Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Most of Lady’s recent jobs had been exceedingly easy and, consequently, boring as all hell. They paid the bills, kept Morrison happy, and provided an excuse for her to spend time with Trish, so it wasn’t all bad, but boy was she ready for a challenge. Except when she’d told Morrison that, the old bugger had sent her all the way up to the freezing north, to a backwater shrine halfway up a mountain, on some rumours of demonic activity. Bird sightings, he’d said, and she’d rolled her eyes. Probably an idiot trying to release a seal again.

Oh well. She was here now, and at least she was out of the high winds. Lady pulled her hood down and removed her gloves as she strode forward, eyes quickly scanning the room for ledges and potential cover to use to her advantage. It was a fairly large hallway lined with columns and alcoves, and it had a huge engraving at the end, half cast in the shadows. Lady dug in her pack for the lightning-glowstick Nico had created from Trish’s power and clamped it on the Kalina Ann. Time to see what kind of great demonic bullshit was depicted there.

Lady took exactly one step forward, then the wall on her right exploded inward, sending a rain of debris in her direction. A big boulder careened straight for her, forcing her to dodge, tuck, and roll, coming back up just in time to watch a blue-clad figure slam hard on the ground, skidding and bouncing in a direct trajectory for her feet. At a distance she might’ve missed the white hair through all the dust, but even so, there was no mistaking Vergil--and anyway, his tumbling led him right at her feet, stopping on his back with a pained groan, blue eyes widening as he met hers.

Not just any idiot trying to release the seals, then.

She trained two pistols on him with a quick spin, but Vergil’s head snapped to the side, back in the direction of the busted wall, like he was hearing voices from there. Before she could ask, he grabbed her ankle and yanked hard, tripping her.

“Get down,” he hissed as she fell.

She almost shot him just for that, but then a massive circular piece of stone flew overhead, passing at the exact height her head had been, and crashed into the wall behind them, shaking the very foundation of the shrine. Okay. He might have just saved her from crushing death. She still kicked him hard, forcing him to release her ankle, and rolled back to her feet, expecting him to be exactly as quick to regain is.

Instead, he struggled to his knees, one hand over his chest, in obvious pain.

What the ever loving fuck? First of all, according to Dante, he should be dead. Second of all, Vergil used to take a thousand times worse than a flight through a wall and brush it off. Third of all--what the fuck? But if Vergil was here, in a place of renewed demonic energy, it could only mean one thing. Whatever was going on, he was behind it. She raised her guns again.

“Why d’you do that?”

“No sense in wasting a rare stroke of luck,” he answered.

A massive bird materialized right above Vergil, patterns of shimmering blue energy running along his wings. Griffon. She immediately switched one gun’s aim from Vergil to him.

“What’s that you said about company?” Griffon asked, and then he spotted her and cackled. “Oh hey! You found back-up! Was that why you let yourself be thrown through a wall, boss? ‘Cause ya should know your body ain’t made for that anymore.”

“Great, the bird’s alive too,” she commented, letting every ounce of sarcasm drip into her tone. Boy would she have a word with Dante about all this when she got home. V’s critters were probably all here, even though he’d very clearly said he’d been forced to kill them all.

Griffon spun on himself and let electricity crackle along his wings. “Aw, what a heartwarming welcome you got for me! But hey, we could really use that firepower! Nightmare’s not gonna hold that stone knight back much longer.”

Lady’s gaze shifted between the two of them, taking in Griffon’s nervous circling and Vergil’s unnatural weakness, then it moved to the destroyed wall and its settling dust. She could hear the panther’s roar, the sound of its cutting shape, and the pounding of something else on stone--a battle, then.

“Right. Killing time. But as soon as this is over, I want answers.”

She unhooked the Kalina Ann from her back, checked its munitions, and sprinted forward. She could deal with Vergil later--would do so with great pleasure, truly. For now, neither him nor his familiars seemed about to attack her, and if this stone knight or whatever had been fast enough to catch Vergil? Then it was exactly the challenge she was waiting for!

The stone knight was… exactly that, really, except it was a good two feet taller than Nightmare, its head scraping against the high ceiling as it moved. This cavern was immense, but even so, the length of its sword limited its movement--and Lady thanked her stars for that, because it wasn’t as ponderous as she’d like. Nightmare held the blade firmly, two trunk arms wrapped around the weapon while their feet remained planted in the ground. Shadow darted around the knight, its form shifting into scythe-like blades and a spiky wheels as she attacked, each strike lighting a yellow pattern on the stone knight.

Lady announced her arrival on the battlefield with a first rocket, her red winter boots slapping the ground hard as she ran after her own projectile. It sped ahead, hitting the knight squarely in the chest while she whipped out a shotgun and leaped first on Nightmare’s arm, then on the sword. She cribbled the weapon with shells as she moved, sending chips of stone flying but not dealing a ton of damage. Not friable stone, then, unlike the wall it’d flung Vergil through. Too bad. Lady switched back to her launcher, her gaze latching on the knight’s head. Two eyes shone yellow with every of their strike--that might mean something.

Griffon swooped in besides her as she reached the hand. “Ya look like a girl about to waste your time, so a word o’ wisdom… Shadow got spikes through both eyes and it just made the damn thing angrier.”

“Did it now?” Damn, so much for her plan. Lady skidded to a stop, precariously balanced on the knight’s gauntlet, and set the Kalina Ann on her shoulder and sent another rocket flying straight for the head. “Kinda wanna see that for myself.”

It blasted part of the helmet off, sending dust and stone flying, but apart from lighting the pattern yellow once more, it didn’t do shit. The knight’s second hand came flying for them and Lady jumped off the gauntlet before it could squash her. She rolled with her landing, and as she came up, she spotted Vergil… sketching? He’d set a large blank book down and was filling the pages, pencil flying across the page, his blue eyes flicking up to the stone knight on a regular basis.

“What, poetry wasn’t artistic enough, you had to pick up drawings too?”

He turned her way, and the arrogant smirk barely etched on his lips was so perfectly reminiscent of their brief encounter some twenty five years ago, she almost whipped out a pistol just to put an end to it.

“I’ve always drawn,” he stated, like that answered the underlying question of why the everloving fuck he was doing it on a battlefield. Perhaps he caught her glare, because he provided more information. “The Temen-ni-gru had its share of animated statues, and all of them function on a similar principle. There is a core inside that we must reach, but it has no need to be located in a position which makes human sense. The pattern, however…” He pointed to the statue, which lit in yellow shapes every time it was hit. “That is magic coursing through it, and the magic must come from the core. So if you’d stop distracting me…”

Vergil tapped his sketchbook with the pencil, meeting her glare with his own annoyed stare. She shouldn’t be surprised he knew this much about artificial demons--he’d had no qualms using her and Trish to power his own, after all. Just for that, she ought to shoot him here and now. He was lucky there was another monster to destroy first. Lady huffed and returned her attention to the knight, but the yellow lines flashed in and out under Shadow’s assault, too fast for her to decrypt where they might lead. Damn.

“And you just happened to have a sketchbook ready, huh?” she said, in half a whisper. He had the right strategy, but it was still shady as all hell. Lady retrieved her two pistols, shoved new clips into the chambers, and traced her route up. If she could get behind its head, it’d have a hard time reaching for her in the limited space and she’d be safe to pepper it with bullets. “All right, Vergil. I’ll light it up for you.”

“I ask nothing else. Griffon, please back her up.”

“On it, boss!”

Vergil returned his attention to the sketch as she sprinted back towards the fight, letting loose her first salvo of shots. Every bullet turned the stone knight into a bright network of yellow lines, and Lady started timing her shots to land them right as it started to dim. She ran out of bullets in one gun as she came to the knight’s feet and flung both a clip and gun upward before running up the upright leg for a few quick strides. She caught a thin hold left by Shadow’s slices, and swung herself up, spinning midair and catching gun and clip, recharging as she landed onto a ridge in the greaves.

The moment she’d stopped shooting, Griffon spit tiny balls of lightning at the knight, matching his timing to hers. Vergil’s sketch had better be coming along good, because between the two of them and Shadow, there was hardly a moment this construct didn’t flare with life.

Griffon swooped down as she started shooting again. “Ya gonna climb the whole friend?”

“Better than to get stomped on,” she retorted. They were already safer at this height--enough that she could change tactics. “Keep up the lightning, though. A shortcut is in order.”

She stored her pistol briefly, retrieved her rocket launcher, and aimed the bayonet at the stone statue’s head. Nico had improved on the design over the last year, reusing some of the Red Queen’s functioning, and the blade itself heated up--enough that it more easily sank into harder surfaces. She counted up to fifteen, each second horribly long, then pulled hard on the lever and sent it flying. It rammed in with a satisfying thunk, and she leapt off her perch, one hand holding the Kalina Ann as it reeled her upward, the other back with a pistol. The rhythmic bang of her gun was music to her ears.

Griffon followed her up with a caw-like cackle. “Stompin’ was Vergil’s worry too, and he got downright slapped into a wall instead!”

Lady’s feet hit the statue’s chest and she started running him, slowing only to send a shot in Griffon’s general direction. “Compare me to him again, and the next one won’t miss.”

He laughed, but whatever his sassy retort was gonna be, it was strangled by a sudden pained cry. Griffon dipped for a brief moment, and as Shadow’s meow echoed through the cavern, Lady spotted the cause of their distress: below them, Nightmare’s hold on the great stone sword had failed, and it’d passed right through the demon’s ooze-like body. It was sinking into the ground now, purple eye still intact, until it turned into a fragile-looking sphere. She glanced back at Vergil and found him hunched over the sketchbook, heaving.

The stone knight raised a large fist and leaned forward, clearly aiming for Nightmare’s leftover form.

Lady pushed herself off the chest, unhooking the Kalina Ann as she dove down. She hit the ground hard and sprinted off, aiming two rockets at the fist, hoping to slow it down while she dashed for the ball. Their explosion barely hindered it, but the booms seemed to shake everyone else out of their dazes.

“Lady!”

Vergil’s tone had lost all of its arrogance and turned into an actual, goddamn plea.

She ran faster, slinging the rocket launcher back over her shoulder as the great fist continued coming down. Her heart hammered as she mentally calculated her chance to get the orb without getting crushed. Not that she was gonna stop. Lungs and legs burning, Lady dove into a slide, catching the orb and bringing it closer as her boots and pants scraped against the ground, burning the skin under. The fist smashed down right behind her, cracking the ground and sending her flying with the shockwave. She held tight, Nightmare’s orb warm against her chest, as the world spun--damnit, that landing would hurt without hands to catch herself.

The spinning stopped brutally and she jerked as two claws caught the Kalina Ann, stopping her mid-flight.

“I gotcha!” Griffon called with a victorious laugh. He flew higher, zooming for Vergil. “Throw him Nightmare, and then we’re back to business!”

“If he drops it, I’ll come and kill him myself,” she warned.

She wasn’t even sure why she’d risked so much for the goopy demon, considering they might turn on her later, but now that she’d almost gotten crushed for this orb, she sure as heck wasn’t gonna let it break. Still, Vergil had staggered to his feet, clearly waiting, so she threw the orb his way, the arc wide and easy to catch. The visible wave of relief washing through him the moment he held his demon’s orb unsettled her more than she cared to admit. He just… stared at it, the soft purple light from it reflected on his face.

“Let’s finish this,” she called, snapping him out of the daze.

He looked up and nodded. “I’m almost there.”

“Right. Put me on his shoulder, Griffon.”

“On his shoulder?” Griffon banked into a turn, bringing Lady back to face the knight, and she initiated the shooting once more. “Ya ain’t all that light, ya know, Miss Explosive Arsenal! All those guns add up.”

“Shut up and shoot while I recharge.”

Griffon grumbled some more but obeyed. Shadow had returned into the fray below them, but the great panther spent most of her time dodging the massive sword or the boot trying to stomp it out. Every big strike made the entire cavern rumble, and Lady didn’t like the increasing amount of dust coming from the ceiling. One ill-aimed rocket and they might all be done for. Lady shoved her clip in, hoping Vergil wouldn’t take his sweet time.

As it turned out, she emptied out all of her pistol’s ammunition and was halfway through the shotgun’s, still perched on the knight’s shoulder, before Vergil finally figured it out. He snapped up his sketchbook and jumped to his feet, flinching ever-so-slightly at the sudden movement--and again, Lady found herself unsettled that he was in pain at all. All those answers better be good.

“Where is it?” she called out.

“Left thigh, almost all the way up the leg. It’s…” He trailed off with a frown. “Griffon. Show her.”

