AN: Thank you all SO much for the reviews! I'm glad everyone likes the story so far, I'll try my best to keep up with expectations. Sorry for the delay for this chapter, college kicked my butt. D:
CHAPTER THREE
Needless to say, their first night together as a reunited family was not a particularly happy one. Dante was the only one who slept well. Preferring to grieve alone, Sparda had locked himself in Eva's mausoleum and spent the rest of the night there with only a candle by his side. Many levels above, Vergil still laid awake in his bed, shifting his body aimlessly and staring at the ceiling with eyes that seemed more demon than man.
It was strange, really. He supposed he should be... happy to have his brother back, but the pain of losing their mother and the trauma of saving Dante from the brink of death more than nullified his excitement. He felt... confused now, neither sad nor joyful. Was the companionship of a brother worth the warmth of a mother? Was he really in need of either when he spent most of his life with neither?
Vergil suddenly sat up in bed. Something tingled in the back of his mind, an instinctive connection that that felt both foreign and familiar at the same time. Icy grief suddenly twisted in his gut, and it took him a minute to realize that the feeling wasn't his. At least, not entirely. Dante!
Acting on reflex, the youth kicked off his covers and sprinted down the dim hallway until he reached Dante's door. The protective spells Sparda had placed upon the wood yielded instantly to their creator's son, and Vergil pushed through the open doorway with less grace than he would've liked.
His brother was, for lack of a better word, flailing in bed. The silk covers and pillows that had been tucked so carefully around him were now strewn about in a massive, chaotic mess. If the bed hadn't been enchanted, Vergil would have worried about it snapping in half by now.
He's dreaming, the older twin realized instantly. "Dante!" Vergil approached the bed with rigid caution. He had incredibly fast reflexes, but even he had a hard time catching the other's flailing limbs. He missed his first grab and almost got smacked in the head. "DANTE!"
A barrage of strange noises was coming from his brother's throat as the hunter whimpered, growled and cried out into the air. He seemed to be struggling desperately against and for something at the same time, and the only coherent word out of his mouth was "Mom".
Vergil swallowed against the sudden dryness in his throat. He must be dreaming of her last battle, he thought numbly as he finally caught one of Dante's thrashing hands.
Even in sleep, his brother fought against his hold and Vergil quickly leaned his weight into the hunter's chest to keep him from moving. "Dante! Wake up!" he hissed, trying not to damage the other's bandages, "You're dreaming!"
The other's body gave a violent jerk underneath him and Vergil knew then that his voice had broken through. Eyes as blue as his own suddenly blinked open at him with wild and drowsy confusion.
"Ver...?"
Vergil was momentarily speechless. He hadn't been called by that nickname in years. "It's me," he confirmed after a minute pause. Feeling awkward, he shifted himself off his brother's body and absently fixed the collar of his pajamas. "You were dreaming," he added after Dante continued to stare at him. When he got no response, he sighed and got up to leave.
"Stay." The desperate, broken voice that called out to him sounded nothing like the hunter that had tried to attack him just hours ago.
Vergil spun slowly on his bare heels. For a second, he wondered if Dante was truly awake, then decided that it didn't matter. Staying certainly couldn't hurt, and its not like he was going to get much sleep tonight anyways. It's only because I have nothing else to do, he told himself firmly. Silently, the older twin sat back down on the bed with stiff, awkward movements. Powerful fingers darted out and clung to his sleeve for dear life, as if the one holding on to him was afraid he would simply walk away and vanish.
"Stay," Dante whispered again, the drowsiness in his tone making Vergil seriously doubt he had ever awoken in the first place.
His older brother sighed and set his free hand on his twin's head. "Go to sleep, Dante," he whispered, resigning himself to a long night. "I'm not going anywhere."
The wraiths were hard creatures to surprise, but surprised they were when Sparda's true form suddenly barged out of the mausoleum and soared through the castle like Mundus himself was his tail. Using powers that would've rendered Vergil speechless with awe, the ancient demon phased through the last wall in his path and melted into the darkness of Dante's room, desperate to answer the primal call to protect his nestlings.
It took him a split second to realize that there was no danger. Dante was still and quiet now, the worst of his nightmares having already passed. Vergil was, oddly enough, curled up at one end of the bed, one arm caught in his brother's death grip and the other wrapped gingerly around his own knees. He seemed extremely uncomfortable about being there but was, perhaps, too polite to pull away.
No, that wasn't it. Vergil was rarely polite. He was curt and well-mannered at best, but rarely gracious to anyone but his own father.
Sparda would have blinked if he had eyelids. This was... unexpected, though certainly not unwelcome.
