Notes:
merendinoemiliano - actually, I have no plans to include Mundus in this story. Maybe in a sequel... Sorry.

Chapter 12

"Isn't dad taking too long?"

Eva was cooking – or at least trying to – when both her kids had decided to interrogate her. They stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, both their heads tilted to the side as they stared at her. Those moments when they acted exactly like each other were extremely rare.

"I already told you, boys, he's on a job and he'll be back when it's done, like always." The blonde had no idea how many times she had rehearsed that lie in her mind before actually facing her twins. Sparda wouldn't be back, but she wouldn't tell them for now.

"He never took this long." Vergil pouted with his chin against the top of the balcony.

"This one is pretty far away from here." She smiled, using all her mental strength for it to seem legit. They could never know about the tightening feeling in her chest. "Why won't the two of you play and let me get lunch ready?"

"Vergil only cares about his books..." Dante sounded disappointed as he leaned his right cheek on the counter.

"Well, today he is playing with you." Eva turned her eyes to her older son. "Right, Vergil?"

He rolled his eyes. "Seriously?"

"You're the older one. Spend some time with your brother."

Vergil sighed and turned his head to look at his twin. "Fine." He rolled his eyes again as he saw his brother light up like a Christmas tree.

Back to the present, Phoebe squeezed Dante's hand reassuringly as he seemed to have a lot on his head at the moment. Neither of them had moved yet.

"Do you understand my point now?" Vergil was the first one to speak up after several minutes.

"I do." The younger twin muttered. "But Pheebs is right, there's nothing else we can do."

"I realize that." His voice sounded even colder than before, although there was something different in his eyes. He was still trying to make sense of the memory he had just seen. "Let us go, we still need to put father out of his misery."

"Glad that we finally agree on something." Dante was back to his usual sarcastic tone and nodded for the sorceress to take them back.

Once they returned, Nero saw with the corner of his eyes that their bodies were moving again as he blocked one attack from Sparda by holding his own sword horizontally. He frowned as he turned his head to look at them.

"Thanks for remembering that you had left me!" The boy frowned even harder as he saw his uncle laughing.

"What? Can't even handle a good night story from your grandpa, kid?" The smug across his face was enough to make his nephew regret not hitting him harder back in Fortuna.

"If you're having trouble, you need more training than I thought." Vergil analyzed as he unsheathed his katana and approached his son.

"What?! I didn't mean it like that... You know what?" He used more strength in his arms to make Sparda take a few steps back. "Fuck you both!"

"Language." The older twin said as a warning, causing Nero to raise an eyebrow as the legendary devil hunter burst out in laughter.

"So now you just decided to be my father?!" Nero yelled. It was impressive how both sons of Sparda could be so annoying in their own ways.

"I think you're a few years too late, Vergil." Dante teased as he summoned his own sword and triggered.

Father and son triggered as well and all three of them charged against the Dark Knight. The demon blocked Nero's sword, but the young devil hunter managed to hit a punch with one of his spectral blue arms. Vergil dealt some blows with his impressively quick moves with Yamato and the younger twin hit his back with a horizontal slash.

Sparda didn't seem bothered by those attacks and hit his descendants with the back of his hand, sending them flying. Phoebe teleported to his side and attacked him with a telekinetic blast to get his attention, once she succeeded, she teleported behind him and attacked with a stream of flames. The older twin came flying and used Judgement Cut on the bigger demon, being followed by his brother, who used Stinger against him.

The Dark Knight made one big movement with his arm, slashing his twin sons and sending them against the ground. Nero took the opportunity to grab Sparda with both his spectral arms and smashed him against the floor, his father and uncle quickly got back on their feet and thrusted Yamato and Devil Sword Dante on each side of his chest. The youngest devil hunter jumped in the air, drew the Red Queen from his back and plunged it in his stomach.

The demon raised his hand in the air and stared into the ceiling. "Eva..."

Dante and Phoebe exchanged looks for a moment, a silent question in his eyes. She nodded, making him comfortable to say: "I'm sorry, father... She's gone."

A tear rolled down Sparda's cheek as he slowly brought his hand back down. He closed his eyes and within a few seconds his body started to disappear, becoming a bunch of small yellow lights that danced around the room. Nero looked into his father's eyes and could swear he could see something in them: feelings. It soon vanished as he looked at his twin.

"What do you think happened to him?"

"You tell me." The younger twin shrugged. "You're the one who has been through the same thing and came back, right?"

The older twin was lost in thought for a good while, until he finally unsheathed Yamato again and slashed into the air, opening a portal.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?!" Dante called out.

"I'm going to avenge our father."

"May I remind you how badly you facing Mundus alone turned out to be the last time?!" His brother always tried his best to look like the smart twin, but sometimes he could be the dumbest person in the entire world.

Phoebe massaged her temples, she knew Vergil would be walking straight into a trap, however, she also knew he would never listen to her, and even worse: Dante would feel obligated to go with him. The sorceress took a deep breath and decided to do something that would hurt her ego in an indescribable way.

"There's just one thing I don't understand and I think you could explain before leaving." The legendary devil hunter arched an eyebrow at the way she was talking, her voice was high-pitched and she moved her mouth as if she was chewing gum. "What's Mundus' angle?"

The oldest son of Sparda furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"I don't get how this whole thing was meant to torture Sparda..."

Okay, there was something wrong. "Did you hit your head?" Dante whispered in her ear and she placed her palm on his face, delicately pushing him away.

"Because there was nothing of him left..." He muttered to himself in a pensive way. It took him some time but he eventually reached the conclusion the redhead wanted him to: "It's a trap. Mundus wants us to go after him."

