Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DEVIL MAY CRY OR IT'S CHARACTERS! JUST MY OC'S.
Recap: "Whatever." I say as I step out of my hole and dust off the black jacket. Shockingly, the guise was still in effect. I pulled out War and smiled at him. "Now then, shall we treat ourselves to the festivities?" his eyes glowed dark and fiery red as his fingers became claws around the butts of the devil arms.
"It is time to bath in their blood." He said in a darkly demonic voice.
I started to move in front of Dee, but he blocked me with Samh. "I'll take care of these guys, you go find Marta and cleanse the house of these rats." I ducked as a bullet flew over my head and a roar of anger erupted from the party guests.
"Are you sure?" He smiled wickedly and shot a demon that had decided to erupt from a painting.
"Most definitely." He said with a smirk as he started for the stairs and cut down a demon with a wicked looking blade that curved to impossible angles. "Have fun~" he sang aloud as he started firing shotgun rounds one right after another into the crowd. I shrugged and turned on my heel to race up the stairs towards an entrance that led somewhere else in the mansion. I came up to a French style mahogany double doors. They burst open right before I reached them and out stepped two giant looking bodyguards who barely looked human. Imbedded studs strained under their skin around their eyes and cheek bones. The skin around their fingers split open and claws erupted from their finger tips.
Teeth that looked like a sharks tooth crossed with pin needles and steak knives knocked out their human teeth and they hissed as they became more reptilian than anything. I shot them both in the head and twice more in the chest. They stepped forward as I did and raised their arms slowly, guess my shots worked somewhat. I twisted through them, jammed the blades of Love and War into the base of their necks and blasted the fronts of their faced off with three rounds. Down they went and forward I go.
Hallways that are taller than they are wide but seemed to stretch forever was what awaited me. Paintings on either side that accompanied doors seemed to come alive and pull themselves out of their paintings and look at me with twisted inhuman glares. "I'm not sure if this is ripping off every horror movie I've ever seen, or if they ripped off you." I remarked casually as I opened up a barrage of bullets upon them. One by one they all fell down, unfortunately when one fell down six more pushed it's disintegrating body forward and made a wall as they kept coming forward. I sighed and quickly stowed both handguns away and pulled out Cero and Luna. Apparently Zeus can have a few links pulled out of the chain and still work perfectly fine. Dee has the majority of the demonic chain, where as I had infused the two links with the sides of Rose somehow.
I raised Cero and fired, the silver ball corkscrewed into the incoming crowd of demonic something's and razed a clear line through them. I ran forward and yelled out the magic phrase, for the love of god I feel like I'm in Sailor Moon or Pokémon, having to announce my attacks. Jeesh. Anyway, Luna's blade glowed and turned into one long smooth curve. The handle shorted and the guard extended and connected with the end of the handle. By the time I had reached and cut the first two demons in line, Luna had turned into a cavalry sword. The orb I had fired came back through the remaining line on the right of me. I turned and cut through three more demons and spun Cero around my wrist and knocked another one to the floor.
Dodging another demon I cocked the hammer on Cero and fired into the air. Every demon surrounding me was suddenly nothing but body parts lining the floors, and Luna was no longer in my hand. I turned to look as inhuman cries of pain filled the air. The glowing orb that Cero had fired was different this time, it looked bigger than before. The remaining demons that were left standing turned to run away, but they were soon cut in half in one fowl swoop. I looked at Cero and my eyebrows hit the roof. It looked like it was now just a very large, very vintage crossbow. "Well then."
A door suddenly opened up and I turned the crossbow version of Cero and found myself rearing back to kill off an old, familiar looking black woman dressed in antebellum area servants clothing and a mean looking metal collar around her neck. She glared at me till I suddenly realized who she was. "Missy Elrod?" I ask bewildered as I suddenly remember the Sunday school teacher for the Pelt's church. "Didn't you die two years ago?" Wait a minute, she died two years ago.