Smiling to himself, he silently merged into the shadows around him, content with watching his children from afar without notifying them of his presence. Vergil glanced up briefly and searched the room with keen, glowing eyes, but even his sharp senses couldn't detect the demon lord's presence.
My apologies for intruding, Sparda chuckled to himself, It seems like my interference is not needed here. With a breath of air, he was gone again, making his way deep into the bowels of the castle with stealth that would have made the wraiths proud.
Since demons rarely slept, half-demons were only light sleepers at best. Unsurprisingly, when Dante pulled out of the coma-like state that had been induced by a combination of exhaustion, emotional trauma and Vergil's orbs, he felt as if the entire world had simply partied away on his forehead. He peeked open his eyes and instantly shut them when bright firelight flooded his vision. Once he felt like he wasn't going to puke, the hunter dared to open them again and tried desperately to focus his swimming vision on the shadowy forms beside him.
A white-haired, purple-coated figure drifted into view, and for a second, Dante thought his brother had simply tossed on another strange, outdated outfit. He quickly realized his mistake.
"...Dad?" The word was strange and foreign on his tongue, but the sound of it made the figure's face break into a handsome, serene smile. Holy shit. He hasn't aged a day. Not that Dante expected him to, but it was always baffling to be confronted with proof that his father was not human by any stretch of the word.
"How do you feel, son?" That voice... Dante faintly remembered being terrified of how that voice could go from smooth and elegant to loud and booming in much less time than it took for a child to hide a weapon he wasn't supposed to play with. Not that he would know, of course.
Working his lips around his suddenly speechless mouth, the young hunter gave a tiny, albeit weak, shrug. "Like shit," he answered honestly, and was rewarded by a deep chuckle from the demon lord.
"Eva raised you well," he said quietly, "I knew no son of mine would have gone down that easily."
Dante felt his throat tighten. Despite being a demon hiding behind a human form, Sparda could be surprisingly expressive, especially with those deep, sapphire eyes of his. The affection in his gaze made Dante want to curl up like a child. Dad...DAD. A part of him had always cursed Sparda for leaving, but another part took great comfort in knowing that his powerful father was still out there somewhere, making the world a little safer for the children who still had nightmares about the monsters under their beds. Seeing absolute, definitive proof that his father was alive momentarily robbed Dante of coherent thoughts.
"...You were worried," he blurted out. You didn't forget me.
Sparda's eyes softened. "Yes. Terribly," he answered with just as much honesty, "Every day of every year."
Vergil appeared from behind his father and approached Dante with a wrapped bundle in his arms. The younger twin's eyes lit up once he caught sight of Rebellion's unmistakable handle sticking out from the end.
"We cleaned it for you," Sparda said with a twinkle in his eyes. "On the other hand, Ebony and Ivory were spotless -you must have taken good care of them." He had left many of his favorite weapons with Eva the night of their departure; Ebony, Ivory and Rebellion would go to Dante on his thirteenth birthday, while Luce and Umbra would stay in Eva's care. It was unquestionable that the woman would need all the help she could get to keep a son of Sparda safe and hidden.
The guns weren't enough, a small part of Sparda reminded him, making him inwardly wince with guilt. Outwardly, he managed a small smile as he watched Dante prop himself up on his elbows and snatch his weapons from Vergil's arms, obviously eager to see for himself if they were alright.
Rebellion, Ebony and Ivory tumbled out first, as shiny as they had been on the day that Dante first got them. Cracking a smile for the first time in days, the hunter reached again into the bundle and pulled out his newly repaired clothes. All the rips and tears from the fight with the wolves were now strangely gone, replaced by a powerful glow of magic that coursed through the fibers of his pants and through the leather of his coat. He lifted his eyebrows at Sparda and Vergil, the former of which smiled gently at him and the latter of which seemed bored by the whole ordeal.
Surprised that there was still more in the package, Dante reached in again and suddenly paled. His shaking fingers pulled out the cold and heavy forms of Luce and Umbra. He stared at them with wide, uncertain eyes, turning them over and over again to make sure they were, indeed, his mother's guns.
"They're yours now, if you want them," Sparda explained quietly, "I gave up my possession of them a long time ago."
Dante's hands curled around the hilt of the guns until his knuckles were white as bone. He wasn't crying, per se, but even Vergil could sense that he was close. "...I want to see her," he said quietly, the tone of his voice making no room for arguments.
Sparda opened his mouth to argue -Dante was far from ready, physically or mentally- but his elder son made the decision for him.
Vergil squared his shoulders and stepped up. "Come. We'll take you."
