Are you then Virgil and that wellspring
That pours forth so lush a stream of speech?"
May the long study and the profound love
That made me search your work come to my aid!
Chapter 3
Virgil was falling down a dark tunnel, feeling the air change from hot to warm, then cold to hot again. It was when he had landed on the ground that he felt the sting of his lungs and remembered where he was at.
He didn't even bother to look at the surroundings, knowing full well he was in hell. His hand clenched over his bended knee and the bloodied ground beneath him appeared to swirl and churn and if he had looked further, he would have seen demons from the higher plane. Virgil didn't bother with them, his breath coming in loud gasps after his exertion. Fighting with his brother was a good thing for him and it felt damn good to battle with Dante. Nothing could be much better. But, as he looked up he saw three glowing eyes. And he knew.
This could be better than a battle with his little brother. He knew those eyes belonged to the Prince of the Underworld.
"If my father could do it, I should be able to do it too." He said with confirmation, the sense of victorious pride in his voice.
It was the last time he had remembered his last great battle.
Was it worth it?
Does he even remember anything coherent in his new armour and the new name given to him? He was what he wanted to be; ironically so, just like his father. Before. Mundus dubbed him the Black Knight and this twisted irony, the Prince of Darkness would allow him a glimpse of his little brother again.
"Just watching you two fight," Mundus said, "It was magnificent. I've never seen so much entertainment in all my eternal existence. You two fight like your father. Scum that he was, he would have been my right hand for the rest of his eternal existence. But what did he do? He threw it all away for humans! You wanted to be like your father, didn't you? I gave you what you've always wished for, Virgil."
His new Knight didn't reply. He stood there like a zombie, the new armour suiting his body and the human part of him defeated.
But Mundus knew, he knew that Virgil could hear him, "No words, Nelo Angelo?" he grated the last words as if to rub salt into Virgil's wound. The Black Knight's response was an empty silence. There was behind the glowing eyes a sense of anger, though it could barely be detected. He always kept his feelings shut before and now all he could feel was numbness.
This was a kind of purgatory for him. To be Numb.
"I will bring you your brother, just so you aren't alone here in your new home."
There was perhaps a slight movement behind his Black Knight; the eyes flickered for a moment, the glow of his body a blue fire, once dim, sparkled like an electrical current. It was what Mundus had hoped for, always knew when it came to mentioning Dante, Virgil would remember even if the memory itself was washed away on the river of Lenthe.
Some things you can't seem to shake off. But Mundus was content for now, he was feeling triumphant that this clone of their mother would lure the half demon into their lair and he would have not only one Sparda back, but two!
"Trish, it's time to pay a visit to the other Sparda twin. You know what to do."
The blonde woman donned her sunglasses on; her clothes fit her snug and tight. Black spandex revealed the slender curves of her body, tight black corset-like top hugging her upper body. Mundus wanted to laugh at the irony of the very twin image of their mother's existence, knowing how Virgil would have balked at the idea that the image of their beloved mother dressed in such attire.
Worse mockery is, is that Virgil couldn't do anything about it. His whole body in the throes of eternal silent pain, while the voice of Mundus could be heard as a light switch to turn on in his mind and that was enough for Virgil to make any notion of what was coherent. Of what was expected of him.
As Trish left, Mundus spoke to his Knight, enjoying every minute of his company, seeing the Legendary Sparda's son in such bondage. It was truly a victorious time for him from the shamed defeat he faced with their father.
"You're a true devil now, Virgil. Pure. I made you that. The human part of you, that filthy part of you, will no longer be welcomed here. I have only given you more power, the kind you wanted. You owe me and I gave you your mother back. Soon you will have your brother here and what a fine family we shall be."
Mundus tipped his head back, the booming laughter echoing in the great abyss of the sky, black as night and the stars shook with silent tears, dripping like falling comets.
Virgil's eyes flashed with the same red glow; there was nothing he felt, not even the hot tears that he once shed.
If he could remember the last time he cried, it was when he was five years old. When his mother was brutally murdered in front of his eyes. The hot tears and the numbness came back in twofold. And anger replaced that numbness for all his long lonely years.
He waited for Dante to come to him. In the chamber where a lonely Castillian once lived his soul searching melancholy self in; locked away before his spirit was extinguished.
Virgil will know what to do as the man who looked exactly liked him faced the mirror.
What he remembered, if that, behind his eyes was the flash of something exhilarating, a kind of feeling that only he knew when he fought with his brother. It was only then that he could feel anything, but he would never remember anything else.
This is what he was waiting for, for all the long days in this hell, in this icy existence.
"Guts and honor." The words came from the other man; he sensed something different about him. There were demonic energies from the twin reflection of himself, but there was something else as well.
A locket flashed in front of his eyes as they fought, he would have managed to kill the other twin, but something stopped his hand. The fingers tightened around the white haired half breed's neck and a familiar memento tumbled out.
The deadness wouldn't go away for so long and his head felt like exploding. He backed away, hitting the wall with a loud clang and his words couldn't scream out anything coherent. The throes of his pain were excruciating.
Mundus on the other side felt something as well and was angered at the pause of his Knight's failure. Three times, Mundus thought with burning anger: three times I'll give him before I send him down further into the pits of hell where he will no longer serve me as a right hand. He will die there slowly like the rest of the lower hell creatures that serve me no more purpose but as fodder.
When he had returned to Mundus with his first failure, he had bowed down to the emperor. On bended knee, he was silent as a grave and his master was not the forgiving kind.
"You will meet him again, Nelo Angelo. He will battle first with the rest of my minion's and this will tire him down then YOU will strike him down. I doubt if those idiots, Phantom and Griffon would do a better job than you. After all, you have your father's blood. Prove to me that you can serve me like your father did before he was tainted by a human female."
Nelo Angelo's only response was a clenched fist, the mention of his mother still flickered a moments painful reminder in the far reaches of his mind.
Mundus laughed: Ah, Sparda, if only you can see your loving son right now. How you would turn in your grave.
"Go on, Nelo Angelo. Your enemy awaits you at the next stage. Show me the kind of battle I saw before you made your home in hell. That's what I want to see. And this time, don't hold back. This time, you fight with guts and glory. You're fighting to keep your family here. We shall all be one big family and how grand would that be?"
He leaned down to the son of his former nemesis, "Do you hear me, say you hear ME!" he bellowed in a harsh command.
Barely able to be coherent at anything, Virgil grunted in pain, the controls of his mind used as a puppet by Mundus. "Oh that's right," the Prince of Darkness laughed then grinned with a sneer, "I took away your ability to talk. And your humanity."
"Yes, YES! YES, MASTER!" Virgil grated out with a sharp incoherent deep monotone.
"That's my boy. Now leave."
Virgil turned and walked out, his eyes closed harshly and his hand strayed to the amulet on his neck. It was the only thing that kept him from falling apart and he knew something deep inside him that he would have to part with it. For his glorious release, to feel more than the numbness that was spreading through out his demonic body.
Next chapter, enter Lucia.