I'm very sorry to say this but, this story will be discontinued.
It's just things happened, and I wish this isn't the case, but it cannot be helped.
Thank you so much to everyone who loved my work and followed it all the way through.
It has been my dream to write a story about Vergil, give him depth, make him find love with Lady, and give him his own little family.
In a way, my dream did come true. It was a great journey.
So I chose to upload the drafts that I had left for the last time.
Chapter 37 ~ As Above, So Below
The night sky was arid and dreary, dreaming all its own starless. An oppressive whisk of evil hung heavy in the air as the hours stretched on. From the office doors came the devil in his straightened clothes, prepared in his entirety to kill whatever need be killed wherever it might be lurking, and the daemon of his recent adventures slowly touched upon on the ground on contemplating wings, his face held in perplexity. Manah was always a methodical one, certainly a strangely humanistic cut above the remainder of the filth. He looked upon Vergil with deep thought and the swordsman knew what he was thinking.
"So," the Devil began. "What do you think?"
"Clearly, they're in motion," the beast replied, motioning with his hand at the once-destroyed office space. "They've begun another step."
"And you know what we must do next?"
"Aye," Manah replied. "The only thing we can do at present."
Vergil stared ahead and wondered the suggestion. He nodded to himself, "find them."
"Precisely, Slayer," the beast said, smoke of a cigar heavy on his breath. "A rat lives, thrives upon the measly oafs that wonder about and the scattered trash, targeting all that oppose them, even the few that threaten to expose their existence. And a rat only lives one place when it does so."
Vergil looked up at the suddenly clouded sky, "below the ground."
The beast smirked and nodded his head, "beneath our very feet. Scrounging the surface for whatever it may before retreating to its hovel."
"A fair possibility," said the dark slayer. "This damned cult is a consistent thorn in my side. To know where they are— beneath this sullen earth— well . . . that just helps to put a smile on this old face." And the left side of Vergil's lips tugged upwards creating a sinister smirk on his devilish face, casting a spell of fear to eyes that dare look his way. "I don't often enjoy quashing rats, it's a common fool's job usually. In this particular case however, I do believe that I'm willing to make an exception."
Manah's own eyes shimmered red, pleased to see the boy's bloodlust rise back to the surface.
"Now you're speaking my language, boy," and he looked on out at the tainted lands, past the modest skyscrapers of modern work. "I know just where to go."
So began the race. They cast a spell, Vergil speaking Enochian to the foundations of his building bidding that all within would remain impervious to harm so long as they stayed within, and when Manah's arcane work was through with, the two set off. Any semblance of an ordinary night left evaporated as they went, unnatural calls whisked on the breeze past their faces, past their insistent ears. The brownstone buildings of the borough they passed through grew far more angular than they ever had before, drenched in twisted casualty, the summoning of a great and powerful old one warping their world above, so below the procession of darkness had been of a momentary lapse in attention, and the darkness that hung on all things made itself apparent. The people that walked about through the scarred city's streets at this ungodly hour seemed offensive and dangerous; the drunken mailman that walked out of a bar, the homeless dullards that hobbled around strung out on meth, the chill on the wind and the blackness of every buildings innards— none of which were illuminated, as though all light had simply been suppressed and absorbed by something somewhere.
"You feel what I feel?" Vergil asked, his words calm but urgent.
The beast nodded in reply, "There's a touch of evil in the air, all around us."
Neither one of them were the type to let much get by them, and right that moment, every single fathomable detail was a blaring red siren in their ears and eyes.
Onward dutiful soldiers they trudged, knowingly to their destination, where they might enter on the outskirts and power forth as they saw fit through whatever lurked beneath.
At every street corner, the farther they plunged to the depths of city limits, the more it became an apparent feeling that eyes were upon them. Manah ceased his stride in the midst of the road and glanced at the inquisitive slayer beside him. Vergil knew that look by now, something speaking to him that the next hurdle might be the worst. The beast continued regardless and the slayer followed loyally. Trust was an odd word he'd not yet come to rationalize as having become something he associated with the Morning Star, yet there seemed to be an unspoken shift in this regard between them.
The city's barer trappings now surrounded them, red lights peeking from short stubby structures and infrequent cars, some still left torched and abandoned, yet to be cleared by any road crew, and onward still, the cemeteries laid. They were distant things, disconnected from the concrete jungle of before, a troubling reminder of those lost for those who suffered, and now much fuller with bodies ever since the recent troubles that beset them all. The two felt the silence fall all around them. Sleeping souls all around them. Peace and serenity, finality. Holy ground.
Soon sullied by imperceptible hands. Evil and intangible.
The sleeping began to wake, wake from a slumber not meant to be broken.
From the ground below, moans and wails, shrieks and scratching came.
Coffins broke apart and dirt separated as the decaying rose, returned by an unknown force, screeching to those who'd listen that they were living still and couldn't stand it. Crows circled overhead, flocks roving in perpendicular waves across the violated sanctity of burials, unnatural in their patterns, belching squawks like the chorus of hell; the two's heavy boots plodding over damp ground regardless of all the distractions set before them.
The dead were not their concern, simply the ones beneath who'd caused their suffering.
Through browning trees dying out of season, Vergil followed Manah to an old sewer outlet. It was old— very old. Something that looked to be from another era altogether. It was built into a small hillside, decadent by its fashion, overtly classical and decadent in its construction, as though ripped from the slums of the Roman Empire itself. Below the decorated archway was a metal gate, locked up tightly with a chain. The land that surrounded the place was still touched by winter, grass dead beneath black sky, plants withered and trees raggedly skin and bones. This was the right direction, Vergil knew.
The chain was undone easily with a touch of his steel. When the gate swung open, the stench of death met them.
Foul. Vergil always knew the sewers were a vile place, but blessed was he who maintained in such horrid smells.
