She shakes her head as her dad turns back to her and Nero, then pulls out her phone, "Can you guys hear me? Because given that Nero didn't know we found Dad, being inside the Qliphoth clearly messes with electronic signals, but Dad literally busted a hole straight into Urizen's throne room, so it's possible this could get through."

She waits a beat, but there isn't an answer, so she glances up at the roof, "I was hoping that hole you smashed would give the signals a clear path out, but I guess not."

Her dad shakes his head, "We need to get in touch with Vergil and Kazuto to make sure they know it's useless to bring Vergil here to deal the final blow to Urizen."

She nods, "I can fly up and out of the hole? Maybe that would be enough."

He shrugs, "Worth a shot."

She stands up from where she'd been kneeling by Nero the entire time, "I'll be back then. He seems to be recovering pretty well, especially after a pepper up and some energy from industria effusio crystals but keep an eye on Nero for a moment for me."

Her dad hums and starts making his way over, so she snaps out her Angel wings and takes off. She clears the hole shortly, but flies a bit further up to be safe. When her mate's voice suddenly starts coming out of her phone, she knows she's out of range of the warping, "Marzanna, what's your guys' progress? Marzanna? Marzanna are you there?"

Then her mom's voice, somewhat concerned, "I don't think she can hear us."

The Yui tentatively offering, "Well, electronic signals have been getting through significantly better but even they're still somewhat warped, so it's possible Mama is close enough to the Qliphoth now that she's not getting our messages."

Her mate's shaky voice answers their daughters, "God, I hope so, because the alternatives to her not answering…"

They're clearly old messages coming through belatedly, especially since a beat later she gets another from her mate, "Marzanna! Thank god! I was so worried."

She lifts her phone up, "Sorry about that. I got the messages just now, presumably when my phone could actually connect, but I sent the one about Nero not getting any of our previous messages before that, and I assume it went through when I tried flying up out of the hole Dad smashed to reconnect."

A relieved sigh from her mate comes through first, "Ok. You guys ok? What happened with Urizen? He didn't die did he?"

She shakes her head on habit even knowing he can't see, "No. Dad beat him, but then the Qliphoth shook and he said something about it beginning and the Qliphoth being revealed in its entirety then he disappeared."

There's a beat before her Uncle's voice comes through, "The fruit must almost be ready. If that's the case he'll be at the top of the Qliphoth."

Her brow furrows, "Since you mentioned the fruit, by top I assume you mean it's branches? Even if it'd be the bottom by our perspective."

Aunt Trish is the one who responds, "Yes. Up where you guys are is the lowest level of the Qliphoth's upper echelon. You need to go down to catch up to him."

She hums, "Alright, I got it. I'm gonna head back to Dad and Nero, and since the Qliphoth disrupts the signal, I'll be out of contact. Kazuto, make sure you and Vergil start heading that way instead of up here, since there's no point in you guys coming here anymore."

He hums in understanding, "We'll be there soon, but in the meantime you guys be careful, ok?"

She laughs lightly, "As much as we can be given the circumstances. Love you, see you later."

She waits long enough to hear him return the sentiment as well as a beat to make sure no one remembers something at the last moment before heading back down. She sighs as she lands near her dad and cousin, "Uncle Vergil says the Fruit must almost be ready, so we have to head down to its branches."

Her dad hums in understanding, then glances at Nero, "I suppose we should head out then. We're in a bit of a rush, so I hope you're ready to go kid."

Nero climbs to his feet, "Yeah, I'm good."

She eyes him critically, but from what she can see, he isn't just faking it well now that he's caught his breath. His power seems to have almost finished healing him, and even what's left will probably only take a few minutes more at most and shouldn't really slow him down.

Satisfied, she turns to her dad, "Well, we'd better get going then."

They head out swiftly after that, soon finding a way back out of the Throne room to start heading down. It isn't long before they find a platform they can jump down into the higher levels, which she notes is a weird and backwards feeling thought, and she glances at her dad, "Do we go as a group, or should Nero split up from us to to take another path and cover more ground to try to do more damage the the Qliphoth on the way? Since even when Urizen is dealt with, Grandpa said that we won't be able to fix the seal with it folding back a section of the planes to exist between them so we'll have to destroy the Qliphoth itself after we've dealt with Urizen."

Her dad pauses and glances at her cousin in question. Nero shrugs, "I'm down, especially since we are going to finish this properly."

Her dad nods firmly, "Then we go our own ways."

He starts making his way towards a different section of the cliff to drop into a different area, and Nero starts to head in the opposite direction. She turns and walks backwards, "Nero!" He turns as well, so she continues, "Be careful though, ok? As much as you can be given the circumstances."

He smiles at her in reassurance and lifts his hand in acknowledgement as he turns back around, "Don't worry Marzanna, I will."

