Dante's breath stilled and his heart pounded as he took a stumbling step back in voicing his surprise. "Vergil...!" Vergil lightly sighed with a sorrowful tone to the gruff voice he now carried.
"Forgive me, Brother, but I can't say what has happened, I have held onto you and Mother while I was trapped in the Demon World... I nearly lost myself several times to HIS control." Vergil rolled his arm about and showing it off to Dante. "This... this armor is my prison... it is until I am fully defeat, I will live, but while I am trapped in this mockery of our father Sparda, I am weakened of my own strength and empowered with the fallen emperor's influence. His 'Angelos' and I am Nelo Angelo, the 'perfect' model for building those that serve Mundus."
"The Black Angel..." Dante breathed with glancing to the side. "I knew that the guy was messed up, but this... he just wants a puppet commander... and you're letting him...?"
"My Amulet..." Vergil reached up to the chest plate to run a hand over the embedded amulet there. "When I was narrowly defeated, Mundus tortured me, to break me and turn my mind and heart fully to the demon, he even took the Amulet from me and returned it to weaken my hold... He broke Yamato and I know not where it is now..." Dante nodded as he spoke.
"What kept you from breaking fully, what kept you going...?"
"...You... or rather... a wish you made..." Dante blinked with some confusion before the eyes widened as Vergil continued. "Mundus tried and tried again, but for some reason, he could never fully corrupt me, there was always her voice, reaching out to me from beyond and piercing through the muck of the Demon World. She... was by my side and fighting off the demons, she saved my soul and finally saving me from my darkness." His hand gripped tight as he spoke. "Briefly... I spoke to her without Mundus realizing it and we came to a plan, I would fall under his sway, but the Amulet kept my soul ready and able to fight on... I don't have much time, so hide your Amulet and only show it to distract Nelo, it will force him away and, when the time comes... you must free me, Dante..." The devil hunter nodded as the helmet returned and Dante breathed as Nelo took control, calm and quiet, with a snap to open the way and motioned Dante to follow before he leapt out and the doors closed as Dante breathed before following suit, Nelo keeping the image of being under Mundus's control as he gathered power from the air before leaping down to fight Dante.
But where Vergil was swift and precise, Nelo was sluggish in copying Dante's fighting style, but he made up for the difference with overwhelming power and demonic teleports before warping away and... was he taunting. "Oh, that cheap knockoff, only I get to taunt my foes, no suit of armor, brother or not, gets to taunt me or any demons for the sheer want of it!" He quickly followed and quickly evade when he landed as Nelo hurled a blast of energy at him and Dante hummed. "...With his hand... Great, Mundus REALLY wants me dead if Vergil wasn't twisted into his puppet right now... here's hoping I can free him soon and not... much later." They clashed once more before he fell back some more and Dante pursued, knocking him down and aiming to cut the helm or one of the horns off, but Nelo flipped over him and knocked Alastor out of his hands before delivering supercharged punches and kickes to Dante, launching him into the wall before he was picked up and slammed against the wall with a chuckle form Nelo as the Amulet came free in sight, the knight glancing to it before hurling Dante, panting before he groaned before turning into a blazing column and soared off into the castle as Dante extended out a hand and Alastor went to him before he moved to deliver the Soul, now active, to where it needs to be and he had seen the lion door in the staircase.
He did have to handle another Shadow, but it was simple in getting down there again and heading though before he could get a breath in. He flopped against the door and slid down as he reached into his coat, Optic coming back out as Dante spoke. "Get me Alexander... please..." Optic sadly chirped to the state of Dante, but bobbed nonetheless as the catacombs hummed with the static before Alexander picked up and spoke.
"Alexander, transmitting from Vision to Optic. What seemed to be the occasion, Dante?"
"Alex... I found Vergil..." A sharp gasp before Alexander carefully placed down his tools on adjusting and tampering with a Sin Scissors mask.
"Dante... are you sure that..."
