The Devils Cry Ch 1-5

[eiahmon]

Title: The Devils Cry Chapter 5
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.

5.

Later on, Vergil could only vaguely recall the wait for his dad to come and get him. He laid on his couch, the phone lying against his ear, not even hearing Alastair prattling away on the other end, as he stared blankly at the opposite wall.

He and Adele had spend a wonderful day in Paris: seeing the sights, window shopping (Which Vergil actually enjoyed, thanks to years of being dragged around by Alastair from store to store.) and dining out in a little corner cafe. The day had been beautiful - until Adele had told Vergil that she wanted to introduce him to the rest of her family. He had already met his parents, and they had welcomed him like another son. Now the rest of the family was wanting to meet him. He had happily agreed, but when they walked up the brick path to her parents’ front door, she had remarked that things had seemed oddly silent. Thinking of the day he had met her parents, where they had come out to give him a enthusiastic greeting, he had to agree. Feeling that something was very wrong, he stopped, pulling Adele to a stop too, as he reached out with his senses and sent them searching through the house. The blood had drained from his face when he sensed that demons had been in the house, and it had been recently from the strength of their scent.

“Vergil?” Adele had said, puzzled “What is the matter?” He backed up a pace, puling her back with him.

“We can’t -” He tried to speak, but his voice abruptly squeaked out of existence. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “We can’t go in there.”

“Why not?” She tried to get free of his grip. “C’mon Vergil, everyone’s waiting for us.”

“We can’t go in there, Adele. I’m telling you it’s not safe!”

“Vergil!” His tone surprised her. She had never heard him speak that way before. “What is going on? What is the matter with you?” She pulled her arm free from his grip and ran for the house.

“Adele, wait!” He ran after her, hoping to stop her from seeing what he knew must be inside. “Don’t go in there!” As fast as he was, he knew he wouldn’t be able to catch her before she reached the door.

“Mama! Papa!” Adele sprinted up the walk to the front door with Vergil right behind her. She reached the front door and opened it, swinging it open hard enough to rattle pictures on the wall when it banged against it. There was silence for a second as she ran into the house, then came the most bloodcurdling scream he had ever heard, from human or demon. He ran through the door to see her staring in wide-eyed horror at the scene in the living room.

Twenty-five people, all of Adele’s family, lay in pieces on the living room floor. Old people, young people, children, no one was spared. The entire family, with the exception of Adele herself, had been wiped out. Vergil felt sick. He had hunted demons with his dad and sister on so many occasions that he had lost count, and on many of those occasions he had seen humans that the demons had slaughtered. As bad as it was, he had forced himself to view the corpses with the same cool detachment that his dad did, otherwise, he would have gone insane. But this.... This was beyond anything he had ever seen. He staggered over away from the scene and vomited. Wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, he heard Adele let out a low moan. Staggering over to where she sat crumpled on the floor by her mother’s limbless corpse, he saw her cradling a large, leather bound, blood stained book to her chest, rocking herself back and forth and crying.

“Adele.” he said hoarsely as he sank down to the bloodied carpet beside her. He caught a glimpse at the book in her hands and guessed that it was several hundred years old at least, but that was as far as his inspection of it went. Adele raised her tear stained face to look at him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked softly, accusingly.

“Wha- ?” was all he got a chance to say as she hauled off and slapped him - hard.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” she shrieked in sudden rage. She slapped him again. Vergil had to hold in his inner demon that wanted to rip her to shreds for striking him as he tried to figure out what she was talking about.

“What are you talking about, Adele? Tell you what?”

“That!” she screamed, pointing to the wall opposite them. He flicked his eyes in that direction and felt his heart shudder to a stop. On the cream colored paint, in three foot high letters, was a sentence written in human blood:

“We are coming for you, Sparda.”

Vergil had to swallow a particularly large lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. He looked away from the words on the wall back to Adele, who was glaring at him with a furious expression.

“Adele...” he began, but she cut him off.
 

“Is it true?” she demanded “Are you him? Sparda?”

 

“No, I am not.” She slapped him again.

