Chapter Text
Hell wavered.
From the top of its eternally sunless sky to its deepest pits and ravines, it shuddered with a painful exclamation. With thin, gangly fingers, its creeping darkness reached up to catch the dangling prey, to present before their King with eager fangs. Give him, give him! The demons gave an ear-piercing screech. Their words were a cold hiss against a sweltering metal surface, a grinding of two hateful swords sliding across each other. Drop him! Let him go, Dante!
Dante tightened his grip in retaliation. Hell couldn’t have him, it couldn’t take his only family from him. Blood seeped out between his fingers, slick and slippery as he held tight to Vergil’s arm. His heart pounded against his ribcage and against the rock on which he anchored himself.
Shock painted Vergil’s expression, pallor and sunken as perpetual fear showed through the chinks in his carefully crafted facade. A searing sense of shame and anger filled the empty space around Vergil and his face contorted into that of crackling rage.
“Dante, release me.” He seethed out, voice soft yet threatening like the shivering rattle of a serpent in the grass. A warning. Only this chance. Get out now.
“No.” The word was harsh and final, a protest and a command all at once. Vergil opened his mouth to retort- “There’s no way I’m letting you go.”
Hesitance and sorrow not his own replaced the shivering animosity Vergil had built up. If it was because of the scratchy crack in Dante’s voice or the thin stream of tears that trickled down his face, he couldn’t say. Sobriety disappeared underneath the smile that pulled at Dante’s lips. With a bracing inhale, he heaved Vergil—who maneuvered comfortably, lithely—upward until both of them found purchase on solid ground. Vergil managed a single breath before Dante slung an arm around his shoulders and shoved toward the gate.
Lady brushed her hand up against the side of a hefty piece of rubble. Her fingers dug into the lines of an arrangement of carefully engraved runes, words only people like she or her father would recognize in its ancient, underworldly dialect. Her eyes followed her nails as they traced over each graceless symbol, jagged and rough, worn out after 2000 years worth of weathered sealing at the hands of the Dark Knight Sparda.
“Light blinds the path, only in darkness will you find your way.”
It was a riddle to a puzzle deep inside the confines of Temen-Ni-Gru, an irritably simple one that Lady solved by turning off her motorcycle’s headlight. She had speculated about whether or not it was more refined and more of an allusion in a Hellish lexicon, if something other than a human could solve the puzzle and traverse the hungry caverns of the underworld's most complex masterpiece, something that might have made it more of a challenge for some highway entertainment on her way to kill dear old daddy.
“You imbecile!” A bitter, enraged voice rose above the debris. Lady had only heard it once but she had no doubt of its owner. She tensed, hand fumbling for the jagged blade strapped to her calf. White-hot rage severed against her skin, traveling up along her arms and shoulders, suffocating her, blinding her.
“Hey, let’s not go calling each other names, Vergil.” Lady recognized that voice for sure. The tension in her muscles loosened and she slipped the knife back into its sheath. As much of an ass as Dante made himself out to be, he was unrelenting, strong, and hiding a tender side. Her earlier brawl with him had all but confirmed that.
“You should have left me.”
“Wasn’t gonna happen. Not one for letting my family do stupid things.”
“Oh, now we’re a family?”
As she rounded the corner, Lady didn’t need to see Dante’s wince to know the sting. He shifted from his left foot to his right, Kalina-Ann rested comfortably on his shoulders, secured by his hold. His clothes, and Vergil’s for that matter were torn and soaked through with what she hoped was water. By the looks of things, they had been run ragged through hell and back, literally. Taking in a calming breath while the rubble crumbled underfoot, she made her way toward them, eager to get her hands back on her prized weapon. She needed to have a conversation with Red Devil McLeather about Blue Doom & Gloom anyway.
“Hey, look who’s alive and kicking!” Dante crooned as soon as he saw her, flashing her a fanged grin. God, what a snarky shitshow. Two could play at that game.
“Yeah, kicking your ass,” Lady said smoothly. “So, it’s over?”
“Yep, all over!” Dante exclaimed. “No more surprise hell towers rising from the ground. Right?”
Lady didn’t miss the warning glare Dante shot his twin or the apathetic eye roll Vergil returned it with.
“Right…” Vergil didn’t even bother trying to sound convincing. Lady almost shot him right then and there.
“Good,” Lady replied. She gestured to her bazooka. “By the way, I want that back.”
Dante shrugged and hefted Kalina-Ann off his shoulders. Before he could change his mind on how excellent quality of a weapon it was, Lady took it and placed it at her side, guarding it like it was her most precious treasure. With its name and significance, it might as well have been. “Now, what about him ?” Lady gestured again, this time to Vergil.
If Vergil was annoyed by such acknowledgment, he gave no indication of it.
“What about him?” Dante asked, tilting his head like an adorable puppy.
