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The Devils Cry Chapter 2-9
Title: The Devils Cry Part 2-9
Game:Devil May Cry
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Devil May Cry and it’s characters and situations are the sole property of Capcom. I am making no money or profit off of this fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended. On the other hand all original characters and situations are mine so please don’t run off with them without my knowledge or consent.
Summary: A year after the events in “The Devils Cry”, things in the Sparda family have calmed down, well, as much as possible with them at any rate. But when strange things start happening, including a reappearance of Alastair's dreams of the unknown castle, they realized that they still have a long way to go.
SPOILER WARNING!!!: Spoilers for all three Devil May Cry games.
Talthos grit his teeth as he was thrown into the wall. His body hung suspended for a moment before falling to the floor. He didn’t bother to raise his head and look up as Mundus stormed up to him.
“I let you live!” the Dark Emperor roared “When by all rights, I should have destroyed you! I let your worthless offspring live! And you repay me by refusing to obey!” A hand fisted in Talthos’ long hair, and his scalp erupted with pain as he was pulled to his feet by it. “This is your last chance.” Mundus spat “I expect you two to do as I bid. You have an hour, and you had better be done, and she had better be pregnant by the time I return!” Talthos’ scalp screeched in protest as his hair was pulled again, and he was thrown across the room to land on the bed. Mundus stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him, making Talthos cringe.
“Your scalp is bleeding.” Zenedris said quietly.
Talthos hung his head; she was speaking the truth, and her family was his family as well. He and Zenedris were first cousins, with their mothers being sisters, hence the reasons he had not allowed himself to return her affections when they were younger. The demonic rules of incest were looser than those of humans, but their relation was still too close to be outside what was considered taboo. When he had lived with the Sarcesti clan as a child, he had grown to love the family of auburn haired demons, and he did not want to see them come to harm. He didn’t want to do what he was being ordered to do; he wasn’t even sure if he was physically capable of it, but he knew that Zenedris was right. He closed his eyes and sighed again.
He dimly heard the guards speaking outside the door, and his eyes snapped open when he heard their mumbling turn into shouts and yells. He looked over at Zenedris to see her looking at him, a worried look on her face. The shouts of the guards abruptly stopped, and the sound of bodies hitting the floor came through the door. Zenedris gathered Talthos up and held him tight as the door handle turned and the door creaked open. A tall white haired figure stepped through, and Talthos thought for a moment that it was Luxian come to take him home. But he saw that the hair was shorter than Luxian’s, which dashed his hope. The figure, which appeared to be male, had hair that went down to just below the nape of the neck, and it was slicked back... He knew this person, but he couldn’t think of who it was...!
“Sparda?” Talthos and Zenedris said at the same time.
Sparda kicked the door shut before sheathing the sword he was carrying. It was his father’s Ensouled, and it had served him well, being more powerful than his own Ensouled. He looked over at the surprised faces of his father and cousin and smiled. He wanted to run over to his father and wrap his arms around him; it had been over two thousand years since he had last felt his father’s embrace, but he restrained himself. They didn’t have time for such things. He took a quick glance around the room to make sure no one else was in there with them, then he walked over to the bed. He knew what the two had been expected to do, and he felt his lip curl in disgust at the thought.
“We don’t have much time.” he said quietly “We have to get back to Lar’cincel as quickly as possible.” He took his father out of Zenedris’ arms and held him securely with one arm, while offering his other hand out to the Sarcesti matriarch. Zenedris shook her head, her eyes disbelieving what she was seeing, and shakily took the offered hand. Part of her wondered if this was some trick staged by Mundus, if this was only a construct built to look like Sparda, but the power she felt in him when she took his hand destroyed that thought. She stood up, and he gestured for her to follow him out of the room. Making sure that he had a good hold on his father, Sparda eased the door open and stepped out.
Zenedris was not surprised to see the guards lying dead on the floor, their heads taken cleanly off. Sparda paid the bodies no mind as he slinked down the corridor. They came across several more lesser demons, each with their head missing. Sparda had obviously been going for stealth. When they reached the junction of the corridors where the path split off into the dungeons below, they came across another headless demon, who had also had his hands taken off, the aforementioned appendages lying nearby, weapons still clutched in the stiffening fingers. Zenedris knew that Sparda wouldn’t have bothered with taking off the hands. Sparda paused to look for a second, before chuckling to himself.
“That boy.” he said, sounding almost affectionate.
Talthos raised his head from where it had been resting on his son’s shoulder. “What boy?” he asked.
“You’ll see in a moment.” Sparda replied “Ah, that sounds like them now.”
“Them?” Zenedris wondered. Cocking her head to the side and listening, she could hear the sounds of many footsteps coming up from down below.