 

“Don’t lie!! You look just like him!!”

“I am not him.” He sighed. “I am his grandson.” Her eyes narrowed.

“And when were you planning on telling me this?” she hissed.

“I- I- I was going to wait -”

This time she didn’t slap him. She punched him. The punch barely rocked him, but it hurt all the same, especially since he knew that she had every reason to be angry.

“Leave.” she growled “Now. Don’t every come back.”

“Adele, I -”

“I said leave!” she screamed, punching him again. She dropped the book and launched herself at him, raining punches on his face, neck, and chest. He made no move to defend himself. He deserved this. He should have told her sooner.

“Now go! I never want to see you again, you - you demon!”

Three-quarter demon. he thought dazedly.

“Oh, and don’t forget to take this with you! It belonged to your dear grandfather anyway!” She shoved the bloodied book into his hands. “ Now GET OUT!!”

Shocked and confused, Vergil shakily got to his feet and staggered to the door. Once there he paused and started to say something to her only to have another book thrown at him.

“GET OUT!!!”

Hanging his head, his hair, which had come loose from it’s customary tail, hanging in front of his face, Vergil turned and trudged out the door. He though absently that he ought to stay regardless of her wishes as the demons might come back to finish the job, but he dismissed that. His presence would just attract them.

He barely remembered his walk home. He knew people were stopping to stare at him, though he imagined that the blood on his clothes as well as the bloody book in his arms was bound to attract attention. As soon as he got home and let himself in, the shock wore off and the hysterics set in. He dialed his dad’s home number by subconscious memory. When no one picked up, he dialed his pager, then his cell phone. Both were turned off. At last he dialed the office number and was relieved when Alastair picked up. He knew he had been babbling in his family’s ear, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. Everything had overwhelmed him, and he was completely unable to keep himself under control. That simple fact had unnerved him almost as most as the murders had done, so used was he to having himself completely under control at all times.

So he waited for his father - no, dad, not father, he thought dazedly - to come. He waited, staring at the opposite wall, lost in his own guilt. In his arms he cradled the leather bound book that Adele had given him, not even noticing that it was there.

******

Dante had been totally unprepared for the sight that greeted him when he opened Vergil’s unlocked front door. He could smell the grief, the guilt, and salt from so many tears. Vergil lay on the couch, not moving, not making a sound, a large book cradled in his arms. The human blood that was slowly drying on his clothes tickled Dante’s nose. He stepped warily into the room, not wanting to startle him, and closed the door quietly behind him.

“Vergil?” he said softly. Finally, Vergil moved, raising his head ever so slightly.

 

“Dad?” he said hoarsely “Is that you?” Dante swiftly closed the distance between them, kneeling down in front of the couch and wrapping his arms around his son. Vergil hid his face in Dante’s coat and started to cry again.

Vergil was nearly as tall as he was, but Dante managed to pull him off of the couch and into his arms. They sat like that for close to an hour, until Vergil had calmed back down and started to fall asleep. Dante gently shook him.

“We have to go now, Vergil. I need you to get up.” Vergil mumbled something, reminding Dante of the boy’s school days and his dislike of getting up early.

“C’mon Vergil. We have to go home. Alastair is waiting.” He stood up, pulling Vergil up with him. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

It took the better part of an hour to get Vergil washed up and into clean clothes. The young man just passively did whatever his dad told him, his eyes glazed over in shock. He sat quietly on the couch while Dante gathered up and packed his weapons (which he had been collecting while he traveled around Europe.) and packed his clothes. He knew that it was unlikely that Vergil would be returning.

If the demons that had killed Adele’s family had left a message in blood using their name, then that meant that they were going to start actively hunting them again. Mundus and his lackeys had laid off hunting down and destroying any last members of the Sparda family after Mallet Island, so other than a arrogant demon boasting about “bringing down the blood of that filth, Sparda.” every now and then, things had been relatively quiet. Which, thinking about it while he pulled Vergil to his feet and out the door, Dante supposed had been a little too good to be true. If anything, Mundus was vindictive, and any vendettas he might have had against Sparda had been transferred to his children upon the elder demon’s death. So as long as the Sparda line lived, they would be forever cursed to looking over their shoulders and sleeping with guns under their pillows.

