Devil May Cry Zero: Past Ties
Chapter 4
Being closest to the shut door, Rei checked the knob. "It's locked," she told them in dismay. It made sense why the Arachnes didn't follow them down. Spiders hated water.
"Dante you idiot!" Mia cried.
"Idiot brother," Vergil agreed.
"Hey, I didn't know it would do that!" Dante defended. He could see the water was pouring in from the four inlets above their heads. Even though it only started moments ago, the water level was rising to their knee.
Checking the other door that led to the prison cells, Vergil discovered it was shut tight as well. "This must have been a convenient trick. Lure the enemies into this basement and then pour in water to drown them all. It would have been pretty useful to kill large number of prisoners quickly too," he commented.
Rei yanked on the knob as hard as she could. It wouldn't budge. Mia tried kicking down the metal door, but received the same result. Dante took out Rebellion and hacked the table and cupboard in pieces.
"What did you do that for?" Mia yelled at him angrily.
"I was just making sure there's no secret passage behind the cupboard," Dante shrugged.
"Thanks," the girl muttered, not exactly happy about the pieces of cut-up furniture that was floating around them. At the time, water was already up to their waists.
"You're welcome," Dante replied.
It was just as Vergil suspected, the invitation was a trap. "Trish," he said with a loud voice. "I know you can hear me. What's the meaning of this?"
A moment later came Trish's voice. "This is a trap for the intruders. However, if you're strong enough to help my master, you should be able to make it out of this. Good luck," she finished off in an amused tone.
"Are you not telling me something, Vergil?" Dante asked. He could hardly trust his own ears. At the same time, he had no doubt that was their mother's voice. Anger began to build in his chest when he received nothing but silence from Vergil.
Grabbing Vergil's collar with both hands, Dante asked again. "Who was that?" he shouted in his face. Rei felt her heart beat harder the moment he did that. Mia bit her lip to ease the nervousness she felt. Two pairs of identical blue eyes stared at each other. Vergil's calmness seemed to absorb the anger coming from Dante.
"Stop it you two!" Rei interrupted. It was the first time she saw an argument between the brothers.
"This isn't the time in case you haven't noticed," Mia added.
"Do you want to become a fish in this underground tank?" Vergil asked Dante apathetically.
Dante snorted and released his elder twin. With no place to release his anger, he turned around and gave the wall a hard kick. The water was in the way but he hardly noticed. To his surprise, the wall crumbled. The four of them were instantly washed into the next room. Immediately, the water level decreased as the volume increased.
"Do you mind telling us what you're going to do next time you plan on doing something?" Mia asked, brushing away some wet hair that had stuck to her face.
"I thought girls love surprises," said Dante, not forgetting his sense of humor.
Rei put a hand on Mia's shoulder just when she was going to say something back to him. She shook her head and gave Mia a disapproving look. Making a face, Mia kept silent. It wasn't like she didn't know it was no a time for arguments. She wasn't too thrilled about how Rei still treated her like a child.
"What are you doing?" Rei asked when Mia suddenly took off her shoes. Her twin winked and threw the shoes upwards into the air. It went through the ceiling. There was another hole above their heads that was big enough for a person to go through. Using the crevices in the brick wall as support, Mia climbed up onto the floor above. She found herself in a weapon storage room.
"What've you found up there?" she heard Dante yelling up from below. "I hope it's the kitchen, because I'm starving."
"If you don't mind having a few rusty swords," she returned to the broken ceiling where she came up from. Rei, too, was soon out of the water and up on dry ground with some help from Mia. When Dante was about half way up, dangling on the edge around the wrecked ceiling, he heard noises coming from below. He looked down and saw a huge eel-like demon that was not there before. Its tube-shaped body was as at least twice the size of a python's.
The name of the demon was Anguila.With his sword out already, Vergil fixed his eyes on it like a hawk on its prey. Anguila was a demon with round head. Its body was scaleless; instead, it was covered in a slime-like substance. Seemingly it came in through one of the water inlets from the prison guard room. Hearing a loud splash from behind, Vergil turned around and saw Dante.