Missy looked at me like I was crazy. "What ya talkin' 'bout Claude?" Oh right, Claude disguise. She looked around and glared at the dead decaying bodies of the demons and kicked one in spite. Missy had an attitude that no one dared to mess with, except demons apparently. "And what's got you so worked up? Huh mister cracker ass demon?" I smirked at her and lifted up my glasses. Her mouth dropped open as the glamour slide away to reveal my real face. "Josslyn?" She asked shakily. "Is that really you boy?"
I nodded and slide the guise back on and raised the crossbow at her. "Now answer me this Missy. Didn't you die two years ago?" Her face hardened and she spit at the last remaining head of a demon as it dusted away.
"Yeah I s'possed to , but those bastards didn't wanna lose 'good help'." She faked Debbie's voice while sneering. She then pointed to the collar on her neck and glared at me. "See this? They put this damn colla on our corpses wheneva we die. It holds our souls within us, makin us zombie's for that bitch to rule ova." The door Missy came out of opened again and this time even more people, surprisingly all of them black, came out slowly. All were wearing the same get up that Missy was wearing, only deviating for gender. I recognized quite a few of as members of Slevid that had died over the past couple of years. A slight hint of formaldehyde hit my nose and I sneezed.
"I take it the collar also binds you to the Pelt's will as well?" I asked as I lowered the crossbow, it then glowed slightly and Luna dropped to the floor in its original dagger form. A man dressed in a butlers uniform that was less impeccable than the one Claude wears bent down and picked it up and held it pointing at me.
"Who the hell are you?" He asked, and then I realized he was Roy Torsen, the landlord to the apartment I lived in back when mom and dad were still alive.
"Mr. Torsen? You too?" I asked in disbelief.
"There's a lot of us here Josslyn boy." Missy said as she smacked Torsen upside the head. "Give em back 'is knife fool. He here to help us."
"Bullshit!" Some people in the small crowd yelled. "Yeah this is the kind of trick Claude would pull!" A woman yelled.
I pulled off my glasses and stared at their blurry forms. "Would Claude be capable of pulling this off without a mirror around?" I challenged. I put them back on after a few seconds of silence and held my hand out for Luna. "And I know you Mr. Torsen. My parent's and I lived in apartment 3B for nearly seven years till they were killed. Do you remember me?"
He grunted and handed over Luna, handle first. "Course I remember you. I remember you parent's too." He shook his head and tsked. "So now you've come back for revenge huh?"
"Revenge?" a small pulsating beat started playing throughout the hallway. Was that Deadmau5? A woman stepped forward, she had long hair and a stern face.
"Are you going to help us?" She asked bluntly with her hands on her hips. Missy and the others looked at me with an accusing glare or pleading gaze. "Some of us have been here since before you parent's were even a twinkle in their parent's eye. Some of us longer than that." She straightened her back up even more and stepped closer. "I lost my baby to these bastards back before Atlanta burned. They took him, and they cut out his heart while he was cryin my name." She hissed as tears filled her eyes. "They laughed and tore his body to pieces right in front of me while my husband tried to break through them. They killed him and then they put this dammed collar on me and killed me as well." She stopped for a minute to breath and then her glare got even more wrathful. "I have been forced to live on past my family, my baby's soul is trapped in this house from hell. I want out, We-" she motioned towards everyone else in the crowd. "want out. You can't leave us here. You Can't." she hissed.
I scanned over the small crowd and saw the same looks as before. I sighed and shook my head. "Take me to Marta, the girl they just took, and I'll let all of you pass on." I said finally. A few in the back immediately turned and headed back into the kitchen as everyone else gave each other odd looks. "That's the deal, either help me or not?"
Missy cursed and turned to the crowd. "Get those idiots back in here and buck the hell up, all of ya!" The few who had left came running back screaming and I ended up throwing Luna at a very ugly looking demon that was pretty big and had a very large horn on its forehead. It roared and everyone scattered as it disappeared, leaving a very red looking trail of energy in its path. I dived forward as a claw embedded itself into the wall behind me. The demon snarled and I twisted to where I could kick it in the leg, and I received a very harsh shock in return.
