The Sparda Brother's history is long and filled with much tragedy, only some of it their own fault.
Dante and Vergil are the sons of the Demon Lord of War Sparda and his contracted witch Eva.
For the sake of peace in the Midgard Sparda sealed away much of his demonic power, most of it in the sword that bore his name, the rest in the legendary Temen Ni Gru to separate the human and demon worlds.
After many centuries the two believed they were safe, and so Eva bore for Sparda a pair of twin sons, the eldest Vergil and the younger Dante.
However the couple had been wrong, Sparda's former master put a bounty on the heads of the family, through the sacrifice of his parents Dante was able to escape, his brother Vergil was less fortunate.
Guided by their respective trauma's the two pursued their own path.
Having witnessed the first hand sacrifice of his mother Dante armed with one of his father's swords Rebellion swore an oath to protect all mankind from those that took his family from him.
Vergil armed with his father's other sword the Yamato believed his father's sacrifice of his demonic power made him too weak to protect those that he cared about pursued more demonic power for his own use, vowing to surpass his father in his prime as a demon lord.
The Pair's respective paths tore them apart, and only reconciled after they embraced their father's beliefs that only by embracing true human and demon nature could one reach the pinnacle of power, their legendary final battle one of the most volatile battles of the Shattering war.
Rodin on the Sons of Sparda
For now, the Loic Mystery was being tabled. Leon simply had better things to worry about, chiefly he was to continue sorting out the matter of getting the residents of the castle into a state where they're released of the burden of their sins.
For now this required that he secure help.
Reliable help.
So Leon found himself at the Adventurer's guild of Alzer alongside Noelle, who was carrying a duffel bag filled with the supplies that the two had bought. The Adventurer's guild of Alzer was quite different from it's Holfortian counterpart, for one thing dungeon diving was strongly discouraged because of the Sacred Tree draining the mana of those that go inside, and even after you've risked your life just passing through any items you found were property of the state. If monsters attacked the border it was the responsibility of the army to deal with it, so that too was a no go.
The Adventurer's guild thus had two primary responsibilities, the first being to guard the entrances of the Dungeons, and the second to provide protection for those who go inside on Archaeological missions. There was a third job, but no one wanted to talk about the Great Nobles Dirty laundry. Thus the pair entered the uncrowded tavern and Leon led Noelle to the bar.
"Do you want anything to eat?" Leon asked as he looked to his companion.
"Um no..." Noelle had never been in a dive bar such as this before.
"Two Strawberry Sundaes please." As Leon put the money on the table he was interrupted by someone adjusting his order for him.
"Better make that three Mackie." The duo had an unexpected guest for their desert trip.
The Guild master was often a topic of gossip around the school, a handsome looking man in his late twenties, though the silvery white hair made him look older. The opinion of Noelle's circle of friends was that he was an unfortunate man, in deep debt to some foreign loan shark and thus the majority of his regular pay went out of the country. Leon had no sympathy for the man, he lives here rent free mooching free pizza and sundaes off the Adventurers while occasionally making a mess in the dungeons.
"So where's Uncle Vergil? Perhaps off conducting an expedition in the dungeon?" Dante himself usually isn't allowed in the dungeon anymore, he keeps breaking things.
"Now now, you know your other uncle is more suited to Delicate work than I am." Of course implying that Vergil was weaker than Dante was.
"Still confident in your old age are we?" Leon asked smirking knowingly, it's good that he was full of such youthful vigour, because Leon intended to work him like a dog.
"Uncle?" Noelle looked confused between the two, aside from the different hair colour there was a resemblance between the two. "Is this your father?"
"I don't have a father, both of my parents are women, they did however employ a pair of sperm donors for myself and my siblings, which were this man and his brother." Leon indicated Dante with both of his hands.
"'Old Man' 'This Guy' I have a name you know." Dante looked a little annoyed with how Leon had been treating him and Leon let out a sigh.