Without another word, he hops off his section of the cliff, snapping his wings out as he does. She turns back to her dad as they approach their section, snapping her own wings out as they jump. When they touch down, her dad glances over at her before offering his own reassurance, "We'll meet back up at some point. But for now, one foot in front of the other."

She smiles at him, and then a strange humming noise catches her attention. Floating towards them out of the darkness was a Lusachia, sometimes called a Chorus of Malediction. They were actually something of an… evolved form, if you could call it that, of a Baphomet. They're ones that have essentially traded all physical power, even just the power to move normally, for Demonic magical power. In the process, they pretty much lose their mostly normal looking bipedal goat-like bodies, becoming a vaguely round mass of pitch black flesh with atrophied arms and legs, which move sluggishly, sticking out and multiple mouths, to be able to chant multiple things at the same time, covering the misshapen lump that's become of their torso and head. The humming was coming from the dark purple circles of glyphs floating in the air around them, and even coursing over the lump of flesh.

Her nose scrunches in disgust. Lusachia are a type of Demon she's seen before, since even if they aren't super common they aren't particularly rare, but no matter how many times she does, she's still disgusted by them. It's only made worse by the way she can see the energy in and around them flowing with the ocular ability, given the information it gives her, including the echoes of other Demons' energy signatures telling her the way it's essentially stolen the heads of other Baphomets and basically melted their heads into them to get so many mouths, hence the misshapen lump. Hell, it's even fused them into its hands, melting the fingers away and leaving it with only thumbs and a fused stump where they used to be above the palms to add mouths to said palms.

She's very tempted to turn her ocular ability off, but as disgusted as she was by it, it doesn't necessarily mean she can't learn anything as it uses its power. She won't touch any magic, Demonic, Angelic, or otherwise that's twisted and warped, but just because it's body is it doesn't necessarily mean it's spells are.

Being a little trickier as they prefer to keep their distance since they aren't melee attackers and like to teleport away as well as make decently strong shields, she manages to see a good bit of its spells before her dad finishes it off. The shield of course, but also a lightning attack, which reminds her that she hadn't observed Trish's artificial Demon when it had fought her dad but since its power came from her, she could probably just ask Aunt Trish to show her some of her power later, as well as an ice spell that seems to be an advanced version of the icicles the Baphomet launches when its not using the spikes that come up from the ground, a decently powerful beam attack, another ice spell, and some sort of large explosion.

When it's dealt with, they head off again, down another drop. On the way down, she scrunches her nose at the smell, and when they land her dad comments, "Ugh, it stinks… Must be in the right spot."

Nearby was another of those fleshy pods and as Demons pop up she glances at her dad as she nods towards it, and he nods as he starts gathering the attention of the Demons. While she waits a moment to make sure they're firmly distracted, she casts a variation of the bubblehead charm on both her and her dad that filters the air as it goes through, cleaning out the reeking scent of it as well as any contaminants there may be. The latter likely wasn't a big deal for their Nephilim bodies, but if she's going to do it anyway for the spell, she may as well take a second to appreciate keeping any more of whatever gross nonsense is down here out of her body to begin with.

Once her dad has their attention, she slips around the fight towards the fleshy pod. She blinks quickly in surprise when she gets closer, realizing it's right on top of a clot. She shrugs, once more taking out Lucifer. A couple needles planted in each side of it, as well as one in the clot bellow it, a quick check on her dad's position, and another shield later and it's down, so she turns back to watching her dad and the Demons fight in interest. Both because her dad is just good at his job and his fighting is always practically an art, and because there's always a chance to learn more, especially since there are some Demons around she hasn't had the opportunity to observe yet, though she isn't too sure if there's anything to learn from the Angelo's mixed in, beyond the fact they're also disgustingly warped like the Lusachia from whatever process Agnus used to create them.

The Behemoth also isn't very eye-catching, the only thing she notices at a glance is an ability to absorb raw power from basically anything they eat that has even a lick of power. However, given that she already has the ability to absorb power, and without having to eat the things she's absorbing power from to boot, as well as the fact she can absorb Styles and abilities instead of just raw power, the fact they don't really have any powers of note that she's aware of nor can see makes it rather unnoteworthy, though she does absently keep an eye on it just in case it shows any hidden gems. The Antenoras on the other hand are a little more interesting, if only out of curiosity of their sort of berserk attacks and the sort of immunity they have to being interrupted while they're in that state, though while she's obviously glad there haven't been many Ravagers given how many people could have died if they'd been around when the Qliphoth appeared, but she'll have to try to track down a Ravager when this is all done, since their Berserk Style is significantly harder to stagger.

When her dad's done, the only way forward was down the hole the clot had been covering, but since they're trying to go down anyway it's not necessarily a bad thing.