"Son of a bitch!" I yelled as I rolled away and tried to shake the feeling back into my leg when I hit the opposite wall. The demon roared again and started glowing even redder, and Luna popped out of the demons horn and decided it's new resting place was in the shoulder of a very nice looking wooden table. The demon marched forward and as I pulled out Fair, it raised its arm as I pulled back the hammer while bringing up the massive gun. The demon glowed again and charged, I pulled the trigger and the entire hallway glowed white as my arm flew into the wall.
Once again, the house roared in anger and I was left blinking away a vast white forest of blindness to find myself staring at a very large hole in the wall. Doors suddenly opened and out stepped Miss and her posse, the hole in the wall started to spread spider like cracks along the rest of the wood and plaster. For such a nice house looking house, why was it that everything seemed to fall to decay when the walls were penetrated. Plaster fell down in slight chunks as the wallpaper yellowed and peeled away to reveal mold and veins of grime. In some areas the decay spread outward and then slowed down and reversed, in others it simply regenerated instantly and replaced the missing chunks.
"They built this house in the seventeen hundreds." Roy said as I continued to look at the self repairing wall. "That's almost three hundred years of absorbing their magic and horrible rituals. It takes more than just plaster and hard work to keep places like this alive and well." He said darkly as he offered me a hand up. I ignored it and yanked my arm out of the wall, and then slide up the it to reach over and pull Luna out from the table.
"So then, does that mean you are going to help me?" I ask as I holster Fair, fuck my arm is killing me. Everyone looked at the hole in the wall and then back to me and nodded. "Good, so then, where to?"
"We have to go through the dining hall." Missy said as she started walking forward and motioned for me to follow along with her. I kept my paces even with hers as everyone else followed swiftly behind us. The beats were getting louder and louder as I started to make out words to the beats. "Some of the people that come to these events are witches or warlocks that somehow or another captured a demon into their control. These new ones can be as old as you or younger, so they started making their demands known to the Pelts in order of entertainment." Now I realized what the noise was, music.
"So they demanded a dance club?" I ask dumbly as the music got louder and louder.
"Among other things." Someone groaned, I had some vague mental image of something and suppressed a shudder. "Don't worry, everyone gets that feeling." Someone else said.
After a few beats I started to ponder a few things. That one woman said she's been here before Atlanta burned, I'm assuming that means this house moves with the Pelts instead of staying in one place. "How do they move the house?" I ask to no one in particular.
"We have no idea." Someone in the back says. "One day we're somewhere, the next someplace else. But the house changes shape and size, after all it is the church as well." I stopped and stared at them for a minute, and then face palmed extremely hard. Of course it's the church, that would explain the location of… I'm an idiot. "Not the brightest." Someone mumbled.
I sighed and started walking again, Missy had never stopped. "Pass the dining hall there will be a hall, go left till you reach a portrait of Marie Antoinette and then run your finger across the ribbon on her neck. It'll open up to a set of stairs, you should just go straight and you'll more than likely see it."
"More than likely?" I asked mildly irritated.
Missy seemed to have bite her tongue pretty hard when she glared at me. The woman who had pleaded the cases of everyone trapped here stepped forward. "I'm the only one who's been down there, no one else has. It's just a long tunnel that leads to a large cavern, no matter where the house is, the cavern is always there. You'll find cells lining the hall." Now that was descriptive. "Stay away from the stone doors." She added finally.
The beat stopped and everyone got quiet. "What exactly are the stone doors?" I ask mildly mocking.
No one looked me in the eye, but Missy was the one who spoke up finally. "We don't know what it is or does. But it's what they sacrifice those children, the highlight of their little party." She sneers
"That seems counterproductive, shouldn't I just destroy the doors with Fair?" I motioned to it's spot on my back to make sure they understood what I was talking about.