"What are you coming back for? Foolish move, Dante," Vergil returned his attention back to Anguila, which now had its head raised above the water with its mouth opened.
"I'm not going to let you have all the fun," Dante wrinkled his nose. He was staring at the other head of Anguila. The demon had no tail but two heads. "I think it's due for a dental appointment," he commented when he saw the blade-like sharp teeth in its mouth. Anguila didn't seem to appreciate his joke. In return, it lunged forward with speed faster than he imagined. Realising it attempted to wrap its long body around him, Dante quickly dodged to the side. He felt like he was zapped by high voltage electricity when he touched its body. Taking note of Dante's reaction, Vergil learnt to stay back and wait for chances. While it was busy dealing with his twin brother, Vergil attacked the other head. However, Anguila was smarter than he thought. It sank its other head back into the water to avoid being cut by the sharp katana.
Once again, the water had risen to waist level. Vergil and Dante found their movements getting heavier due to the hindrance of water. On the other hand, Anguila's movement was getting faster. It stopped wrestling with Dante and sank itself into the dark water. Without warning, it appeared again behind the elder twin, its hungry mouth aiming for the opening on his back. Using his quick reflexes, Vergil blocked it with Yamato with precise timing. It was within his expectation that something like that would happen. Anguila screeched in pain when the katana cut apart its teeth into the flesh of its jaw. Dante used this opportunity to take out Ebony and Ivory. While being careful not to shoot Vergil as well by accident, he fired consecutive shots. Seconds later, half of the head was gone.
With only one head remaining, Anguila swam down and wrapped itself around Vergil's legs. He tried to cut it with his katana but only cut water. Without knowing its exact location, it was near impossible to hurt it when it was underwater. Water was now touching their necks, if they needed to act quickly. Inhaling a lungful of air, Dante dived down with his sword ready in one hand. He couldn't see anything at all in the water. He only knew he should head for where Vergil was. Just when he thought he was near, Dante felt a sharp pain on his arm, causing him to let out the lungful of air he had been holding. He was almost choked by water that rushed into his mouth. Obviously, Anguila had sunk its teeth into his flesh. Things didn't look good. He wondered if his arm would come off. On the other hand, though, he found out where Anguila was. Not wasting any more time, he tightened his grip on Rebellion and cut towards where he thought Anguila's neck was.
It worked. Vergil felt Anguila's wrap on him loosened. Dante burst out of the water next to him, grasping for air like his life depended on it while coughing out water he involuntarily drank at the same time. He felt his arm with his other one, glad to found it was still attached to his shoulder. "Aren't you going to thank me for saving your butt?" Dante asked Vergil.
"Saved my life? I doubt it," Vergil replied. The two of them found the hole on the ceiling and climbed up. Just as Mia said, they were in a weapon storage area. It was about three times bigger than the room they were in previously. They heard the sound of weapons slashing against each other before taking notice of the presence of more demons. A group of Hell-Prides were keeping the twin girls busy. A few swords that had been cut in halves were found lying on the floor. They guessed Rei and Mia tried to use those against the demons but the weapons were old and didn't last. It explained why Rei had a steel rod in her hand whereas Mia had some sort of long clamp that was once used to forge swords. By the time they noticed Vergil, he was finishing off the last demon in sight.
Leaving the weapon storage room, a long hallway was ahead. Something could be seen at the end of it but none of them could see it clearly from where they were. They went towards that direction with Vergil and Dante walking slightly ahead of Rei and Mia.
"Vergil," Rei suddenly spoke. "Why are there demons here? Someone's trying to kill us, am I not right?"
"Indeed, this is a trap," Vergil replied, his ice blue eyes meeting her beautiful green ones. "A trap that Mundus successfully lured us into," he finished.
Was it why he came alone and unarmed? It suddenly occurred to Mia. "I thought we sealed off the portal to the demon world. Why are there still demons here?"
"There are probably other ways that they can use to come to our world," Rei told her.
