So off they went, to the toilet, a facility which demons had never heard of, a facility that only Vergil had the ability to use being well…half human. It was a good job he knew how to use one, for he had a mother who had refused to let her sons crap on the sidewalk or in the bushes like Sparda did.
Vergil remembered the time when he and Dante had been desperate to go to the toilet and Eva had been out on some kind of business trip, leaving the not-too-capable Sparda to rear them. They had gone to the park, because the only way to shut Dante up and stop him being hyper was to get him to a park, let him swing on the swings, let him climb the monkey bars, let him scream for help as he got caught in the climbing net and get pummelled by the local bully.
It was something that was a common occurrence, and Sparda had learnt that it was better just to roll his eyes sanctimoniously rather than turn into a demon, threaten to make stew out of the bully and then proceed to scare the living crap out of everyone by claiming that he was the spawn of Satan. Which he was, but the humans weren't to know that. All they saw was a giant deformed looking bat and they ran away screaming. Until people actually began to believe that Sparda had been telling the truth and had proceeded to run the family out of town.
Yes, after the first ten times or so of this sort of behaviour, Sparda felt as though he had adjusted well. On that particular day though, this belief was to be scattered to pieces when he found himself in a tricky situation with two desperate-for-the-bog sons on his hands, whimpering and waddling behind him, their hands clamped to their groins and their eyes filling rapidly with tears. Finally, he told them what to do. To squat on the sidewalk, and do it there, then wipe their bums with grass. Vergil had been appalled at their father's suggestion, but Dante, always eager to play in the mud, was more than happy to follow Sparda's advice.
Vergil had watched as Dante crawled off into the bushes for privacy. When he had come back, Dante had been all smiles and laughs and hadn't seem at all unwell after the incident. And he looked comfortable, and that was all important for a little boy who desperately needed the toilet and hadn't many options available. It was at that moment that Eva had driven past in the car, had somehow seen the guilty innocence in Sparda's eyes and had pulled the car over and had got out, demanding to know what was happening.
'I pooped!' yelled Dante. Eva had looked down at him absently and patted his head like he was a dog. Vergil had certainly thought and still did think that Dante acted like one most of the time.
'Very nice, dear,' Eva had said absent-mindedly.
'In the bushes!' Dante hollered. Sparda had been turning red and was looking distinctly uncomfortable as he tried to get Dante to shut up. Eva didn't seem to notice anything amiss, and Vergil had secretly wondered whether that was what teachers meant when they used the word blind.
'Wonderful, dear,' Eva replied, looking weary. 'Now Sparda, what are you doing? Are you ch-ch-cheating?' She blubbered, her voice turning dangerously wobbly. Vergil had felt alarmed; if Eva knew he had been cheating at his homework he would be in for it…Dante clung onto Eva's hand at that precise moment.
'Daddy told me to!' That caught Eva's attention.
'To do what?'
'Poo!'
'…?'
'In the bushes!'
'SPARDA!'
It had been two weeks until Sparda and Dante could sit down properly without wincing. Vergil had congratulated himself on not pooing in the bushes and since then had perfected the art of self preservation. And using the toilet.
Knowing that his own father had been unfamiliar with the concept of the toilet, it came as no surprise that Mundus was extremely shocked when he saw what one actually looked like. Mundus stared at it from several different angles, as many as he could, but he still couldn't make any sense out of it.
'What is this thing?' Mundus demanded, eyeing it beadily.
'That is a toilet.'
'And this acts as a portal to other realms?'
'Uh…not exactly…' Vergil said nervously. And he had thought that explaining what exactly a television did was difficult!
'So what is it then?'
'Well…it's a device that all humans have in their homes,' Vergil began laboriously. Mundus gobbled with alarm.
'They all have a portal to other realms in their houses? Isn't that dangerous? They could be streaming into here! And causing chaos and a mad panic! There could be tyrant hamsters running around the place! And truanting students escaped from schools!' Mundus clucked in despair. 'What are we going to do!' Vergil was silent. He was secretly impressed. Mundus had not known what a TV was, nor did he know exactly what a toilet was. But somehow, he still knew what a hamster was and what a truanting student or even a school was as well! But he had the sneaking suspicion that this was too good to be true.
'Master?'
'Yes Olive?' Mundus replied quickly. Vergil paused. It was a sad sad fact that Mundus still wasn't entirely sure what his name was, or whether he would ever be able to remember. There had only been one incident where Mundus had got the name right, but that wasn't exactly his finest hour.
"Vergil has failed" he had boomed. No…that certainly wasn't his finest hour. If Mundus had had to get his name right at least once, then why couldn't it have been when Mundus would say something like the following?
"Vergil is the best and I shall pass on the throne to him when I eventually die!" Still…he was lucky to have escaped with his balls, and that was all that mattered to him for now.
'How did you know that there are such things as schools or hamsters?' Vergil asked, trying to get his mind back on track. Mundus looked surprised.
'Such things really exist? I just read one of those idiotic comics that your brother dropped!'
Jughead…go figure. Ever since Dante had started reading Jughead comics at the age of twelve, he had started to collect them. Now he never went anywhere without one, and this was all too apparent when Vergil had been able to track him down just by following the trail of comic books that kept falling from Dante's clothing. It seemed he kept bumping into issues every so often, and some of the other demons had fallen foul of the comics. Nightmare in particular had started gurgling with laughter so badly that he turned into a puddle of sludge. It appeared as though Dante's stupidity was contagious. And that Nightmare was actually literate.