How would Griffon even know better? But the bird didn’t protest, only flew right to her, grabbed her shoulders, and carried her halfway down before dropping her. She tucked and rolled upon landing, and as she turned back to the stone knight, Griffon had come around and was sprinkling a very precise spot with his lightning balls. The yellow lines swirled around it, but it didn’t feel like the heart of anything to her and she cast a dubious look at Vergil.

“It’s there,” he said.

“Let’s blast our way to it, then!” she said, heaving Kalina Ann on her shoulder.

He raised a hand to stop her. “Give Shadow a moment.”

He’d barely finished the sentence that the great panther leaped for the thigh, morphing her body halfway through the job and turning herself into a huge, black drill. She dug into the thigh, spinning fast while Griffon loudly cheered her on. The stone knight stumbled back and dropped its sword, only to immediately bring two large hands to bear. Shadow had no eye to see, yet she changed shape right before they crashed into her, dropping back to the ground safely.

When the large hands pulled back, they revealed a small hole through which glinted yellow light. Vergil’s thin smirk returned. “After you, Lady.”

Part of her wanted to punch him for the smugness, but there was a construct to kill. She aimed and released without a word, sending several rockets flying straight for the core. Griffon and Shadow pulled back as they exploded in a firework of fire and yellow runes, each blast rocking the stone knight and causing it to stumble further. It fell to one knee, its core now exposed and cracked, and she loaded more rocket with a grin.

The second salvo shattered the core, lighting the entire pattern on the stone knight so bright the yellow turned white and blinding. Lady covered her eyes as large cracks ran along the runes, shielding herself while the construct imploded on itself, turning into a pile of rocks and sending a cloud of dust their way. She coughed as it got into her lungs, using the Kalina Ann for support, but her own wet sounds were nothing compared Vergil’s pain hacking behind her.

“Hey hey, you all right, paper boy?” Griffon asked, and despite the mockery threaded in his voice, he sounded actually concerned. “Don’t let the dust kill you.”

“I’ll manage,” Vergil replied, his voice rough. “Always do.”

Lady couldn’t help her scowl. Vergil wasn’t wrong: he always survived and returned, somehow, and that was exactly the problem. He’d bent down, setting a knee to the ground next to his sketchbook and a hand on Nightmare’s orb, and she got her first calm look at him since he’d passed her in the Temen-ni-gru’s library, back when neither of them had even been twenty. Once, he might’ve been mistaken for Dante if not for his constant frowns, but that was gone now, subtle differences etched into them by time and trials. And Dante just had more wrinkles from smiling so much, too, while Vergil looked… exhausted and weathered down. Might just be the pain, though.

“All right, start talking,” she said, casually retrieving the shotgun strapped to her back. “Dante said you were dead. All of you.”

Surprise flickered across Vergil’s expression. “He did?”

“Said you were gone, yeah.”

Griffon burst out laughing. “Aw, ain’t that cute? He lied for us! I keep telling ya, Vergil--”

“Shut it, Griffon,” Vergil cut off, his gaze never leaving Lady. The bird not only obeyed, but he dematerialized entirely with a grumble. “Gone and dead are two different states of being.”

Yeah, that wasn’t gonna cut it. He’d let them all believe he’d killed these four, and he’d been in such a messy state for months after, they’d readily fallen for it. “He has the Yamato. So you, what, just gave it to him?”

She could’ve slapped him, his face wouldn’t be any different. His grip tightened on the orb and he brought it just a tad closer. Lady couldn’t help but think of a child with a plush, and boy could she have gone without that imagery associated with Vergil.

“I did not,” he said, and he didn’t explain. Didn’t need to, really. Dante had probably kicked his ass--he had been covered in blood when he’d returned. Vergil sighed. “That… is in the past now. We said our goodbyes.”

His tone was final, and for a moment Lady considered pushing for more details. She’d get them more easily out of Dante, though. She crossed her arms and considered her next question carefully. Chances were he was scheming something here, and she ought to just shoot him and be done with it, but he’d yet to show any sign of aggression. She’d much rather make sense of what was going on before she blasted a hole into her immediate source of information.

“Right, whatever. You’re alive, but you’re not healing and not fighting?”

“I usually fight,” he said, before gesturing at the destroyed wall and adding, “but I lost the katana on impact, my ribs are likely broken, and someone needed to find the core.”

“Why aren’t you healing?”

He glared up at her. “That is none of your concern.”

He wanted to play that way? All right. She lifted up the shotgun and pointed it right at him. “I’m making it mine.”

His eyebrows raised, but he otherwise remained completely impassive. “You won’t shoot me.”

Griffon must have disagreed, because he burst right back out of Vergil, wings spread out. “Woah, hey hey now! Let’s not get hasty and give her reasons to, huh? You could just tell her, buddy. Lady’s a friend!”

“She’s not,” Vergil stated.

Lady protested at the same time. “Like Hell!”

“We barely know each other,” he continued. “A handful of minutes here and there.”

“Most of which I spent trying to kill you,” she pointed out. “Oh, and that time you forced me into a demon’s body to go kill people around Red Grave. Great friendship material, that.”

Vergil stiffened behind Griffon, then slowly lumbered to his feet, his arms still wrapped around Nightmare. He met her gaze over the bird’s wings, the electric blue catching in his inscrutable eyes. As much as she’d learned to read Dante over the years, Vergil remained a solid mystery--and his next words caught her completely off guard.

“Please accept my apologies. I…” He hesitated, either to pick his words carefully or to smooth out the hitch in his voice. “When I created Griffon and the others, I also tore the memories of my time as Nelo Angelo out of myself. What little I remember of these years is… sparse and horrifying, and inflicting the same upon you was beyond heinous.”

Holy heck. He was apologizing? And he actually sounded sincere, too. Maybe he’d gotten knocked on the head too hard, going through that wall, but she wasn’t gonna complain. Except she had no idea how to deal with this. V had told her he was glad she was doing well for herself. Maybe this was where all this bullshit was coming from, but it was weird to think Vergil cared even remotely. He had no reason to.

“You said it,” she muttered. “Sounds kinda fake, though, while you still own three demons and make them do your bidding.”

“Woah, hey, no one owns me!” Griffon retorted. “Besides, paper boy here is graciously hosting us! No one’s forced into it, and if anything, well we claimed him. But really, we’re a team! Right, Vergil?”

Griffon’s answer drew a thin smile out of him. He didn’t answer aloud, yet Griffon burst into a sudden laughter and threw a quick spark Vergil’s way--one he batted away while rolling his eyes. They were entirely too playful with one another, the way Trish and Dante could get sometimes, and it bugged the hell out of her. If she was right and Vergil was behind the demonic activity here, it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to finish this job if they kept this up.

“A team. All right.” She tapped Griffon’s beak with the shotgun. “I came here on a hunt, because someone has been messing with this place and its seal. Looks to me like your whole demon team is to blame.”

“We are.”

Vergil confirmed it casually, like she didn’t have a shotgun pointed at them still and every reason to shoot. She gave the weapon a small shake as a reminder and Griffon started muttering about ‘not liking that’ before flying in quick circles around them. She kept an eye on him and her gun on Vergil.

“Can’t wait to tell Dante I finished the job he couldn’t.” Mostly, she couldn’t wait to yell at him for lying to them. They’d been so worried for him, and Nero was convinced his father was dead, and this really wasn’t the kind of secret the damn devil ought to keep, even if it was exactly the kind of thing Dante would never talk about.

“At this stage, killing me would be entirely pointless. The seal is mostly already broken.” Vergil turned away from her, towards the other end of the cavern now mostly hidden behind a pile of rubble. A soft blue light rose from it, shifting like an illuminated pool of water. “Promise not to shoot, and I’ll allow you to come along.”

She glared at him, and although he didn’t look back her way, he must’ve known it, because his lips quirked into a smile. If it’d been Dante, she’d have shot him then and there, knowing he’d heal up from it, just to make a point. Instead, she gave the shotgun and quick flip and stored it back.

“You’re one arrogant son of bitch, I hope you know that.”

“I do. Someone reminds me every day, lest I forget.” He extended an arm and Griffon swooped down to it with a cackling laugh.

“You like it, paper boy.” He shook his wings, sending tiny sparks around. “So, hey, anyway. Glad the guns are gone, real glad--much better when we’re all friends ain’t it? Speaking of which, don’t ya wanna bring our missing buddy back? They’d heal a whole lot easier inside of you proper.”

“I know, but…” Vergil’s gaze slid back to Lady, his silence heavy with hidden words. Whatever magic bound him to these three, he clearly didn’t want her knowing too much. “Later, Griffon. Shadow?”

The great panther reemerged at his feet, as if shooting out of his shadow, startling Lady. Her hand was halfway back to the shotgun before she’d understood what was happening. Vergil bent, grimacing at the movement, and set the purple orb in front of Shadow. He didn’t say a word--didn’t seem to need to--and the demon shifted out of her feline form, wrapping her body around Nightmare before producing spikes out of her half-sphere. On guard duty, then.

Vergil wrapped a hand around one of the spikes, letting it slice his palm, and the slick patterns on Shadow’s body turned a purplish hue. Vergil whispered a few words that sounded suspiciously like heartfelt thanks before striding away without even a look back. Griffon flew after him wordlessly, and Lady followed, trying to set aside her unease at the obvious fondness Vergil had for his three familiars. She couldn’t help but think it took a demon to love other demons like that. Either way, it was weird and she didn’t trust it. Not knowing his motivation didn’t help any.

She reached the top of the pile of rubble left by the stone knight a few seconds after Vergil and stopped right in her tracks as her eyes took in the scene below. The stand on which the knight once stood had split in two, opening to reveal a deeper cavern under it. The top still shimmered blue, an invisible wall keeping the outside at bay, and at the bottom, lying down on its side, was… a horse. Not just any horse, of course: this one had a slick dark grey robe and a fiery blue mane frozen in place, hooves like onyx and two glowing blue horns, and, Lady belatedly noted, a large gash across its flank.

Vergil had found himself a demonic horse, and it was wounded.

Chapter Text

Vergil had forgotten the thrill of breaking powerful seals. As he stood above the circular enclosure, his gaze sweeping the time capsule in which Sparda had trapped the Geryon horse, immense satisfaction rose within him, like waves bubbling up to wash away his pain and exhaustion. It was easy to dismiss the heaviness in his limbs and the lancing pain around his ribs while he absorbed the sight below him, from the majestic horse to the swirling patterns discernible within the shimmering barrier, a web of magic with a central point. Not that the ridiculous frailty of his body wouldn’t catch up to him as soon as he settled down, but Vergil fully intended to ride the adrenaline wave as long as he could--hopefully long enough for Lady to be gone before he collapsed.

It had been almost six years since the Qliphoth had destroyed Red Grave City. Six years since he’d lost his powers; six years since he’d chosen to live without them, trading them for his demon familiars; six years since they’d started traveling the world, unearthing shrines to his father’s rebellion or demonic seals left throughout history. He had never stopped missing the Yamato and, every day, it felt like he discovered new ways in which he’d become more fragile.

And yet… he could not say he regretted his decision, and as time had passed he’d grown more and more attuned to Shadow and Nightmare. Griffon still gave them words, but he no longer needed help to understand the gist of their feelings. They were, truly, a team--all four of them in constant communication, closer to one another than Vergil had ever been to anyone--except perhaps Dante, but that was too bitter a thought to pursue extensively. Long periods of rest to allow for healing didn’t feel as terrible when he spent them reading with Shadow and Nightmare wrapped around him, or defeating Griffon at yet another strategic board game the bird had somehow “found” and hoped to turn into his winning one.

He’d thought he’d made his peace with this new life, and then Lady had blitzed into it, a meteor blast from the past shattering his delicate balance. He hadn’t expected Dante to lie to them on his behalf, tangentially leaving him the decision of what to share and what to keep a secret. Lady had seen him and expected the Vergil from the Temen-ni-gru--silent, deadly, and power hungry. Her obvious unease at both his vanished healing and his banter with Griffon would be amusing if it didn’t make him feel like he was betraying himself. The sooner she was gone, the sooner he’d stop asking himself if this was who he was, or if he’d erred from the path set before him as a Son of Sparda.

Griffon flew closer to his head, the familiar beating of his wings drawing Vergil out of his thoughts. “You’re awfully quiet there, V.”

Griffon only ever called him ‘V’ when he grew worried, but he was also strangely adept at telling when Vergil’s mood slipped down darker paths despite the casual barriers they tried to keep between one another.

“It’ll pass,” Vergil replied. He focused his attention on the Geryon horse below. Even small and wounded, it was an impressive beast to behold, and Vergil hoped it didn’t have a temper to match. “It would seem we have our work cut out for us.”

