Well, now we can finally get to the more original stuff, I'm still going to do a couple of flashbacks, but not right now. Review-replies have been removed because of new rules. But a big thank-you to all who reviewed!
Boy, you guys really didn't like the last chapter now did you? I only got a couple of replies….and honestly, if you take the time to read this story I would appreciate it if you took another minute to let me know what you thought of it. Always helps to improve my writing if you tell me your comments.
But to those of you who took the time to review: you rock! It totally made my day each time I got a review.
And on a more important note: I'm not really sure about the rating any more, I'm thinking of upping it as this fic just might get a little more violent than I had first intended.
Now on with the show!
Chapter 3: A new beginningThey were back at the Devil May Cry office. 'This place needs some serious fixing.' Dante thought. He was of course thinking of the gigantic hole where the doors used to be. As if reading his thoughts Trish said: "I'm really sorry about the doors."
"Nah, don't be. This place needed to be redecorated anyway." He had in fact been getting pretty tired of the many heads that hang on the walls. They had a tendency to stink…a lot. 'Shame about the doors though, they were pretty nice.' But who cared, it was just wood anyway. He was almost satisfied with the current makeshift doors that stood in their place. He was brought back to the present by Trish's soft answer.
"Oh, ok. So… what now?" Sure they had been all happy go lucky after the defeat of Mundus, but what now when they were back in real life… not that Trish really knew much of real life. She had spent most her time in the Underworld. It was very seldom that she had come to the Human realm, not counting the times she had been here for training. So she didn't really know a lot about the place. She did know quite a lot about Dante though. But that had been the only reason why she had been created in the first place. But now was not the time to deal with her many thoughts, she had other things that had to be decided now. Like what would happen next?
"Well I don't know about you but believe it or not: I'm pretty tired. I say we get some sleep now and discuss things in the morning."
"Sounds like a plan to me." said Trish. When she thought about it she was actually exhausted. 'Dying can do that to you.' she thought and smiled slightly.
'What's she so happy about?' Dante thought. Actually he didn't really care right now. There were only two things that he cared about now, one was taking a long hot shower, and the other was sleep. But first he needed to get Trish settled in. He started up the staircase, not checking to see if Trish was following, as he knew she would be.
He went in to a room that was to the right of the stairs and across the hall from his own bedroom. "Why don't you use this room? It's a little small, but I hope it'll do. The bathroom is just down the hall. " Dante said as he stepped inside the room. It wasn't really that big, there was a small walk-in closet, a bed, a nightstand and that was pretty much it. But it did have a very homey feeling to it somehow. The rest of the house didn't have the some comfortable atmosphere, but it had been too uppity for Dante to use as anything but a guestroom… not that he'd ever had guests before now, so he'd sort of been using it for extra storage. There were boxes almost everywhere.
"It'll do just fine, thank you." Trish said as she inspected the room. She instantly decided that she liked it, it was a little bare perhaps (that is if you didn't count the boxes), but she wasn't really that picky. Walking past Dante she went to the bed and began moving the boxes that were on it.
"umm…ok, well, g-goodnight then." The slightly surprised devil hunter stuttered.
Turning around to face him Trish wished him goodnight as well, then she continued to organize the boxes. Dante watched her for a moment longer, then stepped out and closed the door. God he was tired! As tempting as it was his long coveted shower would have to wait until tomorrow. Right now he just wanted to sleep.
He sighed deeply as he un-strapped Alastor and placed it along with the Ifrit gauntlets on the floor. Ebony and Ivory were placed in their usual spot right beside his king sized bed. Oh how he loved that bed, it was one of the best investments he'd ever made.
Undressing until he only had his boxers on he crawled onto the bed. Another deep sigh escaped him as he slipped beneath the covers. He couldn't remember when he'd been this tired in a long while. He was probably going to fall asleep the second his head hit the pillow. He just hoped he didn't have any nightmares as he usually did. But he figured he was probably too tired to have any.
Just as he was about to fall asleep he thought of Trish. Realizing that the woman had nothing but her leather outfit on and that couldn't possible be comfortable to sleep in he got up and walked to his closet. He wondered for a moment if Trish perhaps preferred to sleep in the nude, but then figured he should still give her an option. Leather was comfortable to fight in, but not to sleep in. Grabbing one of his t-shirts he headed back to the blondes room. He almost forgot to knock; he was so tired, but fortunately remembered in the last moment.