“Liestia!” A chorus of children’s voices coming from the corridor made Zenedris startle and spin around to look down the corridor, just in time for a large group of chattering children to swarm her. Looking frantically around at them, she saw that all of them had auburn hair, and all of them had the aura of the Sarcesti family. Sinking to her knees in relieved shock, she gathered them to her. A few moments later, she heard more, heavier footsteps and looked up to see the adult members of her family, including her surviving sons and daughters coming up from below. Behind them came a young man with the trademark Sparda hair and aura, who could have been Talthos’ twin.
“Shall we then?”
“Of course.”
Vergil smirked and gestured for his grandfather to lead on. Sparda chuckled again and continued up the path to the open area of the Underworld, where the seven demon families had their homes. Where six of the seven had their homes, Zenedris reminded herself with some bitterness. Not wanting her family to see herself acting that way, she stood up, squared her shoulders, and followed Sparda up the corridor.
“Are we ready then?” Alastair asked. She looked around at her father, uncle and her father’s godmother to see them armed and ready. “So where do we go to get into the Underworld?”
“I will be going through a different gate than you three.” Rachel said. “I will be taking the gate that Luxian entered and exited the human world through. You three will be going to the castle and entering through that gate.”
“Why the different gates?” Vergil asked.
“Because you don’t have a gate pass,” Rachel replied “and I have to get in there as soon as possible.”
“Gate pass?” Dante looked at her. “Are you referring to...?”
“Yes, the amulets.” Rachel held up her own amulet, showing them the midnight blue stone in the silver setting. “They allow you to pass through the gates without any troubles. Since half of your amulet is already in the Underworld, you will not be able to follow me through the gate I will be taking.”
“How can you be sure?” Alastair asked.
“I’m not sure, but that is something that he would do, so we’re going to go along with it.”
Dante raised an eyebrow. “And if we can’t pass through?”
“Then clear the castle and wait for me to come back through the gate with Vergil and Sparda. Then we’ll close it. Now let’s get going shall we?” Turning away from them, she opened a portal, grunting once from the effort of opening such a long distance portal. She then stepped back and gestured for them to step through.
“Go.” she said “I’ll see you on the other side.”
Glancing nervously at his brother, then at the portal, Vergil stepped through. Dante and Alastair looked at her strangely - had she just said that she would bring Sparda through? - then followed, and the portal closed behind them. Taking a deep breath, Rachel teleported out of her apartment, following the residual trail of demonic magic to the nearest gate.
Alastair stepped out of the portal right behind her uncle. She shook herself - traveling by dimensional portal gave her the creeps - and straightened her clothes. Then she looked up to find herself standing in a very familiar courtyard surrounded by a very familiar castle.
“Here we go.” she said quietly as her father stepped out of the portal.
Dante stopped and looked around, a strong sense of deja vu making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. His breath caught in his throat, and his heart gave a lurch. He could feel his childhood memories pushing against the barrier in his mind, threatening to break free. He knew that, if they did, it wouldn’t be pleasant for him. He looked over at his brother to see that Vergil was facing the same problem. The elder twin’s face was pale, and his hands were shaking fairly hard. He thought briefly about going over to his brother and saying something comforting, but Alastair, who seemed to have guessed his thoughts, leveled him with a glare, and he had to concede that she did have a point. After what he had said to Vergil earlier, he doubted that anything he could say would be comforting.
“Well, no time like the present.” Alastair said shakily, then she began walking forward towards the open air patios that she had seen in her dreams. Taking a shaky breath, Dante followed her, with Vergil trailing behind him.
Rachel found the gate easily enough. Luxian had left a trail a mile wide for her to follow. She thought briefly that such an obvious trail might have been laid as a trap, but she shoved that thought aside. She didn’t have time to go through the other gate. No doubt Dante, Vergil, and Alastair would meet resistance on their trek through the castle’s corridors, and she was in too much of a hurry to stop and fight. Clutching her amulet and closing her eyes, she jumped down into the gate, feeling that strange feeling of passing through an invisible barrier that she had felt when she had left the demon world. Then she had been leaving her home behind and meeting her former husband on the other side. Now once again, she was leaving her home and meeting her former husband on the other side. She didn’t know exactly how she could be so sure that Sparda was still alive - the marriage bonds between them had been severed hundreds of years before. By her hand, she was ashamed to admit. Where the soul bond she had with him had once existed, there was only a gaping black hole, a part of her soul that she would never be able to reclaim. Yet several times during the past two years, she had felt a brief flicker from that area, like she had once felt whenever her husband had been up to something that he hadn’t wanted her to know about. That coupled with Alastair’s dreams had firmly convinced her that Sparda was still alive, though most likely imprisoned in the Underworld, since imprisonment was the only thing that she could think of that would keep him away from his family.
