Disclaimer: Yeah... I don't own DMC or anything related to the franchise... sad isn't it?

A soft string of knocks came from the door, mostly a warning as quickly the knob turned and the door got slowly pushed open, allowing Dante's head to pop in.

"Sup, Verge." Dante gave his brother a small wave and then grinned. "We're gonna have some fun, eat something and drink cheap beer. Wanna join us?"

Vergil glanced at his brother for a moment and then shook his head. "No." His attention swiftly turned back to the heavy book resting in his left hand.

"Psh… Don't be like that. You can't spend the entire day in this room just reading books!" Pushing the door fully open, Dante stepped in and folded his arms against his chest, staring firmly at his twin that is so casually ignoring him. "Nero is here." The corner of his lips twitched after his brother got a little stiffer. "He is waiting downstairs for us."

Pushing his hand down onto his lap, Vergil glared up at his brother. "Are you truly going to keep using Nero to force me into your bidding?"

The younger twin shrugged. "If it keeps working, why not?"

A low growl escaped the Dark Slayer, his eyes sharpening at the stupid smirk of his brother. Clenching his right hand into a fist, Vergil had the fleeting thought of punching the smugness out of that face, but letting his frustration vent out in a sigh, he instead just tossed the book onto the mattress and got up.

Stepping toward his brother, Vergil extended one hand forward. "So?" He asked as Dante eyed him up. "Are we going or not?"

Dante's reply came only as a smug smile and a simple nod. Giving his brother a daring slap on the arm, he then turned on his heels and walked down the hall with Vergil following close behind him.

As the twins stepped into the first floor and moved closer to the kitchen, the sounds of voices and giggles became more apparent to them. For Vergil, a singular voice felt more pertinent as he felt himself growl again without much thought.

'Obviously, she would be here…' He grimaced quietly as he walked behind his brother.

It has been an entire week since their last… incident. This time apart or even the time elapsed itself was not enough for Vergil to understand what got hold of him to make such a chain of decisions on that night.

To this moment he has yet to comprehend the motive for his lack of control around that woman. She is an anomaly, a force of nature threatening to sweep his impeccable self-control. This unnerves and upsets Vergil quite a great deal.

For a long, long time, no one else has managed to disrupt his life in quite some manner. After the catastrophic disaster of the last time, he had hoped to avoid ever getting influenced in quite a such manner ever again.

With his first step into the kitchen, he realizes that such a goal is proving very much impossible for his future.

"Hey, look what the cat dragged in."

And there she is, leaning lazily against her chair, sitting in front of Nero across the round table. While her words are slightly weighted on the mean-spirited side, the glow in her eyes and the soft tug at the corner of her lips are showing the complete opposite feeling.

The small group composed of Trish, Lady, and Nero, are gathered around the table with five boxes of pizzas, and beneath it, one can see at least two crates with beers resting on the floor.

"Lady, please… I know how cute I look, but control yourself, people are watching." Dante replied with a cheeky grin, twisting the meaning of her words to get the rinse out of Lady and Vergil at the same time.

"Dante, I said cat not mutt." She said with a grin.

"Ouch. And here I thought we were friends." He replied with fake hurt, which quickly changed into a playful smile.

Shaking his head at the giggles and chuckles coming from Lady and Trish, Dante moved over to the chair at the head of the table, but before he could pull it back for him to sit, Vergil dragged the chair toward himself and sat quietly as he crossed his arms.

Dante gave his brother a side glance, frowning as he noticed the vacant seat next to Lady and the forlorn look on her face.

"Where did your manners go, Verge?" Dante asked and his brother glanced up at him. "The head of the table belongs to the owner of the house."

A light scoff escaped the older twin. "The head of the table belongs to the head of the house, not the owner."

"And? Same difference?" Dante spits back, his brother just shook his head at him.

"Dante, just come and sit. I think everyone here has grown tired of you two bickering over nothing." Trish ordered, earning a few nods from Nero and Lady.