"You wouldn't be able to get close enough." The woman said. Everyone seemed to bow their heads as she spoke, was it her seniority or something else? Before I could ask Missy stopped in front of a large intricately carved wooden double door. At each corner of the doorway was a screaming head carved into it, or maybe the poor bastards just became it after so long of being attached to it. The music was blaring even louder and the gnarled wooden hands carved into the door seemed to move with the noise waves. I rubbed my eyes beneath my glasses and still the hands seemed to writhe and twist into shapes unknown, to grasp at nothing yet something at the same time. "Guarding the doors are two demons that-" the doors burst inward and revealed in front of me was a mass of bodies and strobe lights.
Standing in front of me was a girl in a gothic Lolita dress, complete with a very Frankenstein-ish teddy bear and little hat on her head. She smiled and started to chant something, the teddy bear started to move and shift into something. I pulled out Love and slashed upward, cutting the teddy bear and her hands. I stopped and pierced the bottom of her jaw and pulled the trigger, and her little hat exploded with brain matter. No one bothered to stop dancing, but their eyes glowed brighter and brighter as they continued to bump, grind and sway.
"You know, I thought it'd be harder to lure you down here." The woman said, I whirled around and attempted to cut her, but she caught my hand and I was left glaring into her mutating face. The curly hair was becoming a mess of worms, her skin turning into rotted and pitted decaying wood, her teeth became roots. The others all lurched and bent forward in pain as the metal bands broke open and clattered to the floor. They looked in horror and pain, reaching forward for me they seemed to become living roots and began to merge with the woman. She gripped my arm, pulled me to her and pushed back with full force.
I went flying across the room and landed in the middle of the dance floor, on top of the dining table that seemed miles long. The chocolate fondue tower crashed as I hit it and knocked onto the floor. The music dimmed as I got to my feet and the tree like demon grew in size with every step into the room. "I knew this was going to smoothing." I grumbled as I pulled out Cero and rested the barrel over my shoulder. "So then, how much of what you told me was a lie?" The response I got was the DJ started playing 'Bodies' by drowning pool at full blast. I smirked and cocked the lever on Cero. "Alright in, this should be fun."
-Dee's P.O.V-
So much blood, so heavenly and warm. Copper and gun smoke assaulted my tongue and nose, making my blood rush even more. I felt so alive as I continued to parry these pathetic demons with Samh and Hallow. Josslyn must being having a little bit of trouble without me, honestly that boy can't do anything like this on his own.
Another pathetic mage tried to cast some sort of magic, I blew him away with a slug shot and cut through his demon. Something impacted into my back and I dove towards a destroyed desk that still had a major chunk left of it. Nothing was bleeding other than the superficial wounds that I was already healing, so what was the impact? As a ducked under the arm of a demon, realization hit me. Joss was in trouble. I growled in annoyance and started firing randomly with buckshot rounds, cutting in verbatim as I rushed into the nearest group of demons.
A bullet whizzed by my head as I decapitated a witch and I turned to see Debbie aiming at me. She looked angry, and all I could do was smile at her. "Is something the matter dear?" I ask mockingly sincere.
She growled and the bones underneath the skin of her face seemed to shift. "HOW?!" She shrieked with fury as people that were alive and only missing a few body parts started to stand up and regroup. "How can a mere doppelganger do this?!" She demanded.
I smiled, flashing my mouth full of fangs and took a bow. "Because my dear horrific whore, I am not a mere doppelganger, I am a inner demon given the ability to control Josslyn's doppelganger. Therefore, I am capable of existing almost entirely on my own." I then raised Samh directly at her, everyone tensed and began to glare harder. "I think, therefore I am is the most fitting phrase I believe." I almost pulled the trigger when I felt the presence of them. Them, Dante, Vergil and Nero. I stiffened as the presence made itself know to me. Everyone else paused to look at me, and then Aron, who was behind me trying to sneak up and stab me in the back with a cursed dagger breathed in sharply.
