The journey to the top wasn't a simple path with the tower's inner works coming to life and blocking a few ways and shattering paths to other rooms, like the Trial of the Warrior, but Dante marched on his path through to even the Trial of Skill and upward where more demonic minions arose, like the Abyss, and even his own shadow, the Doppelganger in a shadowy form of his Devil Trigger before he bested it and obtained the Doppelganger style from winning against it.
He arrived at the landing and mused with the sky opened up to reveal a portal to the Demon World. "Well then, let's wrap up this crazy party, shall we?" He started to ascend as he told himself the duty before him. "Gotta clean up the mess father left behind." He headed into the world, it twisting and turning around him as he came to a face-off with the Damned Chesspiece entirety, the Pawns, Knights, Bishops, and Rooks were familiar all the same, but the Queen was a rusher and the King the only thing keeping the twisting world locked down with him in it.
Still, he couldn't help but feel like the King piece was a clearly sign of something, perhaps a powerful figure with how the three eyes seemed to be fueled with a hidden trace of outrage or fury to his appearance before he pushed on, the next location pushing him through a boss rush of his foes, including a fight with Agni and Rudra before he continued on, the Abyss making a return to strike him down, but he was not so easily knocked out of the game as he continued on, grabbing something called the Samsara and somehow getting looped back to the rush place before he figured out that a golden statue he passed had a socket for the object and looped to the Nirvana of Illusions, the portal changing to putting the Samsara in and Dante pushing through to the End of the Line, entering a ruined location before blocking an attack and knowing the assault back to an armored figure with blade in hand, but it... didn't seem like anything, though it radiated with the feeling of both his and Vergil's amulets as the being spoke.
"Welcome, what do you think after looking at your father's image?"
Dante stood his ground at the changed Arkham. "It's like staring into a backed up toilet." He pointed Rebellion at the mockery of his father's demon form, a power he gave up for humanity. "Why do you always stick your nose in other families' business? Come on, dude. Don't you have any hobbies?" Both started to chuckle before Arkham growled.
"You can still talk big after seeing THIS!?" With that, he surged, but what was happening was that the Sparda knight was tearing itself apart and mutating into a horrible creature of rippling flesh and contorted parts as Arkham exclaimed, thinking that he had truly obtained the power. "I feel the devil's power overflowing my body! The power of Sparda!" Dante was sure that the metamorphing blob of flesh and demonic essence was not the form of Sparda, but rather what Arkham's heart had twisted him into.
"Dude, my father wasn't so hideous." He mused with checking himself in Rebellion's shine. "Can't you tell by looking at me?" He smiled to the handsome face before looking at the monstrosity again. "Anyway, that shape suits you better. Let us begin the main event!" He swished his blade for battle, but as it turned out, though Arkham had mutated horribly, there was no denying how powerful Sparda's power was, Dante even tried to Devil Trigger to get some more damage in, but his attacks were only doing mild pain to the monster as it bellowed.
"No use! Regardless of how strong you are, you're nothing but a half-breed. You cannot defeat a pure demon, the real Sparda!" Dante grimaced as he had fought plenty of demons, but the power of Sparda was out of his depth right now as he braced to a lashed hand, only for the ring of steel to call and the hand severed with no regeneration to its name as both turned to the source as Arkham bellowed. "What's this?" Crouched on one of the higher pillar was Vergil, looking up with Yamato out and the cause of the sever as Arkham bellowed. "Damn you!"
He stood up with making his claim. "I've come to retrieve my power." He pointed the blade at Arkham as he finished. "You can't handle it." He leapt, landing beside Dante before pointing his blade at him as the younger brother huffed to the entrance.
"Look at you... making a big dramatic entrance and stealing my spotlight."
"Well..." Vergil chuckled as he glanced to the monster before making a motion to flick the hand back to the beast, reattaching it as he stated. "You don't possibly believe that he deserves to be our main event now, do you?"
"Now that you mentioned it, you're right." Dante added with shouldering Rebellion as both brothers stared at the monster. Vergil swished his blade as both brothers marched for Arkham as the mutated creature tried to gloat its strength against them.
