A/N: Hey guys! Here's the next chapter of Nephilim of the Void! With more ideas as to what Chain's origins are, and what his capabilities are, my only complain is no reviews giving me what you all feel about it last chapter. Now let's get on with the disclaimer.
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Dishonored, Ghost Rider, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, or Devil May Cry, with the exception of my OCs. Devil May Cry is the property of Capcom. Ghost Rider is owned by Marvel. Dishonored and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim are the properties of Bethesda. Aside from my OCs, I do NOT own anything in this fic.
Nephilim of the Void
First Flame: Youthful Days Gone By And The End of Halcyon Days
Fortuna Cental Park, Fortuna Island-8 Years Later
Unknown P.O.V.
Sitting on a bench in a park of a small island, a Russian man with a stern visage and cold atmosphere to him simply sat while moving pieces on a chess board on the table before him while young children played in the nearby playground.
His name was Ivankovich Krischniev, a 56-year-old Russian Chess Grandmaster and the youngest to claim the title this century at the age of 16, just six years after first playing the game. He was the current number 1 ranked Chess Grandmaster in the world, yet he was not very happy with his life. He's been ranked number one for nearly the entire forty years since becoming a Grandmaster, and yet the spark he once had for Chess has died into barely an ember.
An old friend of his simply invited him to visit, hoping to reignite some spark of interest in him once again, yet so far he has found nothing to change his mind for retirement from Chess. As he sat down playing against himself just in an attempt to try and get a challenge to his keen mind, that was when a young child approached, curious as to what Ivankovich was doing…
"...hey, gramps..."
Ivankovich looked at the young boy, wondering what he wanted, as the boy looked curiously at the chess board before him…
"Would you mind if I play you?"
Ivankovich was surprised the child asked in such a rude manner, but chalked it up to the innocence and naivety of youth. Simply shrugging a bit while motioning him to the seat across from him, Ivankovich watched as the young boy, with unusual heterochromatic eyes of red ad blue, abyssal black hair with streaks of inky black purple, and porcelain-like skin sat down, much to the confusion and curiosity of a trio of children who were obviously with the kid.
Two of whom were obviously siblings, due to both having similar hair and eye color, while the third had pure white hair, lightly tanned skin, and the most piercing icy blue eyes anyone would have ever seen. Humoring the child might help take his mind off of his troubles for a while, so Ivankovich simply went with it.
After all, what could a child possibly hope to do against a Grandmaster of the very game they were playing?
Time Skip-Three Hours Later
"Augh...where are those kids..." An exasperated voice spoke aloud, revealing it to be a young man in his late twenties, early thirties, dressed in simple vestments of a follower of the local religion, a lowly Brother of the Order of the Sword. He worked at the local orphanage where a certain pair of troublemakers tended to live along with a pair of siblings who helped him keep a short leash on those two's antics.
As he walked through the park, he noticed a group gathered around a bench where a rather intense chess game was taking part...along with the very boy he was looking for! Pausing and blinking a few times to see what was going on, he shook his head before walking closer to see what was going on and what trouble the young prankster got himself up to now.
As he got closer, a man who was about the same age as the elder there, whom he recognized as a shopkeeper for the local occultist shop back on the mainland, around his middling years with graying black hair, bright light hazel blue eyes, and a wrinkled face with age, and as he approached spoke up.
"Yo priest, is that your kid?"
"No, he's not my child but my ward. I apologize if he's troubling you...what's he done this time?" He shook his head in exasperation while apologizing while preparing a reprimand for the orphan, before the shopkeep shook his head and refuted.
"Trouble? It's the opposite! He's done me a huge favor by challenging Ivan to a game!"
The priest was confused by what he just said. "What do you mean?"
"Do you know what your ward is even doing?!" He asked incredulously before shaking his head. "That man is Ivankovich Krischniev, the number 1 ranked Chess Grandmaster in the world! And your ward isn't just playing chess with him; he's playing chess against a Chess Grandmaster and winning!"
The priest suddenly had his mind freeze at the thought, having a difficult time reconciling the image of the childish prankster he raised with the scene before him, as the shopkeeper continued. "Sir, your ward is a fucking genius!"
Almost as if to punctuate that one statement, the young boy tapped on last piece before the King of the Chess Grandmaster, ending the game with a sound that was likened to a slamming of the gavel for a courtroom, yet barely a tap as the boy spoke up to the face of the grinning elder across from him.