Lady resisted the urge to maim him. If he was playing dumb on purpose, she might not have to hold back. “Don’t pretend you don’t know, jackass. You’re not just gonna let him go, are you?”
“Well…” Dante trailed off, only leaving enough time for someone to consider the possibility. “I was thinking about taking him somewhere off the West coast to retire. I hear Paris Island is lovely this time of year. White sandy beaches, lots of sunshine, boozy piña coladas-“
“Is this some kind of joke to you?” Lady snapped, leaning forward and tapping Kalina-Ann impatiently.
“What do you expect me to do with him?” Dante inquired and if Lady didn't know better, she would have said his tone was admonishing, cold and guarded even. He was irritated now. She could see it in all his features, in his furrowed eyebrows, pointed frown, and stiff shoulders. He was winding back like a spring or a ferocious animal, ready to protect his territory and everything that fell underneath it, even if those things didn't particularly deserve it.
“Turn him in to the authorities at the very least,” Lady said. A part of her knew she was being a bit unfair. But she wouldn’t blame herself for wanting to see Blue Ribbon Apocalypse pay for his crimes.
Dante threw his head back where he released a mocking, raucous laugh. “And then what? You want me to catch him every time he escapes after that? No way, I don’t have the time for that and regular prisons aren’t designed to contain us.”
Us. He’d said it so simply that Lady had to fight the double-take she wanted to do. He’d never said it out loud, Lady didn’t think he ever would. They were twins, connected through the blood of their parents and the inevitable violence that followed suit. But Dante had never aligned himself with Vergil until now. Lady figured that counting her guns was a reasonable starting point for wherever this might go. If she had to go hunting again, then she’d steel her resolve.
“Do something about him!” Lady burst out. She didn’t say the word on her mind, she knew better than to. He had a name and he wasn’t some creature to ogle and gawk at or even run the bladed tip of Kalina-Ann through. However, when she looked up into his ice-blue eyes, it felt as though he could sense what it was she wanted to call him. Demon. Devil.
“Listen, I didn’t stick my nose into your family business,” Dante said. He puffed out a breath, annoyed. “Not until you asked me to, anyway. Besides, it’s not like your father is any better.”
“My Father is dead,” Lady bit out, jabbing her finger against Dante’s chest accusingly. “And we're not talking about my family anymore. We’re discussing what to do with him–“ Lady’s voice stopped short. “Wh- where’d he go?”
Dante did a quick three-sixty. “Oh, shit.”
Vergil was gone.
His feet pounded against the rubble in rapid repetition, bolting in the direction of freedom and slogging ripples. Memories came to him, of him and Dante—racing, lightfooted and fleeting, sprinting through forests and meadows, upstairs and downstairs, between the pillars and elegant, velvety curtains. Phantoms their father had called them; in his native, hellish language. A beautiful, haunting word for which there was no enunciable equivalent, referring to their nimble movements, how they melted into the shadows and reappeared elsewhere, sneaking about, giggling echoes following them wherever they went.
Vergil had always been faster than his brother. First for everything. First for dinner, first for bed, first when their mother sought them out, first to sneak up on their father and to be greeted by him, happily squealing, being lifted into the air, to be asked whether or not he had been good today, little phantom.
And yet, somehow, despite all the fighting, training, the adamant, endless prodding in his screaming soul to run, escape. Somehow, somehow...
Vergil only made it three steps past the city line when Dante tackled him. His face came closer to the ground than he would have liked as they rolled over each other repeatedly in a cluster of limbs and weapons too sharp to be doing anything of the sort. As soon as Dante had his bearings and Vergil, he began the long struggle of a trek back to his shop.
“Let go of me!” Vergil demanded, writhing around like a fish out of water in Dante’s grasp.
“No can do, bro!” Dante retorted cheerfully. The skill of out-jackassing his brother was a feat Dante held in high regard and the reward usually went to himself, often as a token of cheer and bragging rights. Pride for his accomplishment didn’t last long, however victorious he momentarily had been. “No. Nononononono! Don’t you go boneless on me!!”
Vergil turned to jello in Dante’s arms. It was a last-ditch effort he’d never resort to unless he absolutely had to, was something ludicrous and childish. And Dante knew childish. He had to begrudgingly admit his brother was tenacious if nothing else. But so was Dante and he had a counter for this in the form of a wintry three-headed weapon.
Vergil didn’t squeak. He would swear it up and down for the rest of his life, stretched out over the expanses of heaven and hell and everything in between. He had trained himself every possible scenario, with every twist and turn weaved into it. None of that included being chained up and slung over his brother’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes but he'd still deny it to kingdom come. As much didn’t stop Dante from cackling regardless of Vergil’s protests.
“Whatever you say,” Dante said. He set off in the exact opposite direction that his brother wanted to go, cheeky and knowing and hiding sarcasm only someone like Vergil could detect.
In the sheer panache of it all, Vergil was left wondering how he let himself get into this mess.