Opening her eyes, she found herself standing in a swirling vortex of white light, similar to what Dante had described under Mallet Island, in a large room. Opening her senses, she sensed no other demons in the area, and she just had to wonder if Luxian really was so arrogant to leave a obvious trail and not think anyone would follow him. Stepping out of the vortex, she tried to get her bearings and wracked her memory, hoping to remember exactly where she was. She didn’t recognized the large cavernous room off the top of her head, and she was wary of preceding without some idea of her location. The Underworld was enormous, with many levels and different areas, each with their own look. The place was so large in fact, that it was rumored that no one, not even the Dark Emperors, had seen everything. Looking around at her surroundings, careful to keep her senses on full alert incase anyone tried to surprise her, she went through her photographic memory, another gift of Sarcesti blood, and no where did she see this room in it. Damn, she hated going off into the unknown. Alright, she reminded herself, you went into the human world with no idea of what to expect, but then again, you had Sparda as a guide then. Now she didn’t have anyone to direct her; she would have to go it alone. Sighing in resignation, she summoned her power and brought out her staff and willed it to its full length. With her magic crackling at her fingertips, ready to respond to any threat, she walked out of the room.
Sparda was perusing the bookshelves in Lar’cincel’s library, looking for something that would help him permanently close the gate under his castle. Behind him, Zenedris and Vergil were seated in comfortable chairs, watching him. Talthos, swaddled in blankets, was asleep on a nearby couch. Sparda glanced over at him, and seeing the dried blood on the elder demon’s hair made him shake with rage over what Mundus had done. He quietly vowed to himself that, when the chance came, he would make his first battle with Mundus look like a cakewalk in comparison to what he was planning next.
“So what are we going to do now?” Vergil asked, cleaning his sword. Sparda recognized it as one that he had been given in Japan centuries ago and as the sword he had given to his older son as a gift.
“We wait.” he replied.
“Wait for what?” Zenedris wondered, still in a bit of shock to see Sparda standing in front of her, alive and well.
“For my boys to show up, as well as my granddaughter.”
“Dad is coming? Father too?” Vergil leaned forward eagerly. “How do you know this?”
Sparda turned around and smiled at his grandson who so closely resembled his own father.
“Rachel?” Zenedris wondered
“The name she took to hide in the human world.” Sparda explained “Rachel Areceli.” He looked over at his father to see the elder demon stirring at the mention of his murdered daughter’s name.
Talthos sat up and looked up at his son. “Did you just mention your sister?” he asked.
“For a surname, yes.”
“Grandpa, there is something I’ve been wondering for the longest time.” Vergil said.
“What is that?”
“Who is Akemus? Aunt Rachel has mentioned him.... a few.... times.” He trailed off when he saw his grandfather pale. Sparda closed his eyes, and stamped down his anger. It’s not your grandson’s fault, he told himself sternly. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to the bookshelves.
“I will... endeavor to explain it to you later.” he said quietly “I’m sure that your father and your uncle would want to hear this as well. Atalia has a few things that she can add, if she’s willing.”
Vergil nodded; he had the feeling that this story would be a painful one to tell.
“Back to the original subject,” Zenedris cut in “how did Atalia tell you that your children are coming?”
“The marriage bond between me and Atalia lets things through sometimes.”
“But that bond was severed.” Talthos added.
Sparda nodded and turned away from the books. “True yes, but not completely. The only way to completely sever a marriage bond is for one of the bonded to die. Since Atalia and I are still alive, we can still feel each other, though that connection is very weak and only flares when one of us is feeling strong emotion. I know that they are planning to come here, and Atalia.... Ahhhh, she’s already done it.”
“What has she done?” Zenedris asked.
“She’s come back.”
“To the Underworld?”
Sparda nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
“When did she leave?” Talthos asked.
“Hundreds of years ago, when she realized what had really happened to Akemus.” Zenedris said quietly “She came to Dali’mar’ne, packed a few things and walked out. Later we felt a gate open very briefly, then it closed again. I assume that you helped her?” She looked up at Sparda, who nodded.
“Yes, Luxian, I need you to do something for me. My former wife is here in the Underworld, and she had taken the same gate that you did. Unfortunately, she has never been in that area of the Underworld before, and she is quite lost, so I want you to go to her and guide her here. You will not give her any trouble, and you will not tell her anything other than that I told you to escort her here. She knows that I live, so she’ll believe you. If you are stopped by any of Mundus’ little friends, you will not stop her from defending herself, nor will you tell them anything of my escape from imprisonment. Am I understood?”
Once again, Luxian seemed to be fighting the magic, but his mouth was finally forced open, and he ground out a “Yes, Cincel.” before leaving the library.
“And do not fight the magic!” Sparda called out behind him “You are not to give yourself away!”
“You’re enjoying this aren’t you?” Vergil asked “Ordering your brother around?”
“I really shouldn’t, but yes, I am. It’s the least I can do for what he did to you and your father. For now at least.” he muttered. He expected his father to say something to that, but to his surprise, Talthos remained silent, frowning darkly.
“I told him, Sparda.” Zenedris said softly.
