1Alrighty people, this here fic is for my enjoyment only...really. I've just seen so many "holy mother" characterizations of Eva I thought I'd get my own opinion out there. That and a woman who has the guts to raise two demon children has gotta have some quirks of her own... Also, here's a warning in advance this fic is 100 sarcasm. You were warned...
On that note: I don't own Devil May Cry. Losers :P
Eva
The Beaumont family was what you could call high-class and well-to-do. They were well-respected, charitable, and socially well-connected. You could find their names on colleges, concert halls, and libraries across most of Europe. They were held with the utmost respect.
Eva, however, had other words for them, most of them inappropriate, but one could sum it up to chauvinistic elitist, snobs. She also had one other word for them: Family. She'd rather submerse herself into her rock music and underground culture than take part in her blood kin's so called "society". As a matter of fact, there were lots of things she'd rather do than partake in that mockery. Including, but not limited to, frying in hot oil, being stranded in the desert, and being pushed off the empire state building. As a matter of fact, she'd done that last one, it was quite entertaining. Base jumping, what a wonderful sport.
Luckily for her, she didn't have to deal with them too often, because her father held them in pretty much the same esteem. In other words, he'd been everything but officially exiled from the family fortune. Eva's father, Micheal, had migrated them from France to America when she was six where they'd lived freely, if meagerly, ever since.
They became so close that not much went on in each other's life that the other couldn't sense. So when Micheal got sick, they both knew it was the end. They knew, and they celebrated. They spent their last night together giggling in a jail cell after breaking every law they could think of and stomach. He died that night, after falling asleep with Eva leaned up against his shoulder.
She was nineteen.
Family flew in from all over the world, splashing money around to quiet any rumors that there may have been tense feelings between them and the recently deceased. They had had to keep up their image, of course. Five minutes into the ceremony, when the bald minister had just gotten into the thick of a bible verse, the loud peal of a motorcycle tires cut through the stale air of the church.
Eva slammed both doors of the church open, ever the one for a dramatic entrance. She was a splash of brilliant red in the middle of the black colored mass of dresses, suits, and hats, and she was grinning for all she was worth. The chains around her neck and the clunking of her heavy boots on the floor were the only sound that cut through the obviously appalled crowd. She stalked right up to the pulpit and knocked on the front.
"S'cuse me, father, I have a little announcement." She showed her most brilliant smile. The priest frowned. With a roll of her eyes she made a shooing motion with her hands, "I'm the daughter, move it." She clunked up behind the pulpit, practically forcing the priest out of the way.
She flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder and leveled her gaze at the crowd, crooked grin firmly in place, "You," She started, scanning the crowd, "Are all posers. You didn't love my father, you barely knew my father! We liked it that way too. That said, I would also like to announce something." She reached into the black bag at her waist and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "Dad has slowly been collecting a fortune of his own, which is more than most of you can do. He was a very smart person and knew where to place his money. Guess what? None of you, and I mean none, are going to even see a slice of his five billion dollars." Eva folded the piece of paper again with a self satisfied smile and put it back, "Now that you guys can stew over that for the next hour of this service, I'll see ya guys later... Losers."
The Beaumonts were left in complete and utter horror as the last bit of Eva's red coat disappeared out the front door. That was the last any of them heard of her.
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Eva looked the building in front of her over with a little mistrust. It was probably one of the oldest buildings in the neighborhood. The bricks were only held together by failing mortar and spackle. Ivy had completely invaded one half of the building, covering up several windows and blocking the right alleyway. The other half was so covered in graffiti you couldn't tell what color the bricks were supposed to be.
She lifted an eyebrow and nudged the kickstand on her bike into place. She tried not to think of what it would mean if she had been misled. With the dealings she'd had so far, she hadn't seen any reason to mistrust them... but still. She tucked her hands under her red jacket, brushing over the two Glocks strapped to the small of her back.
With one of her characteristic smiles, she stepped past the crumbling curb and up towards the steps. She could see set of eyes looking at her from the windows though she could never meet them fast enough before they disappeared in a wave of ratty curtains.
She knocked sharply on the door, making a face as the door shed several chunks of paint. The door opened only enough to let her see an dark colored eye with maybe just a bit too much eyeshadow.