"It was him... Alex, it was Vergil, trapped in a suit of armor and being forced to serve Mundus... as Nelo Angelo..."
"The Black Angel..." Alexander breathed before holding his nose before he spoke again. "Well, I had hoped that he was okay... shame on me for believing that he would still be in control of his own body if we meet again..." Dante hummed in reply as Alexander continued, not getting a piece of Angelo to be sure, but it was fine for now. "Still, if Mundus had been trying to break him, in the first place, he would need a suit of armor that was contracted to his power and, peering through and comparing weapons, demons, and material, I have come to the understanding that the 'Angelo' armor was made by the late Machiavelli, a famous gunsmith for the Demon World, the same one who had created the Artemis and a number of other demonic weapons." Dante glanced to Optic as Alexander continued with his explanation. "The point of the armor is to make a 'Sparda' that would follow Mundus's commands, but without a suitable powerful soul or demon inhibiting it, it is just a clunky armor, not able to move like a second skin."
"Alright..." Dante hummed before he asked. "While you can or not, can you find out what happened to Yamato, Vergil, in the brief moments of being conscious, said that it was broken and he lost it when he fought Mundus."
"I'll see what I can find, Dante, don't worry about it..." Alexander bit his lip on a thought that settled before he dismissed it for now as he spoke. "Alexander, cutting the connection." The link died, but Dante was suspicious now. There was a tone to Alexander's voice... that he was hiding something else, but that would be inquired about when he got back... or if he came back as some undead or possessed husk. He shook his head with storing Optic again and heading down the underground tunnels before finding a rusty key, likely to go something else in the castle before he heard buzzing and turned to oversized flies coming out of the holes in the walls as he huffed.
"Really, the spider was a problem, now I got flies? Come on, cut me some slack in pesticides." He quickly cut through them and found the door needing the key, heading through a more lit-up area before getting into a fight with a demon-head wraith of a Scissors, handling it and picking up a key called the 'Guiding Light', it latching off his energy which was not good, but he suspected that the key goes in that room where he met Nelo and hurried, getting another visit from the molten spider before he made it and opened up the passage behind the sun face and pressed on through the foyer and out to the roof, he seeing a way out before it slammed shut on him, he stepped back a bit before flipping around to the falling of rocks, the molten spider was back as it growled at him.
"Recess time is over, boy!" Its tail started to emerge as the demon continued. "Here, there's plenty of room to get real nasty. This time, there's no holding back." It lashed out inches from Dante, but all he did was taunt as he remarked.
"Finally, I was getting tired of playing your childish games." Dante got into stance as he fought the beast, evading its strikes while getting some serious blows in, he staggering for a second to the wipe of the claw, but he paid it back with slashing the claw off and it hitting the wall as the creature reeled, too far with crashing through the stain glass where it had landed on, getting impaled while Optic was dispatched to send the claw to Alexander as the monster exclaimed.
"You... you're not just any ordinary human. What are you?" As the demon's life started to flicker out, Dante's image changed to it, standing in his place was a regal and powerful knight, a being of such strength and resolve that he ended a war two thousand years ago, had kept watch over the Human World before his disappearance as the demon gaped in shock. "No... the legendary Sparda...!?" It gasped in disbelief as it continued. "It can't be..."
"You're right. I'm his son, Dante." Dante called down as he gestured with a kiss to the fingers and a flick as he smiled. "Sweet dreams." The demon tried in vain to speak before faltering, its body crumbling to ashes as Dante turned and left, the only other who had witnessed it was Trish who mused in surprise that Dante was able to defeat the demon known as a Phantom before Dante obtained both a Trident and someone's Grenade Launcher while also dropping the drawbridge to the castle before he headed further down to the room that he passed through prior to insert the Trident and hurried down to the opened gate and out before the drawbridge pulled itself up and Dante huffed with now being outside the castle. "Now... that is interesting, that is implying that either Trish closed her up or someone else is on the island with me, though given that skeleton of a soldier had died of exhaustion, I am going to have to give that idea onto Trish." He headed down the causeway and into a wider space before getting fronted by... what Dante could only describe to be humanlike lizard men in armor, through the retractable claws were a bit of a threat.