“You told him!” Sparda spun around, glaring at her.
“Everything.” she finished, unfazed by his glare “He needed to know what was going on. He had just been woken up, and no one was telling him anything.” Sparda didn’t answer, looking at his father, lying still on the couch. Zenedris was right, but he had hoped to be the one to break the news of the monster that Luxian had become to their father. Sighing, he caught a glimpse of the heavy metal collar that Talthos still had around his neck. He needed to do something about that.
Walking over to where his father lay, he knelt down beside the couch and touched the collar, running his finger along the seam where it had been closed. Summoning up the magic of the Sarcesti family, which he had inherited from his father, who had inherited it from his mother, he willed the magic out through that one finger. He felt warmth gathering in his hand, collecting into a burning in his index finger, just before a thin beam of pure, focused magic shot out of the tip and struck the collar. Being careful not to injure his father’s face or neck, he simply burned through the metal in two different places, cutting the collar in two. The collar fell away, revealing minor chaffing and a few minor burns where the metal had heated up on Talthos’ neck.
Talthos sighed in relief at the absence of the cumbersome collar, and everyone in the room felt the rush as his power flow rose up and flowed through his body normally. The chaffing and burns on his neck began to heal, and they were gone in a few seconds.
Turning to Zenedris, Sparda repeated the process. Instead of simply sighing in relief however, Zenedris’ power, restrained for a year, broke free in a wild rush, making her pass out in her chair. The men chuckled.
“Oops, I forgot that that sometimes happens.” Sparda said lightly.
“Sparda!”
Sparda spun around to face the library doors, just as his favorite auburn haired demon ran through the door. He grinned widely as she practically flew into his arms, wrapping her arms around him and holding him tight. It was only his own demonic strength that kept him from being crushed. He hugged her back, not wanting to let her go for the longest time. He had missed her embrace more than he had missed his father’s - not that he would ever admit that of course.
A cough from the doorway made them break apart finally. They looked up to see Vergil standing there, looking at them with one eyebrow raised. To his surprise, and embarrassment, Sparda felt his face heat up. To his amusement, Atalia was doing the same.
“Uh, Grandpa, you might want to tell Luxian to go back to his room, before he causes any trouble.” Vergil said lightly, grinning ear to ear at their embarrassment.
“Your father and dad are coming.” she whispered in his ear “They’ll be here later. They had to take a.... detour.”
“Am I right in saying that it was you who suggested this little detour?” he said with a small laugh.
“You could very well be.” she replied.
They stepped back from one another, and he looked her up and down, surprised by her chosen clothes. He had seen shredded fragments of her kind of robes on the other members of the Sarcesti, but this was the first time that he had seen them as they were meant to look, as well as the first time he had seen them on her.
“You look different.” he said, flushing with embarrassment when he realized that he was giving his GODMOTHER an appraising look. She laughed and swatted him on the arm.
“Here now,” she teased “You’ve got a girlfriend.”
“A girlfriend?” Sparda said, walking back into the room “Care to let me in on the details?”
Vergil’s face fell. “No, I don’t have a girlfriend. Adele broke up with me after the murder of her family.”
Sparda raised an eyebrow, a trait that he had passed on to his children and grandchildren, and looked questioningly over at Atalia. She gestured that she would tell him later, and he nodded. She also signaled that they needed to talk, in private.
“Vergil,” Sparda said quietly “Why don’t you take your great-grandfather,” He looked over at Talthos, who was again sleeping. “to his room, and go lie down for a while. Things are going to get bad once your father and uncle arrive, and you need to be rested.” Vergil nodded mutely, and Sparda captured him in a hug before letting the young man go over to Talthos. Vergil easily picked the elder demon up, without waking him, and carried him from the room.
Once Vergil was out of the room, Sparda was surprised when Atalia threw up a privacy spell and gestured for him to sit down.
“What is it?’ he asked, looking at her warily.
“Sit down, Sparda.” she said “There are some things that you need to know...”
Chapter 8 -- Chapter 10
Back to the Archive
Game:Devil May Cry
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Devil May Cry and it’s characters and situations are the sole property of Capcom. I am making no money or profit off of this fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended. On the other hand all original characters and situations are mine so please don’t run off with them without my knowledge or consent.
Summary: A year after the events in “The Devils Cry”, things in the Sparda family have calmed down, well, as much as possible with them at any rate. But when strange things start happening, including a reappearance of Alastair's dreams of the unknown castle, they realized that they still have a long way to go.
SPOILER WARNING!!!: Spoilers for all three Devil May Cry games.
9.
Talthos grit his teeth as he was thrown into the wall. His body hung suspended for a moment before falling to the floor. He didn’t bother to raise his head and look up as Mundus stormed up to him.