"Noelle this is Dante Sparda, as unfortunate as it may be this debt slave will be responsible for protecting you." Leon stated indicating the man he was insulting absent mindlessly snacking on a sundae.
"Yah know I'm not so free that I can-" Dante was interrupted by a duffel bag stuffed with overflowing Alzs being dropped on the table.
"Noelle will be living here until at least the End of the winter break, longer depending on how long it takes her to grasp the use of the Devil Arm I'm letting her use. Speaking of which I have a plan in place to upgrade said weapon so I need you to pay a close eye on her." Leon walked over to the window and peaked through the curtain at the outdoor restaurant across the street. "Especially from him." Dante didn't even have the chance to count his money before Rodin's spies picked it up and took it off to pay his debt. Once again cursing Enzo for using him as a debt mule Dante looked across the street at the source of the problem.
"That is worth a lot of money." Dante's taken commissions from all of the Great Families over the years, so he is somewhat familiar with most of the main family branches, so seeing the bright red hair of Loic Leta Barielle sitting down to lunch across the street from them was a bit of a surprise.
"If you understand the situation then there's nothing more that we have to discuss." Leon explained as he took the two Sickles of the Hebi no Yomi from Noelle.
"If you have some private dungeon filled with your subordinates somewhere I'd rather go there." Noelle explained pouting angrily.
"Perhaps after you gain proficiency with your weapon. As it stands they'll eat you as soon as I take my eyes off of you." Leon explained as he put the two weapons into the void of space.
"Finish your school work today and talk to this guy for some lessons in hand to hand." Leon stated indicating Dante. "He knows that if that Loic loser gets his mitts on you his debt to my god father will sky rocket." Dante's reaction was equivalent to getting stabbed with a hundred swords. "Wanting to talk to uncle Vergil isn't just because I prefer to have him help instead of you. I need to borrow both of your swords."
"Oh that." Dante went to the next room over bringing back with him two Devil arms, one was a Katana with a scaley scabbard, the Yamato, while the other was a steel great sword with a skull and bones cross guard.
"I thought the Rebelion was destroyed." Leon asked as he held up the weapon in question and examined it.
"Your Godfather was... kind enough to gather the broken pieces and reforge it for me." Leon didn't get the impression that Rodin had done it out of the kindness of his heart. "It didn't have as much power as it originally did, but luckily fusing things together happens to be its speciality. Vergil had to leave it here to get cleaned, so I would appreciate if you can bring it back by the time he gets back here."
"Then I better hurry." Thus Leon put the weapons away while he left the Guild hall.
"There you are!" Lelia was infuriated, it had been days since she had contacted Loic and he hasn't done anything yet! Luckily Lelia had been to school already, and wherever Noelle has been Loic has never been far behind, so all she had to do was find Noelle. As it turns out a simpler feat than she had realised, apparently she's been spending time after school every day with one of the exchange students, so when you go looking for adventurers you go to the Adventurers guild.
"Yes I suppose we should do this in private." Thus Loic brought Lelia to a nearby alley, at which point in time a loud thunk echoed out, leaving nothing behind but a bloody smear on the wall.
The City of the Damned was one of the most volatile areas of the Castle, an underground cavern with flowing lakes of lava and mystical platforms that serve as jail cells where those who offend the Castle's Lord are kept. Here three of the most vicious and powerful of the castle's residents call home.
"I'll have to have a gander around here after I'm done with the Gorgons." Leon looked at the different demons that were trapped inside of the magic cages floating on the Lava. "If there's demons in the castle that are such a pain that not even Bernhard or Gabriel want to deal with them then it's unwise to leave this place without a proper Jailer." Approaching the Sister's layer it was easy to see why they got the job, various knight statues were scattered around the entrance, all posed in obvious terror as they either fought against something or attempted to run away, Leon knew the truth however. After all the Gorgons are legendary for their power to turn their victims to stone. "Medusa! Euryale! Stheno! I've come to have a chat with you!" Before long Leon was greeted by the sight of a trio of familiar zombie-like girls, their bodies wrapped with and fused to various serpents puppeting their corpses about, a trio of half dead gods on life support. "This is Rebellion." Leon stated in simple terms stabbing the weapon into the ground, and then did the same with the Yamato. "And this is Yamato, do you know what these swords were used to do?"