Still, props to that central one who took the time to push the visor into place before he wrecked them, whistling a bit as he sent a pair of them to Alexander for his research and dicing. He pushed into the out-lying fort and found another weapon to pick up, he humming to the kit of gauntlets before him after he scaled up some tricky platforms to read the inscription on the base. "My name is Ifrit. The fool who awakens me shall pay dearly with the fires of hell." It came to no surprise that the moment that was read, the gauntlets lifted off before erupting into circling balls of fire, condensing to slam into Dante and try to rip his arms off, but with a roar, Dante subdued the demon spirit and spoke.
"Well, it's about time I got some real firepower in close quarters, Alastor is awesome the way he is, but he is the quick slash and jolt, you Ifrit will be the boom and pow for other demons to handle." Sure Dante had Beowulf back at the shop and had NO reason to just pawn them off, Beowulf was a light set, he liked Ifrit a lot more, especially when there were a few puppets that needed toasting and he nodded as he headed back, pausing to the storm that suddenly gathered overhead before he turned to look at one of the standing walls as the entrance was of red lightning and a monstrous bird of prey, its face a mash of birds while its chest glowed like Nelo Angelo's armor, meaning that this feathered dinosaur was also under the command of Mundus as it bellowed.
"You! Are you the human, the son of Sparda, who challenges the Darkness Mundus?"
"Flock off, feather face! Or you can stick around and find out the hard way!" Ifrit's fiery shots made short work of the oversized raptor-bird as it quickly retreated from too much punishment in a burst of electricity before Dante opened his pocket again for Optic as he lit the way onward. "Dante, calling Alex. Dante, calling Alex..." The static was quick in getting shut off as Alexander heaved with a tired, but angered tone.
"Alexander, transmitting from Vision to Optic and I have half a mind to ram Agni and Rudra into conflicting holes on your body, Dante! Many of my souls AGREE with me in such a treatment, you sent me a freaking piece of one of the most aggressive demon species to date!" Dante moaned with the volume, the trees shuddering as well from the rant as he spoke with strolling.
"Hey, come on, I was just sending you pieces and parts for your little projects, I have done nothing wrong."
"PHANTOMS ARE MOLTEN ARACHNIDS AT MATURITY, DANTE, FREAKING BRIMSTONE AND LAVA!" He panted from the sound of it before he took a breath and let it out in calming down. "That said and cleaning that mess up... the fact you sent me a piece of a Phantom says a lot of how much power Mundus might have on Mallet Island, these arachnids are more commonly found in the Fire Hell, but with a powerful enough portal, one could pull a nest of Phantoms into the Human World, but it is the other demons you sent my way, the Blades."
"The Blades? Come on, Al, they HAD to have better names than that."
"You'd think, but Mundus designed them and I got the name Blades out of their corpses." Dante nodded as Alexander continued... with a deep inspection. "Mundus designed these to conquer the Human World and, while their gear may be more medieval, the fact that it could easily handle several rounds says that they were designed to handle projectile weapons and, based on the body structure and muscles, these may be counted as footmen in demon terms, but they are a dangerous force against humans who may not be able to contest them in speed, strength, and reflexes."
"Got it." Dante answered as the way forward was blocked and he looked back into the forest with more of the Marionette were coming, but behind them was something a little worse, a puppet exhibiting demonic features with animal features for its feet, a beak for its face that was attached to the chest, and flames gushing out of the crescent rings it was carrying. "Hey, I got some company, so I cam going to have to hang up."