Dante knew that there had been several attempts on his father’s life before his marriage to Eva Sparda. He couldn't remember his father actually speaking about them but Rachel had known, and she had told Dante when he was a teenager about his father's history. Dante had known about part of it, his father's defection from Mundus or example, but the part about him being the invisible guardian of the Redgrave family, as well as him having a large controlling interest in the bank in Germany that went by their name, was news to him. And the little booklet where Sparda had kept track of the attempts on his life, who did it, and how they were done had floored him. In the 2,031 years he had lived in the human world, 3,384 attempts had been made on his life. And some, according to the booklet, had come very, very close. Though, he had confessed in the front of it, being killed was not what he feared. It was being captured. If he was caught alive, Mundus would torture him to make him wish for death - a wish that would never be granted as long as Mundus held the throne to the Underworld. That had kept Dante awake at night for weeks after he had read it. Atalia had stubbornly insisted that his father had died in battle, but without a body, Dante hadn’t been so certain.

The attempts on his life stopped after he married however, though Dante was certain that it was because Mundus was scheming how to use that to his advantage. Vergil’s defection to the darkness had been proof of that. Dante knew that the darkness could be seductive, but Vergil had been a good person, with a caring, if slightly cool, personality before their mother’s murder. When he had reappeared, three years after the death of their mother, Dante had ran up to him, overjoyed to see that his twin was alive. That joy had turned to horrified shock when Vergil had attacked him. Over the next three years, the twins had met two other times, and both times they had fought. Then came the Temen-ni-gru and -

NO!! Dante shook his head. He would NOT think of that. Instead he focused on getting Vergil - his son, he would not think of his brother - into the rental car. He put Vergil’s things in the trunk then sat in the driver’s seat and started the engine. He glanced over at his son, dozing in the passenger seat, his head resting against the seatbelt. He pulled away from the curb and headed for Paris, trying not to think about his brother.

******

He sat against the wall of his cell, thinking. His thoughts had once been scattered by years of torture, making him unable to form a coherent thought, and his memories had been lost and scattered as well, making him unable to tell fantasy from reality. Now things were falling into place since his “Master” had lost interest in him. That was good for him, but he knew that it meant that Mundus was scheming something, and that someone was going to suffer for it. He wished he knew what the Dark Emperor was planning, not that he could do anything about it. No matter, he would find out eventually. Everytime Mundus had a scheme that worked out successfully, he would have him dragged up to his throne room so he could gloat to an audience, even if his audience was partially out of their mind and unable to comprehend half of what was being said. Last time, Mundus had gone on and on about some grand scheme of his, without ever really saying what he was planning. He had been disappointed that he had not been presented with an opportunity to make a run for his family's tower. He knew that the chance would come. Mundus was too arrogant to let him set down here without using him as target for his narcissism. Sooner or later, he would send the guards down to get him.

Sure enough.....
He slumped against the wall, giving the guards the impression that he was still lost in his own mind as they came into the small dark cell. They unchained him and hauled him to his feet and began to drag him from the room. Looks like he would learn what was going on after all. They dragged him through the organic pulsating corridors that made up the Underworld, and he wondered absently where the source of the dim reddish light was. He worked on memorizing the corridors that led down to his cell, incase an opportunity to escape came along later. As they neared Mundus’ throne room, he glanced briefly in the direction of the black obsidian tower that loomed up over the red and black landscape. He then averted his eyes and went back to staring at the floor. He didn’t want to give them any idea that he was planning something.

They dragged him through the heart chamber and into the throne room where all but three of his escorts left the room. Two remained holding onto his arms while the third grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled his head back, forcing him to look at Mundus. He carefully kept his eyes glazed over, not wanting to give any hint of his improved mental state away.