"Checkmate." The boy spoke, his red and blue eyes gazing at the elder sitting across from him, an innocent and happy smile on his face while the old man started to laugh a hearty, mirthful belly laugh, his eyes shining with a light as if a spark that had once been a dying ember had reignited into a raging inferno within him with the enjoyment he got from this one game.
"You most certainly got me young one. It been too long since I had good mental challenge." His thick Russian accent bled through in his mirth, as he shook his hand with the young man across from him. Looking around him, the boy, noticed the priest watching with a perplexed look on his face while the shopkeeper simply grinned ear to ear as he spoke in a joyful tone.
"I haven't seen Ivan smile like that in years. It's been far too long since he got any good challenges from anyone."
"You'd think he'd be upset."
"Upset? Why? For pride?" The shopkeep shook his head. "Ivan has none to harm. For him, Chess is about the mental challenge. He was a homeless orphan forced to steal food and warm clothes just to survive back in the harsh, cold Siberian winter nights. Wasn't proud of it, but he did what he had to in order to survive. Chess was simply something he took to that he was good at and helped him survive by taking part in a tournament for the prize money. But over the years, less and less people who could challenge him remained, until eventually they all either died or retired from old age."
The priest simply was surprised by this as his wards came up to them while Ivankovich simply happily put his chess set back together as he prepared to leave for the Chess Masters tournament coming up soon.
"It's good to see Ol' Ivan got the spark for Chess he once had in his youth back again." The shopkeep said as he approached a young girl about the boy's age with black hair, dark eyes, and a somewhat intrigued look towards the boy as they left.
As they left, none were expecting, that these happy, joy-filled halcyon days…
"Come along Ruine. Let's go home."
...were soon coming to a tragic end…
"Coming, grandfather..."
...nor the eyes of a sinister being were watching them, save for one pair of red and blue eyes narrowing slightly at its presence, but made no other outward signs of noticing…
Scene Change
Fortuna City Outskirts, Fortuna-Few Days later
Third-person P.O.V.
Running through the outskirts of an old abandoned scrapyard, were two young boys laughing happily as they ran through their favorite local haunt. Normally, children running around a scrapyard would get all kinds of red flags from any adults working there, but this old scrapyard had been shut down by the city of Fortuna since the elderly owner died and no one was left to take over for him.
One of the boys was about eight years old, with heterochromatic red and blue eyes, abyssal black hair with inky dark purple streaks naturally running through it, and pale porcelain-like skin color. He was dressed in a cheap faded black and pale gray hand-me-down jacket, with dark pants and dark brown steel-toe work boots he managed to find and salvage from this very scrapyard's old worker's supply.
The other boy was only a couple years younger, around six years of age, with pure white hair, lightly tanned skin, and icy blue eyes. He wore a patchwork leather jacket that was a bit big on his young frame, but was held together using leather straps. It was light and dark blue, red, and purple in color, with pants of a similar design and make and boots similar to the older boys that had a similar fashion modification as the jacket he wore.
As they were running through a makeshift obstacle course that had apparently been set up by the two boys in a race against each other, the older boy said playfully behind him over his shoulder to the younger boy, in a playful taunt.
"C'mon Nero! Hurry up slow poke!"
"Why you! C'mere Chain!"
The younger boy, newly identified as Nero, shouted right back, yet there was no real heat to it, just a competitive desire to show up the elder boy. These two were a pair of orphans who lived in the local orphanage in Fortuna. Chain, short for Chainharte, was a couple years older than Nero, yet the two saw each other as brothers and were very close to each other growing up together.
Among the local, the two were considered a pair of little hell raisers for the antics of the two, as well as the pranks Chain would pull on some of the locals around town. And there wasn't really much they could say, because the pranks he pulled were always done to those who did something to deserve it from him. And some of his pranks were the result of being hired to by some others, causing him to make a bit of extra cash on the side for his prankster-for-hire amateur business. He's only done it for a few years now, yet he's got several very loyal customers who were extremely pleased with his services.
After a few more minutes of running through the old scrapyard, Nero and Chain arrived at their destination, which was an old mechanic workshop that Chain had taken over as his personal tinkering workshop. Technically, since the scrapyard belonged to the city, they weren't trespassing, so they wouldn't get into legal trouble, but since it could be seen as dangerous for children to run around the place, they most certainly would get severely scolded harshly by the adults if they ever got caught sneaking off here.
After getting inside the 'workshop' that Chain essentially commandeered for himself, Nero and Chain came to the sight of what Chain wished to show Nero, eagerly and happily waving him over, Chain brought out something that he recently machined himself for who he saw as a younger brother: it was a revolver-style BB gun which fired two pellets at once. How Chain managed to machine this, no one but he would ever know, but when Nero gazed upon it, his eyes widened in awe and amazement at the craftsmanship behind it.