The hole leads to another chamber that… is honestly practically an irl copy-paste of the one above it, right down to that fleshy pod being on top of the clot, the only real difference being that there's a second pod off to the side and what Demons her dad was fighting, since while there were still Brutal Riots, rather than a Behemoth and a couple Angelo's, there are Nobodies. Her dad nods his chin towards them, and she lets out an agreeing hum. It's enough for him to tear off to start hacking through the enemies and draw their undivided attention. Once she's sure he's got it, she ghosts around the fight to repeat what she'd done to the pod and clot in the chamber above, with the only deviation being a pit stop to plant explosive needles into the second pod and clot beneath it, since she's not sure which leads down before heading over to the other one on top of its clot. Though it's also to destroy them simultaneously since while they don't take interest in her when she destroys one, she has no idea if there being multiple will cause their attention to be drawn to protect the one still standing.

All that being said, given that the ashy gray death of the root goes towards the center from both of the clots' destructions, she has a feeling the answer is 'both of them' but she's not worried about it since it's already done. Shaking her head, she turns her attention back to the fight. It doesn't take too long, and over the course of it she quickly comes to the conclusion that while she hadn't been particularly interested in their abilities, she wouldn't be able to mimic most them if she'd wanted to. The way they were so intrinsically tied to the masks they swapped between made it more akin to using an enchanted object than an inherent ability or Style, so it wasn't really a matter of how their energy flowed. Well, except for their ability to increase their size at will. That was all on them, and she's pretty sure she could do it if she wanted to or ever had a need.

It's wrapped up just as quickly as the previous chamber had been, and they once more jump down. Another chamber, though this one was actually empty, so they jump down the next hole basically immediately.

The next room has her sighing, "These Demons or the Qliphoth or whatever set this up aren't very imaginative(1), are they?"

Her dad snorts, "Not really, no. Distract for pods?"

She hums in agreement. There were four of this time, as well as Barbed Chaos' and another Nobody. Interestingly, there weren't any Brutal Riots that she could see, which actually makes her a bit suspicious of the pods, at least until she sees a Barbed Chaos come out of one and join the other three. She tilts her head, she had of course figured they were some sort of transporter, but given that she'd never seen them without Brutal Riots around and she'd never seen anything but them come out of them, she'd honestly been beginning to think it was something linked to them specifically.

After the beat to make sure they're focused on her dad, she drifts around the room quietly, planting needles in them as she goes, as well as all four of the clots underneath all of them, especially given what had happened last time. Once she's shielded and detonated, she turns back to her dad. Other than vaguely keeping an eye on it in case it reveals any tricks up in proverbial sleeves, she ignores the Nobody in favor of seeing if the Barbed Chaos' have anything worthwhile. However, while she'd honestly been expecting it given all they really had was that attack where they rolled up into basically a wheel and careened towards you to tear into you with the spikes on their back, some sort of toxic spit attack, and their unusually sharp claws, all their abilities were primarily based in their physiques, with their power really only used to help control and strengthen their abilities, so for all that they were also in the upper echelons of the lower Demons, they were just as uninteresting as the Nobodies. More than even, to be honest, since the only thing remotely usable was the strengthening of their defensive power, which she can not only already do with Royal Guard, but do better, and the way they sharpen their claws, which she supposes is at least somewhat useful to maybe help eek the gap between herself and stronger Demons a little more closed.

It seems that the sort of slide-like tunnel meets up with other routes, given that only seconds after they touch down, Nero lands beside them. And while they were supposed to be on the way, she's somewhat surprised when Uncle Vergil and Kazuto drop down only seconds later. She does feel relieved though, since it means Uncle Vergil is around to land the killing blow and remerge with Urizen, and given that they look uninjured, though Uncle Vergil's skin is cracking and flaking away as he breaks down at this point. The lack of any particular injuries beyond just getting a bit roughed up though, point to them getting through easily enough all things considered. Despite what's ahead of them, she also can't help but feel a bit happy to see her darling mate, even though they've only been separated a few hours, since with everything that's happened it feels much longer than that.

Normally, she'd hold back on the affection when talking to Kazuto with her dad right there, but someone had forgotten his daughter was right there when he was talking about… getting a reward of the horizontal tango from her mom earlier, so she doesn't hesitate to grin at him and while it isn't nearly as dirty, flirtatiously greets him, "Hiya sleepyhead! What's a cutie like you doin' down in a hell hole like this?"

He gives her a mildly surprised look, then flicks a glance at her dad, who has a rather pinched look, even as Nero's shoulders shake with laughter and even Uncle Vergil looks a bit amused. Her dad gives her a look, "Right in front of me?"

She looks him dead in the eye, "That's significantly milder payback Mr I'm gonna forget my daughter is right there and teasingly talk about getting a reward from my wife of some… practice towards giving my daughter a sibling right in front of her."