Properly dressed but still limping, Dante leaned heavily on Vergil as they made their way deep into the heart of the castle. Neither twin spoke a word as they followed Sparda's steady gait down numerous staircases and across multiple bridges. Dante tried to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, but his attention was distracted by the sheer size and scale of his new home. It seemed like a bizarre mix of a castle and a mountain, with every chamber supported by massive pillars that disappeared into untouched rockbed. The decorations were elaborate and surprisingly old-fashioned, and it seemed like Sparda had managed to collect ornaments and furniture from various centuries of human history.
Demons always did like shiny things, Dante thought dryly to himself. He was ashamed to feel a wave of homesickness. As beautiful as this place was, he didn't belong in a castle -he belonged in an apartment with pizza, a TV and leaky pipes.
He grew ill at ease as they passed through what he supposed were 'normal' castle chambers into dark, eerily-beautiful caves that lacked any semblance of human touch or activity. Massive violet crystals jutted out of the cavern walls and the caves themselves were carved into jagged, jet-black stone. In his human form, Sparda seemed out of place here, but Dante had no doubt that the demon's true form would have fit in just fine.
Strangely, there was an elevator illuminated by only an oil lamp waiting for them at the end of a particularly long hallway. Dante watched nervously as light from above disappeared as they sank downward. "So deep," he muttered to himself. No hunter liked to be trapped underground -underground belonged to the demons and meant a far smaller chance of escape for anyone trying to reach the surface.
"Father wants to keep Mother safe," Vergil answered, in a quick, defensive sort of way.
Dante gave him an odd look. Vergil seemed so uncertain when referring to the woman that was the mother of them both. The younger twin wasn't sure what to make of it, but before he could question it further, his brother pulled them both forward with a powerful tug of his arms. "We're there."
Still silent, Sparda lead them to a magnificently carved door which was also carved out of stone. He set his gloved hands on a pair of dragon heads that jutted out where the doorknobs should be. There was a familiar crackle of magic and the door creaked open by itself, allowing the first glimpses of the room inside. Though vast, it was mainly undecorated and had been carved straight into the side of the mountain, with white marble and jet black stone mixing in a chaotic mess across its walls. Dressed in a blood red dress she would have loved in life, Eva had been laid carefully in the middle of the chamber, on a beautifully-carved altar that seemed to be made of purple stone.
A strangled sound escaped Dante's lips.
Vergil flinched at the noise and found his brother's weight suddenly gone from his shoulders, leaving him holding nothing but thin hair. Dante surged forward and fell to his knees next ot his mother's body, clutching at her with hands that were shaking so badly that he couldn't grasp a lock of her hair. It didn't take long for his loud, angry sobs to fill the chamber.
Vergil stepped forward in protest, but a strong hand held him back.
Sparda shook his head sadly. "Let him be." This was Dante's moment of mourning, not theirs.
His older son made an annoyed sound and turned to leave. He paused at the doorway. "Father. Spar with me?"
Sparda raised an eyebrow but nodded in consent. With no mother to pamper him, Vergil had grown up with the idea that the only way to deal with anger and frustration was to fight it out. Sparda had left the belief unchallenged; after all, in the demon world, that was often how it was. Still... He couldn't help thinking that Eva would disapprove.
They sensed Dante's entrance before they heard him. No doubt the wraiths directed him here when he had no more tears to shed and grew curious about where his father and brother had gone.
Looking ashen and exhausted, the young hunter curled up miserably near the door and looked at his surroundings with wary surprise. This chamber was massive. Completely devoid of decorations, it had been turned into a battle stadium and still bore marks of massive explosions and blades slicing the walls. Sparda and Vergil occupied the central space with the former clearly dominated the scene, his true form glowing with sheer power as he towered over his son with wings outstretched.
The demon lord could see Vergil hesitating with Dante's intrusion. "Distractions will leave you dead," he growled, his true voice echoing around the chamber and rumbling the very ground his sons walked on.
Vergil snapped to attention and readopted his battle position, Yamato tense and posed in his back hand. His front hand held the sword's sheath in front of him, more out of habit than anything. They both knew that an enchanted sheath would do nothing if his father truly meant to hurt him.
"Good. Shall we continue?"
On the sidelines, Dante couldn't help but stare. He couldn't remember his father's true form, and while he had to admit that it was not the biggest form he had ever seen, it certainly was one of the most impressive.
Vaguely humanoid but barely so, Sparda looked like the stuff made from nightmares. He had a mouth full of pearly fangs, two slit-like eyes that glowed red and a pair of deadly-looking horns that looked like they could ram through a car with no problem. He had three pairs of insectoid wings that grew out of his upper back and reptilian skin that had scales so large, they formed armored plates over his torso and shoulders. His arms finished in thick claws that could tear through metal and his feet were shaped like a bull's, with canine-like feet that ended in monstrous, two-toed hooves.
