AN: I am aware I'm not really describing the fights, but given how often Demons pop up, it would get very boring very quickly if I did.
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darkjason78- It's never shown anywhere him collecting it, so I'm personally working off of the assumption that he managed to pick it up while he was on the ground and stored it inside himself when Trish tossed him the Sparda, since we see it break, and Dante lose his grip of on it, and then it just… reappears when he goes to use it. So I'm going with he managed to reach out weakly and slide it over to him, or maybe those roots unintentionally pushed it over to him. And I'm saying he had it in him, because my saying that the Devil Bringer ability to store things is just a more advanced version is because of the way Rebellion just sometimes appears on his back.
They jump up onto another section of road after navigating the near maze the area twisted and warped by damage had ended up being, and her dad eyes the Qliphoth whose base is sitting awfully close by, relatively speaking anyway, "Oh, they're just gonna let me through! …Boy, wouldn't that be the day."
She laughs lightly, and he grins, and they make their way forward. They don't get far at all before a surge of Demonic energy from behind them has her dad whirling only to end up cutting a motorcycle careening towards them in half, Aunt Trish, or at least the artificial Demon she was being kept inside, clearly the culprit.
She hesitates, "Aunt Trish!"
Then she glances at her dad uncertainly, who waves her off, "Wanna stretch my muscles."
At the reminder, or maybe the reassurance that he still wants to deal with things on his own except if he needs a little assistance because something goes wrong, she smiles at him and backs away towards one of the edges of the road.
Then her dad turns back to the artificial Demon, and never one to resist snarking, he calls out, "Is it Halloween already?"
The large Demon growls out, "Sparda…"
Her dad calls back, "That costume looks a little big… I thought you had better taste than that." The Demon flicks its lance out, causing its four segments to separate and let electricity from the core in the middle crackle freely over it, though in this form it looks more like a two handed sword, and her dad nods at the Demon, "How about I take it in a little?"
Then her dad lifts the Sparda off his shoulder and lowers his center of gravity and holds it out and behind him. Not being her dad's usual fighting style, she blinks rapidly, thrown and abruptly reminded of her darling mate and the fighting stance he sometimes takes. She wonders if it was just a weird coincidence or if maybe her dad had seen it and was unconsciously mimicking it at the moment for some reason or another.
The artificial Demon starts towards him, "Sparda!"
She shakes the thought off as the two clash. The artificial Demon is surprisingly fast and nimble but it's practically impossible to even touch her dad as he twists out of the way of every attack easily before cheerfully calling out, "Sorry, but I can read all your moves! Helps that I know who you really are."
The Demon growls, "Dante!"
From how simplistic it's speech has been up until now, literally just having said three names, it's fairly obvious that while it can use higher thinking a bit from hijacking Aunt Trish's brain as its own, it's clearly not capable of much. Clearly feeling some pressure from her dad tearing into it, it teleports a little away and lifts its sword, holding it with both hands, point towards the ceiling. More electricity gathers around it, and a moment later it rips out, forming into a string of lightning bolts. Even that her dad easily dodges though, closing back in and landing a jump slash which cleaves part of its armor off, which her dad twists out of the way of before it can hit him in the face. It continues on, bouncing and clattering over the ground before skidding to a stop near the motorcycle the artificial Demon had thrown at them and yanking itself onto it in a magnetic manner. Electricity sparks over it and the front of the cut in half bike lifts up and starts hovering a bit.
She glances over at her dad, just catching him turning away, clearly having followed its progress and seen. He lets out a little satisfied 'hmph' as he turns and eyes the slash which has revealed Aunt Trish in its abdomen. Then he launches forward and begins slashing into it with almost wild abandon. Pieces of the armor go flying off, which she follows with her eyes, one after the other, ending up near the two halves of the motorcycle and steadily latching onto them. When there are enough, the two pieces of the bike remerge and the entire thing takes on a new form before revving with a hum that sounded less like the chopper the original bike had been and more like a sports bike, though she wasn't sure if it would classify as that visually given its meaner look.
It was black, with a front fairing(1) that looks kind of like the artificial Demon's helmet up by the handlebars, with batwing like decorations sweeping back under it, three on each side one over the other with the 'joint' where an actual batwing would meet the body in the center of the front wheel. Above and below the 'joint' were prongs similar to the four points of the lance in its sword form, jutting out into the air before the tire.
All in all, it's actually pretty cool looking. Movement has her flicking her gaze back over to her dad, just in time to see the artificial Demon fall apart enough that it loses its hold on Aunt Trish, letting her fall forward, though her dad catches her. She notes that she was equally as naked as Nero reported Aunt Lady being.
The bike careens under her dad, entirely on its own, at the same time as he jumps up to catch Aunt Trish, only to swing a bit wide for a somewhat sharp U turn before heading back and jumping a little, and catching her dad in turn, though she's uncertain if it was unintentional from an attempt to attack or not. Given that it seems to have become a Devil Arm and those tend to be loyal to their original defeater or any that earn the right to use them, she's inclined to think it was intentional, and it's first swing through being some sort of attempt to catch Aunt Trish since it had been made from her in a certain way. She has no idea how a Devil Arm would be towards the very Demon it's made from, given that the Demon still being alive after the Devil Arm is created is, understandably in her opinion given how they're created, rather unprecedented.
It comes to a stop on its own fairly quickly after catching them, and she hurries over, wanting to see Aunt Trish is alright with her own eyes. Aunt Trish makes a sort of humming grunt as her eyes flutter open and she turns her head towards her dad.
He grins down at her, "Whoa, looks like I took in a little too much." Then he turns more serious, "You ok?"
She lets out a bit of a quiet breathy grunt, "I've been better."
Dad swings off the bike and takes a couple steps to set her down. She turns her head towards him, "Dante… that Demon is-!"