Brushing the back of his head, Dante begrudgingly moved over to the vacant seat next to Lady, grumbling a few words at his brother.

"Anyways… It's a surprise to see you join us in a celebration." Lady said toward Vergil, trying to pull the mood of the room in a lighter direction.

Having his interest pulled by her words, Vergil took a look at everyone sitting around the table. They are battered, their clothes dirty and ragged. He feels surprised to have not noticed the very harsh and long line crossing over Dante's bare chest, the clear sign that his brother has been impaled by something rather large within the day's time.

His gaze traveled back to Lady, and she quickly gave him a bright smile. "Something happened worth celebrating?" He asked simply, involuntary returning her smile with a short one himself.

"You know what? This time I think it calls for a celebration." Nero was the one replying to the question, getting Vergil's attention onto him. "We came crashing on this weirdo cult, like a fucking hammer, down in the port." He scoffed, angrily waving one hand in the air. "Can you imagine? Another group of Devil-worshiping sickos taking roots in Fortuna?"

Vergil hummed softly, giving Trish a side-eye glance as the blond placed a bottle of beer in front of him. "Do you know the fiend's name?" He asked more out of courtesy than real curiosity.

"Ah, yeah… they had quite a few inscriptions painted in blood-"

"Oh hey, that's the boring stuff, right?" Dante jumped right in, cutting off Nero. "The important part is that we kicked ass and they are gone from the peaceful town of Fortuna." He then smiled proudly and reached for one of the open boxes of pizzas, the first tone to take a slice for himself.

"There was that huge demon." Trish said right as the room was about to go awkwardly silent.

Lady perked up. "A tough little beast that one. Took all of us to finally bring it down, luckily it fell onto the water."

Nero growled, just like his father always does. "Not that lucky. It may have not fallen onto anyone or any building, but all that blood and pieces of foul flesh will taint the water for quite some time."

"We offered to help…" Trish replied with a roll of her eyes.

"Trust me, it's better this way," Nero said back, following Dante's lead and pulling a slice of pizza from one of the boxes. "you start doing something magical or stuff like that around Fortuna and they will build a statue of you right in the middle of the town square." He then took one angry bite at the pizza.

"So, Verge. What's up with you?" Dante stirred the conversation in another direction again, reaching for another slice of pizza.

Vergil quirked one eyebrow at his brother, and then glanced down at the box closest to him. He grimaced and reached for the beer instead, the lesser of the two evils. "Nothing… much." He replied taking a sip from the bottle, fighting the urge to spit it right back out.

"Come on, brother. You've been living here for what? Two, or three months? I've never known you to just sit quietly and don't plot anything."

Nero and Lady gave Dante a look, that the devil hunter just ignored and kept smiling at his brother.

"So, anything nefarious going inside that head of yours?" Dante asked, this time earning a concerned frown from Nero. "What? It's better to trust that you are plotting something crazy than to believe that you are just enjoying this anti-social life of yours."

"Dante…" Vergil growled in a small warning. "Care to get to the point?"

"You two aren't going to start something are you?" Nero asked warily.

"Nah, I'm just worried about the well-being of your old man." Dante said back. "For all these years that I've known my brother, he was never this… peaceful. It's eerie. Like the calm before the storm. Just want a little heads-up if he is up to something."

Vergil stared at his brother and then shifted his gaze to the empty spot at his side. "Worry not… there is no plan or plots in my head."

Dante smacked one hand on the table with a bit too much enthusiasm. "That's exactly it! No plans? No pursuit of power or nothing? See why I'm worried now?" He glanced at Trish. "That's not Vergil, not normal Vergil." A long sigh escaped him as Dante finally reached for one bottle of beer. "Most people involve themselves in a hobby when in a retreat like this. Did you fall back into any of the old ones, besides reading dusty-ass books?"

With one very mild quirk of his eyebrow, Vergil gave his brother a look and then chuckled. "You may find this surprising, Dante, but one cannot play piano without the instrument ready at the premise."

Dante mirrored the light-heartened chuckle of his twin brother. "Almost forgot you used to play that old monstrosity."