“So it begins again.” Mundus’ voice boomed. With the breaking of the seal that Sparda had put on him, Mundus was free to assume any form he wished, and right now he was in the form of a black winged angel, making a mockery of human religions. He stood from his smaller throne and walked up to his former servant.

“Soon the human filth that has infested the Sparda line will be eradicated, and I can begin breeding the full demon line of the family again. Once back under my control, there will be nothing protecting the humans from my imminent takeover.”

He had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. He had heard this all before.

Mundus stepped close to his former servant, so close that their noses were almost touching.

“And he will be the first to go. He was my plan, and he was turned against me. He will die first, but not before he has suffered for his failure. Already my servants have slaughtered the family of the one he is close to. Even now, nightmares, sent by me, haunt him, and only one with same blood of Sparda as his own can stop them. He will drown in his own guilt. Then she will be next, and then, he will go. And you are going to watch it.”

He jerked in his escorts’ grip. Damn it! Not him! He had endured almost non stop torture for freeing the boy from Mundus’ grip, and now they were going to kill him! Damn, damn, DAMN! What was he going to do now? He glanced up just as Mundus grinned, and he realized with dawning horror that his involuntary jerk had given him away.

“So, I see you are not as insane as you have been leading us to believe.” he said in a false sickly sweet voice “We’ll have to.... take care of that.”

His eyes widened in horror, and a whimper escaped his lips, despite his attempts to hold it back. Mundus laughed, a sound that made his blood seem to freeze in his veins.

 

“Take him. “ he told the guards “Make sure that he is suitably comfortable. I will be down there shortly.”

They were onto him now; no use pretending that he didn’t understand anymore. He began to fight his captors’ grip, desperate to escape what was coming. Mundus leered at him in the same way he did whenever he was meting out the pain. He couldn’t help himself; he screamed in terror as the horrible memories of what had been done to him in the past flashed through his mind. He knew that they would torture him until he lost himself again. He fought and screamed as he was dragged out of the throne room, so he barely noticed the demon that ran up to Mundus, telling him something about a book. He didn't really care at that point. He screamed and fought all the way down to his cell.

******

Vergil would later only be able to vaguely recall the next several days. He remembered his dad coming for him, and the next thing he remembered after that was being put to bed in his room at home. He was in such deep shock that he was having trouble telling dreams and reality apart. He slept twenty-two hours a day, sleeping off the shock and trying to ignore his guilt.

 

Dante and Alastair let him sleep, figuring that it couldn’t do any harm, and that it certainly could help him get past the worst. Dante confessed that he had done the same thing after the murder of his mother and disappearance of his brother. So they left him alone, checking on him every few hours. One of them stayed at the house at all times, not wanting to be far away if he needed one of them. Thankfully his sleep was deep and undisturbed by nightmares - at least a first.

 

A few days after he was brought home, Dante noticed a change in Vergil’s normally peaceful sleep. His face, once calm and relaxed, began to draw into a frown every now and then. Sometimes, tears could be seen tracking their way down his face. Dante assumed that it was his guilt over what had happened that was bothering him. At first, he would gently shake him awake, just enough so that he could shake the dream off before going back to sleep.

Vergil looked around in surprise when he found himself standing in Adele’s living room. All around him were people, people he had never met. He looked over at the couch and saw two people he did recognize - Adele’s parents. He walked over to them, and they looked up at him, but not with recognition in their eyes, but horror. Puzzled, he continued up to them, wondering why they tried to get back away from him. When he had backed them into a corner, though he still had no idea why they appeared to be so afraid of him, he drew the Yamato, and with one smooth motion, decapitated both of them. The other people in the room screamed as he proceeded to hack the limbs from the now lifeless corpses. Once he was done, he turned to face the others in the room as they stampeded for the door. His mind screamed in horror and disbelief over what he had just done as his body strode menacingly towards them. He tried to stop himself, but he seemed to have no control over his own movements. He raised the Yamato, screaming at himself to stop, and brutally attacked them as they begged for their lives. As some tried to escape out the front door, he casually waved his hand and it slammed shut and locked, preventing any escape. He grinned evilly and charged into the throng. Blood soon soaked through his clothes, the same clothes that he wore during the day trip to Paris. His hands and the blade of the Yamato were dripping with blood, and it only seemed to fuel his bloodlust.