"Allow me... Alexander, cutting the connection..." With that, the call was cut and Optic quickly hid in Dante's coat as he went into the gauntlet of puppets, even if the fire-slingers were more demon than wood. He headed through to a more overgrown section of the island, taking a few moments to send Alexander a few of the demon puppets before pressing on, into a canyon of utter mist and he following a fledging light, keeping it free form the demons, was a sure way to go out, but it lead him onto a greenhouse fort and he collecting a few things to get to the next piece, being a chalice, when the area shut itself sealed and lightning coursed around the small overhang around him before he slowly turned to find Nelo Angelo, ready to fight him, and he obliged, the two clashing there and Dante managing to cut off a horn from the armor before he toppled the knight, the lightning feedback in knocking the demon armor out and forcing it to withdraw as Dante mused.
"Vergil... Mundus is destroying your body right now, but you are holding on, even if it is for power, you are holding on... I swear I will free you from that armor and from Mundus... family doesn't fall so easily to that creep." He placed the chalice in front of a gold knight bust and headed back down to find a underground cave port, the ship merely a ghost of its former self, but still looked like it could sail, though the crewing Blades didn't let him do so freely and the Death Scythe that came out was just as annoying, clearly NOT and NEVER going to be on the same level as Alexander as the ship came alive with sailed out, pushing itself onward and into the open, but once more, problems came as the oversized bird dropped in with shutting down the flames on the ship, sealing the door shut against until Dante cleared away the bothersome fowl, the flames coming back alive with the fowl's oust and Dante headed into the Captain's quarters, picking up the Staff of Hermes before the ship started to take on water and Dante huffed. "Right... this was my bad, sailing a ship with a shattered hull, my bad."
He took a breath and dived as the ship went down, he was just glad to have grabbed that Needlegun to handle the swimming Blades before he got out and leapt out of the water to find himself down the river and headed through another underground passage, likely back to the castle and headed on, grabbing the Emblem Shield form a booby trapped passage and heading for what must have been the coliseum, the same place where that bird had perched at in trying to put him down.
Whoever or whatever designed the place was clearly thinking with traps as poison floors and spikes greeted him with the demons as well before he made it to the center with some Luminite fungus and a pair of lances, the way on being blocked unless Dante gave it a sacrifice to find the Wheel of Destiny and, lo and behold, feather face decided to drop on in for a fight and Dante took to the battle, lightning raining down and clashing with Ifrit's fire.
It brought the bird down with clipped wings, but it was not down quite yet as it charged and blasted more power at Dante, he quickly bring the bird down again, this time for good as it was impaled to the dais in the center as it panted in acknowledging him. "Yours are definitely the powers of Sparda." The same image formed before fading away as the demon continued. "No, even more so." But it refused to fall just yet as it made its statement clear. "But I cannot let you live, for I serve my master, Mundus." It tried in vain to force its body free as Dante exclaimed for him to stop.
"No! You can't fight with that wound!" The titan bellowed as it raised itself head to the skies.
"Mighty is the power of Mundus!" It then pleaded to the sky, asking for aid from his dark master. "Master! Please grant me one last surge of power... the power to finish him!" The world darkened and Dante glanced about before he looked up into the vortex up above to the gathering energy that soon faded away to a trio of glowing red eyes, a projection of Mundus as the bird spoke. "Master... Mundus..."
"Griffon, you have failed me. You are no longer worthy." With gathered power, Mundus destroyed his servant, annihilating him without remorse for the pleading demon before he completely destroyed the being and laughed about it as the storm faded away and Dante growled at the heartless nature of Mundus, truly the only thing sating that monster was power and domination, as he held his amulet in hand.
"That three-eyed..." Lightning formed behind him and Trish appeared as she joined his side in seeing the remainder of Griffon on the stone stake.
"You beat him. Maybe it was too easy for you." But Dante was focused elsewhere as he growled.
"Mundus... His heinous ways make me sick... killing even his own... like they were nothing." He lowered his head as he spoke to Trish listening to him, regardless if she was serving the demon Emperor or not. "He's the one that took the life of my mother... my brother. I'm sure of it!" He breathed with continuing. "My mother used to always tell me that my father was a man who fought for the weak." He turned to her and looked at his amulet as he finished. "He had courage and a righteous heart." He looked to the sky and vowed his mission. "In the name of my father, I will kill Mundus!" He slammed a fist into his palm and the stake opened up to the platform down, Trish disappearing in lightning as Dante headed down and picked up the Wheel of Destiny, getting a feeling that it was needed to get back into the castle as night started to fall over the island.