He jumped down, hissing as his feet hit the blue barrier and the shock sent hot pain burning through his chest. Lady landed right next to him a second later, and he ignored her to stride over the crux of the barrier. Sparda’s seals were clever--they had many requirements to break, some extremely convoluted, but his father had worked a shortcut through most of them: his blood. And magic, it seemed, recognized ancestry easily enough. Vergil squeezed his cut palm until a steady stream dropped from it. As the blue under their feet shifted to purple, he glanced back at Lady, who was standing right above the wounded Geryon.

“Please take a step back before you drop feet-first into it.”

Lady had time for a scowl and the start of a jump back before the purple turned red, and the energy barrier vanished under their feet. To his surprise, neither of them so much fell as they floated down, as if time itself was slow to regain its rightful place in the universe. Lady had plenty of time to flip around and get her feet properly under her and this time, Vergil’s touched the ground so lightly no pain shot through his ribs.

Between them, the flames of Geryon’s mane moved once more and the horse whinnied softly. The sound was deep but plaintive and it felt like someone had grabbed Vergil’s insides and squeezed them hard. Then time caught up to them fully, and blood spurted out of the wound.

“Griffon!” he exclaimed, as if the poor bird wouldn’t have felt his jolt of fear through their link. Vergil hurried to the horse’s side, kneeling down and letting his hands hover about the gash. It was large, potentially deadly, and he had come completely unprepared to tend to it. Tentatively, he set his hand on Geryon’s flank. The horse was warm to the touch and its breathing regular still. It let out a huffing snort, and Vergil turned to Griffon. “Does it talk?”

“Barely.” Griffon’s tone was worryingly subdued. “He needs help, Vergil. Needs help real fast, I tell ya.”

“You came here for a dying demon horse?” Lady asked. She had one hand on the hilt of her shotgun, as if she expected Geryon to spring to its feet. “What the hell?”

“I didn’t think he’d be dying!” Vergil snapped.

He shouldn’t have released the time seal, not before he was properly equipped. They needed to staunch the flow, and quick, but he didn’t have any bandages or… Vergil froze. He’d left his winter furs to hang closer to the entrance, hoping it’d have dried before they left, but he did have his three-tailed coat. The magic keeping it clean and untorn had faded more with every year, and he wasn’t certain it’d survive this particular challenge, but so be it. He slid it off his shoulders and quickly stuffed the wound with it.

“You’re trying to save it,” Lady said, each word a slow statement, as if she needed to hear them to believe it.

He looked up from his work, both hands now pressing down on his coat, which was just about the least absorbing fabric he could’ve had on hand, and he met Lady’s mismatched eyes. “I am. This may very well be the last Geryon to exist. Dante killed the one in the Temen-ni-gru, and I killed another as V. Until I found this shrine, I thought they were all gone.”

“And that’s a problem… why?”

Vergil reached for the obvious explanation, only to realize he had none--none that were rational, anyway. He’d told himself he would find a way to return Geryon to his home in the demon world, that it was the least of things to save a demon’s species if he could, especially one his family had so closely contributed to eliminating. After all this time spent with Griffon, Shadow, and Nightmare, he’d forgotten most demons had one speciality: killing humans.

Except, he slowly realized, he also didn’t care all that much if Geryon somehow returned down the line and murdered people. So he offered Lady a shrug instead of a proper answer.

“Would you let it die?”

Lady stared at the horse for a few precious seconds, and he let out another low whine. She sighed, her face softening, and removed her hand from the gun's handle. "I guess not." She reached into one of the many utility belts strapped around her body and retrieved a red pouch. "It's for human emergencies but…"

He stared at the tiny pouch, his hands now covered in a dark, almost purpluish blood from what had gone through his coat, and suddenly needed all his willpower to keep a calm face. Hard to tell if he should laugh or weep. Griffon circled above them with a quick laugh.

"Ain't that like putting a bandaid on a bone juttin' out? No one's saving horsie with that!"

"You got any better idea, chicken brain?" Lady countered. "Haven't seen you suggest anything."

"I've been thinking!" he protested.

Thinking in circles, most likely. Griffon's mind scattered to the high winds when put under pressure and Vergil doubted he'd gotten past 'dying horse' yet. Not with the amount of panic he could feel seeping through the link. The best was to orient him, and hope somewhere in the fumbling direction of his thoughts would be something to help them.

"Griffon, just tell me everything you know about Geryon. All of it."

"Oh huh, okay!" He circled around and settled on Vergil's shoulder. "It's a big horse, really big! I don't actually think this one's an adult, ya know, it's much too small for that. Shouldn't even have been into battle at this stage, but your father sure caused an uproar and a lot of us got sent into war no matter what."

"Griffon," Vergil scolded softly, interrupting the aside. Part of him wanted to know about the use of 'us' here--if Griffon had participated in the war two millennia ago, he'd never mentioned before. But this Griffon had been created from Vergil's memory, and he often seemed to have inherited only partial memories of his actual life, like impressions, knowledge, and feelings imprinted into him.

"Right, right, no reminiscing! Just facts--and facts are, these horses are some really proud jerks, let me tell ya. They make some mighty powerful steeds, but they don’t let just anybody ride ‘em. Only legends allowed! Ya gotta earn your place, or they’ll take their sweet time knocking you off--sweet time, get it?” Griffon flapped his wings with a quick laugh, but quickly interrupted himself. “Oh hey! That’s it! They can control time and slow down shit and all kinda cool stuff like that!”

Vergil glanced at the blood-soaked coat under his hands. “Including themselves?”

“Only one way to know,” Griffon replied, and he flew to the Geryon’s head, landing besides it. “Hey, bud, we’d love to fix ya up and shit, but we kinda need some time. Think you can help?”

Geryon huffed in response, and Griffon tilted his head to the side. He clacked his beak and even though he didn’t say anything, Vergil picked up on the thread of disappointment from him. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s too weak…”

“That can be fixed,” Vergil said, rising to his feet. It was a hunch, nothing more, but all demons had one thing in common: they drew power from human blood. “Lady, hold the wound.” She scowled at him, and he rolled his eyes. “Please?”

She glared at him as she moved closer to the horse and took his place. As soon as she had both of her hands on his coat--and he purposefully waited, certain she wouldn’t like what he was about to do--he strode to the only available blade nearby, the discarded Kalina Ann, and picked it up. Her reaction was immediate.

“Hey, that’s mine! Don’t you dare--”

“I need it. Unless you intend to volunteer your blood for the horse?” He dragged the massive rocket launcher around, stopping by the Geryon’s head. “I make no guarantees of how much we’ll need.”

Lady’s scowled hadn’t remotely diminished. “I thought you didn’t heal.”

“She got a point there, paper boy,” Griffon interjected, flying up to face him. “You’re already in bad shape and Nightmare’s gonna need--”

“That is a problem for later,” he snapped.

He was going to regret it. He knew he would, that every minute recovering from this would be endlessly frustrating, but it was his best (and only) idea, so he rammed his left forearm down on the bayonet at its end, giving himself no time for second doubts. The blade dug a good inch into his arm, but he bit back his pained cry and pulled it out. He dropped the rocket launcher unceremoniously, drawing an offended ‘hey’ from Lady, and knelt back down. Geryon’s nostrils flared as he approached his bleeding wrist, and it lifted its head.

“Huuh, V?” Griffon started. “I don’t think that’s a good--”

Geryon clamped its teeth down on his wrist before Griffon could finish, crushing skin and muscles in its powerful jaw, and this time Vergil did cry out. He reflexively tried to pull out, but the horse held fast, a thick tongue on his open wrist, and Vergil’s skull buzzed from the burning pain. By his side, Lady burst in a sharp but quickly subdued laugh.

“Amazing plan there, Vergil.”

As much as he wanted to retort, it was taking all of his energy not to scream again. Geryon was grinding down harder as it regained strength, enough that Vergil was starting to wonder if demon horses ate human flesh. Stark panic encroached on his mind, and he couldn’t tell if it was his or Griffon’s--not that it made any difference to how absolutely incapable of thinking of a solution he was at the moment. And then Geryon crunched, or maybe that was just the sound his bone made as it cracked; the searing pain that followed burned away any mental debate on the issue. Vergil bent over, panting, the ringing in his ear so loud he could barely hear Griffon’s anguish overhead.

He was only dimly aware of Lady’s fists crashing hard and fast in Geryon’s wounded flank, then the pressure released and claws dug in his shoulder, pulling him back. Vergil fell on his back, the edge of his vision blackening, his mangled and bloodied arm close to his body. It hurt. Fuck.

Griffon flew back within his sight. “You all right? ‘Cause it sure is. Almost froze time right over Lady’s hands.”

“I’m…” It was a pointless question, coming from Griffon. He could read it well enough in his mind. “I’ll manage. Always do.”

Griffon cackled. “Denial! That’s how I know you’re still good, paper boy. It’s when ya admit to anything that I know we’re in real trouble.”

That was entirely too true, and instead of protesting, Vergil managed a weak smile. He closed his eyes and found himself wishing they’d revived Nightmare first--there was something intrinsically soothing to their presence, and he could’ve used the anchor right now. It just felt like he was slowly slipping, his mind sliding away from the agony of his arm and the combined exhaustion of breaking seals with his diminished powers and walls with his all-too-fragile back. But it had worked, at least, and he could really use a break now. Just… just a little rest, right… here…

###

Lady couldn’t believe Vergil had just checked out on her. Dante was supposed to be the reckless one, but she was very quickly revising that assumption. They both were. Maybe it was a demon thing, not to think any plans through--except Trish always had the basics of one going before she jumped into a mission. So probably just these two boys.

And now she was stuck in a half-ruined shrine up an icy mountain with a demon horse, a bleeding supposed-to-be-dead half-demon, and his utterly panicked talking bird.

Griffon was flying circles above them, electricity crackling along his wings, a litany of "no no no c'mon paper boy you weren't supposed to do that" punctuated by the occasional nervous cackle. She wondered how long he'd need to snap out of it, but also had no patience to find out.

"People don't die from broken bones," she said. Unless he had internal bleeding, and he had mentioned a rib earlier. Lady scooped up her first aid kit; a dark blue aura had shimmered to life around the Geryon's wound, so she figured it'd be fine for a while. "Looks like my human emergency kit will come in handy, though. But you?” She pointed at Griffon, who stopped and hovered under the accusatory finger. “Either you stop talking and let me focus, or you help out.”

“I can help?” Griffon asked, surprise quickly shifting to enthusiasm. “Of course! I can help! I’ll help!” He flew straight to her, landing besides Vergil’s head and tilting his head to the side. “How?”

By all means, she should send him get ice from outside to keep Vergil’s arm from swelling, but she needed to bandage the wound first, and she really couldn’t pass up the opportunity to badger the talkative bird with questions while Vergil was out cold and unable to stop him from spilling the beans.

“Tell me--why isn’t he healing?” Griffon bristled. He must have sensed the ploy, but she ignored his initial reaction and pulled out disinfectant, sterile gauze dressings, and bandages. “I can’t heal him if I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

That was entirely a lie. She could treat him as she would any human, really, and she suspected it’d work. But Griffon was obviously attached to him and she wanted to know. He nudged Vergil’s head with his beak, like he was apologizing, and gave a quick flap of his wings.

“Oh, he heals, just real real slow--nothing like he used to, or like Dante does, plus he’s doing the healing for the whole lot of us, y’know? Him and Nightmare, they can do that, and now they’re both out, which is bad, let me tell ya, might just make everything super extra slow.”

Lady tried to parse through what he wasn’t explaining while she cleaned up Vergil’s wound. Skin had been torn off in parts and she could easily make out the shape of Geryon’s teeth in the bruises blooming all over his arm. And in the middle of it all, the clean and deep cut he’d inflicted on himself.

“So… he doesn’t heal because that power was given to… whatever it is you have going on?”

“I wish.” Griffon paused long enough that she looked up from her work to glare at him. If that wasn’t it, then she damn well wanted to know what it was, but the bird had suddenly become far less forthcoming with the answer. She stopped bandaging the wound until he finally gave in. “Dante took his powers away. Not quite all--I think he messed it up, or maybe we’d already tied some in the bond, I dunno--but healing’s a demon thing, ya know, and he’s kinda mostly human now. That was the deal. No powers, no Yamato. Only us.”

Lady froze, her gaze sliding to Vergil’s face, creased by lines of pain. She’d barely known him, really, and yet… “Doesn’t sound like a deal he’d take.”