"Do you feel you can defeat me? Defeat the power of your father, the great Sparda!"
"You should come to realize you cannot control the power of Sparda." Vergil lectured the mutant as Dante added to it.
"You're wasting your time, buddy." They paused as Dante made an observation. "I think he needs to learn the hard way!" Vergil glanced for a moment before smacking Rebellion aside as both charged with war cries and clashed, the tag-team action overwhelming Arkham's defenses much easier, he roaring in mortal pain as the brothers slashed and diced through his strength before stabbing their swords in, even exchanging them to deliver a crippling blow as he tried to find some way to explain their victory over him as they returned blades and Dante pulled out Ivory and Ebony, Arkham attempting to knock the guns out of his hands, but only Ivory went flying, right into Vergil's catch as both guns aimed as Vergil spoke.
"I'll try it your way for once."
"Remember what we used to say?" Vergil smirked as Arkham exclaimed.
"Don't do it!" But nothing could stop them as they popped closer and connected the guns, focusing their power in one shot and with a lucky word.
"JACKPOT!" From them, a fused shot of red and blue coursed right through and annihilated Arkham as he bellowed in defeat.
"I have the true power of Sparda...!"
"Not very classy for someone's dying words." Vergil mused as he tossed Ivory back to Dante and he stashed them as the mess melted away to both the sword and their amulet, falling into the pit an they jumping after them with both twins catching their amulets in the fall.
Back in the human world, Lady, who had noticed that someone passed her by on their way to the top, arrived to the altar to hear the wailing of a man as Arkham crashed into the stone, he still for a second before he twitched and started to move as he was at a loss of how he had failed. "Why? How could I...?!" he grunted in trying to drag himself along in his blind focus. "I shall become a god! No one here can stop me!" His attempt failed as Lady stepped in his path and spoke, pistol out and aimed at him.
"What a surprise. Here I was looking for you and, lo and behold, you come to me."
"Mary..." Lady dismissed the name as she spoke.
"Don't ever call me that again. My mother was the only one who could say my name." Arkham tried to bargain in his blind desires of power.
"Wait, please! Do you really want to shoot me? Can you shoot me, your own father?!" Lady was silent as Arkham roared in frustration. "What have I done wrong?! Even the heroic Sparda sacrificed a woman so that he could become a legend! I wished to be a god! And I sacrificed one miserable human being for that reason. That is all!" His fire died down a bit as he huffed with his grievous wounds. "Was that really so awful?" He breathed as he spoke. "I have some unfinished business to take care of." With that, he pleaded to his daughter for aid. "Help me, Mary." But what he wanted was not what he got as Lady lowered her head in focusing as she spoke, leaving the past behind and taking on the name given to her... by a devil who understood her pain to forget and gave her a new way to live.
"Mary died a long time ago, my name is Lady." She steadied her hand in aiming as she spoke. "Goodbye father." She was about to pull the trigger before she froze to a dark laugh, like a powerful voice echoing from bone.
"If needs be met... then I will pull the trigger!" It was within a second, a moment to blink, but as swift as the lightning, HE appeared, Arkham barely gasping for air before he slumped in death, on the blade of a scythe pulling him upwards to the sky, the once-human blood pouring down the shaft of darkened steel and running down the hands of bone that belonged to the being before Lady, it towering over her like a titan and barely passed off as one of the Sin Harbingers, but violet eyes glowed back at her, formal robes adorned the skeletal being and he actually floated there in hoisting the corpse up and running its bony hand over the man's face, pulling from him a ethereal wisp before he crushed it, snuffing it out as he breathed. "So this was the wretch that threatened the stability of our worlds? And a greedy one at that, but is QUITE lesser, a god?" The being chuckled and that sent shivers down Lady's spine, a reaction that shouldn't occur with any demon... meaning that... this was no demon, this was a deity, in all of its glory and presence, as it turned to her.