Strange, Dante thought to himself. He never once questioned what sort of demon species Sparda was, but it certainly wasn't one that he saw wandering around. Distantly, he wondered if his father was the last one of his kind. That wouldn't surprise him in the least, but it made him feel ever sadder.
All thoughts suddenly flew from his mind as Vergil launched himself into battle. Dante had only ever seen himself, Eva and a few other demon hunters fight, and it rarely looked... well, elegant.
Vergil, however, made fighting an art form.
Using the broad, circular movements that reminded Dante of Asian martial arts, the older twin's speed was astounding. He slashed his sword faster than the eye could follow and the ear could hear, turning the very movement into a ball of crackling energy that moved like a thrown explosion. Judgment Cut after Judgment Cut sliced through the air, followed quickly by Vergil's battle cries and the delayed 'whoosh' of him phasing in and out of space. The half-demon's eyes glowed a brilliant blue as enchanted, crystalline swords formed out of thin air around him, shooting themselves at Sparda and shattering on contact.
Dante had never seen anything like it in his life. It never occurred to him that teleportation and creating things out of midair were skills that someone -especially someone with human blood- could learn. He had seen older, deadlier demons pull off such tricks, but to see his own brother performing them... Well, that was just unacceptable to Dante's pride.
His own training had been limited to learning moves from Eva and inventing his own while in the midst of battle. He picked up tricks here and there from older demon hunters, but for the most part, his mother and him worked alone. It was simply too dangerous to associate with many demon hunters, since any one of them could accidentally let slip that the son was Sparda was running around. That left Dante with few opportunities to spar anyone, since his supernatural strength would endanger every human he fought against.
Sparda and Vergil had no such limitations. Their inhuman strength and stamina made their battle every bit as fierce as any demon-hunting mission Dante had ever been on. Every wound inflicted was dully ignored and healed within a few seconds, so the two combatants hardly had to wait before crossing blades once more.
To the untrained eye, it seemed like they were truly trying to kill each other; Sparda landed quite a few blows to his son's flesh, but Vergil was always quick to return the favor. The half-demon seemed to be the aggressor in the fight, teleporting everywhere in a flurry of flashing blades and swinging limbs. His slender katana sang as it sliced through the air -what was its name, Yamato? Dante could vaguely remember it and how much Vergil loved the blade, but to see them both in action was something entirely new.
It soon became apparent that Sparda was very much in control of the situation. He hardly moved from one place to another, blocking Vergil's attacks effortlessly with a large broadsword -Force Edge, Dante recalled- and calling out suggestions over the clashing of their swords. His words were foreign and garbled to Dante's ears, and it took him a second to realize that his father and brother were conversing in the demon tongue.
That made Dante's blood run cold. He should've expected it, he supposed, but he had no love for the language of the devils. He only ever heard it being screamed at him while killing demons and he never associated it with anything good or remotely comprehensible.
Then the real surprise hit.
Trapped in a corner by one of Sparda's attacks, Vergil suddenly disappeared in a flash of blue-white light. Magic crackled through the air and danced off Dante's skin, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as he craned his neck to search for any sight of his brother.
A scaly, blue-skinned demon now stood in Vergil's place, hissing at Sparda with sharp fangs and a white head that vaguely resembled that of a cobra. Bat-like wings unfurled from the being's back and flapped weakly as if to emphasize its verbal threat. Though larger and older by far, Sparda respected the cry and stepped back, allowing his nestling a bit of space to catch his breath. Still clutching Yamato in his clawed hand, Vergil leapt back into battle with an unearthly, animalistic roar, the sound echoing off the walls and into Dante's ears with enough strength to make the hunter flinch.
Sparda was prepared for the onslaught and easily caught the smaller demon with one powerful arm, flinging him in the direction of the wall. It was merely a test. Vergil rose to the challenge and righted himself in midair, flaring his wings to slow his speed so he could push off the wall and charge again.
Then... something changed in his eyes. The control over his demon form that Vergil always fought so hard to keep suddenly vaporized the instant he caught the scent of a stranger about, someone made of soft flesh and human blood. His pupil-less eyes dilated with hunger and he turned toward the red-clad human boy in the corner. "Manfleeeessssh," he purred, sudden heat and bloodlust ripping through his body.
His father's alarmed cry followed him as he charged. "VERGIL! He's your brother!"
AN: Before anyone asks, no, I don't think Dante remembers that Vergil was there with him when he slept. Its probably for the better -its not like things can really get much more awkward between the twins. Vergil will definitely remember it though, as well Sparda. It's step one in a long journey to get the rift between the brothers to heal.