His shoulders hunch, and Nero loses the fight with suppressing his laughter as Uncle Vergil turns his face away, though he doesn't turn enough to hide his grin. Her dad glances away, "Ok. I might've deserved that."

Her beloved mate shakes his head in amusement, then looks down the slope. There's a deep red glow coming up from it, outlining branches that almost look like ribs, "That aside." He nods down the tunnel, "They really like to make things look ominous, don't they."

Her dad snorts then claps him on the shoulder, "Yeah, they do, but don't lose your nerve yet. Looks like we still got a long ways to go."

As they start to make their way forward though, the Qliphoth suddenly shakes again, and the ground beneath them breaks apart and drops them down.

They get separated again in the fall, and she ends up with Uncle Vergil, grabbing onto him and snapping her wings out to cushion their fall. She feels a bit nervous to be separated from the others, all of them since the brief reunion with her mate has only heightened her flared up separation anxiety, her dad had only just been found after being missing for a month, and Nero had just had the shit beat out of him by Urizen. Honestly, no matter how the split up had broken down, she'd have been anxious regardless, so she supposes she should just be grateful she hadn't been separated from all of them.

When they land, she starts to let go of Uncle Vergil after setting his feet down, but feeling him start to tip forward as his shaking knees try to buckle, she retightens her grip until he's steady. Her Uncle's voice is strained as he tries to get his body to cooperate, "Damn, just a little longer. Come on…" He shakes his head as he tries to straighten up again, "Damn it… A little longer… Hold on a little longer…"

Given that a quick look tells her that the problem is that his falling apart body does not want to keep moving, it's not going to sort itself out after a little bit. So being careful not to drop her Uncle onto his face, she maneuvers them until she's on his left, the arm closer to him wrapped around his waist, the other holding the wrist on the arm around her shoulders.

Her Uncle leans on both her and his cane heavily, "Thank you."

She tightens her grip a bit, "It's no problem Uncle Vergil. This will get a bit tricky if Demons show up though." She starts to take a step forward, slowly for now both to give him time to realize and because she isn't certain how fast he can go yet, "Maybe… If that happens, do you think you could quickly summon Shadow and lean on him so I don't drop you to the ground?"

Her Uncle's breath rattles a little, "Something like that, yes."

After the first few steps, her Uncle manages to start moving faster, but she still holds onto him given the way he keeps stumbling. They make their way down the winding canyon-like path. It's not very long before they follow a turn to the left and come across a section where the ground suddenly moves up like a single stair, though given its taller than Uncle Vergil, it's not a human sized one. She glances over at her Uncle as they approach, eying his condition. It probably wouldn't be good for him to even try to jump up it, even if normally their Nephilim bodies could do so easily.

With that in mind, when they get close, she tightens her hold when she feels him tense to try, pulling a confused gaze towards her, "Hold on a moment Uncle."

Letting the arm around her shoulders go as she turns to be in front of him again, she wraps it around his waist as well as she snaps her wings out. A quick boost up, and she removes the other arm from his waist and twists back to his side, grabbing onto his wrist again for added stability when she's back to his side.

They continue down as the path curves right for a bit, finding another jut of the roots above the ground. Though rather than outright raising the ground level, it's more like a barrier across the path. She mimics the maneuver quickly, but when she goes to set Uncle Vergil down, even with her holding a substantial amount of his weight, his knees still try to buckle again.

Griffon flutters around in worry, "Are you alright, Vergil? You might wanna take a break…"

Her uncle shakes his head as they slowly start forward again, "No. We must get there quickly. While Dante knows I must be the one to ultimately kill Urizen, a Devil of his caliber can only really be brought down by bringing him to the brink of death. He will not be able to keep him subdued without him dying for long."

As they walk, clusters of crystals on either side of the path light up. When they get to a wider spot though, with spikes coming up dotted throughout, the moment they draw close the spikes suddenly start glowing purple along glyphs all over them. Almost immediately she feels something try to snare her mind, but she shoves it away harshly with her Occlumancy. Uncle Vergil on the other hand, while he knows the art as well, is clearly in no place to fight even that off. Given the way he grunts and his knees fully buckle anyway.

She tightens her hold, "Uncle Vergil!"

There's no time for him to respond even if he wanted to, given the dark fog rolling off of him for a few moments, before three orbs burst out of him as he releases a cry of pain, spiraling up into the air briefly before just disappearing. Given that the tattoos from his Nightmare Familiars disappear at the same time, she doesn't need to ask to know what they were. Her heart lodges itself into her throat. Uncle Vergil was already basically on his last leg, and whatever was going on had just torn out what was bringing his body closer to balance to at least slow down his Angelic powers attacking his own body.

He goes completely slack in her grasp, and she quickly lowers him to the ground, rolling him onto his back, "Uncle Vergil!"

He turns his head weakly to look at her with unfocused eyes for a moment before passing out.