It had a stylized rose engraved and painted with thorns and leaves, all with blue glaze over the silver of the casing for the BB revolver. Nero had his eyes practically starry in amazement and awe, as Chain handed it to his surrogate little brother figure and said the words that made Nero's day. "Happy Birthday, Nero."
Next to it was the collapsible crossbow that Chain made himself a few months back and a few targets that Chain had set up for the two to have target practice with. Chain set these metal targets up by making them so that a Bullseye would send it spinning while a hit near it would only cause it to tilt a bit back and forth, with the challenge for this to get as many Bullseye as they could. Chain caught Nero messing with his crossbow when he thought he wasn't looking and came up with the idea, though they kept it secret where they've been practicing with them.
After a few hours of practicing with it, Nero and Chain had a slightly even scoring, with Chain being slightly higher in their marksmanship challenge being older and more used to his weapon. After they finished up, Chain then looked at Nero with a mischievous glint in his eyes as he spoke up next while Nero was taking a sip from the water bottle he brought with him…
"So Nero..."
"Yeah, Chain?"
"...how's you and Kyrie coming along?"
*SPRRRRRRRTT*
...and Nero made an epic offering to the spit-take gods, much to Chain's growing amusement.
"*cough-cough* CHAIN?! The hell man?!" Nero cursed while blushing a vibrant shade of red, much to Chain's ever-increasing amusement at his surrogate little brother figure making a very good impression of a red traffic light with how much his face was burning. He openly laughed at his 'little brother' for his misfortune, getting Nero to blush harder as he tried to whack his 'big bro' over the head with a training sword in his embarrassment.
Keyword here being 'tried'. Chain had an almost unnatural ability to sense other's intent and presence, without even needing to see them to know they're there. Thanks to this unnaturally accurate sensory ability that Chain had, he dodged every one of Nero's failed halfhearted attempts to land a hit on him. In addition to this, Chain's body was also stronger than the average adult for his age, and thrice as resilient. He also heals rather fast, having once suffered from severe bruising and several cracked ribs and minor fractured bones, only to have them be fully healed in less than a day later after a good night's sleep.
It's precisely for this unusual sensory ability of his than Chain sensed something watching him and jumped away from Nero with a slightly serious look on his face, much to Nero's confusion when he simply grabbed the training sword, pulled Nero towards him, and threw him away from a sudden attack by a demon…
"CHAIN?!" Nero screamed in fear, as his surrogate big brother figure was dodging and weaving away from the demon that suddenly attacked seemingly out of nowhere. When he heard Chain next, he understood what the situation was.
"Nero, run! Get away from here! NOW!"
"This scent...I smell it...the smell of a half-breed..."
Nero and Chain both widened their eyes at the demon that appeared, given how it had both an unusual appearance and aura to it. The demon was focused almost entirely on Chain and ignoring Nero, which irked the young boy, yet at the same time worried him for his 'big bro'. Throwing an improvised bomb in the form of a homemade Molotov cocktail, which he quickly threw together using a bottle of oil, an old rag, and a lighter, chucked it at the demon, drawing its attention and focusing solely on Chain as he turned tail to run as far from Nero as possible while keeping himself alive.
"...the scent of an abomination..."
The demon kept chasing after Chain, ignoring Nero as he ran, trying to get help from the Order of the Sword, while Chain kept dodging and weaving out of the way, just barely keeping himself from getting mauled by the demon that was reptilian in nature, with obvious bony blades running from its body in place of the usual reptilian spines. It stood on two legs while running on all fours with its front forelimbs doubling as both legs and arms, with a pair of leathery wings on its back as it growled out one last sentence before giving chase to the young boy...the words it called him causing a reaction in Chain's body, mind, and soul, as if by acknowledging this fact started awakening something long-dormant within him...
"...the putrid scent of NEPHILIM!"
[Insert song 'In My Blood' by André Gaël]
*Ba-BUMP*
Within Chain's young eight-year-old body, something stirred, as he suddenly sped up, and his senses sharpened to an even more unnatural degree, as his body was suffered cuts just from the passing breeze of the demon's missed strikes…
*Ba-BUMP*
Smoke and heat waves began emitting from Chain's body as the strange mark on his back begun to glow with an ominous inky dark purple light beneath his clothes, while his red and blue eyes began to glow slightly, as he had begun to partially awaken something within him in response to the demonic threat upon his life…
*Ba-BUMP*
...young Chainharte was a Nephilim. The Child of an Angel and a Demon. But more than that, he was the son of Zarathos, child of Drayknev, and Grandson of Akatosh...the heat he generated in his time of need grew, like a spark ignited, that in time will grow into a raging inferno…
...from his hands, smoldering embers started to ignite, as Chain grabbed a retractable sword prototype he had been working on while running past his workshop from the demon, as those sparks showered and gathered upon it...