“I let you live!” the Dark Emperor roared “When by all rights, I should have destroyed you! I let your worthless offspring live! And you repay me by refusing to obey!” A hand fisted in Talthos’ long hair, and his scalp erupted with pain as he was pulled to his feet by it. “This is your last chance.” Mundus spat “I expect you two to do as I bid. You have an hour, and you had better be done, and she had better be pregnant by the time I return!” Talthos’ scalp screeched in protest as his hair was pulled again, and he was thrown across the room to land on the bed. Mundus stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him, making Talthos cringe.
“Your scalp is bleeding.” Zenedris said quietly.
“No matter.” Talthos replied. He sighed. “So what are we going to do?”
Talthos hung his head; she was speaking the truth, and her family was his family as well. He and Zenedris were first cousins, with their mothers being sisters, hence the reasons he had not allowed himself to return her affections when they were younger. The demonic rules of incest were looser than those of humans, but their relation was still too close to be outside what was considered taboo. When he had lived with the Sarcesti clan as a child, he had grown to love the family of auburn haired demons, and he did not want to see them come to harm. He didn’t want to do what he was being ordered to do; he wasn’t even sure if he was physically capable of it, but he knew that Zenedris was right. He closed his eyes and sighed again.
He dimly heard the guards speaking outside the door, and his eyes snapped open when he heard their mumbling turn into shouts and yells. He looked over at Zenedris to see her looking at him, a worried look on her face. The shouts of the guards abruptly stopped, and the sound of bodies hitting the floor came through the door. Zenedris gathered Talthos up and held him tight as the door handle turned and the door creaked open. A tall white haired figure stepped through, and Talthos thought for a moment that it was Luxian come to take him home. But he saw that the hair was shorter than Luxian’s, which dashed his hope. The figure, which appeared to be male, had hair that went down to just below the nape of the neck, and it was slicked back... He knew this person, but he couldn’t think of who it was...!
“Sparda?” Talthos and Zenedris said at the same time.
Sparda kicked the door shut before sheathing the sword he was carrying. It was his father’s Ensouled, and it had served him well, being more powerful than his own Ensouled. He looked over at the surprised faces of his father and cousin and smiled. He wanted to run over to his father and wrap his arms around him; it had been over two thousand years since he had last felt his father’s embrace, but he restrained himself. They didn’t have time for such things. He took a quick glance around the room to make sure no one else was in there with them, then he walked over to the bed. He knew what the two had been expected to do, and he felt his lip curl in disgust at the thought.
“We don’t have much time.” he said quietly “We have to get back to Lar’cincel as quickly as possible.” He took his father out of Zenedris’ arms and held him securely with one arm, while offering his other hand out to the Sarcesti matriarch. Zenedris shook her head, her eyes disbelieving what she was seeing, and shakily took the offered hand. Part of her wondered if this was some trick staged by Mundus, if this was only a construct built to look like Sparda, but the power she felt in him when she took his hand destroyed that thought. She stood up, and he gestured for her to follow him out of the room. Making sure that he had a good hold on his father, Sparda eased the door open and stepped out.
Zenedris was not surprised to see the guards lying dead on the floor, their heads taken cleanly off. Sparda paid the bodies no mind as he slinked down the corridor. They came across several more lesser demons, each with their head missing. Sparda had obviously been going for stealth. When they reached the junction of the corridors where the path split off into the dungeons below, they came across another headless demon, who had also had his hands taken off, the aforementioned appendages lying nearby, weapons still clutched in the stiffening fingers. Zenedris knew that Sparda wouldn’t have bothered with taking off the hands. Sparda paused to look for a second, before chuckling to himself.
“That boy.” he said, sounding almost affectionate.
Talthos raised his head from where it had been resting on his son’s shoulder. “What boy?” he asked.
“You’ll see in a moment.” Sparda replied “Ah, that sounds like them now.”
“Them?” Zenedris wondered. Cocking her head to the side and listening, she could hear the sounds of many footsteps coming up from down below.
“Liestia!” A chorus of children’s voices coming from the corridor made Zenedris startle and spin around to look down the corridor, just in time for a large group of chattering children to swarm her. Looking frantically around at them, she saw that all of them had auburn hair, and all of them had the aura of the Sarcesti family. Sinking to her knees in relieved shock, she gathered them to her. A few moments later, she heard more, heavier footsteps and looked up to see the adult members of her family, including her surviving sons and daughters coming up from below. Behind them came a young man with the trademark Sparda hair and aura, who could have been Talthos’ twin.
“Sorry, Grandpa.” the young man said “It took longer than expected since dear ol’ Mundus had assigned more guards than we thought.” He casually wiped the blood off of his sword - a sword that looked familiar to Zenedris - with a scrap of cloth then returned it to its sheath on his left hip.
“Shall we then?”
“Of course.”
Vergil smirked and gestured for his grandfather to lead on. Sparda chuckled again and continued up the path to the open area of the Underworld, where the seven demon families had their homes. Where six of the seven had their homes, Zenedris reminded herself with some bitterness. Not wanting her family to see herself acting that way, she stood up, squared her shoulders, and followed Sparda up the corridor.