"Are you still up?" he asked softly as not to wake her if she was asleep. After a short moment he heard her walk to the door and open it.
"What's wrong?" asked Trish. Dante noticed that she was still organizing the boxes. 'I didn't remember that there was this much junk in here.' He noticed she had placed Sparda by the bed and that his pendant was nowhere to be seen.
"N-nothing. I just, umm, I just thought that you might want something else to sleep in. So here." He cursed his stutter again, he never stuttered so why was he doing so now?
"Thanks." Trish said as she accepted the shirt. There was a smile on her face.
"No prob. Sleep tight. " said Dante and walked back to his room and did indeed fall asleep the second his head hit the pillow.
Trish however was not so lucky. There were so many things that she had on her mind she wasn't sure if she was going to get any sleep at all. She had so many questions and thoughts that needed to be dealt with. But how was she going to get any answers? Who could possibly know what had happened to her? What was still happening to her… she felt so different. So many things about her loyalties and the Underworld had indeed become clear to her, but there was so much more now that she worried about. Mostly what she was going to do now, and what she was now. 'If only I didn't feel so different.' She mused. Deciding that there was no point to think about it now when she was so tired and needed the healing that sleep would bring, she changed into the shirt Dante had brought her and then climbed into the bed. 'I hope I'll find answers.' she thought before giving in to her body's craving for sleep.
However her sleep was not the healing one that she had sought but filled with dreams, some confusing, some filled with images of horrors her mind made up, horrors that were both fact and fiction. And it was these dreams that stayed with her, these dreams were she relived the many things she had done and witnessed in her lifespan. Things that she would have chosen to forget had the choice been given to her. But they were of course part of the things that made her what she was- or what she had been, as Trish did no longer know for sure what she was. So many things were different now from what they had been before Mallet Island. Things had changed; she had changed and continued to do so without even noticing. And so her dreams were filled with images, sounds and smells that she did not really understand.
Waking up the next morning, Trish got dressed and made her way downstairs. As she walked to the stairs she noted that the door to Dante's room was open, and the devil hunter was nowhere to be seen, the bathroom was empty so he wasn't there either. She didn't really want to snoop around, but figured she could take a quick look to see if she could find the aforementioned devil hunter. There was another door on the second floor but as she tried the door it was locked.
The first floor held of course the office, which was the main room of the building, biggest in size and best location, another bathroom, a small living room and a L-shaped kitchen.
As she was coming back from the office she heard a sound from upstairs. There was a knock on a door and then she heard Dante ask for her. She figured he was by her room and called to answer him. "I'm downstairs."
She heard soft steps on the carpet and there was Dante at the top of the stairs. To her surprise he was not dressed in the red outfit as she had been suspecting he would be, but was instead wearing faded light blue jeans and a tight fitting black t-shirt, Ebony and Ivory with him as always, but most incredibly she noticed he was barefoot.
"I wasn't sure if you were up yet or not." he said. "Want something to eat?" he asked as he came down the stairs to where Trish was standing. Her stomach grumbled at the mention of food, and Trish felt like blushing… which was something she had never done before. It felt a little strange to her, as devils and demons never blushed or even came close to doing so. Devils never had any reason to blush; or rather they didn't feel the need to do so. She wasn't sure though if she was blushing because of her stomach or because she had been staring at the handsome devil hunter.
"I'll take that as a yes." Dante said with a grin. Trish just smiled back at him and pointed for him to lead the way. As they came to the kitchen Dante asked Trish to take a seat and went to the refrigerator to see if he actually had something in it besides beer. He found that there were some eggs and that was about the only edible thing left besides some old milk and a piece of cheese that had seen better days. Sighing a bit he began to check the cupboards and found that he had some crackers and a couple of cans with cocktail fruits that had somehow ended up there, how he wasn't sure as he didn't remember buying them. He was also pretty sure that there was a loaf of bread around somewhere. He remembered buying it not two days ago.
"Hmm…well, it looks like I need to do some shopping. I wasn't really expecting any company."