"And you must be Lady, quite the moment to intrude upon, you have my apologies." The being answered with resting the scythe onto the ground, the corpse sliding off and dropping to the ground. "But I have... on account of my companion's will, you bury your emotions deep, but I too can see it... it would have destroyed you, having to kill your own father as, though he has gone dark and twisted, in some small portion of heart... you still held him as your kin... it was not easy, nor would it have..." The being shifted the blade a bit before resting it on the torso. "As the entity itself, I have seen much, I have seen strong men shatter at the call of evil, I have seen the weak rise to conquer where evil grows, I have faced those who bear the true cross and welcomed them as honored ones... do not rush for vengeance, instead wield your knowledge and your arms in the defense of the lost and the sheltered..."
"...This... I wanted to end this... with my own hands." The being tilted its head before extending out a hand, readying Lady's hand as it spoke.
"Then fire..." Without pause, she fired her clip into the body, each time it felt like her mind shattered and her soul broke before she stumbled and suddenly the feeling was gone as she looked at the being as it spoke. "What you just felt was what you would have felt in ending his life with your own hands, being human is a noble ideal, but you must understand... there is a line between the ideals of good and evil, the truth of light and dark is just a way to convulsed the course... just as there are monsters and demons who wish nothing but good faith with humanity, there are humans whose passions of blood and lust of evil turn them into creatures that cannot be redeemed." Lady watched as Death lifted the corpse and actually stashed it in his robes before turning to her.
"I myself have served evil in the form of the antithesis of God, but here I have only the best wishes for my ally, thank the Son of Sparda for me, if you will; Without the Rebellion, I may have sent a dead man to an early grave and that would have weighed on me for eons..." With a swish of the robes, Death disappeared before Lady fully toppled before she started ot laugh, laugh with finally being free from Arkham's vile hunt for the darkness.
But it soon started to choke her up in feeling that emotion again, Death was not kidding, it felt like her whole world had turned to dust, rubble surrounding her following suit because... despite her big words, despite her hatred... Arkham had still been her father, the last person in the world that was family, his deeds made him into something she didn't like and hated, but he was still family...
Tears started to stream down her face in the dark surroundings as she moaned with sorrow. "Here I thought I wasn't gonna cry." And there she stayed, crying at what she had lost, but as she was more focused on mourning, a shadowy wraith passed her by and swirled into the passage between the Human and Demon World...
Vergil and Dante fell for their father's dormant blade, it planting itself in the water currents before both brothers landed before Dante made to grab it, Vergil getting the upper hand in rolling for it and ripping it out, spying Dante's amulet on his hand and gestured for it. "Give that to me." Dante peered at the amulet before he stashed it away as he retorted.
"No way, you got your own." Vergil lifted the blade into stance as he mused.
"Well, I want yours too." They started to square off as Dante inquired of his older twin.
"What are you gonna do with all that power, huh?" They rounded on each other as Dante continued with striking at the nerve between them. "No matter how hard you try, you're never gonna be like father."
"You're wasting time!" Vergil charged with swinging the blade, but Dante reacted with swinging the Rebellion, both hold a blade firm and wielding it as Dante snarled with them pulling the blades away, as if to give them clear view of each other's face.
"We are the sons of Sparda! Within each of us flows his blood, but more importantly, his soul!" Both divided as Dante growled. "And now my soul is saying it wants to stop you!" Vergil chuckled as he retorted.
"Unfortunately, our souls are at odds brother." His eyes steeled as he voiced with gripping his fist. "I need more power!"
"And we're supposed to be twins."
"Twins..." Vergil mused in steadying the dormant blade of Sparda. "Right." With that, they clashed, exchanging blows and striking at the other with their ideals on the line, one seeking to stop the power hunger in his twin while the other sought to gain more power, to prove that he could easily stand alone and rule with that strength, but underneath... both wanted to throw down their weapons and hug one another, despite their bad blood and their poor history, Dante wanted to have Vergil back in his life again and Vergil wanted Dante back in his, but their feud warred greater than them and they listened to the war in their demons, the fury of their demons and the strength of their resolve.
Vergil put up a decent fight, but Dante had grown stronger, much more than what Vergil had to offer now as he toppled to the ground, the waters rushing passed as he mused in confusion. "Am I... being defeated?" Dante scoffed as he demanded more.