"It's them." He spoke softly, everyone including myself cursed loudly. I activated Zeus and attached Samh and Hallow to the chain and immediately ran towards the staircase. I had to get to Josslyn before Dante and the others did, they presence would ruin everything. The front doors, which were barely hanging on the hinges but somehow managed to close slightly, blew forward and landed on the pile of unlucky bastards and bitches of various flavors. I heard Vergil's voice and ran faster straight through the open doors at the top of the staircase. Wait… was this the correct way Joss went?
-Joss's P.O.V-
I grunted and brought down the axe onto the tree demon's head again, finally shutting it the hell up. I breathed in heavily and surveyed the rest of the dining room only to find blood, guts and a whole lot of corpses, human and disappearing otherwise. I myself was in better shape, but marginally so from what I had began with. I grabbed Luna and it transformed back into its dagger form, once again I put it onto my glasses and jumped off the decaying piece of wood to look for Love. Somehow I had lost it during the battle, I think a root grabbed it. Oh look it's stuck in the wall… right into the crotch of a english nobleman painting that looks surprisingly like Aron. "How old are these people?" I ask as I jump up and pull Love out of the wall.
Something like a great sigh erupted from the tree demon and when I turned around there was everyone who had combined with the demon. They looked less solid but not exactly see through as they appeared around the demons body and looked at me. Missy sighed happily and stepped(floated?) forward to me. "Boy how can we thank you?" she asked rhetorically in a right as rain tone of voice, a smile on her face.
"Marta, where is she?" I asked somberly as I adjusted Rose, geez I still have to adjust my glasses, even when they're demonic instruments!
Missy pointed to a rather large painting at the end of the hall, I turned and found myself looking at a painting of a king and queen sitting in their thrones in the distance of a large hall. "The entrance is hidden inside the painting. Beyond that, we can't help ya." She put her hand on my face lovingly and smiled. "Thank you sweetie, and be careful, all of this can hurt you more than anything else." She gestured around the room to the bodies and blood. She floated backwards and turned and took one step forward and disappeared. Others took their turn except for one, Roy.
He came forward stood in front of me, then stuck out his hand. "Thank you son, for putting an end to this." I stared at his hand, and then smiled sadly and took it.
"It had to end eventually, just be glad it was by someone who doesn't want to do anything worse than what they're doing." He nodded and then his paling face grew serious.
"Son, what I said before about revenge. Do you not know?"
"Know what?" I growled as I let go of his head. He sighed and pointed to the picture of English Nobleman Aron.
"That man and his whore of a wife, they have plagued your family."
"Old news Roy, I know about my uncle." Roy shook his head and grumbled something.
"No son, didn't you ever think that the odds of the same bastard who killed your parents killed your grandfather as well to be damn near impossible?" What's the best way to say you're stumped and don't know what to say to abrupt statement? My silence was the answer. It's true that the possibility was beyond comprehensible, but stuff like that had happen before. "On the same day as well only a few years apart? Did you not ever think that that wasn't the least bit strange?" Roy bellowed.
My stomach was feeling a mixture of empty and excited at the same time, but all I felt was cold. Was I in shock? Or is it that it's something I've already thought of in the back of my mind? My teeth grated together and the my grip on Love was tighter than a anaconda's death coil. When I looked up, Roy was gone and I was left alone in an empty room with dammed souls and a broken speaker still playing music. Something went boom underneath my feet and the house roared once again. Dee's doing in something stupid, I better get going before the house decides to eat me. And where's my water gun when I need it?
After the ten seconds of deep breathing, I made my way towards the painting and stopped in front of it. It looked like a normal oil painting, except for Aron and Debbie's presence in the thrones in the far distance. I reached forward to touch it and my hand seemed to change shape and mold into the colors of the painting. Before I knew it I was sucked into it and left gagging for air when my feet planted themselves onto solid ground.
