Devil May Cry: Would you Fight for Me
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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"You presume too much Dante."
Grown around a tower long abandoned, the tree had come to embrace the cold white stone that it had been planted at. When confronted by stone it grew around, suckling away at the power the walls had absorbed over time. Blood may have been the food source of the tree, the stone gave it another source of nourishment that it clearly relished. Swelling beyond reason as it grew high above until it touched the metaphorical ceiling of the underworld and pierced its way into the human.
That elevation, even standing on its roots granted Dante the ability to see far beyond normal. Towards other demons that were gravitating towards the tree ever onward. The ground was starting to writhe with the number of demons approaching the tree, not just the weak ones like the Empusas. But they were there, and among the tree itself were other signs of a human world building wrapped within. Stagnant air barely moved to carry only the whispers of demonic activity and Vergil had started to take more notice of the wall itself.
"There was no wall here... quite peculiar," Vergil noted to himself, Urizen didn't have an extensive series of thoughts on the matter. He knew of the tree and gone looking for it while all around was fairly ignored. But on the edge of his vision there was no walls that Vergil could remember so why...
"I spent two years down here and never saw the tree either, kind of weird don't you think?" Dante noted, and could just barely see Vergil start as though surprised... "What you forgot I was here? Losing your memories in your old age?" He teased as Vergil turned to look at him, annoyance in his gaze.
"You were here? I have no recollection of your presence. More over you are quite noisy more often than not," Vergil pointed out, deciding to ignore the jab at his age. After all they 'were' twins.
"I was looking for someone," Dante deadpanned as that eerie feeling continued to crawl up his back.
"I see... For two years? Did you find them?" Vergil inquired as he grew distracted by the numbers of demons finally earning his evaluation. The distance made it difficult to pin down exactly what some of them were, however; he could see some of the larger demons.
Such thoughts caused him to miss Dantes' incredulous expression as the Hunter retorted with a snort, "no actually I didn't. He didn't show up until after he did the 'saw a person in half' trick to 'himself'."
"Ahh you meant me..." Vergil conceded before he realized what Dante just said. "You were here looking for me?" For all of a moment he tried to recall only to be confronted by the empty canvas of memories now gone.
"And the memories go, yes I was..." Dante retorted a hint of hurt and frustration mixing into his voice. "How could I not sense you? How could you not sense me?" Dante struggled to not sound like he was demanding an answer out of Vergil. But damn if it wasn't becoming difficult.
Vergil turned to look at Dante, even as he tried to scrap together the pieces he recalled to form a picture. Near death, inescapable pain... 'I would have hidden, if I sensed Dante in such a state I would have fled. I would only view him as a threat...' he realized before turning to resume their trek.
"I'm talking to you Vergil," Dante finally grumbled as he followed his twin. "What? Was little Vergil afraid he'd get his ass kicked by his baby brother again?"
"Seeing that your first reaction upon seeing me restored whole was to attempt to kill me on sight? I would say that concern was valid," Vergil retorted sharply.
"Do you realize how many people you killed with that stunt?" Dante asked, a low growl in the back of his voice, a hint of fire in his eyes.
"Do you realize," Vergils' own voice started to echo that growl as he turned his back on the demons to face his twin. "That you saw my demonic side as the total of my being? My 'last bit of humanity' as you put it, was being half dragged along by Nero. But you only saw the demon side of me as 'all' of me? Not very brotherly now is it?"
Dante took a breath, not so much as to calm himself as to react to the verbal gut punch that Vergil had struck him with.
"Oh? What's this? Its ok for you to punch and beat on me with word and sword, yet a problem when I return favor?" Vergil took the three short steps necessary so they were staring eye to eye again. Even as he loathed having to look a bit up at his younger, but taller, 'twin'. "Have you not, since we arrived, 'regaled' me on all that I have missed? Grandchildren when I just learned I have a son, a son 'you' have had six long years to enjoy the company of? Of the wedding I missed, of everything I missed with no thought or concern for how that might feel? Lording over me how my son lost his mind over the thought of you getting hurt fighting my demonic side? Or the fact the only reason he came to the top of the tree was to ensure you survived!"
Fire raced along Dantes' nerves, of outrage and horror, as reality crashed and clashed with illusion. It locked Dante's jaw in place as he tried to find the words to explain or to extract fact from fiction. But words were Vergils' talent, not Dantes' and Vergil was a seething fury of dry tinder ready to ignite into a blue flamed demon at the wrong word.