Her dad shushes her gently, "Don't even think about it. Just rest."
Behind her, she hears Uncle Vergil call out, "Dante."
Ever a little shit to his brother, her dad just grins and swings himself onto the bike, and she quickly pulls out her wings to follow as he calls back, "Take care of Trish for me!"
Her dad takes off and she flies after him, joined in the air by Griffon. She glances back to see her Uncle gazing at her dad in annoyance, her mate with him, who smiles at her in vague helpless amusement.
A beat later, she hears her Uncle's voice coming from her phone, "You do realize I can just use the radio app even if you don't feel like answering calls?"
She glances over at her dad to see him pouting a little, then shakes her head and fishes her phone out, "Pretty sure he's just being a little shit. What's up Uncle Vergil?"
He sighs, "I do think we have much better odds if Dante is back and has the Sparda, however I fail to understand how Dante intends to win this time. I was all for him stretching his muscles and the like, but if he tears off straight for Urizen, things will just repeat and he may die this time."
Her dad glances over, but he doesn't take his hands off the handles to get his own phone out to reply, "I'm not heading straight there. I have an idea. Technically could've done it back there, but while I worked most of the kinks out, especially after fighting Trish's Demon, I'm still a bit stiff. Figure we may as well head in the direction of the Qliphoth. Two birds with one stone and all that. Besides, there's still a little I want to think over about that idea."
She hums, "He says he's got an idea he's still thinking about. You know how he gets. We're headed towards the Qliphoth because even if he could have tried his idea back there, he still has a little bit of stiffness and kinks in his muscles he wants to work out, and he's not dumb enough to go up against a Demon as strong as Urizen unless he's sure he's good to go."
Her Uncle's sigh comes through, "Alright. I hope that idea of his works then. Just remind him not to kill Urizen."
She hums, "Got it. See you later Uncle Vergil."
He murmurs a return, then her dad glances at her, "Leave Urizen alive?"
She shakes her head, "Not exactly. It's more that Uncle Vergil has to be the one to finish him off to remerge with him, so unless he leaves behind a Devil Arm he can reabsorb or something, anything else like killing Urizen is also a death sentence for Uncle Vergil."
Her dad hums in understanding. Then his lips twitch up as he pushes the bike further. He's been slowly pushing it, clearly wanting to get a good idea of its capabilities, and he's rather obviously having fun with it as well. It isn't too long before he launches into an abrupt drop in the street, whooping as he's airborne, landing practically directly on the heads of a group of Demons.
He quickly spins into donuts, smashing into the Demons he hadn't landed directly on top of before straightening out and running over a couple more, which doesn't turn out very well for them, since they get torn up and impaled by the spikes out front then dragged under by the front tire catching their feet, ripping the spikes through them in the process. It's a rather brutal way to go, all things considered, and it only turns into more carnage when her dad ends up using a sturdier Demon as a ramp and launching back into the air, and into a flip, with another whoop. Halfway through his flip the bike glows purple and separates into two pieces, the handlebars turning into grips for melee weapons. The unorthodox weapon quickly proves that it is valid as a weapon, even if its usability and usefulness is questionable, since it seems a bit unwieldy. Nevertheless, the handles still turn the wheels, which means that not only can her dad swing them as blunt weapons with wheels turning into buzzsaw sort of things when he does, but he can also put a wheel down and spin himself around, kicking anything that dares come close to his spinning top of death.
He doesn't do that for very long though, undoubtedly wanting to get more familiar with it and gauge its abilities, it doesn't take long for him to go back to swinging it around, hooting and hollering the entire time. She shakes her head as her dad finishes off by putting them both on the ground on either side of them and twisting the handles, spinning the wheels and gleefully letting them drag his feet across the ground as they mow over the last few Demons.
He shakes his head once with a grin, "How's that for road rash?"
She lands near him, taking the last few steps to be by his side as he tucks it back into himself, since while he doesn't have a Devil Bringer, as its ability to absorb things into oneself was merely an expansion of an ability Devils already had, as long as it meets the criteria for the more restricted version, which it does, he can absolutely turn it to energy and store it within himself.
He shakes his head with a grin, "As fun as that is, if I'm trying to make sure I'm back up to snuff, I shouldn't be working with something brand new."
She shakes her head, "Kazuto may have been too distracted back there to notice at the time, but he is going to be insanely jealous when he does."
Her dad gives her a contemplative look, "Has he really been practically glued to your side through this whole mess?"
She nods, as she casually crosses her arms, "Yeah. Honestly, other than times where it became necessary to split up, like when we were escorting a group and the bridge collapsed between us and we had to both set off to finish getting the people who were still with us to safety, I think today's the first time we've been away from each other for more than half an hour. He knows I can handle myself for the most part, but I've never shied away from the fact I'm nowhere near as strong as most of the family, and my limit of 'in over my head' is significantly lower. So it makes him nervous if we're apart in circumstances like this." She glances over at him, "Don't think it ever came up before or if you guys noticed with all the other things I was working through, but it probably doesn't help that Aincrad left us both with pretty bad separation anxiety to be honest. Though Kazuto's seems to be worse. My self proclaimed devotee hates being away from me."
Her dad gets a confused look, "Devotee?" She stops dead and just stares at her dad who turns to look at her, before asking somewhat defensively, "What?"
When she speaks, it's slow, out of a combination of sheer disbelief and wanting to make sure he hears her, "How is it. That my sappy mate. Can shamelessly spout off lines. Calling me his 'personal Goddess'. And himself my 'most loyal devotee'. Pretty much at least once a day. Completely uncaring of where we are and who will hear. And you've never overheard him." She presses her hands together and brings them up to her face briefly before bringing them back down though they are still pressed together, "If he brings me anything and he's in a good mood there's a solid fifty percent chance he'll refer to it as 'an offering to his personal Goddess'. Not even joking." Then she turns a bit red and looks away before admitting, "Mind you. He usually adds a bunch of descriptors. Like gorgeous, or divine, or whatever sappy nonsense he's feeling like at the time." She shakes her head, "Point being, with how often he says them how on earth did you miss that?"