Rebelion: The Blade of Unity.
The Rebelion is a blade that possesses the power to fuse together different things into one unit, a Rebellion against the natural order both as a sword and as a demon.
The sword can fuse anything together, multiple demons can be combined into one, or several people can become one, even different species can be combined together into a hybrid, at it's peak of power it is said that the Rebelion combined entire realms together.
In the hands of the blade's original master the Rebellion was known as the key to different worlds.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapons Catalogue
Yamato: The Sword of Severance.
The Yamato is a Katana with the power of Severance, beyond any mere mortal cut this blade can separate anything from anything.
It is said that it was the Yamato that separated light from darkness, hot from cold, living from the dead, even the Trinity of Reality Inferno, Paradiso and Midguard that was originally one world became three separate realms after a mere two swings of this blade.
So long as one thing can be differentiated from another thing then it can be separated.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapon's Catalogue
"The Sword of Severance." Reality seemed to glitch and blink in the three sisters' presence, as if the three sisters' existence was so wrong it even affected the air around them.
"The Blade of Unity." The fact that the sisters knew what they were talking about didn't make them any less disturbing.
"We know of these blades yes. Do you intend to use these on us?" Leon didn't blame them for being suspicious, even though they weren't normal blades it was unreasonable to ask someone to let you run them through with a sword.
"I'm going to turn you back into what you were." Leon countered bluntly. "The three of you used to be goddesses before this nightmare factory turned you into monsters, with this sword I can cut those parasites you're relying on off of your bodies."
"That blade's owner once thought to do the same, and he nearly died in the process." Ah the ever so Famous Urizen fiasco.
"That's why we aren't going to do it here, I'm going to take you three to Alzer's Sephirot tree in Paradiso and you'll be able to use that to slowly regain your strength."
"Half dead and immobile."
"Oh what a miserable fate." Leon's sarcasm was on full display. "Shall I leave the three of you here where you aren't allowed to go anywhere with your bodies writhing in pain from those snakes as reality has a seizure around you?"
The three sisters looked at each other, questioning how much they really had to lose.
"Alright how?" Finally they were making some progress.
"First I make the contract with you, then I go up to Paradiso, find Alzer's Sacred Tree, and then summon you three to it, I split you three off from snake tumours, and then put you on God Tree life support. It's basically your current arrangement but without the constant pain and agony." Leon knew that if he wasn't honest with his intentions with these three then there might be some serious trouble going forward.
"And how will you escape?"
"What do you gain from doing this?"
It was nice that they were concerned for him, but to answer both of their questions.
"Once you three are separated from your demonic essence I'm going to fuse it into these." Leon pulled a pair of familiar looking weapons from the void, the Hebi no Yomei twin Chain sickles. "It's a parasite without a host, a fusion of your three demon halves should make the perfect host for it." Before they were monsters these three were goddesses of beauty, fertility and the harvest, there was a twisted Irony to be had in attaching a parasitic plant demon to their cast offs.
"We agree to your offer Warlock." At once a bright red magic circle bound Leon to the three sisters.
Oh sure, there's a lot of bad things people have to say about Wygol, make no mistake about that, but once upon a time it wasn't a festering pit of Satanic cults and demons.
Here the Greatest Evil the world had ever known, the Vampire Dracula and his accursed castle, was destroyed in a battle with mankind's greatest army of holy warriors the Brotherhood of Light and for a brief shining moment the whole world knew it.