A wrong word born of the first time Vergil had actively voiced his discontentment with Dante's flippant attempts at conversation. Because what 'was' there to say? They had nothing more between them than combat, Nero was the only safe ground they could speak of. But even his existence was drawing blood at this point, "I never told him I was his father. I couldn't lie to the kid like that! I just...I couldn't tell him about you either..." Dantes' head sank into his hands, his sword disappearing at his whim. "How was I supposed to explain that I was his uncle? That I killed his father? How was I supposed to explain that his old man chose this," Dante swept his arms out to encompass the realm they were standing in. "Over his own son?"
"I didn't know!" Vergil was barely able to speak without screaming in anger, frustration and worst of all, self directed hate. "All I knew was that his mother died, not that she had our child! Her grave didn't even mention motherhood, so how exactly, when all I was given was silence, would I know that I had a 'son'?! I never even pondered doing the math, I can 'now'. I can realize 'now' that she died nine months after I left. Dying apparently because I had the audacity to try to be human again!"
'He didn't... know?' It was a thought that made Dante have to stop and process for a moment. His silence allowing Vergil to whirl around and start stalking the rest of the way to the trunk of the tree. 'He didn't know he had a son?' it felt impossible, surreal even. Dante knew that Nero had been put in an orphanage at infancy, been certain that Vergil abandoned Nero. Deciding to claim their father's power in Teme-ni-gru over his child.
Fire started racing along Dantes veins as he realized something while Vergil began making rage fueled erratic swipes at the trunk of the tree. Nero had been traveling with V, unaware that V was part of Vergil. So V hadn't been weighed down by the crime of ripping Nero's arm off and in the span of what? A month? Became one of Nero's friends, and Dante knew how Nero was about his friends.
The only reason Nero stuck around Dante was because the kid clearly thought Dante was his dad. Not that Dante ever encouraged the misunderstanding, but in omitting Vergil, it meant the only other viable 'father' was Dante. Yet that omission slowed the development of trust and friendship, grinding it out into six long years to truly be established. Dante had gained Nero's respect, his trust and true friendship had taken years to get to where he was in Nero's life.
It took V a month.
One month and V had made a trusted friendship with Nero, while Dante struggled.
Sure they were father and son, they should naturally gravitate towards each other.
But Nero would now pursue Vergil, embolden by V's nature. Dante could imagine Nero would fight Vergil to bring out V's personality in his twin. If Vergil figured out he had that much power and sway over Nero he could leave at a moment's notice.
Then Dante would be alone again.
And every time Vergil left, things fell apart.
He didn't play with Dante and ran off so their mother died in the fire. Chose the Underworld over Dante and became Nelo Angelo. If only Vergil could figure out he would be safer if he just did as Dante wanted him to!
Meanwhile; completely unaware of the frustration borne flames burning behind him, Vergil was lost to his own personal abyss. V's presence simmered under the surface, the love for his 'nephew' that he imparted to Vergil a poison all its own. 'Loved and protected' was what V had told Nero, and somehow despite never having interest in being a parent himself. Vergil craved his sons' love if nothing more than a hold over from what V would want. But protected? 'Foolishness, a disgrace that the child must protect the father.'
Only Vergil could not defeat Dante... the only way Nero would be protected was if Vergil conceded to his brothers' wishes. Otherwise, what was to stop Dante from taking Nero, the stronger twin with a heroes' past and path? After all, Mundus had been killed by their father but he came back, Vergil did as well though he had no clue how. 'If Mundus came back...' That threat started to loom over Vergil, a threat that incited a fury. That Dante would have to protect Nero because Vergil was too weak. Shame sent him lashing out with a a flurry of strikes against the trunk, revealing a white large white wall.
It didn't matter to Vergil's gaze, the blade scarred the stone as it sliced away the flesh of bark from the tree. Lashing out felt better though. Better than the realization that Nero was who he was because he stayed 'away' from Vergil. Isolation was all he could have, not because Mundus awakened his demon side as a child. Simply because he was a monster by default! 'This is not just a tree... this is 'me'... Just a poison tree, surviving off the corpses of the innocent beguiled by what my presence offers...'
If Dante wasn't right behind him. If Vergil didn't know for a fact that Dante would never stop the mocking ridicule, Vergil would have crumbled on the spot.
Perhaps if it had been someone else, or if Nero was all the worst parts of him, then Vergil wouldn't have been bothered. But V's memories of Nero were warm, the child was vulgar yes, but he was kind, tolerant and fiery. Playful in combat, and while he didn't care for the poetry that V clung to, he didn't mock or ridiculed it. Then, when confronted with V's crumbling state, even though it would slow him down, Nero had helped V walk the rest of the way. Unlike Dante who abandoned V with only a backwards glance.
'Unaware that he carried my crumbling humanity, Nero cared more for it than Dante... I spent my life thinking mother had rejected me. That she died saving Dante and left me to die... But that was wrong, she died because she loved me. Everyone who has loved me has died... I can not protect those who love me. How can I dare hope to have Nero in my life?' Only for that little voice that sounded far too much like Mundus to answer.