Her dad coughs, "Well, I mean, even before Urizen things were busy, so-"
She cuts him off in a deadpan, "He started that before we came back from SAO. Hell, if you go all the way back to its roots it started less than a month after SAO launched, since some stuff happened and he jokingly called me a Luck Goddess and then it cropped up every now and then. Then we got together, a little under eight months later, and a while later my telling him my real name and what it meant didn't help. So no. It's not new. He's been doing it this entire time." She gives him a Look, "You've just been so stubborn about how you see him that I guess you tuned it out. Why do you think I got so miffed by the way you were towards Kazuto? Not only had we literally met on day one of SAO, but by the time we got out we'd been together for a year and three months."
Her dad rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly, "...Yeah. I really haven't been very fair to the kid, have I? Especially since soulmate bondings are legally married, so he's family even if I didn't wanna admit it. But eight months? You got together so soon after SAO began?"
She tosses her head back, "Ha!" Then she lowers her head and shakes it, "You say that like it was fast, but if you asked anyone who knew us in game, a couple of which were adults not teenagers, we took forever to get together considering how obvious we were. Honestly, I think more than once, more than one of them was barely restraining the urge to smack the fuck out of us until we saw the obvious."
He tilts his head, "Saw it? Were you not aware?"
She sighs, "When we talked after we got together we realized it was a huge misunderstanding. Practically as soon as we found out about SAO, I didn't think it was the time or place, at least originally, so anytime the mood between us would even begin to drift in that direction I would end up looking away with a scowl. Not because I was upset that the mood was going that way, but at first just because the idea of us acting on it distracting us and having disastrous consequences was upsetting, and later also out of hurt. Problem was, Kazuto would look over and see me scowling and think it was the idea of things being like that between us that was upsetting me, and he didn't want to make me uncomfortable, so he'd pull away and look off to the side with a pinched expression since even if he didn't know we are soulmates at the time it, y'know, hurt like hell when he thought his soulmate wasn't interested. I'd notice him shuffling away and look over and see the pinched look and think he didn't like the idea of an us, and that repeated continuously for pretty much the entirely of the eight months as we both continued to dance around each other, utterly convinced the other outright disliked the idea of a relationship beyond friendship between us and not wanting to make the other uncomfortable. Pretty sure if it was possible, Argo would've ripped so much hair out in frustration as to make herself bald."
He looks away, "Huh. That's… interesting."
She gives him an amused look, "What, that he's not a skirt chasing playboy like you used to be?" Her dad coughs, and she shakes her head, "You do realize dad, that I'm his first, and presumably last, relationship? Even if you include casual hookups?" Her dad gives her something of a floored look and she laughs, "I'm serious. I know part of your issues with him were just normal overprotective dad, but in that sense he's nothing like you. He's not and never has been a skirt chaser or a playboy." She shakes her head with a smile, "He hit the jackpot and found his literal soulmate the first time he tried at a relationship."
Her dad's brows furrow, "And you didn't?" Then his head whips towards her, "Did you have boyfriends I didn't know about?!"
She laughs again, "No." Then she shakes her head, "I'd like to remind you that I grew up first with Potter and then when I had actual family, around multiple soulmate pairs. I was never interested in having a relationship with someone who wasn't my soulmate because of that, and while you can't know immediately, given you always feel drawn and they're just your type and you just seem to just click…" She shrugs, "If I didn't feel indications that they were, I didn't bother trying to pursue anything." She laughs lightly at herself as she brushes a hand through her bangs a little sheepishly, "Honestly, though those instincts can and are suppressed if the first meeting has any danger around, like they were when the truth about SAO was announced, I suppose it should've occurred to me when the instinct suppression faded and I was distracted by my attraction to him enough that the question of whether he was my soulmate or not never even crossed my mind."
Before anything else can be said, Demons appear, and seemingly more out of habit than anything, her dad snarks at the Demons, "Unless you wanna die, I suggest you get the hell out of my way!"
There aren't any that would be particularly dangerous even for her, so it's something of a walk in the park for her dad. When he's done, he somewhat casually asks, "You guys were talking about having a wedding ceremony and all that weren't you? Both for his family and just in general."
She blinks, a bit surprised her dad hadn't taken the out the fight had given him to move away from the topic entirely, "Yeah. Why?"
He shrugs as they continue walking, "Just thinking that since I haven't been all that great of a father-in-law to him, I owe him one hell of a wedding present, and if he'd like it so much, maybe I could give him the bike."
She snorts a laugh, "Kazuto has never held you being overprotective of me against you, but he'd definitely forget all about how unwelcoming you've been and you'd become one of his favorite relatives, in law or not, entirely and love you forever if you did."
Her dad snorts, "Kids got taste. Then again, I suppose that was obvious from day one since he was dating you."
She shakes her head in amusement as her dad tears off to take care of another Demon, this one a kind of Demon that uses their Demonic powers in the form of Magic known as a Baphomet, a kind of upright goat looking Demon, which was inside some sort of cylinder of lattice work made up of blood that had risen from the ground and solidified in the middle of the sort of hallway the broken ground was making. The lattice doesn't seem very sturdy though, given her dad smashes it to pieces fairly easily before making quick work of the Baphomet. Directly beyond that, it briefly opens up into a wider area with three more of the blood lattices. There is a Barbed Chaos in the area in general, and while she can't say exactly what draws them, her dad has scarcely killed it when another as well as two Brutal Riots appear.