*****
“Are we ready then?” Alastair asked. She looked around at her father, uncle and her father’s godmother to see them armed and ready. “So where do we go to get into the Underworld?”
“I will be going through a different gate than you three.” Rachel said. “I will be taking the gate that Luxian entered and exited the human world through. You three will be going to the castle and entering through that gate.”
“Why the different gates?” Vergil asked.
“Because you don’t have a gate pass,” Rachel replied “and I have to get in there as soon as possible.”
“Gate pass?” Dante looked at her. “Are you referring to...?”
“Yes, the amulets.” Rachel held up her own amulet, showing them the midnight blue stone in the silver setting. “They allow you to pass through the gates without any troubles. Since half of your amulet is already in the Underworld, you will not be able to follow me through the gate I will be taking.”
“Then how will we get through the other gate?” Vergil wondered.
“How can you be sure?” Alastair asked.
“I’m not sure, but that is something that he would do, so we’re going to go along with it.”
Dante raised an eyebrow. “And if we can’t pass through?”
“Then clear the castle and wait for me to come back through the gate with Vergil and Sparda. Then we’ll close it. Now let’s get going shall we?” Turning away from them, she opened a portal, grunting once from the effort of opening such a long distance portal. She then stepped back and gestured for them to step through.
“Go.” she said “I’ll see you on the other side.”
Glancing nervously at his brother, then at the portal, Vergil stepped through. Dante and Alastair looked at her strangely - had she just said that she would bring Sparda through? - then followed, and the portal closed behind them. Taking a deep breath, Rachel teleported out of her apartment, following the residual trail of demonic magic to the nearest gate.
*****
Alastair stepped out of the portal right behind her uncle. She shook herself - traveling by dimensional portal gave her the creeps - and straightened her clothes. Then she looked up to find herself standing in a very familiar courtyard surrounded by a very familiar castle.
“Here we go.” she said quietly as her father stepped out of the portal.
Dante stopped and looked around, a strong sense of deja vu making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. His breath caught in his throat, and his heart gave a lurch. He could feel his childhood memories pushing against the barrier in his mind, threatening to break free. He knew that, if they did, it wouldn’t be pleasant for him. He looked over at his brother to see that Vergil was facing the same problem. The elder twin’s face was pale, and his hands were shaking fairly hard. He thought briefly about going over to his brother and saying something comforting, but Alastair, who seemed to have guessed his thoughts, leveled him with a glare, and he had to concede that she did have a point. After what he had said to Vergil earlier, he doubted that anything he could say would be comforting.
“Well, no time like the present.” Alastair said shakily, then she began walking forward towards the open air patios that she had seen in her dreams. Taking a shaky breath, Dante followed her, with Vergil trailing behind him.
*****
Rachel found the gate easily enough. Luxian had left a trail a mile wide for her to follow. She thought briefly that such an obvious trail might have been laid as a trap, but she shoved that thought aside. She didn’t have time to go through the other gate. No doubt Dante, Vergil, and Alastair would meet resistance on their trek through the castle’s corridors, and she was in too much of a hurry to stop and fight. Clutching her amulet and closing her eyes, she jumped down into the gate, feeling that strange feeling of passing through an invisible barrier that she had felt when she had left the demon world. Then she had been leaving her home behind and meeting her former husband on the other side. Now once again, she was leaving her home and meeting her former husband on the other side. She didn’t know exactly how she could be so sure that Sparda was still alive - the marriage bonds between them had been severed hundreds of years before. By her hand, she was ashamed to admit. Where the soul bond she had with him had once existed, there was only a gaping black hole, a part of her soul that she would never be able to reclaim. Yet several times during the past two years, she had felt a brief flicker from that area, like she had once felt whenever her husband had been up to something that he hadn’t wanted her to know about. That coupled with Alastair’s dreams had firmly convinced her that Sparda was still alive, though most likely imprisoned in the Underworld, since imprisonment was the only thing that she could think of that would keep him away from his family.
Opening her eyes, she found herself standing in a swirling vortex of white light, similar to what Dante had described under Mallet Island, in a large room. Opening her senses, she sensed no other demons in the area, and she just had to wonder if Luxian really was so arrogant to leave a obvious trail and not think anyone would follow him. Stepping out of the vortex, she tried to get her bearings and wracked her memory, hoping to remember exactly where she was. She didn’t recognized the large cavernous room off the top of her head, and she was wary of preceding without some idea of her location. The Underworld was enormous, with many levels and different areas, each with their own look. The place was so large in fact, that it was rumored that no one, not even the Dark Emperors, had seen everything. Looking around at her surroundings, careful to keep her senses on full alert incase anyone tried to surprise her, she went through her photographic memory, another gift of Sarcesti blood, and no where did she see this room in it. Damn, she hated going off into the unknown. Alright, she reminded herself, you went into the human world with no idea of what to expect, but then again, you had Sparda as a guide then. Now she didn’t have anyone to direct her; she would have to go it alone. Sighing in resignation, she summoned her power and brought out her staff and willed it to its full length. With her magic crackling at her fingertips, ready to respond to any threat, she walked out of the room.