“He didn’t.” Griffon’s tone had gone serious, but a hint of pride underlied it. “I did. And then I convinced him not to kill himself by trying to get them back. Ya got any idea how hard it is to get these two Sparda boys to cooperate? ‘Cause that all wasn’t a walk in the park, I tell ya.”

Lady’s laugh burst out on its own. She remembered all too well trying to interrupt their fight in the Temen-ni-gru, even if it was to get a piece of Vergil herself. They were having none of it. “I think I know.”

Her thoughts strayed decades in the past, back to the tower, to the power-obsessed twin Dante had pursued all the way to the top and the jagged hole his death had left in her friend. Urizen had been like so many demons: utterly devoid of compassion, filled with disregard for any human lives save those he could use to his own purpose, and focused on nothing but the power to dominate the demon world. She couldn’t imagine either of these Vergil apologizing to her, or remotely caring if one already-dying demon horse survived.

Lady finished her work on the wound itself then placed the arm back on his chest, above the heart, and used the bandages to secure it there as much as she could.

“We’ll need ice,” she said.

“Got you covered, milady!”

Griffon took off without the slightest hesitation, soaring out of Geryon’s area and disappearing from view. She pinned Vergil’s sling down then leaned back, sitting on her haunches as she stared at him. Dirt and blood had caked into his hair and brought it partly down, bringing the similarities to Dante in starker relief. Now that he didn’t have his coat, she could see the tattoos along his arm, similar to V’s, and the all-too-familiar amulet around his neck. Truth was, if she wasn’t going to kill him or the horse, then she ought to leave. With any luck, Morrison would have another job for her to make up for this busted one. None of this was her problem, not really, and the pragmatic thing to do was to walk away.

Except… that didn’t feel like an actual option. Even if she didn’t believe Vergil had set out to unleash the horse upon the human world in some convoluted power scheme, she still wanted to find out what he’d do with it. And, honestly? She wanted to find out about him, too. Dante never talked about his brother, yet it’d been obvious Vergil had haunted him in the years following the Temen-ni-gru--not to mention how utterly shaken Mallet Island had left him, under all his joking around. Vergil was the mystery lingering in the most defining moment of her life and if she left, she might never had another chance to chip away at it.

So she picked up the Kalina Ann, sent its grappling hook flying to the top of the hole, then grabbed Vergil and slung him over her shoulder. He moaned from the movement, but none of it was going to demolish his arm more than a demon horse’s teeth, and she wasn’t leaving him at the bottom of the Geryon’s pit.

Griffon returned with ice and Vergil’s fur-lined winter coat as she reached the two other demons. Nightmare was still an orb, and Shadow now paced around it. The great panther bounded towards Lady, and for a brief instant Lady expected to get mauled. Then Shadow started circling her, the patterns on her back shimmering, and it felt like an entirely too protective maneuver. Lady sought Griffon’s gaze.

“Don’tcha worry about Shadow. She’s a big softie,” he said, answering her unasked question. He dropped the coat on the ground and used his beak to spread it out a bit better. “We’re just huh… well, we’re a bit worried? He gets in trouble a lot, but it hasn’t been this bad since the Qliphoth. And Nightmare…” Shadow meowed as he trailed off, and Griffon shook himself, turning towards the cat. “Yeah, yeah, I know buddy, stalemate’s a good protection. I just ain’t ever seen them in it. Gives you the heebies, ya know?”

A low rumble from Shadow was all the answer he got, but the panther pushed Nightmare’s orb closer as Lady set Vergil down on his coat, careful to place his arm back and secure the sling. She reached for the pile of ice chunks Griffon must have transported inside, placed a bunch inside a gauze, and pressed them against the bandaged arm. Immediately, Shadow settled on the other side, laying against Vergil, and part of her body extended upward, like one long appendage.

“Let her do it,” Griffon translated, and Lady obliged, throwing more ice on the pile and allowing Shadow apply the pressure. It was… strangely soft, to watch the deadly panther lean against Vergil, one big paw curled on the purplish orb while she also held the broken arm in place, the rest of her body rippling with tiny spikes and runic, magenta patterns.

“She’s a little protective, isn’t she?” she asked Griffon.

“He’s our human,” the bird replied, as if that explained anything.

Lady snorted. “You make it sound like he’s the pet, not the other way around.”

Griffon cackled wildly and swooped down, landing briefly on Vergil’s leg. “Ain’t that the truth, though?” he asked, flapping his wings. “But hey, oh, don’t tell him I said that! We gotta leave him some illusions, ya know? Keeps the peace between us all.”

“Cross my heart,” she said, bringing her fist over it, smiling.

If nothing else, today would’ve brought her the image of Vergil entirely domesticated by his three demon friends. She might not tell him, but she sure as heck would tell Trish. Lady had a feeling that by the time she was done here, she would have quite the adventure to tell her girl. But there was a lot to handle first, and none of it would happen while she stared at Dante’s twin and his weird demon family.

“I’m gonna use what’s left of the bandages to help the horse, make sure it doesn’t die when its time-freeze wears off,” she said. “You try and think of supplies we might need while we stay here. I have a feeling none of us are leaving anytime soon.”

“Oh, oh! That’s great!” Griffon took off, flying after her as she once more climbed the pile of rubble to return to the horse. “It’s gonna get cold, isn’t it? Because I just stole the cutest matching scarves, winter hats, and mitts, and we could all have had ours, but Vergil wouldn’t let me bring ‘em--kept complaining about them falling off when we dematerialized. But you--you wouldn’t deny me like that, would you, Lady? They had snowmen on ‘em!”

That was the opposite of what she’d meant as supplies, but Lady couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed. This was growing increasingly promising! She’d go into town and let Trish know the job was gonna last longer than anticipated, then she’d gleefully get Griffon’s infamous snowmen as an affront of Vergil’s dignity, along with any actual supplies they might need.

“Great plan, Griffon,” she said, her grin widening. “Keep it up, and we might just all be friends after all!”

Chapter Text

Vergil woke up to several distinct sensations: burning pain in his left arm, ice against his skin, a warm weight against his side, the crackling of fire, and the delicious smell of sizzling sausages. Hell, but he was hungry. He cracked his eyes open and found only the vaulted ceiling, high above him, barely visible in the flickering light. As usual, it took Griffon less than thirty seconds to hover above his head with a bright "Wakie-wakie, sunshine Sparda!"

Vergil grabbed his beak with his right arm, dragging him down. "It's not morning."

He didn't think it was, anyway. It was hard to tell, in this cave. Griffon mumbled something, but no intelligible word made it out of his held beak. Vergil ran his thumb alongside it, before releasing him--as usual, once again.

"What happened? I remember Geryon…"

And a powerful jaw clenching on his forearm, drinking in the partially human blood, crushing the bone beneath. Vergil glanced down at it, all bandaged and partly immobilized in a sling, and frowned. He had lost consciousness, hadn't he? Right in front of Lady…

He sat up, suddenly worried, and found her staring right at him from the other side of the fire, one hand on the pan with sausages, her thin knowing smile warning him he should not get too attached to the remnants of his pride. Then he finally noticed the snowman scarf on her forearm and the mitts tied around Griffon's neck, with the thumb as a branch, and he knew he'd have his own. His mind registered the warmth on his head, and he reached up to touch the tuque there. All of these were horrendous, a case study in bad taste, and Griffon had been insisting on the whole group wearing them ever since they'd first arrived in town, in remembrance of their first snow day together.

"I'm knocked out for three minutes…"

"More like thirty hours," Lady pointed out. "Had time to get to town and return. If you force people to watch over your ass for so long, you don't get to complain when they find ways to distract themselves."

Thirty hours? Shock swallowed his irritation at Griffon's prank--they could have that talk later, when Dante's friend wasn’t hanging around, standing guard over him and preparing dinner. What else had he missed in that time? He mentally reached out to Nightmare and dread filled him when he found nothingness instead of their reassuring presence.

"Still in stalemate," Griffon sent to his mind, before flying to his left, where Shadow lay with a paw around the orb. She'd been leaning against Vergil, too, as she always did when he got wounded. Her skin had lost its lustre and when he ran a hand over her flank, the patterns remained dim.

"None of you rested," he stated. Now that he'd caught the signs on Shadow, it was easier to notice how lazily Griffon flew, like he didn't have the energy for more, or the near-absence of the blue sheen in his wings. “It’s been thirty hours, Griffon. You know better.”

Griffon gave an apologetic flap of his wings, but there wasn’t a hint of guilt in his mind. “Can’t have us all out at once, that’s no good for healing.”

He glared at Griffon. If they’d been alone, he’d have scolded them for clinging to their physical form so he’d recover faster, but Lady was watching them, keen eyes following their every interaction. He sent the gist of his feelings to Griffon before speaking up. “I’m awake now. Take your turn.”

“All right, paper boy, but don’t go adding to your wounds while we’re gone.” Griffon flew a quick circle around his head, landing on his shoulder. His claws dug in deeper than usual, like he needed to cling extra hard. “Lady, it’s been a pleasure! Real fun, and don’t let him burn his tuque or anything.”

“And be deprived of the sight? I would never.”

Griffon cackled, and the sound of his cawing laugh echoed in Vergil’s mind as he vanished. Shadow stirred with a low rumble, and Vergil carefully retrieved Nightmare’s orb from her paw before patting her flank. “You too, friend,” he said, and she obeyed, her form ashing off and retreating into him. He could still feel them both at the edge of his mind, their presence subdued as they settled into rest.

Silence filled the room, broken only by the crackle of fire and the sizzling of sausages. Vergil’s mouth watered and he tried to ignore his gnawing hunger, focusing instead on the warm orb under his hand. He reached within for Nightmare’s presence and they responded, a low soothing feeling he’d always loved. For a demon created from nothing for the sole purpose of destruction, they certainly had always felt exceedingly gentle.

“You buckled when the sword went through the big one,” Lady said. “All of you reacted.”

“Our demonic bond includes a certain level of telepathy.” Nightmare was near-invincible and unused to regulating their output, and the intense pain from them had hit him like a wall of brick. By comparison, Shadow kept her wounds much more contained. “I’m sure Griffon couldn’t help but explain.”

The little quirk in Lady’s lip told him he was right. Damn bird had probably spilled all of their secrets just to pass time and make friends. Vergil sighed and leaned forward, almost wrapping himself around Nightmare’s orb, which made her chuckle. “Can’t believe you’re actually pouting.”

Vergil straightened, schooling his expression into a scowl. “I was not.”

Lady rolled her eyes, then stabbed three sausages, shoved them into a plate and extended it towards him. “Eat, before the weight of your pride crushes your malnourished body.”

“I’m not--” His stomach rumbled before he could say ‘hungry’ and Lady stared at him, eyebrows raised. With a sigh, he took the plate off her hands. He could have gone for the meagre rations in his own pack, but Lady would’ve mocked him for his stubbornness and these smelled delicious. She threw him a fork, and he used its side to start cutting the sausages into chunks while he searched for something to say. Better to stick to business. “How is Geryon?”

“Healing faster than I care for,” Lady said as she filled her own plate. “It was walking around earlier. Went back to rest quick, but it’s obvious it’ll make it.”

“Good.”

He slowly began eating, focusing his mind on the mix of grease and spiciness, the crispiness of the grilled crust and the mushy flesh under, and the amazing warmth that seemed to tumble down to his stomach as he swallowed. Six years returned from Hell, and every bite was still a delight. Vergil closed his eyes with a smile, soaking in the experience, until Lady snorted.

“They’re really not that great, you know.”

Vergil fixed blue eyes on her. She was already done with her plate, had devoured her share without pause, as he once would have--a necessity. He’d learned to cherish every meal, but explaining why would open a door he didn’t want Lady to access. She was Dante’s friend, a remnant from his past life, and a potential threat to this one. She was a demon hunter, and until today they had done nothing but fight each other.

“Thirty hours of recovery must have muddled my discerning taste, then,” he said mildly before continuing to eat.

Silence reclaimed its due as Vergil chewed on the sausages. Lady busied herself with cleaning and storing the pan, but kept looking right back at him. He could feel the tension rise, one notch at a time, and he stubbornly kept his focus on the meal. Once he was finished, she almost ripped the plate straight out of his hands, stored it, and retrieved a dark brown bottle from her sack. She tilted her head back and drank for so long he’d have sworn it was water, if not for the distinct smell of strong alcohol that spread through the cave. Casually, Lady began thumbing the guns strapped around her thigh.

“So are you gonna tell me what’s the plan with the horse,” she asked, “or is it one of those ideas I’ll have to shoot out of you?”