"What's wrong? Is that all you got?" Dante growled in ushering Vergil to do more. "Come on, get up. You can do better than that." Vergil growled in getting back up as the passage started to rumble, Vergil calling out as he explained.
"The portal to the Human World is closing, Dante... because the amulets have been separated."
"Let's finish this, Vergil." Dante answered as he knew their bout would end here with one or both falling. "I have to stop you, even if that means killing you." Vergil silently agreed as he readied the blade and both charged, Vergil with a slash and Dante with a swing, both eager to finish it once and for all before the clash of steel echoed, both surprised at the third figure that emerged, stopping them with a double-headed scythe that hummed with a haunting glow.
Garbed in swirling shadows that formed into a bellowing trench coat over ranger armor of leather-bound, dark steel boots, greaves, and gauntlets and a likewise bevor, designs of skeletal features and marks adorning the form, but what glowed in the dim light were the eyes, one eye being a azure glow with wisping fumes while the other was a hollow black as he addressed the both of them with a dim silver glow to the hair. "Are you two done with your temper tantrums?" He spoke with a ghastly voice that sent shivers down both of their backs, a FEAR that arose again before Dante stilled his breath as both noticed that it was chilled, cold enough to see the vapors of their breaths.
"Alexander...?"
"...I too thought it was a waste, but it would seem that the fragment of Death's power was enough to dissolve into my wounds and mend me, this is what you both may assume to be a Devil Trigger, but this is not of demon origins; No, this is a Trigger of Death itself, a Grim Trigger..." Neither could move as Alexander got down to brass, not looking at them, but still directing his voice to the both of them. "Dante... are you sure you want to end the life of your brother over his desire to gain power, tossing his own humanity away to follow the impossible steps of Sparda?" Dante gulped as he continued to the older twin. "Vergil... do you really think that Sparda was only about the power and why should you follow his steps... if he is not here to tell you advice or guide you?"
He struck hard at both of them, his words cleaving them in twain before he continued, the light hold on the scythe slightly tightening, as if to rip loose on them both. "Do not end each other's life over short-sighted goals, speak with your heart and mind, not with your blades in hand." Both stared at the other, both almost refuting the words of the being between them before Dante spoke first, breaking the silence.
"She wanted... to find you..." His voice sounded broken as he spoke. "Mom... she hid me in the closet when we had that fight, when those demons attacked us, she went to find you and, if she didn't come back, I had to run away and change my name... I was Tony Redgrave since before coming here... I actually thought I was the only one of us left in the world, Vergil and... I don't want to kill you, I just... you are suppose to be the calm one, not the feral one. You had the most humanity out of us while I was rampant and feral." Vergil breathed as Dante continued. "I am not demanding you to come back, I am not demanding you to just give up, just..."
"...I'll get some rest, I'll eat some food, I will survive... Dante." Vergil breathed as he spoke. "I wanted more power to protect that which I still had and have now... I was enraged at Redgrave, but maybe you are right... I have been lashing out and trying to pretend to be our father." He shook his head as he continued. "I allowed myself to be blinded with the promise, I never questioned it for more... I apologize, Brother, for my disregard for our history." The tension lessened and Vergil handed the blade to Dante. "Take our father's sword and leave, I will keep my amulet for this passage must not open again." Dante nodded as Vergil turned to head into the Demon World before Dante rushed after him, Yamato coming up as Vergil spoke. "Leave me and go, if you don't want to be trapped in the Demon World. I'm staying, this place was our father's home."
"I know... I just wanted to know... who was Gilver...?" Vergil narrowed his brow as Dante spoke, both on the stone at the edge of the falls. "Back in my Tony days, there was a man with bandages wrapped around his head, he was a demon, but his face... it was yours, Vergil, so I thought to ask..." It took him a moment to think on it before he spoke.