“Vergil!” He swung around to look behind him. Adele was there, looking at him in rage. “I told you to leave, you demon! Why are you back here!? You‘re nothing but a monster!”

“Why Adele,” he purred, even as he cringed from the hurtful words “You see, my dear, I just couldn’t stay away. I just had to meet the rest of the family.” He stalked towards her.

“Get away from me, Sparda!” she shrieked. “I don’t want you anywhere near me!”

“Oh, but Adele, I can’t do that. You see, you hurt me.” He smiled maliciously at her. “You hurt me, so now I have to make you pay.”

Her scream was matched by his own as he brought the Yamato up and took her head off in one clean cut.

******

Alastair and Dante were downstairs in the kitchen, making lunch. They were planning on waking Vergil long enough to get him to eat a bit and try to convince him into joining them downstairs for at least a little while. Alastair was handing off a tray with a small bowl of soup and a sandwich to Dante, when a bloodcurdling scream from upstairs made her drop it in shock. The scream rattled the windows and overrode the sound of the china shattering against the terra cotta floor tiles. Ignoring the mess on the floor, the two sprinted out of kitchen and up the stairs to Vergil’s room. They ran through his open bedroom door to see him thrashing on his bed, his eyes wide open but seeing nothing, screaming in absolute horror. They stared at him in shock for a few moments before another scream shook them out of it, and they ran to him and began to try and wake him up.

“Vergil.” Dante said firmly, giving him a shake. “You need to wake up. It’s just a nightmare.” His words were drowned out by more screams.

“Vergil!” Alastair gave him another, harder shake. “Wake up!” He didn’t even appear to have heard her. His thrashing became even more violent, and a stray hand smacked Dante across the face. Alastair didn't even think to smirk like she normally would have done. Grabbing a hold of Vergil’s arms, Dante pulled him up into a sitting position and shook him hard. When that didn’t work, he slapped him. It still didn’t work.

Then he felt it. Faint at first, but then growing stronger, came a feeling that he hadn’t felt since Mallet Island and had hoped to never feel again. It was the dark and corrupting feel of Mundus swirling around Vergil. He nearly dropped Vergil in shock and anger, but he managed to keep himself under control and instead gathered his son to him, holding him tight to try and restrain him. It was like holding a bag of angry rattlesnakes. And still, he kept screaming.

“Alastair,” he said, grunting from the exertion of hanging onto Vergil “Go downstairs and call Rachel. Tell her what’s happening and that we can’t wake him up.”

Alastair nodded and sprinted out of the room and back down the stairs.

 

Dante settled on the bed, struggling to keep Vergil from hurting himself, trying to ignore the feel of Mundus around him.

Rachel arrived in the orange flash of teleportation a few minutes later. She didn’t need to be told by the waiting Alastair where to go; Vergil’s screams led her by the ears to the right room. She came in to see Dante sitting on the edge of the bed, fighting to restrain a struggling Vergil and keep him from hurting himself. She immediately went into action, feeling Mundus’ aura filling the room. Instructing Alastair to run downstairs and fetch some boiling water she told Dante to lie Vergil down on his bed and hold him down. When Alastair returned with the water - which she had heated with her demon power - Rachel poured it into a mug and added some herbs that Dante didn’t recognize. Waiting until a brief pause between screams, she poured into Vergil‘s mouth, stroking his throat to coax him into swallowing it. After less than a minute, he had calmed down and was in a deep dreamless sleep. Dante let go of him, while Alastair rearranged the tangled sheets and blankets, making sure that her brother was comfortably tucked in.

“What did you give him?” she asked, shattering the loud silence that had settled in place of Vergil’s screaming.

“A little trade secret, my dear.” Rachel replied, still looking at Vergil in concern. Vergil was temporarily safe from any dream, but Mundus’ presence was still very noticeable. As soon as the sedative effect of the herbs wore off, he would attack again.