After my hacking fit I looked around to find myself in a very dark and dreary hall of stone with glowing orbs in the walls at even intervals of distance. Lining the walls further down where iron barred cells, and one of those seemed to reverberate a whimpering noise. I raced forward with Love calmly pointing downward as I inspected all of the cells. Finally I came across one that was near the end of the hall and close to an large entrance. Looking inside it was moderately cleaner than the other cells, but that wasn't saying much. Inside the cell was Marta, shivering in a huddled ball in the far back corner of the cell.
"Marta?" I asked calmly. She jumped and turned to me, her glasses making her eyes extremely large. She squeaked/yelled and stuck herself further into the back wall of the cell. "No Marta, sweetie. I'm not Claude." I put my hands on Rose and stopped for a second to think of what she might say to the cops about me, but I thought again and raised it up. She looked at me with wide eyed amazement as I put Rose back on. "See, I'm not him. I'm here to take you home, alright?" She brightened up at that and clamored forward.
"Home!" she said loudly, she then cringed at the reverb and clamped her hands on her ears and shrieked. "Make it stop!"
I shushed her and tried to find the door to the cell, but there wasn't one. Great. "Marta, stand back so I can open the door." I reached up for Luna but she started making noises.
After she said something along the lines of "Preto si que" the bars opened up to fit her shape and she slide through. I looked at her in shock and she smiled and took my free hand.
"How did you do that?"
She giggled and smiled bigger. "I remembered what they said." She said sweetly.
"… And that just works?" she shrugs and jumps when something loud groans. She clutches ahold of my pant leg and whimpers. Love was up and pointed at the entrance down the hall. "What was that?" I asked her dumbly, as if she'd know.
"I don't know." She says lightly. "It keeps making noises and it scares me." Hold on a minute, I may be paranoid but I'm not exactly sure if all children with Marta's capabilities act like this.
"Marta, can you close your eye's real quick?" She does this without even asking why. "Now something cold is going to get pressed onto your hands, don't jump alright?" She nods and I feel the vacant notion of a puppy in my mind. I press the flat part of Love's blade to her hand and she shivers, nothing along the lines of burning or smoke, so she is human. I pulled Love away and patted her head. "Alright, let's get you home alright?"
"But what about the other kids?" she asks.
That stopped me. "Other kids?" But there's only Marta isn't there? Unless they're like Missy and Roy.
She nods and points to the entrance were the noises had come from. "Down there, they scream a lot and cry." She says matter of factly, as if she's just reading a fact off a internet site. Detached socially?
As if on cue a low wailing scream like a cats in a fight sounded from that end of the hallway. "Marta, do you believe in ghost?"
"No." she says offhandedly as she starts to back away and attempt to pull me with her. "They… they."
I grip her hand and turn on my heel. "Let's not discuss this now, just think that it's a recording."
"Okay." She says meekly as I start to walk with her in tow at a brisk pace. We found an outlining mass of swirling something at the end of the hall and stopped. "What's that?" Marta asks.
"Remember how I told you to think those noises are recordings?" she nods. "Well, this is just a door made of water." She started to say something. "Trust me sweetie, it's best to not ask. Now take a deep breath, hold onto me tightly." She did it without question and I pressed my hand to the swirling mass. We both came up gasping for air as we landed in the dining room, and right behind Debbie Pelt.
"No, no!" She shrieked and fired her gun, and the next instant she was engulfed in a blue sphere. The next? She fell into a lot of bloody pieces. Standing in the doorway was Vergil, dressed in a blue trench coat with a katana at side, Nero in a purple trench coat. A very large sword resting on his shoulder and a very large revolver holstered on his leg. Marta screamed as I swore.
Alucardismaster: Sorry once again for the cliffhanger, but my computer is dying and I wanted to get this chapter in before Saturday. Cause Saturday is the day I move into my college dorms. It's been hectic as all hell, and today's been a bitch. My friend and I shared our supposed last day in the same state together, and it ended in hell. Why do some parents have to be such bastards? Anyway, college starts soon and I'll be busy as hell. Anyone in college got tips for a communal shower?