The Devils Cry Ch 1-11

[eiahmon]

Title: The Devils Cry Chapter 11
Category: Devil May Cry
Rating: PG-13
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 daughter’s dreams of a place that Dante doesn’t want to remember make him recall things that he had once tried so hard to forget as the skeletons in the Sparda family closet come out to play. Lost family history is revealed, and people once thought long gone return.
SPOILER WARNING!!!: Spoilers for all three Devil May Cry games.

11.

Vergil slowly woke up. He peeked his eyes open and saw the walls of the entryway on the tower around him. Gingerly sitting up, stiff from sleeping on the stone floor, he glanced cautiously around him. The place was quiet, and there was no sign of Luxian anywhere. Getting to his feet, trying to ignore his shaking legs, he carefully walked from the entryway and into the main part of the tower.

He was surprised to see that inwardly, the tower looked like something that would be lived in by any wealthy human family. Stone floors polished to a shine were covered by luxurious rugs and elegant but comfortable furniture. Every room he went into had the same human appearance. It confused him just a little, but it did explain why Luxian had always preferred his human form. He apparently felt more at ease in his human form. Why he was like that was a mystery to Vergil.

There was one other thing that each room had in common - each and every room had at least one bookshelf filled with books and scrolls, and in most cases there was several bookcases. Now he knew that Luxian did not read much, and he definitely would not touch most of these books with a ten foot pole as they appeared to have been written by humans. He had to wonder who had put those books in there, as he doubted that Luxian would have done it.

Climbing the stairs to the upper floors, he came across the bedrooms. He easily was able to tell which one was Luxian’s, as it was the only one that looked lived in, but he found several others as well. One he was able to immediately tell that it had once been his father’s. His aura still clung to the empty room. Vergil imagined that he could feel his father’s disappointment at what he had done and what he had let himself become. He found that he couldn’t bring himself to go any further into the room. Going to the next door, he found a surprise.

A demon, in human form, lay in the center of the large bed, covered by blankets that appeared to have never been disturbed. His eyes were closed, and he appeared to be asleep, but when Vergil looked closer, he could see that the demon didn’t appear to be breathing. Startled - was he dead? - Vergil stepped closer. No, he was alive, his power could be sensed. It was dormant, but still there, and he appeared to be in stasis. Vergil was puzzled; why would Mundus, since only he could do such a thing, put one of the Spardas under like that? Someone under stasis, he knew, would retain all of their power, but they would be defenseless against any threat as none but a select few were powerful enough to break the spell. And once allowed to awaken, they would be disoriented from anywhere from several days to several weeks, depending on how long they had been out, while their mind, memories, and body adjusted to functioning at full capacity again.

Giving the demon a looking over, Vergil was struck by a vague sense of familiarity. He had seen this person before; he knew he had. He just didn’t know where. He remembered that it had something to do with his father’s study and a painting of some kind, but that was all he could recall. He shook his head in irritation; his memories still hadn’t completely returned, and he had a sinking feeling that they probably never would.

The demon was tall in his human form, well over six feet, and his natural form had to be enormous. His hair went down to his ankles, and he bore a striking resemblance to Vergil’s own son. Vergil wondered if he had been the one to put all of the human books on the shelves. He certainly looked like the scholarly type.

“What are you doing in here!!!”

He jumped and spun around. Luxian was standing in the door, and he was livid. Vergil swallowed heavily, the knowledge that Luxian couldn’t hurt him in here didn’t ease his fear of the demon any.

“What are you doing in here!” Luxian demanded as he strode into the room “What have you done!! Get your filth away from him!” He pushed his nephew aside as he went to his father’s side. He was relieved to see that Talthos didn’t seem to have been disturbed, so smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles in the blankets again, he turned to his cowering nephew.

“You little bastard.” he spat ‘You just couldn’t resist coming in here and fouling up this place with you presence could you? You just had to come here. Here, where you father was banned from two millennia ago. You don’t belong here. I should, by all rights, throw you out right now. Others are waiting to take you back where you belong, rotting in a forgotten cell like your father.”

Vergil felt his heart skip a beat at the mention of his father. He looked up at his uncle.

“My father?” he said quietly. Luxian raised his hand, but though better of it and settled for just yelling some more.

“You’ve no right to speak to me! Now get out! Don’t you ever cross my path in this tower again, or so Mundus help me I will find a way around the magic in here!”