Here the Village of Wygol was rebuilt, a shining beacon of mankind's resilience against the darkness, and for a brief moment a sanctuary that not even the Cult of Satan would dare touch had been created.
Even after the Cult took over the city they couldn't just transform it into a pit of overwhelming despair and misery until the time came to bring forth their dark messiah, or else all their sacrifices would have moved away.
Up there?
There's still a sleepy little village built in a Crater, an occasional touch of modernity is thrown in here or there or floating in the air. Remember that while Inferno got all the bad memories every good memory anyone has ever had still exists up there in the air.
Paradiso is, objectively, a nice place to visit, live even, the natives be damned.
The Umbran Clan on Wygol City
Leon looked over the scenery, at the cosy little village, with parts of different buildings floating in the air above it. The air was tinged with the scent of rosemary, the spring air was neither warm nor cold, a crisp sunny day in paradise that made every inch of Leon's half demon body crawl like he had been dunked in a vat of spiders.
"Welcome to heaven I guess." Leon walked across the ship, his ship, now a permanent fixture in the sky, located exactly where Castle Bernhard would've been built next to Wygol Village, binding together the memories of Wygol over those of Alzer. "I need to have another chat with Bernhard sometime." Last time Leon asked the castle what he hoped to accomplish with his stunt with Pierre, what he should've asked and what he intended to ask later was what would happen as a result. For instance the wretched castle turned ship has made it harder to untangle it from Alzer through it's stunt, which now led Leon to look down at the city below. The Alzer of modernity had been super imposed with another country.
Paris was known as the city of Love in it's prime, a pilgrimage location for lovers all over the world, countless positive memories were made here, and no matter how tyrannical Alzer was that will never change, here the city had been immortalised, Leon imagined that professor Narcisse would love it here, as would many of the girls from the school, but there was a small hitch. A loud, droning buzzing noise emanated from every corner of the city of Love.
"Looks like the Afyd's are here."
Afyd: Insect like Angels living in symbiosis.
Afyds are a race of insectoid, hive minded Angels resembling the Honey bees of yore, tending to the Sephirot trees of knowledge in Paradiso.
Each Afyd is tasked with the duty of gathering the nectar of the Sephirots and processing it into a consumable form before spreading it back to the masses. A word of warning to those who mean to threaten the Sephirot, Afyd's are many, though not built for battle they will defend their tree with everything that they have even if it costs them their lives.
Excerpt from the Hierarchy of Laguna
If the Empusa are giant ants, then these things were giant honey bees, whereas a normal honey bee would be black and yellow these ones were gold and white like most other angels, instead of a pair of insect compound eyes there was a pair of human faces belonging to beautiful women, and instead of the insect like wings expected of a bee they were instead feathery, like a humming bird's wings. For now the bugs didn't see him, or didn't care and Leon didn't blame it, wherever the Sephirot Tree was Leon couldn't see it, either people's opinion about Alzer's sacred tree was so bad that it barely had any presence in Alzer or the Afyd's were doing a really good job of hiding it. Which meant that if Leon was to find what he was looking for then he'd have to put in the leg work. Lovely.
It took a little while for Angelica to figure out where she was. There were hospital styled beds around her, including the one that she had been laying down on, there were a few familiar faces in the room on the other beds, including Olivia. Angelica's issue was that all of these people were on the ship going into the dungeon together, and now they were here.
"Oh you're awake." Angelica turned to face a woman in a nurse's uniform. She wasn't part of the Church's clergy, so this was the Blackmore's medical ward. "In any case you look like you're okay, you can go check yourself out now." Slowly standing up and walking into a change room Angelica processed what was happening.
For now she looked out the window, judging the time of day from the position of the sun in the sky was a skill that Angelica had picked up ever since she was young, not much time had passed since she was last thrown off the ship, an hour, an hour in a half?