*****
Sparda was perusing the bookshelves in Lar’cincel’s library, looking for something that would help him permanently close the gate under his castle. Behind him, Zenedris and Vergil were seated in comfortable chairs, watching him. Talthos, swaddled in blankets, was asleep on a nearby couch. Sparda glanced over at him, and seeing the dried blood on the elder demon’s hair made him shake with rage over what Mundus had done. He quietly vowed to himself that, when the chance came, he would make his first battle with Mundus look like a cakewalk in comparison to what he was planning next.
“So what are we going to do now?” Vergil asked, cleaning his sword. Sparda recognized it as one that he had been given in Japan centuries ago and as the sword he had given to his older son as a gift.
“We wait.” he replied.
“Wait for what?” Zenedris wondered, still in a bit of shock to see Sparda standing in front of her, alive and well.
“For my boys to show up, as well as my granddaughter.”
“Dad is coming? Father too?” Vergil leaned forward eagerly. “How do you know this?”
Sparda turned around and smiled at his grandson who so closely resembled his own father.
“Atalia has told me.” he said calmly. Zenedris started, and Vergil said:
“Rachel?” Zenedris wondered
“The name she took to hide in the human world.” Sparda explained “Rachel Areceli.” He looked over at his father to see the elder demon stirring at the mention of his murdered daughter’s name.
Talthos sat up and looked up at his son. “Did you just mention your sister?” he asked.
“No, Father, I didn’t. I was just telling them of Atalia’s human name.”
“For a surname, yes.”
“Grandpa, there is something I’ve been wondering for the longest time.” Vergil said.
“What is that?”
“Who is Akemus? Aunt Rachel has mentioned him.... a few.... times.” He trailed off when he saw his grandfather pale. Sparda closed his eyes, and stamped down his anger. It’s not your grandson’s fault, he told himself sternly. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to the bookshelves.
“I will... endeavor to explain it to you later.” he said quietly “I’m sure that your father and your uncle would want to hear this as well. Atalia has a few things that she can add, if she’s willing.”
Vergil nodded; he had the feeling that this story would be a painful one to tell.
“Back to the original subject,” Zenedris cut in “how did Atalia tell you that your children are coming?”
“The marriage bond between me and Atalia lets things through sometimes.”
“But that bond was severed.” Talthos added.
Sparda nodded and turned away from the books. “True yes, but not completely. The only way to completely sever a marriage bond is for one of the bonded to die. Since Atalia and I are still alive, we can still feel each other, though that connection is very weak and only flares when one of us is feeling strong emotion. I know that they are planning to come here, and Atalia.... Ahhhh, she’s already done it.”
“What has she done?” Zenedris asked.
“She’s come back.”
“To the Underworld?”
Sparda nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
“When did she leave?” Talthos asked.
“Hundreds of years ago, when she realized what had really happened to Akemus.” Zenedris said quietly “She came to Dali’mar’ne, packed a few things and walked out. Later we felt a gate open very briefly, then it closed again. I assume that you helped her?” She looked up at Sparda, who nodded.
Walking over to the library doors, Sparda stepped out into the hallway and yelled for his brother. A few minutes later, Luxian, still walking jerkily as he tried to fight the magic of the patriarchal ring, came into the room.
“Yes, Luxian, I need you to do something for me. My former wife is here in the Underworld, and she had taken the same gate that you did. Unfortunately, she has never been in that area of the Underworld before, and she is quite lost, so I want you to go to her and guide her here. You will not give her any trouble, and you will not tell her anything other than that I told you to escort her here. She knows that I live, so she’ll believe you. If you are stopped by any of Mundus’ little friends, you will not stop her from defending herself, nor will you tell them anything of my escape from imprisonment. Am I understood?”
Once again, Luxian seemed to be fighting the magic, but his mouth was finally forced open, and he ground out a “Yes, Cincel.” before leaving the library.
“And do not fight the magic!” Sparda called out behind him “You are not to give yourself away!”
“Yes, Cincel!” warbled Luxian’s voice from somewhere on the stairs.
Chuckling to himself, Sparda turned back to the books.
“You’re enjoying this aren’t you?” Vergil asked “Ordering your brother around?”
“I really shouldn’t, but yes, I am. It’s the least I can do for what he did to you and your father. For now at least.” he muttered. He expected his father to say something to that, but to his surprise, Talthos remained silent, frowning darkly.
“I told him, Sparda.” Zenedris said softly.
“You told him!” Sparda spun around, glaring at her.