Backing away, afraid to turn him back to the enraged demon, Vergil reached the open door, turned and fled. He ran back to his father’s room and climbed up onto the bed. Curling up into a ball, shaking, he tried to calm himself so he could decide on what to do next. But his thoughts refused to settle down, and he couldn’t stop his shaking. Grabbing a pillow so he could have something to hang on, he curled himself around it, wishing that Dante was there. He somewhat wished for his father to be there too, but Dante’s disappointment would be easier to deal with. He didn’t think that he could deal with the disappointment that would be sure to be on his father’s face. Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed the mental picture of Sparda’s face away, not wanting to see it anymore. After several more minutes, his thoughts finally settled down long enough to allow him to fall into a light sleep.

******

Luxian paced back in forth in Talthos’ study, his posture rigid, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He was stuck with sharing the same roof with the half breed. He couldn’t do anything to harm the brat. He couldn’t throw him out since doing so would bring him to harm, and no one, not even Mundus or Zenedris Sarcesti, could force him to leave.

Thinking of Zenedris made him growl in rage. What was that woman thinking? Or had she been thinking at all? Why in the nine levels had she helped the son of that traitorous bastard? What had she been hoping to accomplish by allowing the half breed to reach safety? Snarling he punched the wall, but only succeeded in breaking some of the smaller bones in his hand. He cursed his weak human form.

He had never understood why it was tradition in the Sparda family to remain in their human form for everyday life, only morphing into their natural form in a fight. He had asked his father once, as a child. The elder demon had just smiled and said that it was all about power and learning to live without it so one would not take advantage of it. Luxian had not understood then, and he didn’t understand now. He thought it odd that the two most powerful demon families: the Spardas and the Sarcesti, stayed in their human forms virtually at all times. It made no sense to him, none at all. He supposed that he could just shove off family tradition and stay in his normal form, but he had been in his human form for so long - virtually his entire life - that his natural form felt not right to him. Not wrong, just not right either. That and, like his nephew - though he would never know this - he didn’t think he could bear his father’s disappointment if Talthos ever learned that his son had thrown aside family tradition.

Speaking of his father...

Luxian went down to his father’s room; he had to undo any damaged that the half breed might have done. He might have had servants do it, but he liked caring for his father, even if there wasn’t much to be done. And of course, Luxian’s rage at his brother’s betrayal and defection to the humans had driven off the servants that he didn’t kill centuries ago, and he had never bothered to get any more.

Once in his father’s room, he carefully picked him up out of bed and carried him away to be bathed and dressed in clean clothes. While he was doing so, he spoke to the elder demon, telling him what was going on and what kinds of things he had been up to recently. He always spoke to his father like this, though in some cases the tales were heavily edited. For instance, he had told Talthos that Sparda’s wife had died, but he had never said anything about who or what had killed her or the kidnapping of her son. And he had most definitely not mentioned the attempted controlling of Larcersa. Luxian knew that his father would not approve of such actions. Sparda may have betrayed his family, but he was still a Sparda by blood, and he still carried the name, therefore he and any children or mates of his were not to be harmed by any other member of the family.

After Talthos was bathed and dressed in clean robes, Luxian changed the bed clothes and laid the elder demon back down, tucking him in under the blankets. Certain now that his father was free from the contamination caused by the half breed’s presence, Luxian returned to the library to work more on the book. He sincerely hoped that Vergil was not in there.

******

Zenedris Sarcesti sat thoughtfully in her family’s library, her fingers drumming absently on a nearby table. Servants and members of her family came and went, but none disturbed her. They knew that she didn’t like to be disturbed while she was thinking. And thinking she was - about the Sparda family to be specific.

The Spardas had occupied her thoughts in one form or another since her great grandson, Akemus Sparda, had died, supposedly by human hands. Less than a year later, the infant’s father ran off and join the humans that had murdered the him. Zenedris had believed it, so had her granddaughter Atalia, Akemus’ mother. In a fit of grieving rage, she had magically severed the marriage bonds between her and Sparda, screaming for him to never darken her doorstep again. Then she had returned to her family’s rose marble tower. Sparda had done what she asked and never tried to contact her, though when Zenedris caught a glimpse of the Sparda Heir, it was apparent that he was deeply grieved. Atalia didn’t look much better, spending most of her time in her room, silent and brooding. She barely ate and her weight plummeted, leaving her human form thin and ragged, and her demon form looking downright emaciated. Such was the hazard of breaking demonic marriage bonds, which was in reality a soul bond, and though the two could live without each other with the bond broken, they would never really feel complete again. Forging a marriage bond to another could fill part of the hole left behind, but it would never completely disappear. Four hundred years after Sparda had sealed the gate between the human and demon worlds, Atalia had come home from a walk, her face pale, tears tracking down her face. She had been in a state of deep shock and had been mumbling her long dead son’s name.