When he's done she quickly moves over to him, and when she's caught up to his side she gives him a curious look, "It's a bit strange though. I mean, everyone else was saying just to give you and Uncle Vergil time, but it came up earlier and he apologized to him. You haven't even been awake and around for the past month though. What's changed?"
Her dad sighs, "...Back around when he first became a Switch and decided to become a Demon Hunter, I overheard you two talking about why he chose to become a Demon Hunter, and how he was determined to be your backup and partner. Trish was with me, and she teased me about it being hard to hate a guy that was willing to follow my daughter into Hell just to keep you safe. That was mostly a hypothetical though. You generally tend to focus on jobs on Earth to free the rest of us up for Hell jobs, since you've always made it clear that you're fully aware those kinds of jobs have a significantly higher chance of being too much for you. You only really tend to take them if it's all hands on deck or if it's something urgent and everyone else is busy. But I don't need to have seen this past month myself. Because Hell has done a damn good job of coming to Earth, and he's neither hidden or run away. He stuck around. And if he's been glued to your side, the answer of why is fairly obvious. I'm sure to some extent he wants to help people, but if it was just that he wouldn't have hovered around you, since it would've been more effective if you two split up."
She tilts her head, "So, it's just because he's proven he's not all talk and he's actually loyal and really got my back?"
Her dad hums, "Yeah. Basically." While she's processing that, she and her dad reach some sort of statue holding a sword pointed kind of down. It either was just straight up not of human make or was created using deals though, given the Demonic energy swirling around it. Her dad tilts her head at it, "You need some blood huh? Sorry, you wouldn't like mine."
There are four basin like areas in broken up points to the square surrounding the statue, one of which already has blood in it, though it seems a little old. Near the upper left basin, there are roots with gashes torn into them, but other than that there's only one other opening up above the already full basin, so with no other way forward they jump up there.
Her dad glances down and comments, "Huh. Dried blood in the gutter here… Guess that's how the pools down there get filled."
She hums, "Presumably, given there was a gargoyle statue with a spout for a mouth. Though, whether this somehow came from Hell or was a sort of human made thing created through deals, I'm surprised that it's here. I mean, you'd think either way they would've just killed people in the basins directly."
He hums, and they quickly learn that due to damage, the corridor doesn't really go anywhere. That being said, at the end of the hallway, there is another Nidhogg Hatchling. She scrunches her nose up, "I don't know if you're familiar with these things, but Uncle Vergil told me about them, and from what he said about them attaching to damaged sections of the Qliphoth and breaking them down as they feed on it, we could probably use it on one of those gashed Qliphoth roots outside." She points at it, "But those things are gross, so I ain't touching it."
Her dad snorts, "That's fine. I don't mind carrying it."
After he collects it, they turn around and leave the rather short corridor back into the courtyard, and she glances at the two roots, "The question is, which one do we use it on?"
Her dad glances at them, then shrugs, "Don't know. Given that one doesn't have a spout I can see, we may as well try our luck on this lower one."
She glances over at him, then shrugs, "Ok. I mean, worst case, we can chance breaking something important and try to burn through the other root, since weirdly enough given they're from Hell the roots don't like fire in the slightest."
He snorts, "That's kinda funny actually." Then he shakes his head and starts for the lower one, "Let's go."
When he gets over to it, he holds the Nidhogg Hatchling out, and it happily does its thing and latches onto the opening and it's only a few moments before the section of root in their way turns a sickly green and bursts apart. A short hallway briefly opens into a wider area and some Empusas slip through the gaps between the planes to attack. Given how weak they are though, they aren't exactly a problem for her dad. Even the Empusa Queen that appears gets utterly demolished.
With them out of the way, they head down the hallway the brief open area narrows back down to, though not far down it splits into two directions, one continuing on, but another practically doubling back towards the courtyard, though it does head up. She gazes down it thoughtfully, "So, should we try that way? I mean, with the spouts for the blood being up higher, going up seems like a good bet."
Her dad nods, "Mm. A good point."
They head up that path, which quickly leads them to a Qliphoth clot when the path turns left, by some weird luck, it was right above a channel in the ground. She looks at it, then over at her dad, "I've been detonating these with Lucifer needles to prevent getting splattered in clot blood, but if that groove leads to a spout, then for all that we're in luck that there's a clot here to provide the blood, I'm not sure blowing it up would be a good idea."
Her dad hums, "Probably not, no. Better to break it open."
She glances at him, then takes a step back and pulls up a shield, "You have fun with that."
Her dad laughs as he lifts the Sparda, "Rude brat. Just let me get covered in clot blood why don't you."
Her dad slices into it, and it strains for a moment against the pressure of the blood suddenly having an outlet and trying to rush out before it bursts, covering her dad with blood in the process. Blood rushes down the channel, but even as it does her dad wipes at his face then flicks his hand to get the blood off. She laughs at him, then tosses some cleaning spells over to get it off which he nods thankfully at.
Somewhat distantly, she can hear what sounds like three heavy thumps, sort of back to back before a brief grinding noise emanates from what sounds like the same place, and her dad comments, "Yup, here comes the blood."
With the clot out of the way, the passage continues on, so they follow it. It curves to the right and back into another brief open area. As they cross it, a flicker of Demonic power behind them, a rushing noise, and a splash through the puddles on the broken up sections of road stops them. As another flicker and its accompanying sounds goes off before they can turn, both vaguely confused by the lack of enemies they can see. Though unlike her dad, she's also fairly weary.
Another one, still behind them even after they'd turned, followed swiftly by one more, this time rushing towards them. Lightning fast, her dad's hand goes up and behind them, and she whirls around to see a red vaguely reptilian, though bipedal, Demon skidding back from suddenly withdrawing.
Her dad laughs lightly before raising his hand, showing he'd only been making a finger gun instead of holding one of his actual firearms. The Demon steps forward with a hiss as she backs away so her dad has room, then it lifts an arm and a deep red blade bursts out. Made of blood maybe? Though she supposes it could be solidified Demonic energy.