"Yes?" a muted, but male voice came from the person behind the door.
Eva put a hand on her hip, "Christ, didn't your mother teach you how rude that is?"
The eye narrowed, then looked her up and down, taking in the long blonde hair, bright red coat and the annoyed expression. "Oh, it's you..." The voice mumbled before the door closed again, only to open the rest of the way once the locks where undone.
"You could sound just a little more excited, y'know." Eva sighed, before pushing her way into the building. The teenage doorman let out a grunt before shutting the door behind her. "Now! Where is this lady I'm supposed to be talking to?"
A middle aged woman waved a hand as she quickly clomped down the stairs, "Right here, Ms. Eva." She wheezed a little, hand in her stomach as she caught her breath. "Whoo, sorry, rushed down here when I heard Mark here giving you a hard time." She managed to catch the boy on the head and ruffle his overly gelled hair. He grimaced but didn't complain, just remained standing near the bottom of the stairs.
Now that she noticed it, there were others hovering around, rather protectively. Some older, some younger than Mark, but all kept that weary suspicious look she was getting used to seeing. She also couldn't help but notice that they were all very much armed.
"Ms. Eva?" The woman prodded.
"Huh?" She looked back at her, then realized what she had said, "Oh, it's Eva, just Eva. Don't have a last name, don't want one." The woman gave a knowing smile.
"You're definitely among the like minded, then m'dear." She put a hand on Eva's elbow, somehow steering the taller woman into the next room, "You can call me Sarah."
Eva nodded slightly, opting to go with the hypothetical flow, "Alrighty then."
She found herself at the head of a procession of people, Sarah's guards, as she guessed they were, lined up by twos behind them. She was too busy looking at the stony faced children behind her to notice she was being led through another doorway. That is, she did notice until she felt the presence of hundreds of eyes on her. She whipped around to find herself on a platform overlooking a very high tech steel and plastic room with sweeping stairways shooting out from either side. Below, there were people dressed in clothes from every possible culture imaginable and from every age group imaginable... and they were all looking at her.
Sarah's voice bellowed out over the crowd, "Everyone, we have gone through hard times lately. We've had to pull back our resources and scrounge for what we have. That ends today. Eva has committed to support us, with only one condition...she want's to become a member. To that, I say," Sarah turned to Eva with a smile, "...welcome to Artemis."
With a surprisingly loud round of cheering from below, Eva let herself smile.
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Artemis.
Eva had only truly found out about it two years after her father's death. Or rather, she'd never lost them in the first place. Even that first day after her dad died, she had noticed two of them across the street from the church. They looked sad. Especially the woman, dark brown hair curling around her face, eyes looking up at the cross on the building. The older man with her kept his eyes not on the church, but on her. Eva remembered sending a challenging look over at him, daring him to try something. She was already riled up enough to start a fight, she wouldn't have minded. Instead he just nodded at her, with a good measure of respect and a smile.
Since that day she'd been unwinding the mystery that was her father's finances. Wherever he'd gotten his money, she didn't know. She wasn't worried, she respected her father way too much to think it anything hideous. She just hadn't particularly expected to track it back, time and time again, to an organization called Artemis...or to the occult.
She knew her father had some kind of interest in it, and was fairly knowledgeable on the subject. She'd never thought he'd know this much though. Artemis was an age old organization, dating back over two thousand years. They specialized in the occult. Hauntings, Demons, the occasional Apocalypse, the typical fantasy novel stuff. Apparently they had played some huge part in some shindig two thousand years ago about sealing off the demon world or something like that. Which brought her back to her family. Though not quite her father.
Her mother, on the other hand, apparently had some blood ties in the business.
Eva hadn't been quite old enough to remember her when she died. The manner of her death was always a no no topic with her father. After a year of sleuthing she'd come across the right answer, and Artemis. They'd finally told her that she was killed by demons. Nothing special for them. Ones who knew about them had a harder time evading them. She was killed in a routine sweep that she participated in, on occasion. An unexpected infestation of Shadows or something like that.