Cutting between the banter of the two siblings, Lady let out a loud impressed whistle. "A musician too?" Her comment came accompanied by an approving little nod. "Is there anything you can't do?"

"Oh, I know one." Dante promptly replied. "He can't for his life be a normal freaking person! But of course, being the vampire pirate that you are, that's a given."

"Normal? Hah, that's rich." Vergil rebuked with a frown, but his lips tugged lightly in a grin. "This is coming from the man that only eats junk food and drinks cheap alcohol for his diet. Very noticeable normal person behavior from one such as yourself… brother."

"Okay, okay. Just chill out you two." Nero jumped in before his father and uncle could go past the glaring they are giving each other. "We are supposed to be having fun, right?"

"Nero is more than right." Lady followed suit, raising a bottle of beer in the air. "No more barking at each other, let's just have fun." She then glanced at Vergil, giving him the warmest and most innocent smile, she has ever mustered. Surprising Lady herself, her small display disarmed the tension in the man's expression with so much ease.

"Verge, the thing with the piano…" Dante trailed on, hesitating a bit on the topic despite the ease that he can throw insults at his twin. "Anything to do with reminiscing those days?"

Tracing the slightly damp surface of the bottle with two fingers, Vergil drifted his gaze into nothing much and allowed a soft and unusual sight to escape him. "Probably…" He replied simply, getting a low hum from Dante. "I guess, regardless of time or how much I drifted away from that place. I suppose… I still miss her."

The admission came as a surprise for both brothers and passed as a foggy little piece of puzzling information for the other three who still glanced at Vergil in bewilderment. "That is… ahn… Yeah… I feel ya." Dante said with another hum.

"Never expected that." Lady said in a teasing tone. The look she gave Vergil made the stern twin frown in confusion. "You sir, are proving to be quite the puzzle. For all that aloofness and the cool 'Don't talk to me' aura of yours. Nevertheless, there you were, performing as a musician to sweeten the heart of this mysterious woman."

Lady's little tease made its round across the table. It made Nero glance at his father with an interested gaze, perhaps hoping that this is referring to his father's past with his mother. Trish simply smiled at her female friend, giving a little toast with the bottle of beer in her hand; the two twins, however, looked at Lady with them both sporting the same playful grin on their lips.

Glancing from one brother to the other, Lady gave a little frown as they shook their heads at her. "What? It didn't sound too tacky, did it?"

"Oh no, you are fine." Dante replied with a small chuckle. He then looked at his brother and snorted a short laugh. "You did use that piano to charm her every time, didn't you?"

Vergil rubbed his chin with one thumb before giving another try to the beer in his other hand. Instantly he regretted the decision as the awful taste slid down his throat. "Those were… the only times when it was just the two of us." He gave his brother a small nod. "Learning the piano, it was my way of stealing her from you, even if but for a moment."

"Okay… are you two just going to play around with us or what?" Her duo-colored eyes sparkled with a little hint of jealousy at the pure form of fondness coming from Vergil's voice as he spoke.

"Mother..." Vergil finally answered, giving Lady a short but knowing little smile. "Dante was always her favorite. It was impossible to spend time with her without him hanging at the tail of her dress. However, when I showed interest in learning music… I stole a bit of her time just for myself."

"You know, I snuck into the living room one time when she was teaching you." Dante started, waving another slice of pizza in his hands as he made gestures. "But, maaaann, I couldn't for any reason at all stand the boredom of it. I simply can't understand how you mustered the will to keep going back to that piano."

"Unfortunately for you, Dante, a sophisticated taste is not so easily acquired." Vergel jested with a half-truth, waving one hand in dismissal as his twin grunted at him.

Forgetting for the impressive third time the error of his way, Vergil pressed the tip of the bottle to his lips, swallowing a heavy gulp of beer. After tasting the awfulness of it this many times, has already started to numb his tasting buds to it, leaving only the slightly cold sensation sliding down his throat.