As her dad starts clashing with it, she tilts her head. That would be quite an idea. She's never heard of solidified energy, but given that mass is technically just a form of energy, a high amount of energy but energy nonetheless, then it's certainly possible. She narrows her eyes at the blade. Now that she's thinking about it, it vaguely looks like a Lucifer needle. Was that how they were made? It was certainly something to think about and look into. The thought is rather derailed when it zips away to avoid a blow before zipping behind her dad and back in.
She whistles in appreciation, "Man, that is fast. I'd love to have whatever Style lets it do that. Too bad it doesn't seem to have become powerful enough to absorb much of anything from it…"
She turns on the ocular ability she got as a child as she watches, somewhat intently, as her dad clashes with it. Even if she doesn't have the Style it doesn't necessarily mean she can't try to mimic it. Especially if she can learn enough about how it zips around by watching it using the energy flow vision to see for herself how the Style moves the energy through its body. Honestly, she feels a bit embarrassed that it's never occurred to her to use it like this before, but better late than never she supposes. Though it lacks some of the other parts of it, just the speed on its own looks somewhat similar to the Trickster, though there are some differences.
She feels like she's just starting to work them out and really get a feel for it when her dad finishes it off, but given she can review her memories of it for further study, it wasn't a big deal, so she says nothing about that, though she does ask, "I'm unfamiliar with that kinda Demon. Do you know what its called?"
Her dad tilts his head thoughtfully, seeming to think it over as they cross the room, "No, sorry kiddo. You'd have to ask dad or Vergil."
She nods as they exit the open area. When it narrows back down into a hallway, it splits in a sort of T, and a couple needle roots pop up. To her surprise, at the end of the direction they were coming from, there was a channel in the ground leading right, out into what looks like the top of a spout, but she figures they just hadn't seen the opening leading here. That being said, while there is a clot above the groove she can see, there's a fine lattice work of roots in the way, small enough that she couldn't really toss a Lucifer needle at it, and she honestly isn't even sure a bullet would fit.
Something her dad seems to agree with, given the sigh he lets out even as he moves forward to take care of the needle roots, "I was hoping we could just follow the grooves, but they aren't making it easy for us, are they kiddo?"
She snorts then smiles in slight amusement, "Like things are ever that easy and straightforward for Sparda's."
He laughs as he finishes the second of the two off and they head in the opposite direction than the spout since it's the only real way forward, "True enough."
It leads into another large open area which has another of those fleshy pod things. Even as it opens, other Demons that had been lingering around reveal themselves, a few Cainas, two Antenoras, and even a Behemoth, a type of Demon that may only have two legs, but who's body is oriented like a quadrapedaled creature, with a massive head and mouth that vaguely resembles a crocodile, though due to fear and loathing, the Demons tend to chain their mouths shut.
Remembering the vague idea she'd had with that super fast Demon, which she doesn't actually know the name of, she swiftly turns her ocular ability back on to see if she'll see anything of value.
She glances at her dad, "Those pod things seem to spit out Brutal Riots pretty much endlessly if they aren't dealt with. I could slip around and do that while you deal with and distract them?"
Her dad nods, "Sounds like a plan."
She waits a few beats to be certain her dad has their attention before quietly ghosting around to it. Honestly, she's been using it an awful lot, but it's useful as fuck, so she pulls out Lucifer again, though given that she'd been vaguely aware of what Uncle Vergil had been doing before, she had noticed they were sturdier than the clots, so she stabs two needles into it, one into each half of the inside of the pod. She glances at her dad to double check he's far enough away as she casts a shield spell, though this one is sturdier than the ones she's been using to just keep the clot blood from splattering her, given that while she could tank the explosion, there's not exactly a reason to.
Once she's confident everything is in order, she detonates them. Surprisingly, it doesn't outright rip the pod to shreds, but it does blow them both far beyond their limited flexibility and breaks the bloody goop connecting the two halves. It's enough for it to turn ashy and disintegrate, not too dissimilarly than a Qliphoth root actually. It makes her wonder if it's just straight up part of the Qliphoth or otherwise somehow related.
With that dealt with, she goes back to watching her dad continue to tear into the Demons, though as is fairly normal for him, it doesn't take very long at all, especially since they're all just lesser Demons. When he's done, they head out the only way they can, which is a short hallway that almost immediately turns right, leading straight to the clot.
Another shield and her dad slices into it, producing yet another small river of blood, which after rushing off, is soon followed up by more of the thumps and the grinding. Her dad shakes his head after she tosses another cleaning spell at him, "Don't wanna keep Mr Demon King waiting. Gotta pick up the pace."
After a quick check down what looks like a hallway branching off just to make sure, which they find dead ends almost immediately, they head through the opening left in the wake of the clot. The next path requires them to jump up to it, where they're almost immediately attacked by a Baphomet and two Brutal Riots, so she quickly turns her ocular ability back on since she hasn't seen the Baphomet yet at least since she had the idea to watch and see if she couldn't mimic it even without the relevant Style.
Her dad makes quick work of them, and hopefully since he started with the Brutal Riots she saw enough of the Baphomet doing its thing if it does work out. When she goes to turn it off though, she pauses. She'd originally picked up the tendency to only turn it on briefly when she needed it due to a combination of not wanting Agnus and the Demons to catch on, the drain on her energy reserves, and the headaches she sometimes got from it. But she had been freed from Agnus' grasp years ago, and she was significantly older now, which should help with the other two problems. For the cost of keeping it running, she'd not only gotten older and her body had matured, but she'd also fought quite a lot of Demons, and what she's absorbed from Great Demons also bolsters her reserves. Enough so that between that and maturing, she hadn't really noticed but the drain from having it active was barely worth noting. And as for the headaches, those had been from her struggling to take in and process what she was seeing as well as the sheer amount of what she could see with it. Again though, she's matured since, as well as the fact that her studies should, at minimum, give her an easier time making sense of and processing everything.