Well. It had the benefit of being frank, and he might have answered truthfully if he’d had a concrete plan. Instead, he gave her the villain she clearly wanted to hear. “I mean to drain it of its power to control time and space, reclaiming it as my own.”

Fingers tightened around the gun. She narrowed her eyes. “Reclaiming, huh? Didn’t you already use to warp around a lot and slow down time?”

Vergil stiffened, stilling his urge to curse himself or facepalm. After years of living with demons who could sense the gist of his feelings, if not always his exact thoughts, he’d forgotten how it felt to watch every word. He should’ve been more careful.

“You don’t need to be coy, Vergil,” she said. “Griffon told me why you’re alive at all.”

Anger and horror coiled into him, and his healthy arm clung to Nightmare harder as he schooled his expression and glared at Lady, desperate to keep his growing panic hidden. This goddamn bird! Could he stop oversharing for one sweet minute of his life? He’d known Vergil had wanted to keep secret what had transpired between Dante and him, yet he’d gone and spilled it all. He’d thought… after six years, he’d thought he could count on him not to betray certain things, but it seemed that had been too generous.

“I hope that murder face isn’t for him,” she said. “I may have withheld tending to your arm until he explain why it wasn’t healing on its own. He’s an easy bird to crack.”

“I would have lived,” Vergil countered through gritted teeth. “You didn’t need to know.”

“I didn’t.” She shrugged and drank again. “Now I know. Can’t believe Dante didn’t tell any of us. You’re both lucky I didn’t shoot you on sight.”

Quite frankly, Vergil also couldn’t believe it either. How strange, that Dante had wanted to keep it secret--like they could still have this one thing, just the two of them. He must not have expected he’d ever run into his friends.

“Weren’t you about to?” he asked. “From the other side of two barrels, it certainly seemed like your chosen course of actions.”

She laughed and downed more of her alcohol, neither confirming or denying. “Just don’t get in a tiff with your lovebird over him spilling your secrets. I might feel guilty or something.”

“My--” Vergil choked on the word lovebird. It was the most absurd thing anyone had ever called Griffon, and he’d used quite a large variety over the years, yet heat climbed into his cheeks.

“You heard me, asshole. They’ve got regrettable taste, but I’ve never seen demons be so sweet on anybody.”

She made it sound like Griffon and him were an old couple, and he supposed if one removed romance from the equation, it was not so far from the mark. They had chosen a home together, bickered all the time, had established routines, and Vergil could no longer imagine his life without Griffon’s constant ramblings. His palm spread over Nightmare’s warm orb and he tried to get a handle over the mix of fondness and irritation he had for Griffon right now, to put it all under wraps and hide it where Lady couldn’t so casually comment on it. He tilted his head to the side.

“Does it bother you?”

Lady considered the question, her fingers tapping the neck of her bottle as she stared into the fire. “It bothers me… that it doesn’t.” She took another swing, and Vergil couldn’t help wonder how addled the alcohol was already turning her brain. “I’m sitting here helping a whole demon squad save yet another demon and, worse, they’re led by the one guy who’s ripped the veil between human and demon worlds twice, so I ought to know he can’t be up to any good and just put bullets in the lot of you, call it a day, and get paid for it.”

That sounded like what he’d have expected Lady to try. She had never been particularly shy with her triggers. Vergil met her gaze as she turned to him, fierce determination shining in her eyes.

“But I guess I’m just too curious. Must have spent too much time watching Trish play her puzzle games; now I can’t leave this one alone.”

“Ah, you’ve matured out of ‘shoot first, ask questions later’, I see.”

The gun flashed out, lazily pointed at him. “I can revert back. Just say the word, asshole.”

Vergil laughed--a brief chuckle, the sound of which caught him off guard, and his own surprise was reflected in Lady’s expression. He used to be rather stingy with those, but Griffon spent half his life laughing, and it’d bled upon him. Part of the reflex came from the unease settling at the bottom of his stomach, the slow realization of the meaning behind Lady’s words. How did one unravel the puzzle of a person? It was preposterous, that she might intend to get to know him, somehow, yet he saw no other possible meanings. And then what? She would judge him against past actions, decide if he was good enough, nice enough, harmless enough? Did she believe she had any right to this? He would rather stay a hated mystery than to lay himself bare for her pleasure.

“We should play a game,” Lady said, lowering the gun. “For every question I ask, you get to ask one, too. I’ll even share the alcohol.”

“No.”

Lady raised her eyebrows. “No?”

“I’m certain you heard me perfectly the first time.”

He had better things to do with his time and energy. Freeing Nightmare, to start with. He hadn’t expected them to stay confined to the stalemate orb for such a prolonged period of time; Griffon and Shadow always returned with a certain promptness, but they could draw help from both Nightmare and him. They, on the other hand, only had each other. He kept meaning to research into this asymmetry in the bonds, but he was uncertain such texts even existed for him to find. As Vergil prepared to reach within the orb, Lady interrupted again.

“Why not?”

“If this is a crafty way to start the game either way, I would advise you cease immediately.” They would not both survive the night if Lady began badgering him with questions he had no intention of answering. Neither of them had the patience.

“I fixed your arm and got you dinner. Surely you can answer that one question.”

Vergil stared at her. He had not asked for either of those things, and he refused to feel obligated because of them. Lady just returned a smug smile, and the warm orb under his palm was a reminder he did owe her--all four of them did.

“Just the one, and only because you saved Nightmare.”

Then he left her hanging--she could use to learn a little patience. He closed his eyes and sought Nightmare’s reassuring presence within the orb itself, focusing all of his mind on the strange gentleness of their soul, the warmth it spread to those they had adopted, their protectiveness. Nightmare was sheer destructive power, yet out of battle they mellowed out even more than Shadow.

The orb crack the moment they felt Vergil, as if they’d only been waiting for his arrival, and a soft contentment suffused their bond. Nightmare’s form reemerged before him, thick black sludge condensing into clawed fists and a ridged spine, lifting the orb out of his hands and transforming it into a single purple eye. It hadn’t completely reformed that a single arm wrapped around Vergil, careful to avoid pressing his wounded arm, and squeezed him against its bony chest. Vergil briefly leaned his forehead there, all too aware Lady was watching.

“I’m glad you’re back, too,” he whispered. “Now get some rest with the others.”

At least Nightmare never argued with him. They gave an extra squeeze and one of their claws ruffled his hair as they vanished (he was absolutely convinced they did this on purpose and that Griffon had been the one to transmit that idea). Vergil let them meld into the ground and his own body, then ran a hand through his hair, placing it back and using the opportunity to work through the rising wave of exhaustion that had provoked.

Lady was still staring at him like he was a piece of jigsaw she couldn’t quite place. He sighed. One answer, then. He had never promised to make it comprehensive.

“I have nothing to gain from playing your game.”

“Nothing?” Doubt dripped from her voice. “The questions don’t have to be about me.”

He gritted his teeth. “I know.”

“And you’re saying there’s nothing you’d want to ask?”

Oh, but there was. He wanted to ask what Dante had done with the Yamato, if it was well cared for and if he used it himself, sometimes, during hunts--even though he could hardly bear the thought of anyone but him wielding the katana. He wanted to ask about Dante himself, too, if he still lived in squalor, if he seemed remotely happy, or what else he might have said about him while he pretended to have killed him. He wished he could step back into that life, however briefly, yet reaching for it also felt like putting his hand in the wringer. He’d tried so hard to set all of these things behind him, to shut them out of his life and build something different, but now Lady had opened the door for them and they rushed back in, lodging themselves in his throat and weighing down his stomach.

Vergil tore his gaze away from Lady’s before she managed to read the ripples of doubts within and steeled his voice in a slicing cold. “None that I should ask.”

Lady stretched her legs out with a laugh and rose her bottle, giving a slight shake. “That’s why we got this, Vergil. So you can ask the questions you shouldn’t, and I won’t get mad, and you won’t feel the regret until it’s too late.”

“It’s a trap, then. Your honesty is commendable, at least.” He removed his tuque, dropped it to the ground, and got his feet under him, wobbling up and spreading his healthy arm to help with his unsteady balance. Gnawing pain still coursed through his broken one and he hoped it wouldn’t require weeks like the last time. Even with the remnant of his healing, he’d been stuck in a sling for a month, and he’d hated every moment of it. “Drink all you want, but I shall not partake in either your alcohol or your game. I’ll watch Geryon.”

First he needed to find his books. He scanned their little camping area, spotted his bag, and started towards it. The first stride sent his head spinning, but he gritted his teeth and took another, then a third. He only needed to push his body long enough to sit by Geryon’s enclosure with his tools, then he could let it rest while he consigned sketches and observations to the notebook. Part of him would have preferred to wait for Lady to leave the shrine, but if she’d returned to town only to resupply, then she had no intention of leaving him alone.

She tracked his movement without a word as he rummaged through his bag, only to realize he could never carry everything with a single free hand. With a sigh, Vergil slung it over his shoulder and mentally chose his path through the rubble of the stone knight. The climb pulled at his muscles, sending stinging pain where his rib had broken, and more than once he lost balance, barely catching himself with his healthy arm. Lady’s eyes burned his back; she must be drinking to his every slip even now, but he refused to look back or wake Griffon to help him to the other side. He’d get there on his own, bone-deep exhaustion, dizziness, and feverish sweat be damned.

###

Come to think of it, Lady had no idea why she’d expected Vergil to be any more forthcoming about himself than Dante. These two really were a fucking pair, in their own kinda-opposite ways. She outta get Griffon out of the stiff asshole so she could propose the drinking game to him instead. Sure, he was annoying in the way only people who thought themselves ten times funnier than they really were could be, but at least he was talkative.

Well. It’d started snowing something harsh outside, and besides, she wasn’t leaving Vergil alone with that demon horse until she knew more, so she might as well keep trying to crack the nut. Lady stomped up the rubble pile, all the way to where Vergil had sat, sketchbook in hand, and settled down next to him. He startled at her arrival, dropping his pen, and she caught it before it could roll all the way down. He glared at her before plucking it out of her hands.

“So what are those?” she asked, pointing at his notes. “Your next path to power?”

“They’re notes,” he said, and he left it at that.

“Goddamn, you’re ever so helpful.”

This drew a slight smirk out of him. He stubbornly refused to provide more information, so she threw hypotheses at him. “If we’re not killing the horse, it’s either getting supervised care here, or you mean to send it back to the demon world.”

Vergil tapped the pencil to his sketchbook and sighed. “It would be simpler if I could bind it as I did the other three, but alas, they are unique in that regard.”

That was still not an answer about his plans. She was starting to think he didn’t have any. “I don’t think it’s wise to let you Disney Princess every demon you run into, anyway.”

“To be fair, I have no desire to have Empusas trailing me, either.”

Her mind briefly envisioned an army of the disgusting critters skittering behind Vergil, and she snorted. “Can’t blame you.” She swirled her bottle casually, watching for a moment as he returned to his task, sketching out the surrounding area in its current state. “So you’re… recording the place?”

He didn’t answer. She drank more, leaned even closer. Vergil stiffened but otherwise ignored her, and she studied his drawing as it came to life. He did have some surprising skills there, precise and quick. Must’ve had a lot of practice.

“This isn’t your first shrine,” she said.

“You’re still asking questions,” he remarked, instead of addressing her words.

“Wasn’t a question, technically.”

She had meant it as one, though, and they both knew it. Vergil did not provide any further information, and she was already bored of this tacic. It called for a change of plans. After one final swig of her drink, Lady yanked the sketchbook from Vergil’s lap and jumped to her feet as he gasped.

“Lady!”

He sprang up too, but between his bound arm and his fatigue, he couldn’t keep his balance. He swayed, and by the time he’d stabilized, she’d hopped down a few boulders and trained a pistol on him again.

“Return it at once,” he demanded, extending his healthy arm.

“Can’t do that.”

She half-expected Griffon or Shadow to suddenly surge out of him, but neither of his familiars came. Slowly, Lady used her thumb to go back through the pages. One was the stone knight and its patterns, and before that was another sketch of this area, only the knight stood on a dais that covered the Geryon’s sealed hole. He had a few extra images of the shrine, including an incredibly detailed reproduction of a mural featuring several Geryon horses, and notes about the magic within it and what he expected to find. Fairly thorough, overall, she had to give him that.

“Lady.”

He almost growled her name, and she looked up from her notes. So now she had his attention, huh?

“Look, Vergil, the way I see it, you either give me answers, or I give you a bullet. I didn’t come here to make friends. I came to do a job, and that’s stopping whoever was messing with the shrine.”