Beneath the waste of humankind was another scent, something far newer and unmarked by decay.
Blood. Blood and seed, the seed of animals, the blood of sacrifice, and the unmistakable glimmer of human sweat; items were contained upon a chalice sitting all upon an altar to the squalid prayers of the unsaintly old one screeched unto the firmament. The source of this evil, word slowly being made flesh. The demonic two powered down the brick-lined halls. Toward the twisted center, they found torches on the walls lighting the way after so long, and standing in wait for them appeared a man cloaked within scarlet robes, vorpal blade held in hand.
The devil growled and stepped forward to meet their opposition.
"Be careful boy," the beast warned from behind him. "We don't know what the paladins of Argosax's worship are capable of."
"No," the man in red before them said, looking up at them with flaming eyes and skeletal features beneath pale flesh drably held to the frame by little more than pasty blood. "You do not."
Wordless, Vergil decided he would take his chances. Katana drawn, he readied himself with rapt focus, frosty blue eyes glaring down the monk's brave but foolish stance against him.
Swords clashed, the devil grinding his enemy to a halt with calm resolution. Sparks danced and struggles seared the walls, the slayer shoving the man back against the wall and burying a gauntleted fist into the stone with hatred, missing the man's head by inches, vorpal edge striking his shoulder but meeting resistance at bone; Vergil batted the man through the air with a solitary swipe of his katana. Blood stuck to him, refusing to leave severed veins as he tore metal from wound, flesh healing instantly, thread reconnecting itself by demonic will, and blade cracking in half within his hands as he stalked forward to the pitiful specimen so arrogantly seeking to challenge them.
From the darkness where the man had gone, crimson fire spat at the slayer but did little to him.
Another robed figure, alike to his brethren, stepped out beside the thrown cultist, and together they beset Vergil with stabs from knives and magic conjured by hand.
Yamato met arcane flame, swung a million miles an hour in a windmill-like fashion, repelling swiftly the borrowed power back down the tunnel towards its sender.
Human form crumpled and burned, screamed and floundered, devil's steps closing in on them as the swordsman stood over them and plunged blade through throat, taking heads of the two of them, and leaving them to bleed lifeless as he walked on with Manah, unhindered. The torches lit their path but grew less frequent as the crushing weight of evil still threatened to swallow them, whatever conjuring within this system far stronger than those two wretches. Vergil knew there would be more, much more.
None too happy was he when he heard those footsteps insist on drawing nearer.
...
...
..
This here is a section about Lady's ability to predict the future. Since Lady is a descendent of a witch..Her powers appeared very early in the story but she didn't realize it.
She felt heat drench her like the breath of hell. Why? she couldn't quite understand that. She opened her eyes. Lady was sitting in a field of green wheat, the stalks bent lazily in the wind and she marveled at the grains. Each one was distinct and though different from the others still perfectly formed. She ran her hand along the edge to feel the combination of rough and smooth. The heat then subsided for some reason and she felt cool air kiss her face. She gazed upward to feel the warm light of the midsummer day.
Something else however felt odd. She touched her hair and it was longer than usual. She had black strands cascading down below her shoulders.
"Mommy?" She heard a small voice call out.
"What?" Lady whispered as a sense of uneasiness crept across her.
She saw a small girl with a silver mane flowing in the wind, her black dress turning pale skin more noticeable in the sea of green. The little girl stood apart from her and stared at her somehow familiar smile, a reflection of another from a time long-passed.
"What are you doing here? Come join us," the girl chuckled. "Daddy's waiting for you."
The huntress's brain stuttered for a moment, every part of her pausing as her thoughts played catch-up.
Winter came, cold clutch washing frigid sense over her shoulders. She stared down at the girl now closer to her and standing closer than she remembered. Blue and red eyes looked back at her and she knew they were own inherited.
"Are you—!?" she said. It must be a dream." My daughter!"
Reality wouldn't sanction such an occurrence as this, a daughter with the slayer out of the time of conception. There wasn't a thing she could think of that would help her overcome the strange pull she suddenly felt or whatever it was she was feeling physically in her soul. She felt her heart nearly bolt from her throat.
Old eyes peered out from behind a cherry blossom tree draped in black. Vergil.
A cry of the black shattered illusory peace and the heat from the start blazed across her as rivers of liquid fire poured alongside them, feet burning against the basaltic rock below that spoke its name, the name of pain, Avernus, and therefrom behind her own shoulder came the same old voice.
The voice of her father, "You cannot forget me, child. I will always be here."
She gritted her teeth and screamed back at him, turning 'round and punching out at the darkness.
A hand caught her fist and she awoke through blurriness to see Vergil over her.
"Nice throw," he said with an eyebrow raised.
Huffing and panting vigorously panicked, she laid her head back where it rested, sweat coating her brow as she slowly relaxed. "S-Sorry," she said.
"It's alright," he replied. "Are you okay?"
"I just—" she started, but no words came to her. She closed her eyes and felt her pulse. "I'm just fearful now, that's all. I've got a fear of dying mighty strong these days. I think that's cause even though there's this whole bullshit about Argosax, I'm just . . . happy. And I don't want anything to take that away."
He stared at her frustrated face and nodded sympathetically,
"I know that feeling, certainly. We all have a choice of what to do with the time given to us, so don't dwell on how long it'll last. I lost a decade and my brother to my own greed because I was just obsessed with trying to somehow undo my mother's death."
Deep down he was glad that she opened up to him for once.
"That—" she began. "That's a hard thing. How do you live with that?"
"Every day," he replied. "Just one step at a time."
His future daughter with Lady, her name is Eva Rose.
Thank you, everyone.
This story will always be here for everyone to read.
Anyone who wants to know the ending I planned for this story, let me know.