With a shuddering breath from the terror of her uncle possibly dying -especially when they're so close to fixing what had happened to him!- she forces herself to focus and actually take in the swirls of rolling energy around them. She quickly realizes that her Uncle's mind was also ripped away. Not dead, thank fuck, but not in his body. He was inside a space created by the trap around them. Interestingly enough, he wasn't flung into a mental landscape, he was ripped into a very physical pocket dimension. It was a neat trick, and every last scrap of the energy of it was teeming with Malphas' energy signature.

She smiles in a mixture of grim satisfaction and triumph. The bitch made a colossal fucking mistake. She'd tried springing this trap on Nephilim with Devil blood. If she twists the technique a step to the left, their Shift ability will let her into the pocket dimension. She quickly layers shields on her Uncle, with notice-me-nots, illusions, and every other spell she can think of to hide him, as well as proximity alarm spells, though to be honest if this is Malphas' territory, it would explain why they haven't seen any other Demons yet, as she sincerely doubts there were any around, but she'd rather be safe than sorry.

Once she's done, she stands up. Twisting the energy of the Shift to match the frequency of the pocket dimension, she slides into it. It's actually a bit irritating to the eyes given that everything here is laced with energy. It was similar in the Qliphoth, but here even the air was blanketing the area like a fog and swirling faintly here and there as it was disturbed. Uncle Vergil who was walking normally toward a trio of portals in the distance, turns swiftly at sensing her presence, lifting his cane to use as a weapon as he does.

He blinks quickly and lowers it, "Marzanna?"

She quickly moves over to him, looking him over as she goes, "Huh. That's probably an unintended side effect."

Her uncle gives her a confused look, "What side effect?"

She tilts her head at him, "This pocket dimension is bathing you in so much Demonic energy, and rather neutral Demonic energy at that since if it ever held Malphas' signature it's long lost it, that it's unintentionally brought your body back into balance, at least temporarily. You still don't have your Devil abilities of course, but it's shifted your body away from attacking itself to healing itself."

Her uncle glances at his hand, "I had noticed I was being healed. Hadn't quite realized the exact details of it." Then he drops his hand, "Where are we?"

She huffs a small laugh as she makes her way over to him, "You? You're physically right where I put you on the ground under every shield spell and hiding spell I could think of as well as proximity alarms to let me know somethings near before it even has a chance to spot your body and attack, though if it's Malphas' territory I doubt it's necessary. It's only your mind that got yanked into this pocket dimension. But I figured I could tune the Shift into the frequency of this little pocket dimension she made and step into it, and I was right."

Her uncle looks over at her as they start towards the portals again, "Really now?" He turns his gaze back in front of them thoughtfully, "That's an interesting application of the Shift." She hums and they stop a bit in front of the portals. He eyes them thoughtfully, "So, which to go through to get out of here? Decisions, decisions…"

She glances back behind them, spotting the large arched doorway with three bundles of chains criss-crossing over it, "Well, when I was looking at her little trap, I saw that she left a backdoor, presumably in case someone ever managed to turn it on her. I saw bits about 'trials' and the like, and that door back there has three locks, so I imagine we have to go through all three."

Her uncle hums in understanding, and she turns back around to eye the statues of the upper bodies above the archways, "That being said, while I don't recognize those other two, that one on the left was Aunt Trish's artificial Demon as you well know, so I imagine we'll have to fight in each one."

He sighs, "Yes, I suppose that is something of a trial given my condition. Either that or being a Demon she's unimaginative and can only think of combat as far as trials are concerned." He taps a finger against his cane thoughtfully before he shakes himself, "May as well keep it simple and just go left to right."

She hums as they approach the one with Trish's artificial Demon statue above it. Beyond the shimmering veil of energy is actually a hallway leading towards a wall of almost blinding light. She snorts, "Because light at the end of the tunnel isn't a cliché ominous sign."

Uncle Vergil laughs lightly as they move forward. When they step through they're in a massive chamber, the three orbs with a glowing symbol representing each of Uncle Vergil's Nightmares hovering in the air at about stomach height in a sort of spotlight, which was the only light in the chamber. Behind them was a full life sized statue of the artificial Demon in the darker area just beyond where the light falls.

Her Uncle moves forward, "So, this is where they are… I'm reclaiming what's mine."

She tilts her head, "Given that there are three trials and three Nightmares, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you can only pick one to take back in each portal."

Her Uncle nods, "Likely, yes."

She hums, "Well, given this guy was made with Aunt Trish and she specializes in electricity, and given that most of Griffon's attacks incorporate electricity in one way or another, you should probably pick Shadow here. Especially since the higher energy requirement of using Nightmare means you can't use him constantly."

Her Uncle hums, "An excellent point."