Dante sank down into Vergil’s desk chair, shaking from the exertion of holding onto him. Dante was stronger than his children, but as 3/4 demons, they could still put up a ferocious fight.

“Who is that presence in the room?” Alastair asked, her gaze flicking bask and forth between her father and his godmother. “ I don’t like it, and I got the feeling that it doesn’t like us.” Dante sighed.

“That was Mundus.” he said heavily, closing his eyes in exhaustion as he rested his head in his hands.

“Mundus?” Alastair didn’t raise an eyebrow like normal. The presence in the room was too strong.

“Yes, Mundus.” Rachel added with a sneer.

“I take you that you know him.” Dante said.

“Unfortunately. I defected a few centuries after Sparda did, and I can’t say I blame him or that I regret it. Living as a human is much better than living as a servant.”

“You defected too?” Dante’s wondered in surprise. Inwardly, he kicked himself for not realizing it sooner. Upper level demons like Rachel and Sparda had to be born into the one of the seven demon families. They could not be created, as no one, not even Mundus, had the necessary power anymore. Trish, despite her looks, was a weak demon in the guise of a human. She didn’t even have a demon form. All of this meant that Rachel had to have actually been born in the Underworld.

“Yes,” she said, her voice suddenly sad “I defected.”

“Why?” Alastair asked.

“Because I realized that Sparda had been right all along.” She turned her head away from them and whispered something that sounded like “Akemus.” After a moment, she turned back to them.

“The herbs will only work for a few hours.” she said “After that, we’ll have to give him more, but if we give him too much, he’ll become tolerant to it. Because of that, we can only risk giving it to him when they nightmares are very violent and he is real terror. Still, he will build a tolerance anyway, giving us only four days to try to block the connection. If we can’t stop them, he could go insane.”

Alastair gulped.

“What do we have to do to block it?” Dante asked.

“Since it was an ancestor of Mundus that created the Sparda family, thousands and thousands of years ago, he has a connection with you. That is how he's sending them, and yes, before you ask, he can do that with any of his minions. The connection can be blocked by someone with the same blood of Sparda as Vergil.” She looked at Dante in concern. “Only the one with the same blood of Sparda as Vergil.” Dante blinked, not understanding what she was getting at. Then it clicked, and his eyes widened. If that was true then.... Damn!

“Can’t we just sever it completely?” Alastair asked, fear for her brother evident in her voice.

“The one with his blood would have to physically sever the connection, meaning that they would have to fight Mundus and cut the tie there. The good news is that since it‘s been so long since the connection between the Sparda line and Mundus‘ line was forged, he will have difficulty reestablishing the connection, if at all. I'm actually surprised that he was able to do so to begin with."

“So let’s go.” Alastair said, jumping to her feet “I’ve always wanted to go sight seeing in the Underworld anyway.”

Dante shook his head. “It wouldn’t work.”

“Why not? Aren’t you even going to try!? Are you just going to sit by while Vergil loses his mind!?” Dante’s face darkened.

“Of course not! But I am telling you that it wouldn’t work!”

“Children!” Rachel called, quieting them both. “This is not helping Vergil any. Alastair, your father cannot block or sever the connection as he does not have the same blood as Vergil does.”

“But they were twins -”

“That does not matter. They were not identical twins, and even if they were, it’s the power that matters, and their power differs from one another. It’s the power that a child inherits from a parent that we are dealing with, and that differs among siblings.”

Alastair’s face showed dawning horror as she realized what they were talking about. They were right, Dante’s power would not work.

“So there is nothing we can do.” she said quietly.

Rachel shook her head. “We just have to hope that Mundus will stop before Vergil’s mind collapses under the strain.”

“Not likely.” Dante muttered, looking at Vergil’s sleeping form. The full demon, half demon, and the three-quarter demon glanced over at Vergil, then they looked at each other. Dante was right. If this was vengeance against the Sparda family, then Mundus would not stop, not until Vergil was insane. And there was nothing that they could do about it.

Chapter 4 -- Chapter 6

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