'Because you're weak. Without power you can't protect anyone, so why think you deserve anyone? Just look at Dante, he has friends and people who would die for him, because he's strong enough to protect them. You couldn't protect your woman and you can only hurt your child.'
'I can...' His thoughts could not even marshal the strength to voice an argument anymore. Years of arguing that he could if he just found the right Devils' Arms or found access to his father's power. But he had eaten the fruit of the Qliphoth and even that wasn't enough. Not even the apex of items could make him strong enough... 'I can't... I can't ever win...'
The weight of that realization crushed the breath out of his lungs, sheer stubborn pride and determination was the only thing keeping him standing. Slashing at his poisoned tree in a grief stricken act against the life time of mistakes that made up his existence. Bitter resignation consumed him while he uncovered more of that strange white wall. The roots that rose up twisted to an end and became a wall of false wood. Only a disinterested glance to the side, revealed the approaching company. "Well it seems there are more than a few Goliath's who wish ascend the tree."
Below the tree were a mounting number of demons, many were small, but there were a sizable number that were large as well. From the mindlessly weak to the marginally intelligent they saw their chance at the power the tree could provide. Each eyeing the fruit that could grow again if they could get the tree back to the human world.
Dante barely heard Vergil as all the emotions that had been burning through his veins were snuffed out. As sudden as plunging a burning stick in the ocean Dante's thoughts shifted to what Vergil had just uncovered. The man still hadn't reacted to the wall. While Dante 'recognized' the wall that was revealed from his brothers' rage fueled slicing. Part of the tower he climbed when he was hunting Mundus... Trish's words suddenly echoed in his head as he realized just 'where' they were in the demon world.
Panic seized Dante's gut and began ravaging it as Dante began walking, then running to catch up to Vergil. Desperation screaming to get Vergil away from the tower, away from anything tainted by Mundus before he lost his twin again. It was too clean, to easy how the tree 'just so happened' to grow around Mundus' tower. As well as the possible resurrection of Vergil, 'especially' if Vergil was meant to be...
'No... no nono Not again! NOT VERGIL!'
Dante couldn't hear his footsteps over the shrill shrieking of Death Scissors as they raced along the roots unhampered by walking.
"Vergil! We got company!" Dante called out, immensely relieved at the distraction of demons to pull his attention away from the realizations coming to surface in his mind.
The Death Scissors lead the charge, the other demons were starting to slowly filter up from the ground between the roots of the tree. A dirty black sea of demonic bodies that clamored over the roots, much the same as when they arrived, but the numbers 'were' larger than the usual gatherings the twins had come across on their way up. Massively wide, the tree was undoubtedly being ascended on some side or the other that the twins weren't at.
More over the tree grew both inside and around the exterior of the tower... "Hey Vergil, I think we have a problem..."
"What now?" Vergil replied as he slipped between the snip of a Death Scissor allowing it to break its scissors on the head of a Behemoth that had lumbered into the fray.
"Well, between you and I we 'could' cut this tree down easy. But I think I know this tower and if it is, there's a big hour glass at the top. I don't know what it does exactly, but if it fell and broke... You know this world better, any special hour glasses come to mind?"
'A tower with a hour glass?' Vergil's mind joyfully latched onto the distracted thought only for a snarl to curl his lips. Oh yes, he 'knew' of a 'tower with an hour glass', fury consuming his vision as he turned towards the wall. Abandoning the demons around him as pointless while the wall and tree became his total focus.
'Ahh noooo...' Dante mentally groaned as he glimpsed his brothers' movements. "Vergil, demons 'first'..." he tried.
"This tower belongs to Mundus!" Vergil snarled, all his aloof, superior noble bearing went out the window as he began to actively try and slash the tree to pieces.
"I know Vergil. I know..." Spoken to himself, Dante turned his attention back to the demons, they had to be destroyed and fast. He could feel himself losing Vergil to his outrage, the victim screaming for bloody vengeance. 'If only you would just listen to me.'
Blood drenched the roots around them, flesh splayed against wall and bark hung there by force and bloody moisture alone. While limbs were sent flying as they were sliced or punched off the body of the foolish demon that dared approach. Either by slender elegant blades or an overly 'enthusiastic' punch, there was no shortage of violence. Which suited Vergil just fine, all he saw was that cursed white stone, the bark of the tree and his own world was narrowed down to the focus of only that.
Mundus who stole his childhood...
Stole his peace of mind.
Leaving Vergil out of his mind with only his assault on the tree slashing at the wall and bark. Even the occasional demon that thought to get between himself and his target. Hands shaking and teeth bared, poise and precision lost to mindless fury.