For six days she had lain in her bed, staring at the ceiling but seeing nothing. When she had come around, she had refused to say what had happened beyond telling her mother and grandmother that Sparda had been right all along. When asked what he had been right about, she had simply said “Akemus” then she had gathered up her personal effects and walked out of Sarcesti Tower. She had never been seen by her family again, though they knew by why of the communication amulet that all members of the family carried that she had left the demon world with Sparda’s help. She contacted them occasionally to let them know how she was doing, but said nothing more on the subject of Sparda or Akemus. She had, however, told them that Sparda had married a human woman and that the two of them had twin sons, and both were alive and well.

Twins. Sparda had to have known what the birth of his sons meant. Twins were considered a bad omen in the Underworld, as the birth of a set was always followed by bad events. Agni and Rudra’s birth had been followed within a few years by Mundus murdering his father to take over the thrown. Three years after the birth of Ifrit’s twin great grandsons, Ifrit himself had disappeared, never to be seen again. Hector Valters - a member of the other spellcasting family - had a twin that died at birth, and while he was still an infant, his parents had died. No, twins were never a good omen, so Sparda had to have known what was likely to happen. Some were all for killing twins at birth to hopefully prevent anything from happening, but no one had ever acted on it, for which Zenedris was grateful. There were a set of twins in her own family, her great-great grand nieces, and she liked them alive and well, though she did not know what events their birth would be an omen for, and, truth be told, she was afraid to find out.

Thoughts of Sparda's sons led her to thoughts of Sparda's father. Quiet and scholarly, Talthos Sparda was just a few centuries older than her. She had always found him attractive when they were children, and she had grown to love him as they grew older. But her affections were unreturned, and he had married her cousin from the Bolverk family instead. She had borne him no ill will over it, and when Zenedris had married her husband, the two couples had become very close friends. She had conceded that Talthos would never be hers, though she would always secretly nurse her affections for him. She had been given a chance to show it to him, after Nakisa’s murder by Sparda’s hands. She had consoled him, as the severing of his and Nakisa’s marriage bonds had been more severe than the severing of Sparda and Atalia’s. When demon’s die, no one is quite sure what happens to their souls, though the commonly held belief is that they just cease to exist, unless they had managed to create an Ensouled - a weapon with a part of their soul held inside. So the gaping hole in Talthos’ soul left by Nakisa’s death had to have been huge indeed.

He had never said, but from the few words he had managed to get out between sobs, it seemed as if there had been more to the deaths of Akemus, Nakisa, and her and Talthos’ daughter Areceli. Before she could learn more however, Talthos had been summoned to Mundus’ throne room, and he had been put into stasis. There were rumors that he had been put under against his will, and had fought until several others had literally beaten him into submission. The guards outside the door had certainly heard him yelling and screaming, though they had mysteriously vanished the next day. Talthos had been placed at first in a sealed capsule in Mundus’ private chambers. Several centuries later, after Luxian had pleaded to have him in the tower, he had been moved to his own bed in Lar’cincel, where he still remained. While Zenedris didn’t trust or like Luxian Sparda, she did agree with him on the subject of Talthos being left in stasis for so long. There was no need for it, and once he was awake, he would be too weak and disoriented to take care of himself for at least several weeks afterward, probably longer. She had made a private vow, right after his grandson’s arrival in the demon world, that when he was allowed to wake, she would be there to take care of him, and would tell him the truth about everything, as she had no doubt that Luxian and Mundus would give him an edited version.

She couldn’t stand Luxian Sparda. While the Sparda family had always been loyal to Mundus - with the exception of Sparda himself of course, though he had at first as well - they had been even more loyal to each other. They had always placed family ahead of their masters, and when it came to their family, they did whatever they wanted, consequences be damned. Yet here Luxian was, 4,000 years old, which translated into forty in human years, unmarried and having fathered no children because Mundus had told him not to! She thought the whole thing truly pathetic, and what’s more, Luxian was being a whiny brat because the family patriarchy had passed him over, going to the younger of Sparda’s twin boys instead of him upon the death of Sparda himself! She found that very funny. Apparently either Luxian didn’t know about the magic governing the headship of demon family’s or he was choosing to ignore it so not be insulted.