'Never mind, Master…' Vergil sighed wearily, wondering when his punishment would end. Never in all his life as an evil-person-who-wanted-to-help-his-master-take-over-the-world did he think that he would have to look after a turkey. He wished thanksgiving would hurry up and come.
At that point, Mundus gave an ungainly squawk and hid behind Vergil's leg. Vergil looked around, wondering what was trying to eat his master this time. He could see no shadows, he couldn't find any blades and Phantom certainly wasn't going to try and eat Mundus after the last painful incident where Vergil had flown to the rescue and had started spraying insect repellent all over the place before hitting his arse with a fly swat. As far as Vergil knew, Phantom was still sitting in the sewers and moping. Until a Jughead comic had somehow or another found it's way down there. Instead of moping, Phantom had read a page and had promptly turned into an antisocial crack addict. Which was really nothing new.
Vergil sighed before suddenly seeing what exactly had succeeded in scaring the prince of darkness this time. Griffon. Mundus had revived him from the dead in the hopes that they might be able to have bird to bird conversations. But even though Griffin had been a former obedient servant and pet, killing him off had been the last straw! The fact that while Mundus had killed him but had also brought him back hadn't actually crossed his mind. So it was that Mundus found himself being hunted down constantly by an enraged bird that was roughly the size of a full grown elephant. Griffon perched awkwardly on the toilet basin, forming a huge crack on it. Vergil yelped with horror; if Griffon broke it, then where was he meant to do his crap?
Luckily though, it didn't break, and the only toilet in the whole of the underworld was spared for now. Griffon looked at Vergil and then saw Mundus hiding behind him, as usual.
'Master Mundus!' Griffon croaked. Despite having decided that he was no longer Mundus' servant, it appeared as though old habits died hard and that he couldn't bring himself to refer to Mundus as just plain ol' Mundus. Or Barney. Griffon stretched out his wings, preparing to dive bomb at the turkey but promptly stopped as Vergil growled warningly.
'Don't even think about it,' he menaced. Griffon croaked slightly out of nerves. Vergil had once caught him trying to have an affair with a female barn owl while trying to strike an affair with a magpie. The results of his womanising forays had been a pitiful if hilarious sight. The owl had promptly taken a dump on his head and had regurgitated a hamster onto Griffon's talon, and the magpie had pecked at Griffon until he was unrecognisable. His head had become blue and black and Vergil had gleefully taken pictures of the sorry escapade. To this day, Griffon refused to attack or even come remotely close to Vergil, just in case he decided to reveal the truth about what Griffon had claimed to be his "birdly charms".
Griffon flew off, leaving Vergil to his previous task of explaining what a toilet was actually for.
'So what is this toilet thing then if not a portal, Viola?'
'Only this toilet is a portal,' Vergil tried to explain. 'It will take us to the human realm.'
'Yes yes, I know that, Vivian, but what is a toilet really used for?' Vergil cursed inwardly. He had hoped that his master wouldn't have bothered himself with this detail. Mundus glared at him witheringly. 'Well?'
Vergil sighed wearily. 'Why does this matter, Master?' Mundus drew himself up to his full yet insignificant height.
'Because I demanded to know and that is why it matters! Do you dare disobey me!' Vergil took one look at the mad wide angry eyes, the wobbling wattle, and the fat bulk of the turkey and decided that it was better to just explain rather than run the risk of having his eyes pecked out. Death by enraged turkeys was not really the way he planned on dying.
'A toilet is used by humans about three times a day.'
'Then it stops working?'
'Uh…no.'
'Oh. Pity. I wanted them to cry.'
'Right…erm…anyway…'
'How does it work?'
'A human sits on the toilet like this.' Vergil sat down on the toilet. 'Then when they've finished doing whatever they have to do, then they wipe themselves clean and flush the toilet, like so.' Vergil pulled the flush. Mundus gobbled avidly as he watched the toilet water swirl around.
'So what exactly do humans do on the toilet?'
'Erm…'
'Gertrude…' Mundus' tone was becoming dangerous. Vergil swallowed hard.
'They uh…they pee and crap in it.' There was a moment of nonplussed silence.
'They excrete in a bowl of water?'
'Yes.'
'While their pants are up? They sit over a bowl of water to soil their garments?' Mundus sounded disbelieving. Vergil looked at him wearily, wondering why he even bothered.
'No Master…they take their pants off before they poo. And their underwear as well,' Vergil hastened to add. Mundus frowned at him.
'So why didn't you do that when you were showing me how it works?'
Vergil chose not to answer. Mundus then decided to change the subject, deciding that the subject no longer interested him.
'So how do we get to the human realm?' Vergil smiled wickedly at that before picking up the turkey bodily and shoving him into the toilet basin. Then he smirked as he put down the lid, shutting Mundus in watery darkness. He paused to listen as Mundus squawked and gobbled madly before gleefully pulling the flush.
'No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH-GLUB!' Vergil lifted the lid and looked into the toilet before smiling. Revenge was hard to find, but it was sweet. Very very sweet.