*Ba-BUMP*
Zarathos may have been a Fallen Angel, but even prior to his fall, he held strong dominion over flame...and after his fall gaining dominion over the flames of both Heaven and Hell alike…
The demon lashed out at him, while his body started reacting far faster and grabbed his collapsible crossbow and some normal bolts while dodging a lethal bony, spiked lash from its extended wings, revealing them to actually not be wings at all, but rather an extra set of limbs for the purpose of latching onto prey, as sparks also showered upon his crossbow, as well as flames beginning to form in his hands with these very weapons...
*Ba-BUMP*
Drayknev, although a Succubus, a Demon of Lust, was still a Demon, and as such, bore dominion over fire as well...and as a descendant of Lilith, the Succubus Queen, as well as a Daughter of a Dragon, also bore strong ties to flames…
The igniting flames began to coat his weapons, causing a slight shifting in their forms, giving a steam punk look with a fiery touch to their aesthetic design while the bolt he loaded it with became infused with the flames he was emitting, fusing and enhancing the bolt with his awakening power…
*Ba-BUMP*
Akatosh, a Dragon God, has the strongest ties of all to flames and dragons both, being the forefather and an Ancient Primordial Dragon of old, had dominion over granting Dragonic attributes to those he deemed worthy, making otherwise ordinary mortals into his kin, the Dragonborn, or Dhovakiin…
Suddenly, as the demon closed in on him, Chain's body underwent a slight transformation, an indication of his true potential, yet not a complete nor stable one, as his body suddenly emitted a black aura that made his outfit look completely black, a phantasmal, ethereal skull mask appeared on his face, and his eyes, his left one ablaze with a blood red glow while his right equally alight with an azure blue mystic glow, lashed out…
*THA-THUMP* *KRUNKCH* *FWOOOOOSH*
So what happens if one combined the power of the Spirit of Justice and Vengeance, a Descendant of the Succubus Queen, and the Blood of the Dragon God, all into one single entity?
Suddenly an explosion of Holy, Demonic, and Void fires generated a pillar of incendiary destruction, right within the very jaws of the Demon itself as it clamped down upon the young boy it just tried to eat alive, burning the demon alive and cremating it from the inside as its razor-sharp teeth, like rows upon rows of shortswords, dug into his side, demonic screams of pain and grunts of unholy agony released simultaneously by both demon and Nephilim alike.
Entrails from Chain's poor young body were ripped out along with his side as a chunk got ripped out of him, spilling a large pool of blood that drenched the ground where a large crater formed. As for the demon, it was completely incinerated from the inside and blew like an atomic bomb was detonated from inside its body while void ash encompassed both Demon and Nephilim's bodies, sending them elsewhere as per the intervention of a certain Void God to assist his favorite entertainment...
[End Song 'In My Blood']
The shock wave of the generated power was unleashed like a mini-nuke and struck the running Nero, zapping his arm and unwittingly causing something Chain's presence had unknowingly been protecting from being awakened, causing his right arm to slowly transform into a demonic-looking one over time.
While a certain unknowing pair of Cambion relatives of his had their parent's amulets to serve as the seal keeping their demonic heritage hidden, young Nero had Chain's presence to thank for keeping him safe and hidden from any demons or humans seeking to take advantage of a young descendant of Sparda's bloodline until now.
As a Nephilim, Chain's rare mix of holy and demonic energy had unwittingly had a similar effect to the Sparda family's Limiter Amulet, which had been split in two, with one held by Vergil, and the other Dante. Dante's amulet, which belonged to their mother, Eve, held the holy energies of Angels which had been gifted to her for her protection as a priestess, while Vergil's amulet, which belonged to their father, Sparda, contained the demonic energies of their Father, the Legendary Dark Knight himself. These amulets served as a seal until the time when the Sons of Sparda needed their strength and to awaken their demonic heritage.
Chain's unique blend of Angel, Demon, and Dragon blood had given him the similar effect for those of mixed lineage between human and demonic or angelic blood. So by staying near him, Nero's demonic blood in his heritage had been suppressed...but now that Chain's heritage had slowly begun to awaken and reveal itself?