“Everything.” she finished, unfazed by his glare “He needed to know what was going on. He had just been woken up, and no one was telling him anything.” Sparda didn’t answer, looking at his father, lying still on the couch. Zenedris was right, but he had hoped to be the one to break the news of the monster that Luxian had become to their father. Sighing, he caught a glimpse of the heavy metal collar that Talthos still had around his neck. He needed to do something about that.
Walking over to where his father lay, he knelt down beside the couch and touched the collar, running his finger along the seam where it had been closed. Summoning up the magic of the Sarcesti family, which he had inherited from his father, who had inherited it from his mother, he willed the magic out through that one finger. He felt warmth gathering in his hand, collecting into a burning in his index finger, just before a thin beam of pure, focused magic shot out of the tip and struck the collar. Being careful not to injure his father’s face or neck, he simply burned through the metal in two different places, cutting the collar in two. The collar fell away, revealing minor chaffing and a few minor burns where the metal had heated up on Talthos’ neck.
Talthos sighed in relief at the absence of the cumbersome collar, and everyone in the room felt the rush as his power flow rose up and flowed through his body normally. The chaffing and burns on his neck began to heal, and they were gone in a few seconds.
Turning to Zenedris, Sparda repeated the process. Instead of simply sighing in relief however, Zenedris’ power, restrained for a year, broke free in a wild rush, making her pass out in her chair. The men chuckled.
“Oops, I forgot that that sometimes happens.” Sparda said lightly.
Vergil erupted into outright laughter and volunteered to take her to a guest room to lie down. Sparda nodded, and Vergil, still chuckling gathered the unconscious Sarcesti matriarch up and carried her out of the library.
Returning to the bookshelves, Sparda went back to searching for what he needed. He cursed quietly to himself, since he had the feeling that the books he would need were in the Sarcesti library. No, he reminded himself, feeling another rush of anger at Mundus, that library is gone, destroyed. He would have to find what he needed in the Sparda library. He knew that the Valters library wouldn’t contain such information, even if he could get in there to get it. The Valters family had once been almost as powerful as the Sarcesti, but too much interbreeding had weakened them considerably. They were careful not to mate with those closer than two generations away and never in their own immediate family now, but the damage was already too great to undo.
“Sparda!”
Sparda spun around to face the library doors, just as his favorite auburn haired demon ran through the door. He grinned widely as she practically flew into his arms, wrapping her arms around him and holding him tight. It was only his own demonic strength that kept him from being crushed. He hugged her back, not wanting to let her go for the longest time. He had missed her embrace more than he had missed his father’s - not that he would ever admit that of course.
A cough from the doorway made them break apart finally. They looked up to see Vergil standing there, looking at them with one eyebrow raised. To his surprise, and embarrassment, Sparda felt his face heat up. To his amusement, Atalia was doing the same.
“Uh, Grandpa, you might want to tell Luxian to go back to his room, before he causes any trouble.” Vergil said lightly, grinning ear to ear at their embarrassment.
“Ah, right, I’ll do that now.” Sparda said, walking hastily out of the room. Vergil chuckled before looking at his godmother. She smiled at him.
“Your father and dad are coming.” she whispered in his ear “They’ll be here later. They had to take a.... detour.”
“Am I right in saying that it was you who suggested this little detour?” he said with a small laugh.
“You could very well be.” she replied.
They stepped back from one another, and he looked her up and down, surprised by her chosen clothes. He had seen shredded fragments of her kind of robes on the other members of the Sarcesti, but this was the first time that he had seen them as they were meant to look, as well as the first time he had seen them on her.
“You look different.” he said, flushing with embarrassment when he realized that he was giving his GODMOTHER an appraising look. She laughed and swatted him on the arm.
“Here now,” she teased “You’ve got a girlfriend.”
“A girlfriend?” Sparda said, walking back into the room “Care to let me in on the details?”
Vergil’s face fell. “No, I don’t have a girlfriend. Adele broke up with me after the murder of her family.”
Sparda raised an eyebrow, a trait that he had passed on to his children and grandchildren, and looked questioningly over at Atalia. She gestured that she would tell him later, and he nodded. She also signaled that they needed to talk, in private.
“Vergil,” Sparda said quietly “Why don’t you take your great-grandfather,” He looked over at Talthos, who was again sleeping. “to his room, and go lie down for a while. Things are going to get bad once your father and uncle arrive, and you need to be rested.” Vergil nodded mutely, and Sparda captured him in a hug before letting the young man go over to Talthos. Vergil easily picked the elder demon up, without waking him, and carried him from the room.
Once Vergil was out of the room, Sparda was surprised when Atalia threw up a privacy spell and gestured for him to sit down.
“What is it?’ he asked, looking at her warily.
“Sit down, Sparda.” she said “There are some things that you need to know...”
Chapter 8 -- Chapter 10
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