Trish smiled as she remembered all the empty pizza boxes that she had noticed on her little search. It was pretty obvious that Dante was the take-out sort of man. "Anything will do." she answered his unasked question as he pointed to the eggs and the crackers. From somewhere he had managed to find the loaf of bread.
They ate in silence and when they were done Dante pointed out that they could order something in later. He then took her on a quick tour of the house; the door that had been locked upstairs turned out to lead to a small library, after which they were back in the kitchen, a pressing silence between them. Trish still felt extremely tired as she had gotten almost no good sleep last night.
"Is it okay if I get some more rest or do you need me for something?" Trish asked. She figured both of them needed a little time to think things out and besides, she was really tired.
"Sure, I need to make some arrangements anyway, maybe go by the store. Or do you want to come along for that?"
"Yeah, why not. Just let me know when you're going so that I can take a shower first."
"Will do, there should be some clean towels in the closet next to the upstairs bathroom."
"Thank you. Later then." Dante just nodded and with that Trish headed back up to her room to get some sleep.
Dante watched as Trish walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Truth be told he was very confused at the moment. Confused and a little upset as well. There were so many things that he needed to deal with: Trish, Vergil, Mundus… the whole incident at Mallet Island had brought him almost nothing but questions. The only other thing he could really grab at was the revenge he had finally been able to take at his mothers killer. For he was sure she was dead. Long ago when Eva and Vergil had first disappeared he had kept the thought and hope alive that he would find them and save them and all would be well. But as time passed and he grew he realized that that was not the case. There would be no reason for the devils that had taken them to keep them alive.
But it had turned out he was wrong. Vergil had been alive… alive and evil. The thought was still almost too much for him, he could not believe that his brother had turned and allied himself with those that they had sworn to fight against. It was in their blood to fight them, to hate them. So how could Vergil have turned? How could he have ignored the hate that he was sure to have felt in the presence of such evil? Speaking of which: why did Dante not feel hate towards Trish? She was a devil after all… It must have something to do with her appearance. Eva had been the epitome of good. Oh how Dante loved his mother, he loved her strength, her goodness, he loved all that she was. It had almost killed him when she had been taken. He had been so young then, only seven years old. It had happened not long after his and Vergils birthday, the birthday that Eva had given them their pendants. 'No, don't go there. Concentrate on the now, dwell on the past later.'
It was true that he did not have time to think of such things now; he needed to deal with other more pressing things at the moment. Like calling someone to come and fix his front door.
Getting up Dante headed for his office. As he walked down the hall he found himself looking up the stairs to where Trish would be. 'And what am I going to do about her?' He had so many things that he needed to deal with, but decided that they needed to have a long talk about how things were going to be from now on.
There was a slight draft as he opened the door to the office area. The entire room was a mess. His desk was in rubbles, there was fire damage to half of the floor and of course there were no actual doors. "Great, this is going to take a lot of time to fix." It wasn't that he didn't have to money to hire someone to fix it, it was simply that he didn't trust people. He'd have to hire someone to fix the doors put he preferred to fix the rest himself. It might take awhile as he would have to go out and hunt for at least every night for a couple of weeks. With Mundus gone, most of the devils and demons would be on a rampage. They might be confused and stupid but that just made them all the more deadly. But that would be during the night.
Walking to where his desk had once been Dante pushed some of the rubble aside in search of his phone. He did find it after a moment of searching and to his surprise it still worked. He had another one of course but it was in his bedroom upstairs, and as he spent most of his time downstairs in the office or the living room, he really wanted this one to work. He then proceeded to make a call about fixing some new doors.
Once he was finished he had a lot of cleaning to do. Almost all of the furniture was either broken or burnt. 'Well, as I said before: this place needed a new look anyway.' With that thought in mind he began to clear up the mess.
Once again the sleep that held Trish was not the kind she had sought. She was haunted by dreams that she did not understand, feelings that seemed as if they belonged to her yet they were so alien she knew they were not hers.
And then there was the burning. She had felt this burning before, in the Underworld when she had died. It filled her body and mind and held them in an iron grasp that she was helpless to break free from. She felt as if she would burst into flames at any moment, so powerful was this burning.