"Someone made a copy of me... likely to thwart the both of us from preventing whatever was planned, but they forget..." Vergil spoke with slashing Dante's hand, the brother gaping at the sudden strike, his flesh healing, but the glove was toast. "That gives me a heading, a heading that sends me into the Demon World on purpose. Thank you, Dante, for telling me, now I too will hunt down information about our attackers and I will make them pay in kind..." He breathed as he stepped off the edge. "Farewell, Dante... I hope we meet again in better terms..." He faded into the black as Dante raised his hand and gripped it before he turned to the sword, quickly picking it up as the both of them rushed out of the passage, back into the human world...
The darkness faded to the dim dawn as Lady turned to a sound, finding Dante totting her Kalina Ann and... She forgot herself in rushing over to hug Alexander as she wailed. "You bastard! I thought you were really dead!"
"To be frank... getting out'd by a clown was a hell of a way to go, but thanks to the Rebellion's fusion abilities and a portion of Death's power, I recovered." Alexander huffed with patting her back in speaking. "I am sorry about your dad, I don't have control over Death, even if I can muster some of his power, Lady."
"It's fine..." She breathed with backing off, wiping at her face. "Both of you were right... it would have destroyed me, but he... he took it away, let me feel that destruction before taking it away, thank you... both of you." Dante huffed as he spoke.
"What an ordeal." Both nodded as Dante offered the Kalina back, Lady taking it as he walked past her, looking up to the sky as he spoke. "We should be fine for now." He breathed as he continued the thought. "But I'm sure they'll be back soon. Very soon." He breathed and Lady noticed something off as she inquired.
"Are you crying?" Dante deflected the question.
"It's only the rain." But Lady was quick to the point as she held out a hand and looked up, the clouds dark, but not a single one dripped a tear of rain.
"The rain already stopped." Caught in his deflect, Dante only turned it elsewhere, feeling that as a demon himself, he shouldn't be able to cry, but he told himself the other side... he was human as well and they had the right and need to cry.
"Devils never cry." Lady nodded as Alexander nodded to the statement as well, devils hardly cried for much.
"I see." She continued with a muse as she stared off into the distance. "Maybe somewhere out there, even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one. Don't you think?" Dante glanced over as he replied.
"Maybe." Lady mused with reaching behind her head.
"By the way." She pulled out her pistol and fired, taking out Prides that were coming for the attack, they soon surrounded by the demons as Lady spoke. "Looks like we're gonna be busy for a while." Dante beamed as Alexander conjured forward a great sword and one-handed it with a smirk of his own.
"Well, bring it on! I love this! This is what I live for!" He quickdraw Ebony and Ivory and grinned. "I'm absolutely crazy about it!" Within no time, they went to town in tearing apart the demon hordes brought out by the Temen-Ni-Gru, there was one point where it seemed that Dante and Alexander were contesting each other on kills, but either way, the day was won by their efforts.
Alexander taking a moment with killing a Sloth to peer into the sky with a muse. 'I will make this my home and I have found a friend, it is just a matter of teaching him proper manners, but its okay... I have all of the time in the world.' He went back in as he had a way to contribute proper when they were all done there...
Dante named his shop and did up his look where the two of them would be staying, Lady headed off on her hunt for all of the demons that threaten the world and to prevent monsters like her father from rising again. It could be a while before they joined in fighting the battles again, though Dante might be in debt with totaling Lady's motorcycle, but that was for later.
Dante was in business now with calls to handle demons or otherwise, mostly demons while the other calls Alexander took to pool in funds and set up shop beside Devil May Cry, though the slime Enzo made things a bit sour, Alexander worked on building up his skills in both understanding the world's lore and its history, along with his smithing and store skills, proficient enough to warrant Dante as the devil hunter strode in with a whisper to the collection of bodies that Alexander had collected among the demons. "Got to say, you are packing one hell of a butchery here, Al."
"I would say it is for research, but I digress in saying anything more." Alexander answered with lifting the monocle from his left eye and rounding the table, covered in metal for his projects with the current one being a Dullahan. "In any case, I have been working on both Beowulf and the Force Edge and I got answers for you to hear." Dante nodded with taking a seat at the square table in the counter, Alexander tampering with a jukebox of his own and it started playing smooth jazz. "Beowulf is light-attributed and that is a no brainer, the Force Edge is a different story altogether, the blade was meant to have changed form with the two amulets merged with it, but you saying that it remained like this when Arkham took it up, then I have to concluded that Arkham only was able to generate the forms only, the power came from his own demonic power being slightly hyper charged with the amulets, not the sword at all."