Without hesitation, he steps over to Shadow's orb, extending his hand over it. The orb disappears with a little humming chime. The red stylized symbol representing him breaks into flecks of energy and swirls up into his hand, and the tattoos related to him reappear.

The moment he does, the spotlight expands, and when the light touches the statue of the artificial Demon, its dark gray nearly black form starts to lighten up until it's an ashy white. A moment later, its eyes start glowing pure white and it suddenly snaps into motion smoothly, like it had never been a statue to begin with.

She pulls Shuraba out, but before she can do anything Uncle Vergil holds a hand out to her, "If I was the one caught in the trap and these are meant to be my trials, I likely have to be the one to deal with them. Go ahead and take a step back and leave it to me."

She catches her lower lip between her teeth as her brows furrow with worry, but she can't refute his logic, so she reluctantly steps back, "Ok. But I will interfere if you get in trouble. If it messes with the trial I'll figure out a way to force that door open after you get the Nightmares back."

He flashes her a warm smile over his shoulder, "I'd expect nothing less. Just having you here as backup just in case things go south is enough."

Then without hesitation he summons Shadow and moves towards the animated statue. Shadow immediately starts tearing into it with its claws and lashing at it with attacks using its tail, whip or drill like depending on his whim. As she watches the fight, she vaguely has the thought that she may not need to have Aunt Trish show her how she uses her powers after all, since a mimicry it may be, it was still using the same powers, and it wasn't just demonic magic twisted in specific ways to duplicate it. She's not entirely sure how Malphas made them, but it was actually using the Demonic power it possessed like it was genuinely alive. Though there was a certain humor in the fact it was a mimicry of an artificial Demon.

It isn't anywhere near as easy of a fight for Uncle Vergil as it had been for her dad, but he does manage to get it down to the level to be able to finish it off without her needing to step in. She's very, very glad she has her ocular ability on though, since it lets her see him make an illusion as he approaches, the illusion heading straight for it head on while he glides around behind it.

The artificial Demon stabs the illusion straight in the chest, but that of course doesn't do anything to Uncle Vergil, and while she couldn't say if it was intelligent enough for it, despite being able to see an awful lot of how it's made and functions, by the time it could realize its mistake when the Illusion glows briefly before vanishing, Uncle Vergil has already jumped and smashed the back of its head with his cane strengthened with power, "But the following Contraries to these are True."

She blinks a bit, thrown a little by her Uncle popping off a quote as he finishes it off. The world turns to white nothingness as the mimicry's body falls to its knees, and quite suddenly they're back where they started, a bit in front of the portals though the one on the left has crumbled and collapsed. She looks behind them, just in time to see the top set of chains break.

Her Uncle hums, "That's one down."

She nods, as they start towards the other two portals. The middle one also leads to a tunnel with a wall of light at the end, and when they step through that, it's basically a copy of the previous chamber, barring the fact there was a statue of a completely different Demon in place of the artificial one.

She eyes the statue as she and Uncle Vergil approach. She isn't familiar with this one, it's body vaguely looks like a mermaid, at least in the sense of having a vaguely humanoid upper half but a sort of fish tail instead of legs. Not that whichever it has really matters, given that it's floating. To make the amalgamation even stranger, instead of arms, it has six wings like limbs in their place, more reminiscent of Angel wings than Demonic wings if she had to compare them to one or the other.

Uncle Vergil approaches Griffon's orb and holds his hand over it. Once again the orb bursts and the symbol representing him is absorbed. Once more the spotlight expands. And one more the statue steadily brightens after the light touches it before its eyes and numerous glowing spots spaced evenly along the wings turn white and it snaps into motion.

Griffon immediately comes out, "Hey, you're alive! Oh, good to see ya again! Did ya miss me?"

She tilts her head as soon as it moves to attack. Before, the statue hadn't really stood out energy wise, bathed in the same rather neutral energy as the rest of the place. But as it had lightened the energy shifted, and the split second before it started moving it took on a very unique signature. Given that this one is a pretty damn good match for the energy signature the Artemis Devil Arm used to have before it got destroyed, presumably this was the artificial Demon created from Aunt Lady that Nero had fought.

She realizes very quickly that it's a good thing Uncle Vergil has both Griffon and Shadow back, since he can easily attack with one while using the other to help him dodge, just from how fast the damn thing was as well as the fact pretty much all of its attacks seem to do with beams that are also fast. It lets out weird singing tones whenever it launches them, but from the way the energy moves, she doesn't really see why, given that it's not necessary, and the amount of energy each attack requires compared to its overall reserves isn't particularly large either, so it's extremely doubtful they're some sort of strange sound born of exerted effort.

Given the fact they're beams though, even though she's standing a bit away from the fight, she keeps having to dodge anyway. She's not exactly upset though, since they are beams of light, and light doesn't stop just because it didn't hit what it was pointed at.