She flicked another page, for good measure, and this time the drawing was clearly of another location--a beautiful cavern with a waterfall, sunlight glittering in the pool below, and glyphs all across the walls. Where was this place? He scowled at her and took a hesitant step in her direction, interrupting her before she turned another page. She jumped back.

“Our father has built and enchanted countless shrines across the world.” He gestured at their surroundings with his free arm. “Many serve to strengthen to veil between the worlds, sealing rifts created during the war. That, too, is his legacy, and it needs to be preserved.”

Now that was a load of bullshit if she’d ever heard one. She stomped down on the boulders under her feet, the remnants of a destroyed stone knight. “You got a really special definition of ‘preserving’ going.”

Sheepishness flickered through his expression, but Vergil did a quick job of burying it under his usual scowl. “I had no choice. Once I saw the mural and had confirmed it… I needed to know if a Geryon was truly kept here.”

“And you still won’t tell me why you want the damn horse this much, huh.”

He tilted his chin up, as if he wasn’t already glaring down at her, both from his natural height and his position on a higher boulder. “I did, but you refuse to believe it. It’s the last of its race.”

“A demon race.”

“I don’t expect you to understand.”

Lady’s eyebrows shot up, and she patted the Kalina Ann. “Is that because I know exactly how to best deal with demons?”

His lips curved into a smirk and he sniffed in disdain. “Simple means for a simple brain, I suppose.”

She shot twice at the rock at his feet, sending shards flying. He didn’t move, which only made her angrier. Dante constantly pissed her off, goofing around on the job, but that was the way their relationship had always flowed and she allowed it from him. Though really, Vergil being condescending was also the way their limited time together had gone, so she shouldn’t be that surprised.

“Should’ve let the horse rip your arm off.”

“Sounds like you’ll leave this place with nothing but regrets.”

Would she? Lady frowned, trying to parse through her own feelings. Vergil was infuriating, she had no reason to trust him, and he’d clearly taken part in some shady demonic activities over the last years. At the very least, she should take him out and drag his ass back to the Devil May Cry to dump this problem back in Dante’s lap, where it belonged--and do so before Nightmare recovered enough to pose a problem. But this was by far the most challenging and interesting any job had been in ages, and, fuck, but it didn’t feel right to kill him now that she’d seen him around his three demons. Stars, when had she grown so soft anyway?

“Plenty of time to turn things around.” And she still had his notes. She lowered the gun and returned her attention to the glyph-covered cave. This one had notes about the seals drawing upon the natural magic of the place, a sketch of a boulder blocking the water flow in what, she presumed, was far above the shrine, and another of the same cave, without the waterfall and glyphs. “Maybe I should steal all your notes as payment for your life and see what I can learn from them.”

“Don’t you--”

“Dare?” She cut him off, before lifting the book and showing him the sketches with the blocked boulders. “I want to know more about this place, and any others you might’ve explored. What are you even preserving if you keep all this stuff to yourself?”

He twirled the pencil between the fingers of his broken arm, studying her. She held steady, even if she hated feeling evaluated like this. Did this asshole think he had any right to judge her worthy of his fancy knowledge? The longer he kept silent, the more she scowled, until she couldn’t hold it anymore.

“Whatever,” she declared.

At the exact same time, he went, “I’ll tell you.”

They both huffed, then scowled at their synchronicity, and before she fully understood why, they were laughing--his low chuckle and her quick bark echoing across the caverns. Vergil sighed and sat back down, gesturing at her to come back up. She joined him on his large boulder, handing over the notebook. His shoulders relaxed as soon as he recovered it.

“This represents years of work,” he said, tracing the worn cover with his fingers. “All of these seals are secured now, as much as I could with my limited powers, except for two. One needed to be destroyed--I could not fix it, and it would’ve unravelled soon. The second… is here.”

“What’s in it for you?” It just didn’t fit, if there was no gain. He’d helped Arkham destroy some of these seals, the most important ones, and now he repaired them? Vergil only hm’ed, however. “Right. Keep your motivation to yourself. That’s trustworthy.” He snorted, and she leaned closer. “C’mon. Teach this simple brain before it decides to put a bullet in yours.”

He lifted the cover, revealing a first sketch of a simple slab altar, and the close rendition of the ritual circle under it. “A minor rift, its edges bound within the stone slab.”

And he actually explained, obfuscating nothing about the place, giving her access to the full breadth of his knowledge and how he acquired it. His voice remained steady, didactic but never condescending, and before long Lady found herself completely entranced by the tales of his shrine hunting. She'd seen her fair share of demon nests in her years hunting, but she had always been there to blow new threats into tiny pieces. Vergil explored these places as one did artifacts and locations of great value, and as much as it put her off, the knowledge and story gained fascinated her in its own weird way. The longer he talked, the more his respect for the shrines shone through his tone, and the more she believed him about preserving them. That he hadn't lied to her carried its own set of uneasy implications, but for now she ignored them in favour of the intriguing tales and useful information. They could have a truce, even if only for an hour or two.

Chapter Text

Vergil had not expected Lady to have the patience for his detailed accounts of every shrine visited. At first, he’d thought her demand to be another ploy to get him to answer her endless questions, but she’d seemed sincere in her desire to learn, and indeed she turned into a rapt audience. He didn’t remember when he’d last spoken aloud for such an extensive period of time. It made him thirsty, and he eventually found himself reaching for Lady’s bottle against his better judgement. Before he’d realized the extent of his mistake, fatigue and low tolerance for alcohol of any sorts conspired to drag unrelated anecdotes out of him. His shrine descriptions became less and less didactic and more and more… volubile. When Lady extended the bottle back at him with a smirk, he froze.

She might no longer be poking him with questions, but she’d successfully gotten him to talk. He narrowed his eyes at her and pushed the offering back.

“I believe I’ve had quite enough,” he declared. “Congratulations.”

“On what?”

He tapped the bottle and leaned away from her. “Outmaneuvering me.”

Lady laughed and threw an arm over his shoulders, leaning hard against him. Vergil could not tell if she was drunk, too, or if she sought to make him uncomfortable. It might very well be both.

“Ya think that was a tactic? Vergil, all your shit is genius professional knowledge. You got any idea how much I’d have to pay for this sort of info?” She frowned and snorted. Her breath smelled of alcohol. Definitely partly drunk, at least, as he unfortunately was. “Guess that means I am ripping you off. Just not the way you think I am.”

“Fantastic. Please peel yourself off me immediately, or you will not hear another word about these shrines.”

He emphatically tried to shrug her off, and while Lady did remove her arm, she did so with a long sigh. Once satisfied she would not encroach upon his space again, Vergil returned to his description of the Cerberus shrine. Despite his best intentions, he could not keep his traitorous tongue from mentioning the cabin they’d elected to spend the night at on their way, and which they’d revamped into their home through many misadventures. He kept the latter to himself, but something must have slipped into his voice as he mentioned the place because it earned him a long stare from Lady.

They had almost reached the end of his notebooks when his familiars stirred in his mind, Griffon first among them. For someone so energetic, he required strangely less time than his companions to recover--something Vergil had come to associate with his lesser level of power.

“What d’ya mean, lesser!?” Griffon responded, taking the bait as soon as it was laid out. “I’ll teach ya--hey, what’s wrong with your mind?”

Vergil interrupted his explanation to Lady, taken aback by the mental question.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, answering both of them at once.

“It’s all fuzzy and weird, paper boy. Like it ain’t running properly.”

Oh. That had to be the alcohol. Could they feel that, then? Griffon had always handled the mindlink better than any of them. “I may have drank too much.”

The fact he’d voiced the thought aloud instead of keeping it inside his head only served to prove his point. Lady rolled her eyes.

“You barely had anyth--”

Griffon burst out of Vergil before she could finish, startling her. She leapt to her feet and had a gun trained on him within a split second, and he squawked in indignation.

“Gone for a few hours and that’s how you treat a friend!” He landed on her head and snapped his wings to signify just how offended he was. “Don’t apologize. I get it!”

Lady grabbed his beak and pulled him off, holding him steady midair as he flapped his wings. Vergil did his best not to laugh, but Griffon would feel his mirth clearly through their bond.

“Give a warning if you don’t want your pea brain to become more lead than cells,” she said, brutally releasing him. “Now stop interrupting. We’re conducting business.”

Griffon flew circles above their heads, his bright cackles bouncing around the cavern walls. “Call it however you want, but all I see is you cozying up to Vergil with some alcohol!” He dove down towards Lady and she shot in his general direction, forcing him to veer away. Instead, he came to rest on Vergil’s shoulders. “Dontcha know our paper boy gets soaked up real quick with that thing? Vinegar will get him drunk!”

He pecked at Vergil’s head once and under all of his pleasant mockery, Vergil detected hints of jealousy and curiosity. He prodded at it, amused by the ill-concealed desire to partake in Lady’s bottle.

“Birds die when they get drunk, Griffon,” he stated.

“Oh! Hey! No one said anything about getting drunk.” He dug his talons into Vergil’s shoulders in retaliation.

“No one said anything,” Lady pointed out. “You’re doing the creepy telepathy thing again. And for the record, birds die when they get drunk because they slam into glass doors and other obstacles.”

“Then I suppose the risk is no higher for Griffon with alcohol than without,” Vergil conceded. A triumphant spike passed through their bond and Vergil smirked, continuing his sentence in the calmest of tone, “He is liable to fly into all sorts of obvious obstacles even sober.”

"Look at ya! Ya think you're clever, paper boy?"

Griffon flew off, circled them once, then dove for the bottle. Vergil expected Lady to yank the bottle away, but instead she lifted it up, removing the cork. Griffon clipped its talon around it, then threw it high so it'd spin midair. Lady protested as half her bottle spilled in a wide arc, then Griffon snapped the neck of it in his beak and flew up, at an angle where the alcohol poured down his throat. Repeated gulp echoed through the cavern as Griffon downed the bottle--and, to Vergil’s great horror, he didn’t stop until the entirety of it was gone. Worse, the accursed bird put no effort in limiting what he transmitted over the bond, and Vergil felt everything from his surprise at the burning taste to his smug determination to finish the bottle, along with an increasing whooziness. He crouched and squeezed his eyes, erecting barriers between Griffon and him until he could function again.

“This was a mistake,” he stated, his gaze trailing Griffon’s increasingly shifty flight. The bird dropped the bottle and it shattered on the ground as if confirming his words.

Lady shrugged. “If he causes trouble, I’ll shoot him.” She patted the pistol at her side. “Heard that, birdie?”

“Loud and clear, missy!” He flew in a loop with a gleeful cackle, then dove down and took great joy in swooping close to Vergil, running sharp talons through his hair. Although the level of alcohol in Griffon's body worried him, this sort of annoying teasing had long since grown on him. Vergil rolled his eyes at Griffon's antics and the overblown elation he derived from them, then gestured at the Geryon's enclosed space below.

"Since our scholarly lessons have been interrupted, perhaps we ought to check on the wounded horse."

"You still haven't told me what's the plan. You even have one?"

"I had not even known a living Geryon was here before I saw the mural," he pointed out. "I do have a plan, however."

Parcels of one. Vergil picked his way down the boulders with care, his balance hampered by his bound arm and Griffon's ignominious alcohol level. In the last years, not a single soul had come close to their home. Bringing the Geryon there would keep it and unfortunate humans safe, allowing the demon time to recover. Furthermore, he'd worked out the intricacies of the Cerberus shrine better than any others and may be able to use it to return the horse where he belonged and seal the veil back properly. All of this, however, left one challenge: he needed the Geryon to obey him.

"Fat chance of that happening!" Griffon called out, twirling midair, dizzying himself for the sake of the thrill. “Geryons are proud demons, I told ya. Won’t let just anybody ride ‘em, let alone some powerless schmuck with a broken arm.”

Cold fury passed through him at the mention of “powerless” and he gritted his teeth, forcing his mind to focus on the next step, then the next. He shouldn’t be powerless. He may have resigned himself to this weakened body and its many vulnerabilities, but he would never truly accept it. This wasn’t him--not all of him, anyway. But there was no point in dwelling on it. He was alive, in control of his destiny for the most part, and he’d found a peace and companionship he’d never had before. Some days he woke from nightmares of Mundus’s spikes through his body, of the Yamato in his chest, but when those happened, Nightmare, Shadow, and Griffon silently emerged to wrap themselves around him.

He liked this life. He hated being powerless--being weak--but the tradeoff… At least he was no longer alone.

Vergil discarded the sentimental thought, hoping Griffon had been too drunk to notice, and stopped at the edge of Geryon’s enclosure. It wasn’t a large space, nowhere near enough for a horse, but it gave him enough room to trot in circles. Right now, however, he had settled on the floor, legs folded along his body, his great mane of blue flame flickering lazily. Blue eyes trailed Vergil as he approached the ledge, and the horse snorted when he jumped down.