As Nero struggled to run, he failed to notice the lingering demonic energy from the shock wave had jump-started a change in his own right arm, and over the course of the next decade, would result in his arm slowly twisting from human to demon, and him trying to hide it until his true heritage finally came out. The Order of the Sword, however, noticed the explosion and sensed the demonic energy unleashed.
Finding young Nero injured and clutching his bleeding right arm, they rushed to the scene when they learned of what happened from him in moments, but all they found was a large pool of blood and a smoldering crater with still-burning flames of red, blue, and black before slowly sizzling out.
There was no sign of young Chainharte anywhere, and with the amount of blood spilled, was not very likely he had survived, even if he somehow managed to get away. Credo, Kyrie, and Nero all mourned the loss of their friend, who in a way, was like an elder brother to all three of them. Credo even saw Chain as his best friend and one of the few who could understand him. Kyrie saw him like a pillar of support and encouragement to follow what she wished to do with her life.
As for Nero, he took Chain's loss the worst, beginning to become somewhat rebellious and constantly angry with the world around him. His arm also turning demonic didn't help much over the years, as his self-loathing only increased with the rage he felt towards himself as one of the very beings who killed his big brother figure growing up…
Yet, not all things are as they appear…
Scene Change
Streigga Emporium-One Week Later
On a bed lying with bandages wrapped carefully around his ribs to help deal with the wounds caused by having a literal chunk bitten out of it by a maw filled with razor sharp teeth the size of small swords, was a certain young boy with abyssal black hair streaked with inky dark purple, porcelain skin, and an unusual marking on his back.
A young girl around his age, the same girl who looked at him inquisitively before, was sitting next to him, taking a cool, wet towel to dab at the sweat forming along his brow as he recovered from nearly dying and the forced partial awakening of his heritage.
As she dabbed his wounds, his eyes keep moving rapidly behind his closed eyelids, as images flashed through his delirious mind…
...after slaying the demon, Chain suddenly was finding himself someplace unfamiliar in a burst of void ash, as the mark on his back ignited before going silent again, with the corpse of the demon fading, but suddenly a baleful flare, a deep, murky brown, manifested from its corpse…
...the girl carefully placed the cold towel on his forehead after replacing the old one which had heated up and soaked through with his sweat, as another image flashed into his mind…
...flying straight into him as scaled hide, claws, fangs, and reptilian slit-ed eyes appeared on his body before fading back to normal as he passed out, right as a young girl found him while taking a walk with her grandfather…
The old shopkeep from that chess game walked in and saw the boy' condition, and as he sat down to watch, the girl spoke up…
"How is he, Ruine..."
"He's waking up."
Suddenly heterochromatic red and blue eyes shot open, with a slight slit to the pupil as his body shuddered from the changes to his body...as a deep gasping breath made its way from his throat, and a groan of pain passed his lips, as his body suddenly healed rapidly as the mark on his back glowed with an inky dark purple light. Lost, damaged, or destroyed organs grew back before their eyes as Chain looked completely exhausted from his ordeal.
Suffice to say, Chainharte's story has not yet come to an end…
...rather, it's just begun…
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
New Power Unlocked: Trinity Flare(Unstable)
This flame is born of a fusion between holy, hell, and void fires as a result of Chainharte's unique heritage and soul. However, this ability is rather unstable, since he hasn't fully or truly awakened yet to his full powers, nor his true heritage...
New Power Unlocked: Devil Trigger(Unstable)
A new form unique to those of mixed demonic and non-demonic heritage by unleashing their true form . This form is born by shedding your human form to assume ones true form, but due to not being fully awakened, this form is also unstable.
New Power Unlocked: Drake Scale
The defensive ability to generate a bony scaled armor that makes it very difficult to pierce one's own flesh and increases both physical strength and endurance, but at the cost of speed and agility. Can also be pierced by elemental or magical attacks with little to no tangible corporeal physical form.
New Weapon Obtained: Raven
A collapsible crossbow custom-made by Chainharte, this special weapon fires off special crossbow bolts with various tricks and gimmicks. Chainharte can use it with his flames to generate incendiary bolts, douse them in chemicals them to produce poison bolts, or just plain leave them be. By imbuing his flames into it, his shots will have explosive results.
New Weapon Obtained: Talon
An extremely razor-sharp retracting blade that can fold up for easier carrying and concealment made by Chainharte. It also serves as a fairly good conductor for Chainharte's flames allowing his melee attacks to burn while carving through any unfortunate soul to be on the receiving end of this weapon. Although extremely sharp, it's also not very strong due to its folding design, making it more suited to stealth or parrying rather than full-on blocking attacks.