She'd pieced together that, ever since her mother's death, her father had been contributing large sums of money. Artemis, in return, would return his contributations, in time, with sales of rare occult items they "found". It didn't take her long to figure out what she wanted to do with her father's fortune. Not really for revenge, she barely knew her mother. Not really out of a need to clear her conscience. It just called to her. She wanted to, it sounded right like nothing really ever had... of course there was the added factor that she'd be able to kick some ass, which appealed to her under any circumstance. She'd shook hands with the Artemis representatives and that was that.
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Eva had only been in Artemis for a couple months and had already ran into many more technical snags than she thought possible. All this red tape had not been included in the "Help save the world" pep talk she'd gotten when she first arrived. Nor was it anything like that round of cheering. Eva had a sneaking suspicion they had just been cheering for her money.
They wanted bazookas, Eva's Money Bazookas...apparently.
She hadn't really seen a single bit of respect. She'd actually been receiving the opposite. People saw her in a way she remembered people looking at her when she was six, and still in France with the Beaumonts. They saw her as some stinking rich kid who could throw her money around and get whatever she wanted. All kids who were honest enough to say so could give you an exact description of Eva's cross ring as they had seen it flying towards their face.
That red bump and cross indention on someone's forehead had come to mean "I am stupid." in the ranks of Artemis. Those who had sported it before now flinched every time Eva cracked her knuckles.
That wasn't the only thing, they were making her take classes! Classes! On Demons! She knew everything she needed to know. Demons bad, you kill. Simple. And, atrocity of atrocities, they had tried to take her guns away from her! Safe to say that never happened, people in Artemis learned fast.
However, all these combined did kind of leave her exiled. She constantly found herself where she was today, sitting on one of the benches in the experimental weapons shops. In here were her few good friends. One, ironically, was the man she had seen at her father's funeral, who she learned was named Raze. He was one of the oldest (and by oldest, he was only fifty, mortality was is high) in Artemis and had voluntarily retired to mechanical work after a very real run in with a wayward demon who fancied himself a spider general. Eva spent most of her free time either out at parties, or in the shop, talking about what caliber they preferred. They'd even done some enhancements on her Glocks.
On one such night, Eva was perched on top of a table. Raze sat, tinkering with a modified rifle, talking to himself about young soldiers and how they couldn't take care of a gun. It was pretty late and the base was pretty much dead at this hour anyway. Understandably, when the door slammed open with a loud clang, Eva already had her hand around her gun. Expecting some evil satanic creature to come bounding in, she was surprised to find a teenage girl, maybe a few years younger than her, holding a box almost bigger than her.
"Help!" she hissed. Eva and Raze jumped up from their spots and lifted the box out of the girl's grasp, clunking it down on a workbench. She winced, "Careful! There are explosives in there!"
Eva's hands dropped away from the box, her face completely straight, as she took a very large step away from the box. Raze was less subtle, he skipped back and tripped over the table behind him. He slowly turned his head to the girl. "Advanced. Warning."
The girl winced and grinned innocently, "Sorry." She scratched her head before her eyes caught on Eva, "Hey! You're Scarlet Eva!"
"Eh?" Eva looked over at Kaze who shrugged, she turned back to the girl, "I'm a what?"
The girl looked confused, "Scarlet...Eva? Aren't you Eva?"
"Yeah," she laughed, then looked down at herself, picking at her coat, "And technically, I'm scarlet too...but..."
"Oh, that's so cool!" The girl hopped up to her, lacy white skirts sweeping out behind her, "I thought I'd seen you before, you're practically a legend over at the West Coast Base!"
Eva couldn't take it, she doubled over laughing. Between bouts of laughter she managed to stand up and breathe. "Who are you, anyway?"
"Oh! I'm Kalina Ann, you can call me Kalina...if I can call you Eva." She said slyly.
"You call me Scarlet Eva and I will have to conk you on the head." Eva laughed.
"Deal!" They shook on it.
Raze jumped as he pulled something out of the box she had been carrying. "Jesus, Kalina, are these warheads?"
She scoffed, "Of course not! They're missles! I'm making a gun!"
Raze's eyebrows shot up, "Again?"
"Woah, wait a sec," Eva put her hands up, "You make guns...with missles?"
The girl nodded as if it were obvious, leaving Eva to grin.
"You are so my new best friend."
Comments are, as usual, very much appreciated. However, deep, scarring, but well-meaning crits should probably stay in their box. Dunno if I can handle it.