With that in mind, somewhat hesitantly, she decides to leave it on. Most Demons won't think anything of her eyes faintly glowing, and even if a non-magical person saw her, with the supernatural outed she didn't particularly need to concern herself with trying to keep it hidden.
As they head on towards another clot, she can't help but look around, reluctantly fascinated by the surprisingly complex flow of energy in the Qliphoth. She hadn't really seen it before, since the headaches she used to get had long taught her the best way to stop them from happening, other than just not using the ability, was to focus almost entirely on the thing she was wanting to look at.
She's actually so absorbed in it that she actually misses them closing in on the clot and her dad glancing at her when she doesn't toss up a shield, "Kiddo?"
She turns to him quickly, "Huh? Oh, sorry! I was distracted."
She tosses her shield up, actually getting a smidge distracted at the difference of just seeing its flows, but she shakes that one off quickly as the blood rushes down the groove. She tosses another cleaning spell at her dad as they hear the now somewhat familiar thumps, though this time the grinding noise lasts noticeably longer.
Her dad brushes his coat off, "That should be all of them."
There's a small chamber beyond where the clot had been, with a Nidhogg Hatchling on one of their broken roots. Her dad trots up to it to grab it, idly commenting, "Been awhile since I used my brain this much."
When he comes back out and they head towards the spout, she realizes fairly quickly why they hadn't seen the ones she hadn't noticed from the ground. Namely, they were placed decently higher up, and she and her dad hadn't particularly looked around, up included, since they'd had a way forward at the time.
Shaking the thought off after her dad jumps off to take the expressway back down, since it was nowhere near high enough to hurt them. When they hop back down, it isn't too difficult to see what the noises had been, seeing as the basins have lowered, there were also small stone squares coming out of the bottom of the statues' base, and given that it's slid back and revealing a hole underneath where the statue originally was, she's decently confident they're part of some sort of lock.
Hopping down in the hole finds them on a brief landing before a staircase, going down obviously, into a sort of catacomb passageway looking place, though she admittedly doesn't see any bones. That being said, given the way one gets down here, and the fact there weren't usually conveniently placed Qliphoth blood clots, she wouldn't be surprised if there were.
They soon end up finding part of their path forward is some sort of rocky slope, though it isn't smooth at all given the juts in the stone all over, she she can't help but wonder a bit if that was how it had been since it's creation for whatever reason or if it was all the shifting of the ground that had done it. Once they get to the top they find the passageway starting to head up some stairs leading up to some ruins incredibly close to the Qliphoth.
Her dad looks around idly with a thoughtful expression, and Griffon, who had fallen behind as he was riding the motorcycle, catches up right at that moment, somewhat out of breath, "Ha. There you are!" He pants for a moment before continuing, "Hey, what's wrong with you?" When her dad ignores him he calls out again, "Hey!" Her dad pulls out Rebellion, looking at it thoughtfully, and Griffon's voice turns even more irritated, "Hey, Dante!"
Her dad looks up, but he doesn't really focus on anything in particular, "The Demonic powers were activated, truly activated, in me once when Vergil, in his maddened state, lovingly jammed this through my chest." He tips it back and forth, "I always wondered… Why did my father give me the Rebellion? Later, when he came back, I tried asking, but all he would say was that Rebellion and Yamato were a balanced pair but I had to figure it out myself to truly use it. If it was explained to me I wouldn't be able to use it to its full extent."
Griffon still sounds aggravated, "Okay, what are you muttering?"
Her dad lets out a small short laugh as he turns to Griffon, "Over the years, I've been stabbed and jabbed by a number of things." He looks back down at Rebellion, "But who would've ever guessed…"
Then, without warning, her dad flips what's left of Rebellion into a reverse grip and stabs it into his stomach. She lurches forward and grabs his shoulders in alarm, "Dad!"
Griffin also calls out, "Have you lost your mind?! There's a Demon to destroy! Kill yourself later! I'll help!"
Her dad is grunting in pain, but he grits out, "If they are a pair, and the Yamato divides, and it can separate man from Devil, then what about Rebellion?"
He shoves it even further into his stomach, pushing it so far in that the ribcage leading down from the skull on the hilt goes into the stab wound as well. As soon as it does, the blade starts turning into red energy, the shade and the like looking like red hot metal straight from the forge. It dissolves into ember like flecks and streams of red energy and disappears into him, and about the same time, the Sparda on his back begins to glow that red hot color as well. A beat later it starts to disappear the same way as the Rebellion had.
She hesitantly lets go of her dad and takes a step back, not knowing if it's possible for her to get caught up in what's happening but knowing that her dad certainly wouldn't want anything to happen to her. He glances up when she does and gives her a reassuring smile.
Griffon breathes out, "Wow… You are… absorbing the Sparda!"
Even once it's physically gone, swirls of red energy continue to be sucked in and her dad tenses up. Seeing his power build and build she pulls out her Angel wings, having a strong feeling that they would be taking off fast rather soon.
Her dad throws his head back as red energy explodes out of him, most of it in that circle of glyphs that appear around them when they Devil Trigger, but some of it just raw whisps of it.
When the explosion is over, her dad is in a Devil form, but it looks completely different than his usual Devil Trigger. For one thing, in his normal Devil Trigger, while there were differences, he still had a mostly human face, but in this one she can't see anything human looking in it. For another, while her dad's normal form has a large crack in the middle of his chest with glowing red energy emanating from it and spreading out from smaller cracks, and there were very faint ones on his legs, in this form the energy is all over. Coming out of spikes in his legs, cracks in his arms, around the horns he now has, his eyes were glowing with it, and even the inside of his mouth was from what she can see from him panting open mouthed. Which is full of pointed teeth, instead of keeping his human shaped teeth as his normal Devil Trigger does.
