Notes: Once again I'm here to thank merendinoemiliano for leaving a review.
Chapter 10
The amount of bullets and explosions in the air almost made the place look like World War III. Demons wouldn't stop coming to the tower, and Trish and Lady wouldn't stop until they killed every last one of them. However, they almost had a heart attack as a certain redhead suddenly appeared right next to them.
"You need to stop doing that." The blonde muttered.
"Doing what?" She genuinely asked.
The human stopped shooting with her rocket launcher and turned to face her. She thought she had seen Phoebe with puffy eyes, and wanted to check. She was right.
"Were you crying?"
"No?" The redhead kept being stared at by mismatched orbs and gave in. "Yes."
"Who are we beating?" Trish asked as she opened her palm and fried a couple of demons with a powerful beam of lightning.
"No one!" Both women stared at her with narrowed eyes. "I just got emotional up there, okay?"
"What's taking them so long, anyway?" She started shooting at the creatures with Sparda's former pistols: Luce & Ombra.
"Sparda's at the highest level of the tower."
"Why don't they just fly their way up?" Lady asked as she went back to shoot the demons as well.
There was a moment of silence, it was a really good question.
"Uhm..." Phoebe scratched the back of her head. "Vergil and Dante are competing on who reaches the top first while killing demons on the way."
Both women dramatically rolled their eyes as they muttered: "Men..."
"Anyway, I came here to ask if you girls wanna do anything after this."
"Girls night out!? I'm in!" The brunette cheered as she pressed a button on Kalina Ann to throw its bayonet at one demon.
"Karaoke?" Trish asked as she pointed at Lady, who nodded in agreement. "Karaoke?" She did the same with the redhead and got the same reaction. "Nice."
"Well, it's settled, then. I'm gonna go back to keep an eye on the boys."
"Good luck." They both said in unison and they all laughed.
Meanwhile, Dante arrived on the twenty-third floor and found Nero and Vergil sitting on the RV couch. They seemed like they had been there for a while, as the younger boy had a bored expression on his face.
"You took your sweet time, brother." The oldest twin closed the book in his hands and put it back inside the pocket of his coat. "It seems I have won." He said as he rose to his feet.
"How do you feel about winning for once, brother?" The legendary devil hunter had his arms wide-open, and when his brother passed by his side, he hit the Yamato, still in its sheath, against his abdomen. He whined in pain and took his hands to where he was hit.
"You seriously need to learn how to count."
"What are you waiting for, anyway?" Dante saw his nephew pointing at something behind him, and he only realized there was a giant door there when he turned around. He gave it a strong kick but it didn't even bulge.
"Don't you think we've already tried that?!" Nero yelled from inside the RV.
"It was worth a shot." The younger twin shrugged. "So, how do we get that open?"
"We don't. The only one who could open it got killed by that witch." Vergil muttered the last word under his breath, even though he already knew the enhanced hearing of his twin would catch that.
"Take that back." The legendary devil hunter walked towards his brother as he pointed at him, his index finger almost touching his face in a threat.
"I didn't say anything wrong." The older twin kept staring his brother in the eyes, not even a shred of regret or fear in them.
"We both know you're doing that thing where you say a word that sounds like a swear because you don't have the cojones to say the actual word." Dante had said between gritted teeth, however, he decided to redirect his anger at being sarcastic to piss his twin off. "What? Still afraid mom will get mad at ya for saying a bad word?"
Vergil grabbed the other half demon's wrist and Nero decided it was time to interfere, walking to them and pushing them so he could place himself in between.
"Cut it out, both of you!" He turned to his father and said: "It's not nice to say something like that about someone's... I-don't know." Then, he turned to his uncle, who was frowning at him. "And you gotta admit she's kinda bitchy."
"Seriously...?"
The young devil hunter could swear his uncle's voice was deeper than usual, but the hand that was making its way towards his collar was stopped by a feminine hand. It was Phoebe.
"You guys might wanna change the subject, because the subject is here." She gently grabbed Dante's hand with hers and put it down.
Nero looked down, embarrassed, and scratched the bridge of his nose. "Lo-look, I..."
The redhead reassuringly tapped his shoulder twice, locked arms with the younger twin and walked him to the other side of the room. "What's going on here?" She whispered.
"Vergil's being a dick." He muttered.
"Well, nothing new, right? But why are you guys here?"
"The door won't budge." He pointed at it with his thumb.
The redhead looked at it and stretched a hand in its direction, opening her palm and shooting a telekinetic blast towards it. Not surprisingly, it didn't work.
"We've already tried that!" Father and son rolled their eyes as they said it in unison.
"It was worth a shot!"
Dante approached her and whispered in her ear: "Vergil said you killed the only one who could get it open." He watched as she widened her eyes and looked into his.