“That’s mockery,” Griffon provided. “He thinks you’re weak sauce.”

Vergil glared at Griffon, but in his current state, it’d be pointless to contradict Geryon’s assessment. Every muscle and bone of his body ached from exhaustion or a recent battering, his low fever had never entirely vanished, and Griffon’s drunken, flickery thoughts intruded upon his at the worst moment. Yet for all of these things, he still had one thing in his favour.

“I am a Son of Sparda--he who defeated your master millenias ago and sealed you here. You--”

Geryon snorted again, slowly rising up, and this time Vergil didn’t need Griffon’s translation at all. Not that it stopped the damn bird for even a moment. “Oh hey, no, this is gold. Says he can’t even smell Sparda on ya, paper boy!” He swooped closer to Geryon. “Ya might wanna fix your nose, horse friend. He works real hard to walk in daddy’s footsteps. You’ll hurt his feelings.”

Vergil didn’t move. For Geryon to disregard him due to his missing powers was one thing, but for him to outright deny Vergil his legacy… He clenched his fist, fighting the rising wave of angry shame and mortification at how directly it played in what Griffon at just said.

“Who the fuck does this horse think it is anyway?” Lady declared, leaping down the ledge to land by Vergil’s side. She strode right up to it, unhooking her shotgun and aiming it at the Geryon’s snout. “You think I won’t punch your flank again, you big freak? That I’ll hesitate to blow your skull to pieces and put an end to your kind?”

“Lady…”

“Shut it, Vergil,” she snapped back, stomping to the much taller horse and glaring up at it. “I’m not gonna take shit from a demon teenager. I kill stuff more dangerous than it on a daily basis. If it wants to play rough, then I will.”

“Huh… That’s not very diplomatic,” Griffon started.

Before he could get another word in, Geryon reared up and attempted to smash Lady’s skull with its hooves. She jumped back with a scoff, and the hoof narrowly missed her head to crash into the ground instead. Lady aimed her shotgun right by it and shot at the hooves, exploding floor right next to them. It responded with an angry snort but didn’t attack again.

“Are you done?” Lady asked, before turning to Griffon. “Is it done?”

“Huh…” Griffon circled above them, blessedly silent for a time. “You got his attention, for sure. He’s a bit of a dumbass, this one, but that was impressive.”

Vergil couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Are you talking about you, or Geryon?” This earned him a spark, but Vergil ignored the light shock and continued to smirk at Griffon. “He needs to understand he can follow me. We’ll get him healed and home.”

“Aye aye, captain!”

Griffon flew in a quick loop again, a clear sign if any that his alcohol hadn’t worn off yet, then he banked and got closer to the Geryon. His wings shimmered blue as the conversation went on, and Vergil found he could follow the gist of it. Geryon wanted absolutely nothing to do with help of any kind, and when Griffon tried to pry an explanation out of him, he got hit by walls upon walls of massive pride.

And suddenly Vergil understood all too well. Geryon belonged to a proud type of demon. He was young, had been brutally wounded and cut off from others of his kind, and now they’d trapped him here and he had no idea what had transpired in a war long over.

“Geryon,” he interrupted. “You’re the last one, as far as we know. Every other Geryon horse perished in the war that saw you sealed or in the subsequent century. You would have died, too, had Sparda and I not intervened. These are facts.”

He strode towards the horse, all fear gone from him now. Twice before, he had needed to choose between pride and survival. First when Dante had reached for him and he’d slashed his hand, choosing to safeguard his pride and take his chances with Hell, to a most horrible conclusion. The second… this was a choice he’d needed to make repeatedly as V, a powerless wretch binding himself to his own nightmares in a desperate bid to regain his power and survive. It had been gruelling and unseemly, but it had worked, no? His powerless, weak human half had survived against all odds, and here he was today. He stared at the fire of Geryon’s blue eyes and wondered if he’d ever regain the blue flames of his own trigger.

“If your pride demands death, then we will grant you that. If you wish to live, however, know that survival is an unsightly business. You may need to endure weaklings, crawl with them until you can run alone. Your pride will not save you; others will. Choose your outcome and act accordingly.”

He raised his right hand, fingers outstretched, and waited. Geryon huffed while Griffon landed on Vergil’s shoulder, his expectant silence thrumming through their link. Every second stretched on as if the demon had distorted time, expanding it endlessly. Geryon snorted again, a puff of blue flame erupting from his nostrils, then he shoved his snout in Vergil’s palm.

Vergil smiled and ran his hand along Geryon’s neck, ignoring the slight burns from the mane. “Good. We’re honoured.”

“Talk for yourself,” Lady grumbled. “This is real fucked up, and I’m still shooting the moment something goes awry.”

“Of course.” Arguing with Lady would not change her mind. Half of her words were bluster, and the rest lay anchored in a stubbornness he suspected exceeded even Dante’s and his. Furthermore, he didn’t expect any needs of her shooting services. “For now, let us check his wounds, shall we?”

It evidently did not please Geryon to have two humans mess with the cut on his flank, but he nonetheless bent his knees and allowed them access. The great gash had bled into Lady’s bandage but had started healing well, perhaps aided by Geryon’s demonic powers. Griffon said he was still weak, however, and Vergil suspected the centuries trapped had a lot to do with his current status. Only time--the kind Geryon couldn’t cheat with--would solve this particular issue.

They would have plenty of it while he tried to figure out how to send the demon horse back to his world.

###

Every now and then, Lady stopped to reassess her current situation and life decisions. It was a habit she’d developed from decades by Dante’s side--things around him had a tendency to get out of hand, either because of power hungry demons or Dante’s own utter lack of shame. Whether it was being surrounded by a dozen flying snake demons in a crumbling watchtower or getting caught in a competition of sundae-cup pyramid stackings while drunk off her ass, she’d on occasion needed to stop and consider how, exactly, she had put herself in this particular position.

When it occurred to her she’d agreed to a board game with a drunken demonic bird while his human host searched for his katana, a shapeshifting panther trailing on his heels, Lady slammed the pause button hard and fast. Sure, she was bored and she couldn’t leave. Certainly, it would be unwise to leave Vergil alone with the Geryon and risk this entire encounter to be a complete farce, manufactured so she’d never unravel his real scheme (she doubted it; Vergil wasn’t that devious or intelligent). And, damnit, when Vergil had explained the rules to his “Sarya” game, he’d sure made it sound like it required such forethought and strategy as would make it impossible to win against him, so she’d had to take the bait. Then he’d ditched her to go looking for his fallen blade, the cat sliding under his feet to spare him too much of the walk with his broken ribs.

The game wasn't that complicated. She and Griffon rolled a pool of shared dice and picked in turn from it, trying to complete their respective game board. The board had restrictions on what could be placed, and each die you set down imposed further rules on which others could go around. That alone wouldn't have held much interest beyond the inherent puzzle, but if she placed her dice in a certain order and created predetermined patterns, she could trigger abilities, allowing her to steal dice from Griffon, pick twice from the pool, protect her own board, and so on. That was where all the fun was.

Especially since Griffon had exactly no strategy. He changed ideas a dozen times before picking his die ("This one! No, hey, what if I--Hm. I think…") and seemed to forget whatever his plans had been by the time his turn came up again. It'd have been infuriating if not for how hilariously drunk he was, and how expressive with each of his thoughts. Playing with him was like having a running commentary on everything she did ("And oooh she places a final 5, trashing poor old Griffon's play for good by stealing his best dice.") and every strategy she could adopt ("will she use the 1 to fill her difficult corner or to trigger the shield?"). In fact, Griffon probably paid more attention to her board than his, and she was increasingly certain Vergil had set her up for a tutorial run before they played, the bastard.

And indeed, he returned on Shadow’s form as the game moved into its final rounds, a long katana with a black and white grip in his hand. “I heard you were winning,”

“I’m half-convinced Griffon is letting me,” she said, picking a die from the pool.

“He wishes he was.” Vergil set the katana on his lap and started a careful examination of the blade, but a spark from Griffon interrupted him.

“Don’t tell her that!” He clacked his beak in what he must have hoped was menacing, but mostly managed to turn out endearing. “Just cause you can read it in my brain doesn’t mean you should share, paper boy!”

“That was an educated guess, Griffon, but thank you for confirming.”

They bickered for the rest of the game, the bird growing increasingly agitated while Vergil’s smirk only turned more smug. Lady could barely focus on her play. Vergil had no rights to have such an old-couple routine with his damn demons. The panther had curled at his feet and her patterns lit up at irregular intervals, usually matching one particularly witty reply. It was like intruding on a family reunion, and she hated how cozy it all felt. It was impossible not to warm up to them.

Then Griffon well and truly lost, and Vergil shooed him away, sitting cross-legged in his place. Sharp blue eyes met Lady’s gaze as he returned the dice in their opaque bag. The challenge in them hooked itself deep into her own competitiveness. He thought he was hot stuff at this game, didn’t he?

“Let’s see how you do against an opponent who’s not Griffon,” Vergil said, confirming her suspicion.

She smirked. “Let’s see how you do against an opponent who’s not Griffon.”

Griffon flapped his wings at her answer. “Oh hey, that’s really mean of y’all.”

“Get better, then,” Vergil declared, and he picked the bag and rolled the first pool of dice.

The bickering died with the start of the game. Vergil played in silence, his concentration absolute as he surveyed the dice and chose his next move. Every now and then he snapped at Griffon to hush, and Lady arched her eyebrows.

“Isn’t that cheating?” she asked.

“To your advantage, perhaps,” he replied. “He’s distracting me.”

Interesting. His concentration could be broken with ease, then. Lady filed that information for later and let the play unfold. The main difference between Vergil and Griffon was that the former managed to plan more than one move ahead, and he chained combos, placing one die that allowed him to filch others with which he messed with her board then protected his own. He didn’t taunt her, but every time he managed a clever sequence, he’d smirk and irradiate smugness. That was fine with her. They’d have ample time to play several games, so she could learn his tricks now and bide her time for later. She was playing for the future.

Lady let him win the first game and immediately asked for a rematch.

Then she went all in.

She upped her game, chaining abilities as he had the previous game, and before long a crease of worry barred his forehead. Griffon cackled and pecked at his knee playfully, eager to see Vergil lose. Lady leaned back, as relaxed as she could, and triggered the second axis of her strategy.

“You promised Geryon to bring it home. I thought you wouldn’t be opening new portals?”

His hands stopped, fingers hovering above the dice. “It would appear I will have to. Unless you can think of a better solution.”

“Where?”

“Why, do you want to visit?” He selected a die and slammed it on the board. “Here I thought you were eager to get rid of me.”

“Not so eager that I’d let a demon slip through my fingers,” she replied, snatching her own die from the pile. “Is there anywhere to visit, then?”

Vergil scowled at the question, clearly unwilling to answer, but unfortunately for him, he had a much more talkative companion. “Aye aye! We got a fancy cabin.”

“Griffon!” he hissed, but the bird only hopped and flapped his wings.

“What’s your problem? She’s a friend!” He hopped on Vergil’s knees then cocked his head and added in the whiniest of tones. “Ya never invite anyone home.”

Lady laughed at Griffon’s antics. “It’s your turn, Vergil.”

Surprise flicked through his expression and she silently cheered. He’d totally lost track of where he was in the game, flustered by Griffon’s exuberant oversharing. She stared at him hard until he hurried along and picked a die, slapping it on his sarya board.

“She is not a friend, Griffon. This is a temporary truce and nothing more.”

“Sure, paper boy,” he said. “You’re not enjoying this or anything.”

“That’s not the point!” he snapped.

He hadn’t wanted her to know about the cabin—about their home. Fuck, she hadn’t quite realized how dead on her family analogy was. It made sense. He needed somewhere to live, after all. Didn’t make her feel better about the idea, or about her surge of curiosity for it. She selected her die, set it down, and grinned at Vergil.

“It seems I get to steal one of yours.” She knew exactly which one would unravel all his work. Lady leaned forward, plucked it up in a great, dramatic gesture before placing it on her board. “And, oh, now I can select another from the pool—the last one, it seems. Round’s over, Vergil.”

Bonus: she had a solid board while his had just been destroyed. Lady smirked at him, meeting his furious glare with the smugness he’d displayed earlier. He gave her his score to note down but refused to add another word. No bother; she was more than happy to push this conversation further as he rolled the new pool of dice.

“Are you bringing the demon horse to your cabin, then?” she asked.