Vergil didn't want to get us involved in this, Dante thought. He mentally kicked himself for not realising it sooner. Even so, he was still not happy about the fact that Vergil was keeping important details from him.
Without any warning, three red circles appeared in the air in front of them. One by one, demons dropped out from those circles. They were Hell-Prides, Hell-Lusts and Hell-Wraths.
"Time to rock," Dante said, drawing out Ebony and Ivory. He shot the Hell-Wrath furthest away from them. The large orange bomb it carried on its back exploded and killed the nearby Hell-Lusts. Vergil took on the other Hell-Lusts and left the weakest of the seven sins, Hell-Prides, for Rei and Mia to take care of.
Seeing a Hell-Pride was swinging its scythe in her direction, Rei bravely blocked it with her rod with both hands. Unlike the Mia, Rei was less sporty and playful. As though she had infinite amount of energy in her, Mia moved around a lot when she was little. Perhaps it was not surprising that she turned out faster and more agile than her elder twin. The demon pressed down its scythe harder. With all her strength, Rei pushed back. She almost lung forward involuntarily when Mia knocked down the Hell-Pride, causing the pressure to suddenly disappear.
"You're gone!" Dante said as he gave a finishing kick to the last Hell-Lust after shooting it into a bees nest. They were finally at the end of the hallway after doing some demon clean up. Being close to it now, they could take a good look of what they couldn't see clearly before. Instead of being covered with red carpet, the floor in front of them was made up of large square tiles. Taking note of something carved on a marble pillar to his right, Vergil went over to examine it. The others gathered around him to see what it was.
Neatly craved on the marble pillar was a table made up of five horizontal rows and five vertical columns. In each of the twenty-five cells, there was a four-digit number written. It was obvious that the table was related to the titled floor, since the floor was arranged in the same way, with five rows and five columns. Other than numbers, there was nothing else written.
"Oh, I love puzzles," Dante said, "My second favourite after pizza."
"It doesn't even say what we have to do," Mia said, frowning. "What if we just ignore these numbers and walk across?"
Dante shrugged. "Let's find out, shall we?" he took off the helmet of a nearby silver knight and threw it on the tiles. Long cone-shaped spikes sprouted out from the tile the helmet landed on.
"Unless you are desperate for a foot massage," Dante said.
Ignoring his comment, Mia decided to go back to study the clues. Before she did, Rei joined them. "I've figured it out," she smiled and stepped onto a tile. Mia almost screamed but nothing happened to her twin sister. No spikes popped out from below. Dante and Mia watched in amazement as she made it across safely without stepping on a wrong tile. She then directed the others as to which tile they should step on each row in order to go past the puzzle.
"Madness," Dante said, impressed. "How did you do that?"
"When you look at the table at first, the numbers didn't seem to relate. If you look at it more closely, the numbers on the same row are actually divisible by a common denominator. But, we still don't know which tile to step on yet. Looking at the row again, you will find one starting digit that corresponds to the common denominator. For example, if two is the common denominator of row one, look for the number in the same row that starts with two. That's the tile you should step on," Rei explained.
"You worked it out so quickly in your head?" Dante asked, stunned but agreed with her reasoning.
"There are people who have more brain cells than you," Vergil said.
"Ha ha, very funny," Dante said. "I don't see you working it out faster than her."
They reached an art gallery soon after leaving the hallway. Different sizes of oil paintings hang over all four sides of the gallery. The exits were closed up by red seals the moment they entered. Immediately, everyone stayed on guard, because a red seal meant they had to fight and defeat something before they could leave. They waited a while but no demons appeared. Dante headed over to the paintings and started looking at them while they waited.
Rei watched as Vergil too, went to look at the art work on display. Despite the urge to ask him why he came to this castle for, she waited patiently. She knew very well that even if she asked, he wouldn't tell her. Waiting for him to say it seemed to be the only way, but would he ever? Mia was standing a little bit further away. She looked like she was in deep thought, which was rare for her. Rei shuddered when she suddenly remember seeing her twin dead when she was walking up the Stairway of the Future. Whilst the other two weren't in the option, Rei decided to check on Dante, who was closest to her. "I didn't know Dante you had an eye for art," she said to him.