It takes a bit longer all told, if only because Uncle Vergil needs to be careful to dodge out of the way of the fast as fuck attacks given his current fragility, but eventually he does kill the mimicry.

Again the world goes white and they find themselves back in front of the portals, another glance back shows her the middle pair of chains breaking. There isn't exactly anything different as they make their way towards and through the final portal, and they swiftly find themselves in another large chamber. Inside it is the statue of another Demon she isn't familiar with, and this one is much larger. Though it wasn't particularly interesting looking. Humanoid, covered in fur, burlier arms that remind her more of a gorilla than someone buff though with scales on the outside of its forearms, hands and feet animalistic, a flat face below a large pair of horns, eyes dotted over its upper torso, with a large mouth stretching over his stomach below them.

The only one of the Nightmares left is the big guy that Uncle Vergil rarely summons since while it's powerful it's also very energy intensive. The whole routine of acquiring the Nightmare from the orb, the spotlight expanding and waking up the mimicry Demon repeats for what should be the final time.

Even its abilities are, quite frankly, uninteresting. Really, other than the rather standard heightened strength and durability, all it really has for abilities is ripping up pieces of the ground to shove into its stomach mouth and spit back out as a molten ball and an energy shockwave. It doesn't seem particularly bright either, which she supposes says more about the Demon it's a mimic of rather than a limit of the mimicry technique, given the mimicries of the artificial Demons made from her Aunts.

Given all that it doesn't take Uncle Vergil long at all to beat it down and finish it off.

The world goes white, hopefully for the last time, and she fully turns towards the door and watches the last set of chains break. The door slowly opens on its own once the chains are all gone, and Griffon pipes up, "Let's get the hell outta here! This humidity is killing me!"

Her Uncle huffs in amusement, "Agreed. It's time we got back on course."

As he moves to step forward though, she catches his arm. He looks over at her in confusion, and she just smiles at him, "I'm not particularly interested in finding out if the pocket dimension collapses or becomes completely cut off from the world when you leave, so I'm going to Shift out. Just thought I should let you know so you didn't get worried when I disappeared."

The confusion clears up to a look of understanding, "Ah. That's fair. I'll see you on the other side then."

She nods, then Shifts back to the regular world, immediately looking over at Uncle Vergil to make sure he's ok and nothing slipped through all the spells she put in place. He's fine, and a few seconds later he stirs. Then slowly pushes himself up.

As he does, Griffon groans, "We finally made it out! That thing was something else, huh?"

He climbs to his feet, "Best we avoid it, if possible. Especially given my… condition."

He does seem to be doing better after his brief stint in the pocket dimension and its unintended side effect of temporarily bringing his body back into balance, or at least close enough to stop his Angelic powers from attacking his own body while trying to destroy what little Demonic power he had left.

He doesn't need her help walking at least, so they set off down the corridor again, which begins spiraling left and down. When it levels out and opens up, they find themselves in an area with suspended pathways winding around what look like massive arteries.

Hearing the sounds of combat in the distance, her uncle comments with relief, "They're safe…"

Griffon fires back practically immediately, "No time to worry about them, Vergil. We've gotta hurry."

The path soon splits, one going up, the other down, "Which way?"

Her Uncle glances at Griffon, "Do a little reconnaissance will you?"

Griffon mutters an agreement before flying off, though it isn't too long before he's back, "Didn't check the right path cause the left's a dead end."

Uncle Vergil nods, "Right and down then."

They make their way down before it turns somewhat sharply left with a clot in the way. Pulling out Lucifer again, it's a simple matter of another shield and needle detonation to continue on. The roots soon tangle together in a rather treacherous looking bridge. She's actually somewhat surprised that it doesn't collapse, but they make it to the other side just fine.

It dead ends immediately in front of them because of roots, but there's another path sort of doubling back and heading further down on their left with another clot. Dealing with them is fairly routine for her by now, so since the clot was at the end of the path and taking it out destroyed the roots blocking their way forward, it's only a matter of moments before they're heading back up to the start of the path down to where the clot was and continuing on.

When they get down to the bottom of the curving down slope, they find themselves on a small platform somewhat above a larger chamber. They just barely move forward enough to glimpse Malphas from behind before her voice rings out as she seems to talk to herself, "If he reaches the fruit, it will all be over." Uncle Vergil crouches down near the edge, and she follows suit, "Even Mundus failed to reign over the human world. Surely, we know he will not."

Griffon appears, speaking much lower than is his usual want, "Malphas! No way can we handle her, we don't have the strength!"

Uncle Vergil lifts his cracked and flaking hand as he stares at it, "I know." Then he turns back towards Malphas, "But we must get through this, somehow."