"It took us less than an hour to be wiped out by that 'Colossus.'" Angelica was reasonably certain the time was far less than that, without knowing the process needed to get them back from that creature and heal them she couldn't make any hard estimates, she'd include the time it takes to get there but it was her family ship so she was able to have herself and the crew dropped directly on the location in question. With that said Angelica went to get her items back.
"Sign here." After signing the check out book, and paying a fine to get hers and Olivia's things back, Angelica gathered her immediate associates together, that is to say Olivia and their demons, as she attempted to find information about the boss that wiped them.
"I can't remember anything." Olivia stated looking confused. "One moment we were jumping off the ship and the next we were in the hospital!" It was an unsettling feeling, made more unsettling by Angelica's realisation of just how fast their group had been killed but she chose not to share that.
"What about you two?" Mr. Bones shook his head in the negative.
"What about you?"
"Yes we can remember!" Angelica's lantern headed demon, Fenix, snapped at her. "Unlike you two we're going to have to live with that fiasco for the rest of our days! But we can't speak about it!" More Umbran magic at work.
"We should probably pick a safer target to go after." It was Angelica's turn to glare this time.
"Olivia can manipulate organic matter and I can set things on fire, the plant demon was the safest target for us to go after and she wiped us out." Angelica was confident in her belief that it was Alraune who was the demoness who was waiting for them inside the portal. "It seems that we're just too weak." And wasn't that a terrifying thought, Olivia had enough magic to affect an entire army, Angelica could sink a fleet all by her lonesome, and whatever demoness had bush whacked them was too strong for them. "For now we should just have supper and study for the rest of our classes." The two girls went to where it was relatively quiet in the compound, that is to say Rodin's bar.
The pleasant sound of smooth Jazz went into the air while Angelica paid for their meals the two sat down to study. However while Angelica was studying she noticed one of the people of the compound pay a visit to a large golden statue off to the side. The Statue itself was bizarre, a woman holding a massive hourglass over her head, which belonged to a male Lion, it's appearance was the least bizarre thing about it though, as Angelica watched the Witch feed the statue red orbs before leaving. Curious Angelica went to the statue itself and started to examine it.
"Is this supposed to be the Madam Khepri I heard so much about?"
"One of her minions." Rodin piped up from across the Bar. "She's a lot like me, trades services for material goods."
"What kind of services?" Angelica didn't see the Witch walk away with anything, though that's not unusual considering Leon's preference for tossing things into the void.
"Touch the statue, she doesn't mind window shopping." So Angelica did exactly that, and as a result was pulled into a empty void filled with blood red scenery, and a list of some kind that had appeared in front of her face listing various amounts of Red orbs and Halos. Angelica pulled her hand back and stepped back as well, breathing heavily as she processed the shock.
"Angie?" Olivia did not fail to notice Angelica's sudden change.
"I'm alright!" However what Angelica was feeling was excitement.
Immediately Angelica grabbed the statue with both hands as she selected the first option to appear before her eyes, which point of interest was also the one that she could afford. Angie was soon greeted by the sight of herself holding her Devil Arm, rapidly stabbing back and forth with the weapon using her slider faster and with greater proficiency than what she had before, the doppelganger disappearing briefly before it reappeared and started the stab combo with it's weapon again. Angelica left the 'shop' with more answers than questions.
"It's a combat trainer?" Angelica asked aloud as she already considered the possibilities.
"She's an everything trainer." Rodin stated inspecting the glass with pride. "She manipulates time to cram information and muscle memory into your body, the catch of course being that she can only teach you the things that you could learn on your own." Meaning that Angie can't just learn the secrets of the universe from this thing, it can however advance her existing skills and proficiency with her weapons, at a cost though. "So, I feed it materials, it helps me to become a stronger fighter, to get materials I have to go out and fight."
"Uh oh." Olivia remembered that look, when Angie was told that there were eight pumped up monsters roaming around the woods looking for a fight. A vicious cycle in the lion headed demoness's favour, and yet it was one that Angelica intended to participate in with full enthusiasm.