"Great, so my brother wouldn't have been able to use it, even if he could."
"Not fully, not unless it required the power of Sparda or his sons to activate it in the fullest form, if that is the case, then we might never know right now, with Vergil in the Demon World and taking names... hopefully."
"Please, my brother is one hard head to fight, he will be just fine." Dante waved it off, but Alexander knew a bit more as he rested his arms on the table in asking.
"You're thinking that whoever sent the demons to attack you in your childhood and who might have sent Gilver to bring darkness into the Human World may be down there and your brother may be searching for them now?"
"Am I that apparent?" Alexander raised a brow as Dante hummed. "Eleven years to the day and, considering how Gilver had my own brother's face, I have to assume that whoever is pulling the strings really wants us out of the way, someone with a fat grudge with our dad. So many people died for me while I was moping and what money I can make is going to an... old friend's daughters." Alexander nodded as he leaned back in the seat.
"I understand, I didn't mean to make it a bit more depressing than needed." Dante nodded as Alexander spoke again. "Still, taking in the Devil Arms you 'share' with me has been an enjoyable past-time, Agni and Rudra enjoys you wielding them in combat, but they are more friendly with me in sharing what they have and want, they even have a taste for curry."
"Good on you, I can't really stand chatterboxes very well." Alexander nodded, but Dante picked up on something as he asked. "Something on YOUR mind?"
"Agni said something along the lines." Dante hummed as Alexander continued. "He spoke of the three-eyed king, Mundus, whose former right hand was Sparda, who defected to save the humans from the tyrant and had sealed the king away in the Demon World, he said that the Temen-Ni-Gru was one of the primary sources of inter-world travel, but it couldn't be open to Mundus as he needs a selective portal to enter our world, not sure where or how, but Agni didn't like the odds of Mundus finding a thin line and emerging from there to conquer the human world." Dante nodding as Alexander hummed with a hand to his jaw. "I've been able to get a bit more from Nevan and Cerberus, but nothing definite, sorry."
"It's fine, just gives us a name." Dante hummed as Alexander nodded before he moved on to a better subject, a bit down, but a better one.
"...Have you had time...?" Dante looked and shook his head as Alexander sighed with getting up, turning the sign around and gesturing. "Come on, I trust that this will help you, in the least." Dante huffed, but he followed, both of them walking the streets, Alexander opening a portal for them and both walked through, reappearing in the city of Red Grave, in a cemetery to be more exact, as both looked around before Dante found the stone he was looking for as he kneel before it and spoke.
"Hey, Mom... how have you been...?" he didn't know what to say, but Alexander wanted him and Lady to visit the grave of their parents, to get the burden off their chest, it was more venting than actual mending, but whatever little could help, they should take it. "I've been doing better, had a rough path going on from the attack... Vergil and I swapped behaviors, but he was doing fine, we got into a few fights, but it was... actually cathartic to be fighting him, the real him, again."
Dante ran a hand through his hair as he continued with a mumble. "He is in Hell right now, trying to follow in Dad's steps, but I don't think that is rather good. I told him what happened back then and for a brief second... I thought he was going to run me through, for telling him a lie, but... he accepted it... could I get a favor from you, to watch over him while he's down there? I know that is impossible, but... I think... I would feel a bit easier if you were keeping an eye on him, I do want Dad in on this, but... with everything's that happened, I would prefer you to do it, you did instill a fear in him, but Dad scared me more." Dante got up from the stone that read 'Here lies Eva, loving wife and mother of Sparda' and backed away. "Let's go."
Alexander nodded and turning around, a gentle breeze rushing past them before he paused and turned back to the stone, the wind briefly roaming over a figure before vanishing again, his lip pulled down in wondering before he followed Dante out and back to Devil May Cry...