Basking enough in the provoked glare coming from his twin, Vergil took a leisure glance to his left. His eyes properly ignoring the blond sitting closer to him, went further until they matched the gaze of those beautiful green and red eyes.

Despite himself, Vergil gave Lady a soft smile, one that caught the woman off guard enough to make her cheeks get a little warmer, enough to make her press her lips against her beer to try and hide a little smile of her own.

"Beer and pizzas are fine, but I don't think eating and drinking are much in the fun department." Trish said in a small comment, the blond getting slightly bored at the slow pacing of their gathering.

"Round of cards?" Nero suggested with a shrug.

Promptly Dante's eyes shone with a playful light. "Hell yeah, a crazy round of strip poker!"

Both Lady and Nero almost choke with their beers, the pair coughing loudly at the absurd suggestion. Trish and Vergil reserved themselves to just shake their heads at Dante's antics.

"You are sick in the head or what?" Nero yelled at his uncle. "It's already awkward to think that have seen Lady naked once, I have no interest in a repeat of that."

"Once?" Vergil asked without even noticing, his gaze firmly pressed on his son's slightly reddened face.

"It's only awkward with Lady, huh?" Dante also raised his 'concern', but with his intent solely in the purpose of making Nero squirm, his antic getting a scoff out of Trish.

"Oi, it's not like that." Nero raised both hands in his defense.

Dante's loud laughter exploded in the room, his reaction making Trish press her lips against the back of her hand to hold in a laugh of her own.

"Watch out Nero, old pops is not very keen on sharing his stuff. Ouch!" Dante cried out as Lady punched him square on the chest.

She then glared at him and said a silent 'Not funny'.

"Stop giving me that look, old man. I told you it's not like that. It happened when Urizen made all that mess, I managed to free Lady from inside one of those demons." As Nero explained the look on Vergil's face went from questioning and cold to soft and slightly dejected.

Pressing his digits, a bit tighter on the bottle in his hand, Vergil looked at Lady for a moment and then at Trish. "I… sincerely apologize for that incident…" He frowned but still held his gaze onto the blond.

Trish stared at Vergil for a moment, she looked into his icy-blue eyes as if judging the sincerity of his words. Then she shrugged and took a large sip from her bottle. "Waters far past under the bridge. I lived just one month as that Angelo, some had worse than me."

Her words made him flinch but he kept any other comment to himself, instead Vergil looked at Lady and got a small nod in response.

"That name… we heard it quite a bit with those guys, no?" Nero perked up, looking around the table as people looked back at him. "You saw that shit too, right Lady? Those weird ass messages that were painted on the all with blood. What the hell was that about?"

Another tilt in a different direction in the conversation made Vergil's mood change. He felt his interest get a little alight at that. He has dealt with quite a few numbers of cultists or people simply serving the beings of the underworld. Yet, he never heard of them marking messages on the wall, they would normally stick to summoning inscriptions or runes. Why would this new group change this tradition so drastically?

"What kind of message?" Vergil asked as Nero grew a little impatient with everyone else ignoring the topic.

"Now you two are the ones making the place gloomy." Dante quickly jumped in, giving Nero a bored shrug.

"Dante, be silent for a moment." Vergil sneered at his brother and then glanced at his son again. "Those cultists. What did they leave in the walls?"

Nero cleared his throat. Placing his bottle on the table, he pressed two fingers to his temple and frowned trying to recall his memory. "Something eternal, calling an angel to break the light?"

An unintentional scoff escaped Dante, who quickly tried to pretend that nothing happened and that his full attention is focused on the bottle spinning in his hand.

"Imperium Eternal." Lady corrected Nero, getting the table's attention onto her. "That was the large one. the smaller ones spread everywhere were; Angelus Aurorae, someone to break the chains?"

"Chains of what?" Nero asked right back. "You think they will try that bullshit again? Is there more of them out there?"

A sounding click of the tongue escaped Dante. "That's the shitty part about this job, Nero. There are always more of them out there."

"And this Angelus whatever the fuck. Think this message was for him, they… it?" Nero asked getting even more lost in thoughts than he was before.