He reached the bridge and used the Wheel, opening the castle back up to him, but the darkness made it a different experience, as well as the missing statue of Mundus as he battled thunder bats and sent them to Alexander, stabilizing them enough for him, as well as the wing of Griffon's, it was the least he could do for the old bird, he didn't deserve that judgement.
Just as so, it seemed that Mundus had pulled something else from the Demon World to destroy him, a mass of bone, armor, and power in the place where he fought Phantom for the first time and got his hands on the Pride of Lion, it took a bit of light to make it shell up through the activated Damage Wheels about, but getting to the shattered bridge and using the Staff of Hermes, he found that whatever was there, it was a portal between mirrors, likely between what was the real world and the reverse, but no sign of any way to enter the Demon World to put Mundus down, even fighting off icy variants of those Blades and getting into a bout with a fire-blasting T-rex skeleton, but getting the Quicksilver, not to be confused with his dormant style of it, may have some use to it and it was in opening to a throne room and standing there, at the window as Nelo Angelo and Dante's heart dropped to the sheer red in the knight's eyes, he breathing as he mused to the possessed knight.
"A man with guts and honor. I like that. But it's a shame you serve Mundus." Nelo went all fancy before unleashing more power, Dante left shocked that... Vergil was no more with the crimson red of the eyes as Nelo Angelo went on the attack as Dante spoke with grief. "I'm sorry, Verg... I wish this could have gone differently..." Still, some part of Vergil was still in there as it conjured forth blades and launched them at Dante, but the Angelo still copied Dante and his fighting style so he had to beat this fake down and did so as the power went out of control and Vergil disappeared into the abyss, the only thing left... was his amulet, Dante breathing deep as he held the amulet close to his chest. "I'll make things right... I promise..."
Back in the city, Alexander dabbled with the fragment of armor that Dante sent him, likely form the Angelo suit and, while it was of similar make to the Artemis, there was clearly something wrong with the make that Alexander had worked to purify in full, the power giving resistance, but it died just as swift an any soul reaped before it glowed and Alexander frowned in finding the power, trailing it back to the Demon World and a wounded Vergil before his eyes flashed and he conjured another Ahriman and pumping it full of power, sharing some of Beowulf's own to stabilize it for the figure, as he give it an order.
"Take this to him... He will need it to break free and recover." A solemn chirp and a rift opened, enough to let the Ahriman fly through before it closed, Alexander breathing as he looked up. "I hope that we can save them in time, before this emperor tries to take it all for his own pride and greed." With that, he doubled down, stopping as he felt the surge of power, the power of the true Sparda and beamed as he spoke. "Well, Sparda sought to protect the weak, let his blade be guided by the Reaper of Souls as well..." HE breathed and focused, it would take time, but he would be there for Dante, if in body or in spirit...
Dante held the Perfect Amulet in hand before its power enveloped the Force Edge and gave its true form back to the Sparda, making it whole once again as he swung the blade around as it shifted between a spear and a scythe before resuming its form as a great sword before he pressed on through the mirrors, looking for any leads before taking the Philosopher's Egg and turning it into an Elixir while the blob of armor made for a round two and lost, giving Dante the chance to teleport back and head into the bedroom and passing through the mirror to a really twisted world, the real Mirror World and getting his hands on the Philosopher's Stone before getting a facedown with some melds of demons together, Dante not taking the chance of sending those back to Alexander if they were really dangerous and faked it somehow as it may seem like one demon melded together, it could have multiple demons joined and one could take control if another fell.
With that, he left the mirror world behind and headed for the chapel, where a likely passage into the Demon World would be held, evidence being the blob that emerged there...