The powerful magic that determined who became the next head of a demon family was sentient and was too powerful to be tampered with by anyone. Not even Mundus could influence it. Normally it would follow the demon tradition of giving the headship to the firstborn son (or the firstborn daughter in the case of the Sarcesti family) and, it he couldn‘t do it for whatever reason, it would go to his younger brother, or to his son if that one couldn’t do it, and so on and so on. But the magic wouldn’t hesitate to skip over the next eligible person and go the one it deemed best to take care of the family. After Talthos had been put in stasis and had become unable to lead his family, it had passed to Sparda like it was supposed to. Luxian had let everyone in Underworld know that his brother had to have tampered with the magic, otherwise it would have gone to him, not the traitor who had backstabbed his own family. When Sparda had finally died - by his brother’s vengeful hands supposedly, though Zenedris had her doubts on that - the headship should have gone to Luxian finally. But the magic had apparently thought him unfit, and it had languished for a few more years. When Sparda’s older twin son had come of age, Luxian had thought that the headship would go to the boy, and that he would be able to control him and somehow wrest it away from him. But no, Luxian had been enraged yet again. The headship had gone to the younger twin - Dante, Zenedris thought his name was. She and her family had had a good laugh at the destructive fit Luxian had thrown over that.

Zenedris glanced down at the bracelet on her left wrist, something she did at least once a day. On the bracelet was the Sarcesti family crest and, surrounding the shield, were the names of her living family - including her granddaughter Atalia. Looking at it, she wondered if young Dante Sparda knew the secrets of his family’s crest. The Sparda family crest consisted of a small winged dragon on a background of a pattern of black and gold triangles with three crossed blood red swords. Like all demonic crests the signet could take any form that it’s current bearer wished. Talthos had worn it as a pendant on a chain. When he had been put under, the signet had disappeared from his neck. And like all demon signets, it would show the names of living immediate family members around the crest. Females that had married into other families did not appear on the ring, and it would only show two generations in either direction from the patriarch. It would also show, in some way that was unique to each one, whenever the family was in danger of disappearing from existence. She didn’t think that he knew, as he would have known that his brother still lived, and she had no doubt that he would have tried to save him during his last excursion down here. A message from Atalia, delivered through her amulet, had confirmed this.

Two days ago, Zenedris had felt her granddaughter’s presence through the amulet, and she had immediately dropped what she had been doing and gone into her private rooms to answer. The communication amulets did not allow direct conversation. Instead they used images and feelings to get things across. Thought those, Zenedris had learned that Dante Sparda had just learned of the continued existence of his twin and was looking for any help in getting him out of the Underworld, as he couldn’t go in himself without opening a gate. Atalia asked her grandmother to help, and the elder Sarcesti had been surprised to learn that Sparda had made Atalia the twins’ godmother, and she had to do whatever she could to fulfill that role and Vergil escape the Underworld. Agreeing to do whatever she could to help, Zenedris had received messages of goodwill to pass on to the rest of the family, and then the connection had been cut. The next day, she had heard through the rumor mill that the older Sparda twin had escaped from his confinement and was making a break for Lar’cincel. Telling her family to stay safely in their own tower, which was called Dali’mar’ne, she ran towards Lar’cincel, hoping to reach Vergil before Luxian did.

When she had arrived, she had seen the boy, who looked so much like his father had, running with everything he had towards the safety of Lar’cincel’s front doors, but it was obvious that he wasn’t going to make it. He was much too weak, and he collapsed only part of the way there. Seeing Luxian slow to a run to a confident walk, Zenedris saw that she had just enough time to throw a little magic around. Closing her eyes and calling up her power, she began chanting, casting a spell that would form a temporary link between herself and Vergil, allowing her to feed him some of her power. The spell succeeded, and he was able to jump inside the tower mere seconds ahead of his enraged uncle. Smirking in satisfaction, Zenedris had cancelled the spell and returned to Dali’mar’ne and informed Atalia that her godson was safe for now. She had ignored an angry summons from Mundus to show herself in his throne room and explain herself; she had done what she had needed to do. She had helped Vergil get to safety.

Now she just had to figure out how to get him out of the Underworld altogether.

Rising from her chair, Zenedris walked over to a bookshelf along the far wall. It was a relatively small bookshelf by the standards of the library, but it was an important one. The books on those shelves contained some of the most powerful magic possessed by the Sarcesti family, and they were spelled so only the matriarch could open and read them. If the matriarch wished, she could cast a temporary spell to allow other members of the family to read specific parts, but she had never done this in her 8,000 years of life. There had never been a need, and she hoped that there never would. But now she was in need of some of the magic contained within one of the books. She would be able to make her granddaughter’s day if her suspicions were correct, and she had no reason to doubt them. She knew the Sarcesti family library inside and out.

As much as Zenedris hated Luxian, she liked his brother, and she loved his father, and she was going to do everything in her power to save that family from extinction which, thanks to Mundus and Luxian’s stupidity, they were barreling towards at full speed. Selecting one book from the shelf, she laid it out on a nearby table and sat down to read. She would deal with Mundus' anger another day.

She was getting Vergil out, one way or another.