The younger twin finally realized what was going on and held back a grin. She was doing the dumb girl act. "Well, I wonder what we do now, then."

"We can't play his game, we wait until he slips up."

"So... we do nothing?" Nero asked.

"Precisely." Vergil closed the portal.

The ground started to shake. Without Sparda, the fake Temen-ni-gru no longer served a purpose and was about to fall down.

"Holy shit, Nico!"

The boy ran to the direction they had left her and the couple followed him. The older twin stayed behind and opened another portal, this time to the base of the tower.

"I thought you were gonna leave me here!" She yelled from the driver's seat. The three hurried inside the RV and sat down as she started the engine.

"Oh, c'mon, that's what you think of us?!" Dante teased.

"Oh, no, you're fine. But those two..." She pointed at her friend and at the redhead. "They can't be trusted."

"Hey!" They protested in unison.

"Where are you driving to, anyway?!" Phoebe yelled.

"I'm getting us outta here! In case you haven't noticed, this place is falling on our head and I don't want it to be my tomb!" For the second time since Nero had met her, she wasn't taking her eyes from the road, he was almost proud.

"Or I can just do this..."

The gunsmith and her friend widened their eyes as they watched the redhead move her hand, about to snap her fingers. Dante could've sworn he saw them both yelling a long "no" in slow-motion as the sorceress teleported them to ground-level. Both youngest people in the RV immediately vomited after, Nero's puke falling all over Phoebe's boots.

"Cazzo..." She swore as she looked at the damage, nothing that magic couldn't fix, but still.

"The look on your face." He pointed at his nephew's face, who was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, as he laughed.

"How do you endure this?!" The boy frowned, the redhead had once mentioned it took some getting used to, but it was clearly a lie.

"Years of practice." He winked.

Lady and Trish came running and stormed inside the vehicle, panting as they finally stopped.

"Hit that pedal! There's a huge pile of demons about to fall on our heads!" The blonde yelled as she pointed towards the fake Temen-ni-gru. Everybody else put their heads outside the windows to check and saw the huge amount of demons becoming some sort of tsunami.

"Could you guys finish a job in a way which the aftermath doesn't threaten to kill us?!" Nico yelled as she hit the gas. She picked a cigarette and held it with her lips as she searched for the lighter, god knows how much the gunsmith needed that to not freak out. Phoebe snapped her fingers and lit it up for her. "Thanks." She mumbled, a little calmer.

"I wonder where my asshole of a brother went." Dante still had his head outside the window, scanning the area. In a few seconds there he was, fighting some demons that had already detached themselves from the structure. "Hey! Are you trying to get yourself killed again?!" He placed his hands around his mouth to enhance the sound.

Vergil raised an eyebrow, there was so much noise around him he had no idea what his brother was yelling about. Thankfully, his twin knew him enough to realize that.

"I said:" He took a deep breath before continuing. "Are you trying to get yourself killed again?!"

The older son of Sparda just pointed at his own ear and shrugged, signaling he couldn't hear a thing. Nero rolled his eyes and also put his head outside the window.

"Look up!" He used his index finger to point up, and his father seemed to have finally understood. In a few seconds a portal opened inside the RV and Vergil walked through it, sitting between his twin and the redhead, unshakable as always.

"Is that...?" He looked down with disgust as he noticed the pool of vomit under his shoes.

"Yeah... Sorry." His son had no idea why he was embarrassed, however, that didn't change the fact that he was as he scratched the bridge of his nose.

"Aren't you gonna clean up this mess?" It could've been an innocent question to any of the people inside the vehicle, regardless of gender. The problem is that Vergil specifically eyed all the three women who weren't on the wheel as he formed the words.

The girls exchanged angry looks between themselves until Phoebe decided to conjure up a mop in her hands and handed it to the half demon.

"Be our guest." She smiled and said sarcastically, making him roll his eyes.

"I know how to mop a floor, I just don't understand why I have to do it when—"

"For the love you had for our father, stop talking." Dante interrupted him and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"I regret saying that Dante doesn't know how to treat a woman, Vergil is definitely worse." Lady pondered as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"See? I always told you two to be glad for having me around." He grinned smugly as he placed his forearms behind his head to lean against them.

The girls were about to come up with a clever answer to that statement when Nico suddenly hit the brakes, almost sending them flying through the windshield.

"Aha! We've made it! Score to the best driver of Fortuna!" She confidently said as she pointed a thumb to herself. To be honest, everybody else inside the RV had forgotten about the huge wave of demons thanks to all the talking.

"Holy shit, that's a lot of demons." Nero said as a matter of fact as he looked through the mirror. Some of the creatures were already crawling their way from the place although most of them stayed. "Ready for some cleaning up job, guys?"

"Always." Trish smugly said as she opened the door, her heart jumping when she looked down, where the ground was supposed to be there was a huge way down with lots of rocks and a sea. "Nico... You parked on the edge of a cliff!"

"What?! It was the best I could do! Next time drag your skinny blonde ass over here and drive for yourself!"

"That's what happens when you let women behind the wheel." Vergil said in a stern tone with all the sincerity in his heart to his son, whose only response was a facepalm.

Nico turned to stare at him from over her shoulder, a dissatisfied look on her face as the cigarette hung from her mouth, almost falling. Trish had a murderous look in her eyes, Lady wondered what were the odds of him killing her if she shot him, and Phoebe hid her face between her knees and screamed all of her frustration away.

Notes - part 2: Sooo... One more chapter to go. And an epilogue. But I'm happy to announce that I'm going to write a sequel, but it'll be more in the lines of a slice-of-life thing.