The power radiating off of him was… pretty damn high. Her dad was weaker than her grandpa in general, but the thing was with the fact her grandpa had stuffed his power into the Sparda when he made the original seal, he'd lost it permanently. And while he'd helped the Angels with the initial clean up of the Demons trapped on Earth, afterwards he'd mostly left dealing with any leftovers of one's that managed to get through one way or another to them, at least up until the Statute of Secrecy. So he'd basically spent the five thousand years since regaining his power. He was a bit stronger than the Devil Sword Sparda last she'd seen him, but not by much. Her dad and uncle usually had about three quarters of his power. But her dad had just absorbed the Sparda adding it on top of his own power. Technically speaking, though he'd undoubtedly gotten significantly stronger since from the waves of Great Demons he'd been fending off of the large refuge, going by the last time she saw him, her dad was stronger now.
Her dad kicks off so powerfully that a shockwave goes out, almost knocking her on her ass before she launches herself as well. There's no way in hell she'll keep up, so she'll just have to go as fast as she can and catch up as soon as she can, if nothing else because she's worried about her dad's mind possibly being a bit hazy from the new Devil Trigger and potentially needing to remind him not to kill Urizen.
When she catches up, flying down the hole she'd seen her dad smash into the Qliphoth, she finds herself in a throne room where her dad was currently staring down what has to be Urizen. She can see why her uncle was surprised by his appearance, given that he looked nothing like Devils as she knew them. It's hard to see what he really looks like, given that he seems to be covered in Qliphoth roots, though how he got control of them she has no clue. She'd also be curious as to how they were still alive when there was no physical connection between them and the Qliphoth proper, but there were tethers of energy between them, and she assumes it has something to do with that. But for all that she can't really see what he looks like with all the roots in the way, his height alone certainly was a far cry from Devils as she was familiar with them, seeing as he looks to be somewhere between twenty five to thirty feet tall.
A glance around lets her see Nero bloodied and beaten, and she rushes over to him, quickly landing by his side. She moves to pull her wand out to cast diagnosis spells, before she blinks in surprise. She still hasn't turned off the ocular ability, and she's just now noticing that she can sort of just… see what's wrong with him. She gets a vague thought that the info must have been some of the stuff she couldn't make heads or tails of back when she used it on her grandparents and uncle when she first met them. She relaxes a bit though. Nero was beaten up yes, but his body was already quickly dealing with it. Fast enough that even if she tried to accelerate it with spells or potions, it wouldn't do much.
Nero glances at her, then returns his gaze to her dad, before murmuring between pants for air, "It can't be. Dante, you son of a bitch." He says the last part with a he lets out a small laugh in his panting, "I knew you couldn't be killed that easily!"
His knees try to buckle, but she quickly catches him and helps hold his weight as she starts tugging him back to be out of the way, he points tiredly at her dad, "Hey, he's all yours… But don't let it become a habit."
She settles him on the ground as far back as the chamber allows, though not leaning against the Qliphoth walls since she doesn't exactly trust them. He sways, looking like he's about to pass out, and she quickly pulls out her medical bag and extracts a pepper up potion, as well as a couple fully charged industria effusio crystals that her dad hadn't used from the ones her mom brought. Unlike her dad, Nero doesn't manage to fully drain them before his energy reserves are back to full, but just those three things seem to help him considerably.
She looks back at her dad, just in time to see a wave of more ember like flecks and swirls of red energy come out of his hand and immediately snap into a sword. She blinks rapidly. Still having not turned off her ocular ability, she sees how he makes the blade with his raw power solidified. It leads credence to the idea that the fast Demon, who's species name she still didn't know, made that red blade coming out of its arm with solidified Demonic power, given that it looks like a significantly more advanced version than what it had done to create that blade on its arm. Assumably, it's how the Sparda was created as well, which explains why her grandpa never bothered to take the Sparda back from Aunt Trish, since he could just make a new one that he started calling Devil Sword Alessio after his name change. It was actually rather fascinating, but she knows full well she couldn't replicate it. It requires a certain amount of power to do that, she can tell that much immediately, and she does not have that level of power. At least, not with the technique as it was, but maybe if she could fix it a bit since there do seem to be some inefficiencies, and maybe some wiggle room for streamlining though the brief look she'd gotten made it hard to say.
She'd have to study the memory more in depth to be certain if she could work them out, and even then it would likely still be too much power for her, but perhaps Nero could keep it in his back pocket as a backup in case anything happened to the Red Queen. But hell, as it currently was, before absorbing the Sparda, her dad would barely have had enough power to do it himself, and it would've basically tapped him out completely. Unlike when Grandpa had purposely ripped most of his power out permanently to store it in the Sparda on the other side of the seal, he wouldn't really lose power, but she assumes that either her dad had figured out how to do it while absorbing the Sparda or it was instinctual knowledge a Devil gained when they acquired a certain amount of power. If it was the latter, for all that he technically had enough power to make a Devil Sword of his own, given how close he was, she'd have to assume that if it was instinctive knowledge that you needed to be a bit further over the bar before you learned it.
Urizen lifts a hand and seems to sort of slowly bring a strange floating and rotating crystal forward with his hand vaguely behind it, "Dante…"
She stares at the crystal hard. There was something familiar about its energy at its core, but with it buried under layers of Urizen's power and the warping from the Qliphoth, she couldn't put her finger on it. Her attention shifts back to her dad as he lifts the sword a little higher. The sword her dad had been made, Devil Sword Dante she supposes would be its name if it was made the same way as the Sparda, had a rather simple appearance compared to the Sparda. It looked like a normal two handed sword sort of, but with what appears to be solidified lava running down the middle extending out from the hilt, which also looked like solidified lava. The cross guards looked kind of like dragon claws, though they curved back towards the grip rather than forward, and the pommel was some sort of oval shaped red jewel held within two curved bits that vaguely resembled the large horns sweeping up from his forehead, which are a solid three feet alone. He has two more, curling forward from behind his ears, but they're much shorter.