Twisting and turning in her sleep she tried in vain to get away from the heat. She found herself begging for it to stop in her mind. On and on she kept begging, to what she did not know, for what deity would have mercy upon a devil? But she could not stop for she feared that if she did she would be lost within herself and the heat would claim her forever. So she would fight it with everything she had.
Then it seemed that someone or something finally answered her prayers, and the burning stopped. Trish opened her eyes and found that she was not in the comfy room at Devil May Cry, but rather in a room that was much like the one she had occupied in the Underworld. 'It is my room!' she thought, and was surprised when her thoughts were spoken aloud even though she had only thought them.
'What's going on here?' she thought and then came to the realization that she was dreaming. 'Ugh, and how do I wake myself?' Once again her thoughts were spoken aloud and as before Trish jumped a little in surprise.
Coming to the conclusion that she had no idea how to wake herself up, and that no matter how much she hated this place it was still much better the burning she had felt not long ago, she walked over to her former bed and sat down. As by habit she reached for the crack in the wall by the head of the bed and reached for her journal. To her amazement it was there, just where she had left it. Pulling it out she opened it and was very surprised to find that there was nothing but blank pages where her entire life had been written down. 'This is weird.' Trish thought as she continued to flip through the book, but there was nothing, nothing but blank pages staring back at her no matter how she looked through it. The thought came to her then that she should have taken this with her in real life, I did contain things that were very private and should not be seen by any other devil. 'But that's not important now. It's not like I need to hide it from them anymore.' In the past she had always been so careful that no one would find her journal, it had contained her own little world that she was not supposed to have.
She was pulled from her reverie as a voice suddenly sounded in the room. Somehow a very familiar voice… but she couldn't quite place why it was so familiar.
"December 25th 1992 (human calendar)
Today was my third time to the human realm.
Today was the first time I took a human life… the blood on my hands feels strange somehow…
Why does it feel that way?
Why do I feel as if I've done something I wasn't supposed to do?
Why does the blood feel so wrong…"
'That's from my journal!' Trish flew to her feet with the thought. It might only be a dream but someone had her journal and was reading from it. Someone was invading her personal thoughts.
There was a flash and the scenery changed. Trish found herself back in the human realm; she was in a house somewhere. It was a nice house that had a very homey feeling to it. She was standing in the living room and suddenly found herself imagining how it would look at Christmas with children sitting by a spectacular tree, their parents on the couch in front of a roaring fire watching their children play.
Then she realized that she had indeed seen it… only there had been no laughter, only screams… The presents had all been crushed and the tree seemed to glisten with the blood that was on it.
Trish suddenly felt sick. She felt her stomach turning upside down and she felt like vomiting. She had been in this house before. She had been here and she had killed her first human here. It had been at Mundus' order and part of her training. It had been the father that she was to kill; he had made a deal with one of the higher standing devils and had decided not to pay the price when it came down to it. The 'price' had been one of his children if she remembered correctly. So as punishment she and some other devils had been sent to retrieve the payment and add a little bonus, the bonus being killing the entire family as the father had watched, helpless to do anything for his wife and children.
Trish had to grab a hold of something as the memory came back to her, she felt like fainting.
But then there was a sound from somewhere in the house. Someone was crying. Gathering her wits and swallowing the bile that was in her mouth, she got to her feet. She didn't know why but she needed to find the source of the crying. Most of all she needed to get away from this memory. She got to her feet and began to look for the source of the sound. She walked by the kitchen and was again assaulted by memories, as she smelled freshly baked cookies. "Don't think about it. Focus!" she told herself hoping that it might help centre her a bit. Pulling herself together she once again set herself to the task of finding the voice.
It seemed that it was coming from upstairs so Trish crept up the stairs. She wasn't sure what was waiting for her up there, so she decided to try and prepare for anything. Steadying herself with the railing she continued to walk upstairs. It seemed as if the stairs went on forever… but finally she reached the top. The crying was coming from somewhere to her right, so she began a slow approach to the only door on that side, one of the bedrooms if memory served her right.