"It's him… no doubt." Trish let it out softly, her words made Dante cough and stare firmly at her. The blond ignored the silent words coming from Dante and glanced back at Nero. "Angelus Aurorae, that is most likely wrong. Those people are not original followers of… they are new okay, that's very clear by how the act."

"So what? They found a flyer on the streets about this demon and decided to form a cult?" The youngest hunter breathed out in exasperation. "People are dumb as fuck sometimes."

"Trish, you said they were wrong." Lady jumped in, looking at her blond friend. "You know what they wanted to write there? Never known cultists to write those things on walls, even more, the wrong stuff."

Trish looked at Lady and then glanced at Dante. She felt a bit conflicted at the stern look he is giving her, but she also feels no point in delaying this any further. So, she just returned her attention to Lady's question.

"There's no chain. And this stuff is not a new ritual or anything like that…" She sighed, finishing her beer in one go and then dropping the bottle on the floor, earning a low growl from Vergil at her side. "They need someone to break the seal to release their master. The stupid bastards don't even know who it is, they even got the name wrong. If they knew, they would never write that stupid message in the first place."

Rolling her eyes at the now gone cultists, Trish reached down the table and pulled another beer for herself. Nero kept staring at her, waiting for the blond to finish the story but she just sat there working on opening the bottle.

"Come on, Trish. Are you going to finish that or are you just enjoying leaving us in the dark here?" Nero asked, looking at Lady to seek a bit of help.

Crossing her arms, Lady pushed back against her chair, looking at Trish.

The blond tried to play coy until the stares and silence got too much for her, only then, she left the bottle on the table and glared at everyone.

"Fine, jeez. A girl can't even relax in her time off…" She briefly looked at Dante and gave an apologetic look. "There is no Angelus Aurorae, but there was a demon that had the same crest we saw painted on the wall. Symbols are the same, the translation was wrong."

"Trish!" Nero cried out frustrated with her stalling.

"Nelo Angelo. That is the name they wanted to write there."

Not soon after the word left Trish's mouth, the sound of glass shattering echoed in the room. Lady gasped first at the sound and then at the blood running down from shards embedded in Vergil's hand.

She made the motion to stand up and help him, but before she could leave her chair, Vergil's voice caught her attention fully.

"Dante…" He started with a calm and cold voice. "What demon did they try to summon?"

Placing one hand over his face, Dante shrunk slightly in his chair. Shaking his head, he looked at Trish and frowned.

"Dante!" Vergil's voice echoed louder as he shouted his brother's name. "Who are they trying to release from the underworld?"

Pulling his head up, Dante looked back at his older twin with a troubled but firm expression. "Why ask if you already know the answer?"

In one swift motion, Vergil stood up from his seat and turned on his heels to leave. Neither Nero nor Lady tried to stop him, both startled by the sheer fury shining in the man's blue eyes. In silence, everyone just watched as Vergil just stalked away, turning to the left and going towards the entrance.

The whole house appeared to tremble when Vergil banged the doors close behind him as he left.

"Ah… fuck. That could've gone better." Dante sighed and then brought the bottle to his lips. His eyes landed on Trish who didn't look ashamed of herself but still gave him an apologetic look once again.

"Okay…? Can someone explain to me what the fuck happened here?" Nero asked, more confused by the second about it all.

"Sure kiddo…" Dante replied with a weak grin. "But buckle up, this is not a pretty story."

"Never was into fairytales anyway." The young hunter replied with a firm resolve.

"Whatever you say, Nero… shit." Finishing his beer, Dante laid back enough for his gaze to stare into the ceiling. "Mundus… this whole crap started with that motherfucker Mundus…"

Reviews:

HelelBenShahar chapter 4 . 22h ago – Thank you for the review, and I'm glad you're liking the story so far.

In this fic, I'm trying a little bit of a different approach, focusing more on the characters than a full plot as a whole, that means it can feel a little loose on that part, but it gives me the freedom to go as I've done so far.