"Believe it or not, art was my best subject in primary school," Dante told her with a grin.
"Because it required the least thinking," they heard Vergil said from the opposite side.
"Hey Rei, guess what Vergil said when he sleep-talked the other night?" Dante asked, and then pretended to whisper something into her ear.
"I don't sleep-talk," Vergil said.
Standing a little away from Vergil was Mia. Like everyone else, she was looking at a painting. Though, her mind was elsewhere. She wanted to talk to Rei about the conversations Vergil had with the two strangers. It just didn't seem like the right time or place to say it. There was something else she wanted to as her twin about; something she saw as she walked down the Stairway of the Past.
Then, something in the painting caught her eyes. All four of them noticed it at around the same time. They were looking at different paintings but seeing similar things.
"The painting…!" Rei gasped, hardly believed what was happening.
"I bet this worth more than Mona Lisa," said Dante light-heartedly.
"So this is it," Vergil said, his right hand placed on Yamato's hilt.
Rubbing her eyes, Mia looked at the painting in front of her again. The illustration depicted a Hell-Greed with a coffin on its back, walking down a mount of corpses. Each time she looked at it, it grew bigger, as if it was heading towards her. "No way," she said in disbelief, backing away slowly. The demon's image grew bigger until its head filled the entire illustration. Bit by bit, it crawled out of the frame. Head first, then arms and body followed. Finally it dropped on the gallery floor with a loud thud. The same thing was happening to all the other paintings.
Vergil and Mia quickly regrouped with Dante and Rei. Sooner than they expected, they were surrounded by a crowd of demons. At first, it was Vergil and Dante who did most of the killing. Rei and Mia focused on protecting themselves. Eventually, they were cornered. Not knowing there was a secret door there, Mia leant her back against the wall as support and fell backwards into the space beyond. Her reflex action caused her grabbed onto something, which turned out to be Rei. Both girls fell hard onto the floor on the other side. Before they could do anything, the door shut on them, not leaving a crack.
"Man, let us through too!" said Dante as he pounded his fists on the place where the secret door was. As if nothing happened, Vergil calmly eliminated the Hell-Greeds in smooth, water-like movements. As usual, Dante used his mixture of arsenal and sword to take on the demons.
"We should hurry, separating us is likely to be part of their plan," Vergil said to Dante, his hand not pausing the wielding of his katana.
"As if I don't know," Dante replied, crushing the head of another Hell-Greed under his boots. The red seals disappeared when they eliminated all the demons.
Vergil headed towards the exit but stopped when he realised Dante was not following. He turned around to face him. Times like this indicated his blabbermouth brother had something to say.
"In case you were too shy to admit this in front of the girls, let's spill the beans now. You're here to find out about mum, aren't you?" asked Dante. Taking Vergil's silence as a yes, he continued, "Mum is dead. Why can't you just take that in and move on?"
"I need to find out who killed her," answered Vergil.
"Oh yeah? And then what, kill the murderer? What good does it do? It's not going to make her come back alive."
"I'm not like you, Dante," said the elder twin brother. "I can't just forget about something like that like you do."
There was a moment of silence before Dante spoke again. "What about Rei and Mia? They care about you, especially Rei. Why do you just ignore them?" He knew Vergil would never seek help from the woman named Trish when water flooded into the prison room if Rei and Mia weren't there.
"Women who come too close to demons never had good endings to them. Moths are attracted to fire but that same fire will burn them alive," Vergil said. "If you care about them, stay away from them." Having said that, he turned around and walked away.
Dante clenched his fist. He knew his brother was referring to their human mother Eva, who married the great demon knight Sparda. Putting away Rebellion, he followed the way Vergil went.
Author's note: This week's chapter is late, I know. I've been so busy. Thanks to those you have commented! I really appreciate it.