She reached the door and with a shaking hand pushed it open wider. It was indeed a bedroom, the master bedroom to be exact. And there hunched in the left corner by the double bed sat a figure cloaked in shadow crying. Trish stood watching the figure from the door for a moment; shocked. There was something very wrong with the picture. Her mind kept screaming at her not to enter the room but to turn around and run. But Trish ignored it and pushed herself into the room. The closer she came to the crying figure, the less it sounded like crying. When she was close enough she reached down for the figure and put a hand on its shoulder.
She felt silky hair under her fingers. Pushing the observation from her mind she was just about to tell the figure that it wasn't alone anymore and that it didn't need to cry when the figure suddenly got up. Trish jumped back a bit in surprise and was shocked into silence when the figure turned around and she could see who it was.
The colour drained from her face, as she understood why the voice had seemed so familiar: she was staring at herself.
Her twin stared back for a moment, a few tears falling down her face before an evil grin took their place. A horrid laughter spilled from its mouth and Trish just backed away in shock, trying to get away from the horrible sound. She stumbled on the edge of the bed and fell to the floor in an ungraceful heap. For the first time she looked past her twin and saw that there was a body crumpled in the corner behind the twin. 'A bloody, broken body.' She felt the panic rising in her, stealing away her breath. Tearing her eyes away from the bloody corpse she looked back at her twin. The horrible laughter had stopped and now there was only a smug smile on the twins face. Trish pushed herself up, coming to eye level with her twin, not letting her gaze wonder for one second from its face. There was something very wrong with all of this.
When she was upright the twin nodded to her as if in greeting, the smile still on its face. Trish felt ill again as her twin lifted its hands and waved them at Trish, she could clearly see the blood they were soaked with.
It put its hands down and smiled at her a little wider.
"Remember what you are…" it said and lunged at her. Trish felt the twin fly straight into her and let out a scream; it felt as she was being ripped in two and with this feeling she finally awoke…
'…true Evil' echoed in her mind as she struggled to wake. Somewhere she thought she heard someone running and doors slamming.
The next second Dante was busting through her door, Ebony and Ivory at the ready.
Dante was working on cleaning away some of the rubble, especially noting that he'd have to buy a new pool table as well, when he heard the scream. Not knowing what to think, but reacting purely on instinct, he grabbed Ebony and Ivory from where he'd left them, ran up the stairs and busted through the door to where Trish was sleeping.
Expecting to find Shadows or something of the sort, he was a little surprised to find that there was nothing out of the order in the room. Holstering the weapons he walked over to where Trish was laying to see what was wrong.
"What happened?" he questioned the devil. "You were screaming."
"It was…I...I don't remember. I must have been dreaming. I…" she took a pause to catch her breath. "It was probably nothing." She sat up a bit straighter and moved so that she was leaning against the wall. "So how are things going with…" she left the statement unfinished.
"With the cleaning?" he filled in for her. He smiled slightly. "Well, to be honest I'm bored out of my mind. Cleaning is not really one of my preferred hobbies."
Trish smiled at that as well, she could not agree more. Somehow someone like Dante doing mundane things like cleaning just felt so wrong. Seeing someone save the world changes the way you look at them.
"So I was thinking of going to the store…" he left the question hanging in the air.
"Give me 20 minutes and I'll go with you." Trish felt she really needed that shower now. She felt that maybe it would help to wash away the strange feeling that was still lingering from her dream. Dante just nodded and went downstairs to wait for her.
As Trish stepped under the warm spray of water, she felt that the ill feelings that had lingered did indeed wash away. She went about to wash her hair and body, the gentle massaging movements removing the last vestiges of worry in her.
As she stepped out of the shower she felt more refreshed than she had done in a long time. 'All I need now is a good nights rest and I'll be at top form again. Well, almost at top form.' Realising that she had to hurry if she wanted to go with Dante, Trish hurried to dry her hair and get dressed. She frowned a little as she pulled on her leather outfit; it was really not something to be worn for everyday life. But was that what was before her now? Trish doubted it. But she supposed she needed to go shop for something more comfortable anyway, maybe not right now but she would definitely have to do so later.
Pushing her thoughts of clothes shopping aside, she hurried downstairs to the awaiting Dante as she was pretty sure he was tired of waiting by now. And besides, she could really do with a good meal.
End chapter 3.
Love to hear what you thought of it. Quick reminder that this was written before DMC 3 came out. So I'm going to ignore all that. Yup, bye, bye!