However, when he goes to push himself up, he accidentally knocks some rock down, drawing Malphas' attention. As the merged female torsos twist at the waist to look towards them, Uncle Vergil and her both scramble back and she turns to give her Uncle a frantic look. She hears the thumps of the massive bird body the human torsos are fused into turning around before Malphas speaks again, "Ahh, an intruder perhaps? I'm cooomiiing…"

She hears a couple more thumping steps before the sound of a gun firing and Malphas' exclamation ring out at roughly the same time.

Knowing Malphas' attention will be fully drawn away by an attack, she chances rising up on her knees, seeing Nero as he smirks at Malphas. She smiles and turns to her Uncle, murmuring a bit quieter because Malphas is smart and cruel enough to try to use an attack on them to distract Nero if she's reminded that they're there, "It's Nero!"

Her Uncle lets out a quiet gusty breath of relief. She turns back around to keep an eye on the fight, as well as watch to see how Malphas uses her power, and it's only then that she sees her mate slinking in the shadows behind Nero. Another spike of relief goes through her at seeing him again, at seeing he's fine, at the fact he wasn't separated on his own from everyone and left to fend for himself. There's a lot to be relieved about. It does mean that her dad was on his own, but out of all of them he was the one best able to handle it.

Nero taps Blue Rose on his shoulder as he strides forward confidently, "Gotta pay attention, sweetheart."

The heavy thumps accompany the lower bird body turning her more fully rather than just the female torsos twisting around, "Sparda's kin… But you're nothing more than an empty shell with no power. You are as weak as your flesh, human."

He tilts his head, "Well, humans are tougher than they look, but I'm like, a fourteenth human at most. Don't know how you can't sense it. But, there's only one way to find out if I have no power or not."

Malphas gives him a condescending look, "I will enjoy this."

Then she gestures sharply at Nero and the bird body lets out a shrieking squawk.

Even as power gathers around her, she sneers at him, "You won't even make a good offering!"

Portals open, one directly in front of the head of the bird, one behind Nero, and the bird head shoves itself in and immediately tries to attack. She actually can't help but feel a little annoyed. While they didn't technically do the same thing, just from watching the portal she knows if she'd managed to observe it earlier that it would've helped in making the Teleport Gates.

Nero closes in and starts slicing at the bird body, dodging fairly straightforward kicks and pecks when necessary. A puddle of purple liquid appears and starts spreading, and spikes erupt up from it.

When Nero jumps back to avoid them a portal opens beneath Malphas, "Futile attempt."

Then she disappears through it. Nero glances around, and he's not the only one, but he doesn't have to look for long, since another portal opens above him shortly, he jumps back as a leg comes through, clawing at the air he'd been in moments before, then disappears back into the portal even as another opens off to his side and the head pecks out at him. He dodges somewhat around attack after attack coming from the portals as he gains a calculating look.

It's not too long before she opens a portal to let the bird peck, only for the Devil Bringer's ghostly arm to snap out and snatch it by the neck and drag it out and over. Malphas, the humanoid torsos, squawk in surprise which quickly turns to alarm as he twists the ghostly hand, currently much larger than usual, snapping its neck with ease. Malphas throws up a shield and starts desperately trying to heal the dead bird body, but its shield is frankly pretty weak, especially with nothing taking Nero's attention away. He's through it and jumping up on the bird body to cut off the three heads of the fused humanoid torsos fairly quickly.

Nero turns towards their little overhang, "You guys can come out now."

She stands up and grabs Uncle Vergil around the waist as she brings her wings out before hopping off and gliding them both down to the ground. Once Uncle Vergil has his feet firmly under him, she lets go and looks towards where Malphas last was before her body disintegrated, "All that hype over Malphas' sorcery, but other than that little pocket dimension trap, she wasn't very impressive. I mean, not that she wasn't strong, but her sorcery didn't live up to her hype."

Kazuto sidles up and flashes her a smile as Uncle Vergil snorts, "No, it didn't, did it?"

He stumbles a bit as they start forward, and she quickly catches him, her brows furrowing, "Well, for all that the pocket dimension unintentionally let you heal a bit, you being able to walk on your own didn't last very long."

He pants, "No, it really didn't." He looks towards the exit, "I really must kill Urizen soon. While I may have some time before I die, the time I have left until I lack the strength to move approaches rapidly."

Kazuto steps forward, "I can carry you on my back? It'll leave Nero free to fight if necessary and you can rest while we go."

Uncle Vergil nods slowly, "That… may be best."

Her mate quickly turns and crouches down and it's only moments before Uncle Vergil is firmly on his back and Kazuto is straightening up with him. He glances over at Nero, "Alright, let's go."

Her cousin nods firmly, and they head out.


(1): No, this is not me ragging on the developers. This is just meant to be in fic dialog, not any sort of IRL commentary, since in a game a setup like that makes it seem more like a gauntlet or something but if you were a real person experiencing it? It wouldn't be very impressive. Just wanted to clarify, because I can easily see people getting onto me about it if I don't clarify.