his reddening cheeks, and he struck the beastly arm, begging relief from the mystic magic frying his skin. Out of concern for his legs, the light faded somewhat and his grip loosened as a searing-hot boot belted the wounded side. The warrior staggered backwards, spectre-cast wrenched tightly around his legs, shattering and stabbing his flesh down to the bone, leaving him freshly drenched in agony.
The warrior charged despite his ragged legs, and a wind descended upon the flames that came from a blur at the slayer's hand, whom peppered the beast with body shots constantly, machine-like in precision and no less prominent in power. He grasped Yamato from the gut, and a fountain of blood sprayed outward. Vergil held his blade ready as the general struck once with his left arm and tasted steel along the bone of the outer step, armor pierced. He struck again with his other arm, bellowing black curses of hellish quarter, and again saw steel crush his attempt, summoned swords bolting at his chest and puncturing distance between the two. Taken again by ripping winds, the man in black jettisoned the warlord into a flaming castle wall, and a spire collapsed; raging inferno breaking over his back in cold shock. From the rubble emerged the daemon, his arms scarred, his stomach opened, his countenance bleeding, and his back shredded.
Still, he would not give in.
"Die!" the Archfiend growled and blasted power in his palm to the ground, sending out from his ground twisting spires of magmatic energy.
Like a razor through cloth, Vergil darted from side to side, evading pyretic tyranny as he went, till Balrog's iron blistered across the beast's skull
Half the crown of its head broke apart, fracturing under duress to nothingness, and it stumbled, weakened but somehow still alive.
The dark lord righted himself and gracefully landed beside his bested opponent. "It's over."
"Not yet!" it growled and struggled forth at the man like a wounded bear, his demonic hands meeting Balrog's burning bluster in steeled grapple.
They roared in one another's face. This was an unending clash. A thing of infinite worth and skill, two warriors of the highest pride and calibre battling for control, for the life of their future, or for the glory of death by combat. Honor. The rule that united even the most staunch of enemies. And still they plied at one another, fingers growing sore, shoulders screaming on both sides as neither relented. Dark star shined on in the storming weather, castle ablaze around them in the perfect swansong of the general's long, long career.
Demonic nature behind the wraith's projected humanity affirmed his victory as he rammed his head forth and plowed through the Archfiend's concentration, ending the stalemate.
Seizing the day, the dark slayer hurled his fist back inside the demon's chest, reaching up within his cavity, and clenched the organ in his grasp with conviction.
Heart came free, ripped from its home, still beating in his hand as the being it belonged to collapsed backwards onto their back.
"So," it said. "This is what it feels like."
"To be defeated?"
"Yes. Glorious."
Vergil smiled. "In the end, you were a worthy opponent."
The slayer healed of his wounds and slowly considered the heart beating clutched within his hand.
"Wait."
"Why?"
"Before you end it, before I go, I just want you to know one thing."
"And what is that?"
"My name . . . is Kuma. Remember it. Remember where that power came from. Remember me."
Regarding the slowly beating thing within his hand, his visage once more human, Vergil simply replied, "As you wish."
And the devil plunged his teeth into the warm flesh, raw meat ripping off in chunks as he consumed what he desired, and crushed the remains in his hand. Sinking into his own blood, fading from the world, the Archfiend's mind felt gone. What he left behind was a lifeless corpse. Demonic flesh of a realm not Vergil's own. Flesh that could live for much longer. Behind him, in the cursed fire, emerged the beautiful witch, scarlet hair blowing effortlessly in the wind.
"Is he the one?"
"Yes," Vergil said. "I shall make of him my true vessel."
"And the others?"
"They will be the leaders of my forces. The world shall fall to them beneath my heel, the Shepherds of Fire."
"A fitting name," she replied. "I like it."
"What of the girl Rig brought to us?"
"Powerful. Very powerful. She seems to have assimilated the abilities of a Phase 4 into her own genetic structure."
"Is that so?"
A terse nod.
"Interesting. How soon can the Tengu be utilized?"
"Now."
"Excellent. Make use of the captured women then. Send her after Dante. I must have that stone returned to me. With it, Dante might unravel the very fabric of the plan itself."
To Be Continued