Anyway, the point was, that had been its appearance, but with a bit of a clang sort of noise, the middle snaps open, revealing a red glow, and the blade on either side of the hardened lava looking stuff begins to glow like it was hot as well. Even the claws in the cross guard begin glowing. He sweeps the sword around him casually, then with a small roar his wings snap out into straight points, the swirls of red glow they also have, though not like hot metal, flairs up briefly.
That seems to be the end of their stare down as they immediately both move forward to clash. The crystal tries to jerk in front of blows meant for Urizen, and he even lifts a hand, trying to make some sort of shield, but her dad smashes through both fairly quickly, dodging the lashing roots with ease as he does.
The sword thing was something she'd have to ask her dad and grandpa about later, but for now she tilts her head towards to Nero though she can't bring herself to look away, both from the clash itself and the swirling torrent of energy, "I guess being in the Qliphoth is interfering with even electronic signals too heavily for them to get through. We found Dad basically in a coma practically right next to the Sparda."
Though they've definitely helped, it's not too surprising given his energy is immediately rushing to heal him, but he still sounds a little tired, "Oh. What happened to his Devil Trigger?"
She shrugs, "Dad had said Grandpa told him that Yamato and Rebellion were a pair, but that Dad would have to figure anything more out himself or he wouldn't be able to make full use of it. After he was filled in on the fact Urizen is Uncle Vergil's pure Devil side separated from him, he had the thought that if Yamato separates, or divides or whatever you wanna call it, than the Rebellion should logically, as its pair, be able to join. He stabbed himself with it while he was carrying the Sparda and absorbed it. Permanently from what I can tell."
As they clash furiously, attacking with somewhat breathtaking speed, Urizen growls out, "Dante… You dare approach me in that form?!"
Her dad barks out a laugh, "You're one to talk! Do you know what you look like now?"
Even as he hacks at Urizen, some of the roots keep getting in the way. The ones trailing behind him suddenly stir and stab towards her dad, though he easily moves back. Urizen waves a hand up, and pillars of blue energy raise up, her dad darting around them to close in again.
Nero huffs a laugh, "Man. Uncle Dante is going to town."
She hums in agreement, "Yeah. The energy is actually kinda fascinating."
Nero makes a confused noise, "Fascinating? The Qliphoth is so… warped and twisted it kinda makes me sick. And there isn't really anything noteworthy beyond the sheer power in Uncle Dante and Urizen."
She shakes her head, "Not the Qliphoth's, and yeah, I can sense what you mean, but looking at it…"
Nero makes another confused noise, then she hears him shift before he gasps, "That glow… you have your ocular ability on?" He pauses for a beat before adding, "Should really give that thing a name. All Sight?"
She tilts her head towards him, but still doesn't look away as Urizen's crystal thing comes back out from where it retreated after being damaged, which buys him time to build up another attack, this one launching beams up that quickly drop on her dad, though he nimbly dodges those as well, "That's a bit pretentious, but yeah."
He whistles, "Must be one hell of a show."
She shrugs, "A bit, yeah."
Not having broken the crystal enough to force it back again before he was forced to dodge, Urizen has just enough time to gather his energy for another attack, this one making some sort of circle filled with runes that launches a beam of energy before turning to sweep it. She tenses briefly, fully ready to snatch up her cousin and dodge, but it stops before it reaches them, turning back to sweep back the way it had just come.
Her dad easily moves over it both times before cracking the crystal and tearing into Urizen again. It isn't long before Urizen is thrown back, sliding with one knee and hand down across the ground, kicking up waves of blood from the Qliphoth in the process.
He lifts his head slowly as her dad turns off his Devil Trigger and confidently begins to walk towards him, "All this time, and you still don't get it."
He lifts the Devil Sword Dante and starts to take another step before the whole Qliphoth shaking has him stumbling back slightly to keep his balance. Urizen raises to his feet, "It is you who does not understand." He begins lifting his hands, "It has begun. The Qliphoth is revealed in its entirety."
The crystal drifts up to Urizen's open hand and suddenly shatters, revealing the Yamato was actually its core. Which was actually good in certain ways, since it means Urizen hasn't absorbed its power. It does bring up the question of how he's been doing all of his attacks and his shield, or rather, where he learned them. Even that's not necessarily a bad thing, at least for her, given she'd spent the entire fight watching how he used his energy to do all that, and if it wasn't abilities related to the Yamato, she'd say that other than not having nearly as much raw power to make them so powerful that it means there's a good chance she actually could learn how to do those herself.
The Yamato disappears into blue energy that Urizen absorbs, though in this case she's fairly confident that it's just being stored inside of him rather than actually absorbed in the way Devils can to gain raw power or abilities. He lowers his hand, "This inconvenience…" A wave of blood suddenly bursts up out of the ground, and Urizen turns and starts stepping into it, "Matters not."
Urizen disappears, making it clear that it was somehow transporting him, and her dad runs forward and jumps through it, but whether it only accepts Urizen or was already shutting down, it doesn't take him anywhere. He just bursts out the other side covered in blood as the fountains fall to the ground.
She sighs as she tosses an absent cleaning spell at her dad. Urizen had gotten away.
(1): A fairing is a combination of lightweight, shell-like panels, often surrounding the front and sides of a motorcycle. I'm explaining it because my beta was a bit confused and she's not very familiar with motorcycles and actually originally thought it was a type, so I figured she was a good gauge for whether people would understand what I was saying or not.