"Let's see what secrets you are willing to show me!" Angie dove back into the 'shop.' When a merchant really wants to reel you in they don't show you the cheap stuff, they show you the most expensive, the stuff that you'd have to sell your ancestral home in order to buy, concepts that Angie only had the vaguest understanding of laid out before her having bloomed to their full glory. Choosing the most promising option Angie looked on with Child like glee at herself, watched her unleash power Angie herself could only dream of and look up higher and higher until Angie saw the fruits of her full potential. "Oh, oh I want that!" Angie left the skill shop for the time being. "What's the most effective way to grind for materials in the forest?"
"Go kick a hornet's nest." Rodin replied bluntly, Angie excitedly ran off taking her spear with her leaving Olivia in the dust. "You're not going with her?"
"I prefer to study the old fashion way." Olivia gave a wary look to the statue. "Besides I'm afraid of whatever magic that thing cast on Angie." That night Avalon forest was the sight of a blood bath, or to be more accurate an over eager pyromancer who just discovered what power levelling is.
Noelle was getting concerned, Leon has been gone all evening and it was getting late, even the six idiots that had spent the day getting kicked off of Leon had come to the guild building looking for him.
"Don't you guys have anything better to do?" Noelle asked looking at the group of idiots that were still at the Bar.
"No." Julius stated with fishbowl eyes. "Thanks to Leon none of us can get jobs!"
Marie glared at Julius and the others blaming them with her eyes, but only for a moment. Then a thought occurred to Noelle.
"You guys are all adventurers right?" Noelle asked looking at the six of them with curiosity. "So you all know how to fight in one way or another right?" Marie remembered from the game that Noelle could learn skills from the people that she parties with. "You think you can teach me?"
"We have rent we have to think about." Chris stated as he desperately searched through the ads for a place that hasn't black listed them. "I can get you something more valuable than money, I can get you a favour from Leon!" The six of them immediately sat up ramrod straight at that. "If you do a good job then he'll owe you one."
"""LET'S GO!""" The six of them ran through the basics of their specialities.
"It seems that your particular affinity is for plants, the closest one to you among us is Marie." As a start Brad performed a basic mana assessment on Noelle. "I suggest you start learning a wide array of different magical plant species, try to translate your affinity for plants into one for people too, then when you do I have a trick that'll let you learn physical attacks at a super accelerated rate."
"Super accelerated?" Noelle looked at Brad confused.
"This guy has a spell that let's him track and copy our movements, it's not as smooth as when we move normally but now he's not totally useless in a fight." Greg introduced himself next. "I can work out a regimen for training your body, we'll whip you into shape in no time, especially after you've learned support and healing magic." For the most part, healing magic augments the bodies ability to heal from injuries, as a body building enthusiast Greg knew better than ever that the process of working out boils down to the process of over-straining your body and then letting it heal.
"I'm our best close quarters combatant, we'll hammer into you our best close quarters techniques with no difficulty." Chris's swordsmanship had improved now that he was no longer chasing after his father's back, integrating magic into his fighting style and a willingness to fight dirty had improved his power as a close quarters combatant.
"Close Quarters won't do you any good against the Sacred Tree, if you want to fight back against them then pick up a gun!" There was a limited radius to where a Great Noble could shoot out the roots of the Sacred Tree, Jilk's train of thought was closer to a assassin at this point than self defence but Noelle didn't really care for the difference.
"I can teach you how to use a shield if you like." Julius didn't have much to contribute at this point, his friends were the better fighters. "Using two weapons at once isn't that easy to do." Marie didn't have particularly high hopes for this, but if it worked then they might not starve to death while they were here and as a added bonus they would be less likely to die horribly because someone screwed up the scenario. "I don't know about how much I can teach you, but I do believe we'll be able to keep you safe."
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: I don't think magic exists, so yes I think science is superior.