"Oooh, this door. Okay, I get it." Phoebe placed an open palm on the door, and some red magic energy came out of it, spreading throughout it until it met in the middle to create a magic circle. It moved clockwise for eight times until the sound of unlocking echoed through the room. "I try to gather as much intel as I can before... you know." The sorceress gave the door a slight push and it opened.
"You should've done that from the start." The older twin complained as he passed through it.
"It was all meticulously calculated." Dante smugly answered his twin, crossed arms over his chest. The sorceress gave him a confused look.
"No, it wa—" Her mouth was covered by his hand and she furrowed her eyebrows as she looked at him. She removed his hand from her face and said: "Anyway, we need a plan. I think I could try to bring Sparda back to his senses if I go inside his consciousness." They both went after Vergil, who completely ignored her.
"We need to discuss what we are going to do about our father, Dante."
The younger half demon and the sorceress eyed each other, confused.
"Your father, but I agree."
Nero approached them after getting some devil breakers from Nico, who stayed behind in the RV.
"Sooo, what are we doing?" He asked.
"We met this scorpion demon that told me that... Vergil's father's mind..." The older twin rolled his eyes at his remark. "... Is completely broken, so maybe we can focus on something that will restore him."
"Which means we're not killing him. Good." The young devil hunter cracked his neck by moving it to the sides.. "I'd hate to meet and kill my grandfather on the same day."
"And how are we doing this, brother? Because I've been in this situation and nothing helped me." The cold emanating from Vergil's posture, words and even his eyes would be enough to engulf the entire world into another ice age.
"Like I said, I can enter his consciousness and try to undo the damage."
There was an awkward silence after Phoebe's words as the older half demon kept staring into the eyes of his twin, completely ignoring her words. Was he doing it because he hated her? Is that how women who have men as their bosses feel on every single day of work? The sorceress unfortunately didn't have an answer. She only grabbed Nero's wrist and looked at him.
"You can hear what I say, right? I'm not on mute or something?" Or maybe it was a plan to drive her crazy and prove a point.
"I can hear you just fine." He was just as confused as her. The boy decided to repeat what she had just said. "Phoebe can enter his consciousness and try to undo the damage on his mind..."
"Good to see that, unlike your uncle, you actually can use your brain." He grinned provocatively as he watched his twin rolling his eyes. "Dante and I will distract him as the witch works."
"I have a fucking name!" The redhead yelled, although she thought it would be in vain since Vergil had been ignoring her.
However, he did something worse: "Brother, could you please tame your mate?"
The other three people in the room stared at him with tilted heads and an arched eyebrow. To be honest, Phoebe already considered the whole idea behind the mate thing pretty offensive. Marking someone to make that person yours for the rest of their lives was something pretty disturbing, and thankfully, Dante agreed with that. But he managed to make it even worse by saying that she should be tamed.
Nero refused to say anything, but he was legitimately worried about how his father had treated his mother, whoever she was.
"How the hell did you make Nero?" The younger twin sounded like he was teasing, but deep down he really was curious. By his math, his twin had lost his virginity before him even though he seemed to dislike women.
"Please don't answer that." The youngest man in the room said with full sincerity.
"Anyway, just pretend to like women for five minutes, okay?"
"I do like women... When they know their place." Vergil looked at the sorceress with the corner of his eyes, disgust written all over her face.
"You know, Freud would've loved to have you as one of his patients." Phoebe placed one index finger on her chin and stared at his curiously.
"What do you mean by that?" The older half demon pronounced each word dangerously slow.
"That you have mommy issues."
Nero noticed a strange gleam in his father's eyes and hurried to his side, grabbing his hand and making him sheathe the katana he had been slowly unsheathing.
"How about we focus on saving my grandfather, and then all of you can go to therapy together? God knows you need it!" Had him known that being a member of the Sparda family would be so tiring, he would've preferred that Dante had never told him anything.
"You keep an eye on Pheebs while your old man and I distract our own old man." The legendary devil hunter tapped his nephew on his shoulder as he and his brother left.
"I'm sorry, but why do I get the guard duty?" Nero asked as he looked at the woman with a raised eyebrow.
"Someone has to. Once I get inside his consciousness, I won't be able to move my body." Phoebe looked into his eyes for a few seconds, making him uncomfortable. It felt like she was trying to read his soul. "Are you okay with all this?"
He blinked twice, confused. "I don't follow."
"You know, suddenly finding out where you come from and then all of your family shit hitting you in the head all at once." She brought a hand to her chin, still staring at him. "I feel bad we didn't get to take you to Disney World as a child and things like that."
"... It wasn't your job."
"I know... But my dream was to become the cool aunt one day." She grinned mischievously as she continued: "But apparently I just managed to become the bitchy aunt."
"Oh, c'mon!" He frowned, making her laugh. "Let's just go, already." Nero started to walk away, trying to hide the blush on his cheeks. She followed right after, still chuckling.
