H.B.C: So...I have no excuses, except that my best friend's boyfriend has challenged me to a Pokemon battle. And I am determined to win. But that was last week and I have three days left to prepare. The rivalry between us has been going on for a while. This week it's Pokemon, a few weeks ago it was chess, months before that it was Yu-gi-oh, and after that it was Call of Duty...I've lost to him at all the challenges except one Yu-gi-oh match.

So I'm determined to wipe the floor with this so called Pokemon master! It's going to be awesome.

And that my friends is my mildly amusing background story to distract you as to why I'm not updating.

So...Onto the story!

But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries
And they scream
The worst things in life come free to us
Cause we're just under the upperhand
And go mad for a couple grams
But she don't wanna go outside tonight
And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland
Or sells love to another man
It's too cold outside
For angels to fly
An angel will die
Covered in white
Closed eye
And hoping for a better life
This time, we'll fade out tonight
Straight down the line

-A Team, Ed Sheeran

Chapter 6

The baby was crying.

Aria could hear it awaken her maternal instinct. Virgil turned in his sleep next to her.

The noblewoman lay in bed for a few more minutes before getting up and checking on her youngest child.

Down the hallway, a right then two lefts, and the nursery was right next to the sunroom. The moon provided a little light, but memory let her move through the room without tripping.

Aria picked up baby Lea, and softly cooed. She loved her daughter more than anything, and she feared what would happen if she inherited her father's powers like Nero did.

She stopped crying and reached a pudgy hand up to tug at her mother's hair. Long elegant fingers reached up and touched the baby's hand.

"Oh, Aria," The voice sounded surprised, and the nanny, Noel, stepped into the room. Her long white night gown made her seem like a dream. "I would have gotten her."

"It's fine." She snapped. Aria always made her distaste of Noel known. That woman was hired by her father. Aria hated them. They always belittled her decisions.

But she had made a deal with a demon, they told her, and the proof of just how low she had sunk was hidden somewhere inside her babies. Aria's looked into the soft blue of Lea's eyes. How could anything so innocent turn into something so horrible?

Lea dreamed. It seemed that she flew in and out of unconscious like a bird. One minute she heard the pleas of a young man. Then she heard what sounded like Dante. And Lastly, Aria it seemed that she couldn't discern the difference between awake and dreaming.

On lucid memory involved her screaming and tearing at blankets and bandages as strong hands held her down. Another was of a deep voice talking gently to her under his breath.

Aria seemed to seep through the cracks of her memories. Suppressed memories she hadn't dared thought about in years. Some completely wonderful memories of the perfect loving mother, like the time when she was four and sick, and Aria had stayed up all night with her and soothe her fever, or another time when Father and Nero were up in the study, so Aria had taken Lea up to the cliff that overlooks the ocean near their home.

Lea remembers the feel of the sea on her face, and how Aria told her stories of lost loves and fairytales. Some were so tragic that she couldn't help but tear up, but some were so beautiful and happy that Lea just remembers smiling up at Mommy and asking if her life was going to be some beautiful fairytale. Her mother had just smiled and laughed and told her that "Yes, yes, of course it will. Life will be a beautiful fairytale filled with happiness, all of it for you."

It was a lie through, because soon after that her mother changed. No longer was she the woman who would go to the edge and beyond for her. Now it was small slaps and pushes when her father wasn't watching. She yelled her and would scream for Noel to take the "filthy child away."

Nero was her only child now, the one that she would love indefinitely. Noel took the place of her mother. Noel showered her with the love and attention that she severely needed. Lea could only guess if Virgil knew what was going on between his youngest daughter, his wife, and his nanny, but he never made any mention of it otherwise.

Every now and then he would call Lea over to sit with him. It seemed like he would inspect her for new bruises or cuts, sometimes he would point and ask about a particularly bad looking one. She lied and said "I fell down the garden stairs, Daddy." He'd then tell her to be more careful and to go play outside with her brother. Virgil never once suspected otherwise. Lea was all alone.

But then again she has always been alone, at least, on some level.

Dante rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. Lea stirred in her sleep, but didn't awaken. It had been a rough couple of days, but he was finally figuring out the pieces of this twisted little puzzle that Virgil had left him. Dante was so going to kick his ass next time the hunter saw him. He was getting too old for this shit.

It was obvious, now without that blonde wig, that Lea had Sparta's blood. She was still in that in between stage of human and demon. The human blood was way stronger than her demon part and holding whatever powers she has at bay.

That thing…Aria was desperate to get Lea back from "Virgil's" clutches. Even though in the past couple days, he told the hybrid repeatedly that he was Dante, not Virgil.

"You know," He stares down at the unconscious girl. Even now he can feel the demon underneath her skin panicking and weakly repairing wounds, "you're a pain in the ass just like your father." The hunter has gone soft, because he pushes her hair off her sweaty forehead, revealing her damaged eye.

Dante sighs, and wishes that Sparta's blood wasn't cursed and somebody in their bloodline had, at least, some happiness.

Lea's eyes flutter open. The hunter finds himself staring at one blue eye and a black hole. "Welcome back to the world of the living, Lea." Dante says pushing her down onto the mattress as she tries to get up. He looks at her face, and could already see her wondering if she can fight her way out of here, but Nero appears in the doorway. "Dante?" He says wondering what the old man was up to.

The girl goes white. Her breathing speeds up, and she leans up onto her elbows to get a better look.

Dante smiles might as well get it out of the way. "Nero, Lea, Lea, Nero," He speaks pushing her back down again. "Now Nero," He gestures to the chair he just vacated, and the kid sits.

The pair looks a lot alike, and really Dante should have figured out who Lea was earlier, but he takes things as they go along. "Lea has a story to tell us."

H.B.C: Hope you enjoyed it!