“I am. Until I can open the portal.” He added nothing, returning his full attention to the dice available. When she opened her mouth to speak again, he rose a hand, stopping her. Lady bit back her next question, certain it’d grow too obvious she was using them as a distraction if she pushed it now. Vergil selected his die, set it down on his board, then sighed. “It is not located close enough to a city center to pose a problem, so you need not worry about it.”

“What if I don’t want to take your word for it?” She tapped her fingers on the ground, advancing them upon the pool before deciding on her next move. “Maybe I want to see this through. I saved this horse as much as you did.”

“Don’t pretend you’re attached to him.” A thin smile curved his lips and he placed one die, silently pointed at his combinaison, which allowed him to move three of the dice on his board. Once he’d flicked them around, he had successfully accessed one extra placement--which in turn let him steal from her. She huffed as he did to her exactly what she’d inflicted upon him earlier and fucked over her current game. “You’re curious, aren’t you? One more piece to the puzzle I represent, one more element to the picture you’ve been trying to build ever since I woke up.”

“Ah!” Griffon exclaimed. “He got you there, missy!”

Lady rolled her eyes and selected her next move, rebuilding her strategy as fast as possible. “Whatever you want to believe. You’re not that mysterious, paper boy.”

They kept going, bouncing off each other through words and dice both, until the second round hit its end. Vergil had managed to close down a significant part of the point gap between them, but she didn’t see many options left for him and his board, whereas hers still offered several. His turns took more and more time, proof that he didn’t have an established strategy and needed to rethink every turn, and it provided her with the perfect opportunity to distract him. She turned to Griffon, pretending she addressed him instead of Vergil to allow him to focus.

“So why don’t you invite me over. Isn’t it your home, too?”

“Ooooh.” Griffon perked up, his entire plumage ruffling with pride. “Ya know, ya got a good point there! We live--”

“Griffon!” Vergil had been about to pick his die, but he brought it back to clamp it down on Griffon’s beak. “Perhaps we ought to discuss this privately?”

They fell silent, but their body language shifted with the ebbs of their conversation, stiffening or turning smug. Shadow growled more than once, even snapping her teeth at Vergil once, and the argument only grew more heated as time passed. She could almost (almost) feel sorry for the ongoing family drama, but she was convinced Vergil would have completely forgotten his plan by the time this was over. She leaned back, watching them with one eye while she reviewed her own strategy.

It took Nightmare's sudden appearance to put an end to their debate. The great demon morphed behind Vergil and set a spiky fist on his head while Griffon flew up, settling on their ridged head. Vergil huffed.

"Fine, whatever!" He ducked away from Nightmare, which only provoked snickering on Griffon's part, and his icy glare settled back on Lady. His next words came through gritted teeth, each taking a heavy toll on his poor dignity. "It appears I am outvoted. You would be most welcome at our shared cabin."

"How gracious."

She gestured at the dice pool with a smirk, and he filched one die from it and slammed it on a legal spot on his board. Lady's smirk widened. That was not the die he'd been about to select, and while not an awful move, it certainly wouldn't let him catch up in points. She went ahead and picked up his original choice from the shared pool--insurance in case he remembered. Pure horrified shock dawned on his face as he realized what had happened; it stayed only a second, quickly masked away, but she burst out laughing nonetheless.

"I suspect you lost this game, Vergil."

"You're devious," he hissed.

"And ruthless, thank you very much." She faked a bow; watching him seethe was too fun for her to fake an ounce of humility. "It appears you have a severe weakness in this game. Perhaps you can work on it before we next meet, at your cabin?"

He bristled--a full body movement from which she derived great joy. "Perhaps I can do so now. I concede this game, which would make us even. Care for a tie breaker?"

The storm outside raged on and they had plenty of time ahead of them. Lady matched his defiant smile with one of her own. "You bet."

Chapter Text

Summer was threatening to turn to fall when Lady finally visited their cabin. After another long debate, it had been decided to invite her when Vergil had figured out how to modify the sigils on the nearby Cerberus shrine and open a portal through which Geryon could pass. He had spent almost this entire time at the cabin and the collection of esoteric tomes on his shelves had doubled, if not tripled, but he'd finally found a solution to the most difficult challenge: how to keep the portal stable long enough for Geryon to cross. It wasn't elegant and he suspected it would leave him drained, which is why his invite for Lady had come under the shape of a contract. He might not be in a sufficiently good shape to protect himself should demons come through the portal, and if he paid her, then he could rest assured she would see to that particular problem.

He found himself eager to see her again. They had played Sarya until neither of them could keep track of dice and scores anymore. Griffon had fallen asleep a long time ago, yet when they'd started arguing about which of them had the most wins, Nightmare and Shadow were both adamant Lady had several more. It was preposterous, but Shadow started crawling up his arm, shoulder, and chest, sending increasingly long spikes into it until he confessed their tally to Lady. She'd laughed right in his face and told him he should train before their next meeting, because she certainly would. Unfortunately, his only partner was Griffon and he was not confident his skills had grown sufficiently.

Despite his eagerness for a rematch, Vergil would be sad to see Geryon go. Their relationship had remained strained through the months, yet under the horse's snorts of pride and continuous mockery of Vergil's lack of powers, they'd managed to find a middle ground. It'd become obvious Geryon needed to be fed, and as a full, physical demon, this meant regular supply of human blood. He'd grown fatigued and snippy without it, enough to threaten Griffon about "biting through his host again". While Vergil could do without having his arm reduced to pieces again, especially since the damn thing was still in a sling, he'd latched on Geryon's solution. They'd gone back to the city to read on blood transfusions, made a donation to witness the process, then stolen a whole bunch of equipment from the nurses. His first attempts had been messy and left him weak without significant results, but he eventually got the hang of it and managed to collect enough to feed Geryon every week.

That marked the first subtle shift in their relationship. Geryon still pranced around the cabin's yard and forest with his head held high and snickered at Vergil if he was around, but when he thought no one was looking, he created time bubbles and jumped through them, or pranced around the cabin shifting the passage of time behind his body, leaving tiny flames from his hooves stilled and motionless for a few seconds before they vanished. He was playing, Vergil realized, and he found ways to sneak upon Geryon to watch him experiment with his powers and get used to their full potential. It reminded him of hours spent training with the Yamato, judgement cuts fizzling and leaving scratches on rocks rather than slicing them clean, his frustration growing with every attempt until he snapped and used the sword proper to cut his target into pieces.

He would always wonder if that was what had happened, the night of the fire--if Geryon had been experimenting with his powers and things had gotten out of hands. He’d woken up in the middle of the night to Griffon’s panic and a fire blazing outside, climbing up several trees and threatening to spread deeper into the forest and the cabin. It’d been a dry week, and now blue flames licked the trunks and crawled across the ground on twigs and cracking leaves. Geryon stood by it, unfazed.

Vergil’s gaze snapped to the hose by the cabin’s side. It’d help if the fire got close, but it didn’t have enough length to douse the blaze climbing up the trees across the yard.

“It’s all burning! It’s over!” Griffon circled above his head, his wings flapping as fast as the thoughts through his brain. “Forest and home and cabin--we gonna lose it all. Lose it to some dumb horse!”

"Snap out of it, Griffon," he growled.

The bird’s thoughts crowded out his own, leaving him standing by the cabin’s door, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and his glasses, at a loss what to do. They had a fire to extinguish--fast. So, they needed to transport water. Or snuff it out with sand, but where would he get enough of that? And the fire was spreading at an alarming rate, jumping from one tree to the next.

"It’s burning!” Griffon cried. “Time! We need time!"

Vergil froze. He was right. That’s what they needed. He dashed off, rocks and twigs digging into his soles with every step. "Geryon!" he called, raising his arm to get the demon horse’s attention. "Freeze time over the fire!"

It got him no reaction. Geryon snorted and lifted his head, staring down at the puny human rushing for him. Vergil didn’t have time to negotiate. He called upon Nightmare, and the demon appeared midair, crashing down in front of Geryon with a great burst of demonic energy. The horse cantered back in surprise, closer to the fire.

"Freeze it," Vergil snapped, and Nightmare released another burst of power in sync with his words, pressing their strength against Geryon’s will. A huge time bubble appeared over the fire, freezing it in place. Relief washed over Vergil as the incessant flicker slowed. "You have my thanks."

He could breathe, now, at least. For how long remained unknown—it depended entirely on Geryon’s power and patience. Perhaps it’d be best not to test either. Vergil curled his toes in the dirt below, grounding himself, the first threads of a plan forming. He shared imagined water bomber planes with Griffon, cutting through his swirling panic to impose it. It earned him an immediate protest. Griffon dove down to snap his wings open right before his face and hover a foot away.

“I ain’t no snazzy water-dumping flyin’ machine. I’m all sparks, paper boy!” He let electricity course over his wings to needlessly prove his points.

Vergil pinched the bridge of his nose. “Indeed you are,” he said, and exposed the rest of his plan with a single memory.

It had been years since their first snowball fight, the very day they’d found this cabin. Griffon and Shadow had teamed up, and the latter had shaped herself in a gigantic tarp filled with snow. Griffon had grabbed the corners of it in his talons and flown her above Vergil, unleashing the heavy load of snow upon him. If they could feel Shadow with water…

“Ooooooooh,” Griffon let out. “Oh hey, I like that!”

Shadow emerged at his feet and shoved her massive body into his legs, emitting a low growl. Her doubts seeped through the link and Vergil dropped a hand on the top of her head.

“I understand it will stretch you thin, my friend, but we need you.”

Her head encased his hand in response, massaging it with tiny spikes before she climbed with both large paws on his shoulder and startled him with one big lick. A sharp chuckle escaped him; it’d been a long time since Shadow had allowed herself this sort of affection. He responded with a quick scratched behind her ear, and then they dashed for the cabin and the hose and set to work.

Geryon held the time freeze over the fire as long as he could. While the flames’ dance had been reduced to a slow and flaccid rhythm, Vergil filled up Shadow’s stretched out form as he would a water balloon. Griffon then snatched her corners and lifted her up, the frantic speed of his wings only equalled by the rapidity of his thoughts, split between how awesome they all were, and how imminently dead. They released three full Shadow-load of water into the time bubble before Geryon let go, dousing a huge amount of flames, and Nightmare punched and stomped down what remained, choking the oxygen away with their body. The gist of the fire turned to smoke under their assault, and they repeated the strategy several times over the next hour to control what was left. By the time only calcined trees and burnt grass was left, exhaustion had sank in Vergil’s every bone and his link with the tree familiars. He half-sat, half-collapsed on the yard between his cabin and the forest, limbs heavy, mind buzzing, and lungs burning from the smoke.

A snout nuzzled at his hair. He reached back with a tired smile, expecting Shadow’s spiking fur to meet his palm, and instead found Geryon’s wet nose. Vergil startled and turned around. The demon horse snorted, as if demanding respect or praise. After a moment of hesitation, Vergil clambered to his feet and placed his hands between Geryon’s eyes.

“It has been an honour to work with you tonight,” he said. The horse shook its mane with pride and Vergil struggled to keep his serious mask. Teenagers of all sorts loved to be treated with respect, it seemed. “You’ve earned your rest.”

And they had earned theirs. Griffon and Shadow had already slunk back into him, leaving only Nightmare, trampling through the words to stomp out the tiniest flame they could spot. Vergil gestured at Geryon’s favourite sleep spot, and it trotted there, head held high. Vergil dragged his feet inside, drank several glasses of water, then collapsed into bed. It took several hours of wracking cough before he finally managed to sleep.

###

This asshole sent her a date, coordinates, and a contract for protection against demons signed by “V”, but not another fucking word. Lady would’ve burned it, if the pay wasn’t so good. Not a word in months and suddenly he just assumed she could make it or even wanted to? Well, fuck that. And fuck him for being right.

Damn Vergil had left more of an impression on her than she cared to admit. She’d found her own copy of his game and taught Trish, who turned out to be either an absolutely ruthless and unbeatable opponent or an easy target, depending on her moods. Yet no matter how she played, any combos Lady pulled on her left her completely unfazed, and she missed Vergil’s silent seething when the game slipped through his fingers, or how he snapped and argued with Griffon’s suggestions to vent some frustration until Shadow or Nightmare intervened, playing peacekeepers.

Once, she fought a gigantic avian demon with Dante, a fiery bird with a long neck that didn’t resemble Griffon in any way, but which ruffled its feathers in the exact same offended way at Dante’s poor quips, and she’d found herself wondering if Vergil still bickered like an old lady with his bird. The distraction almost cost her a burned arm and she snapped out of it quickly, but even so.

She still hadn’t told Dante about her chance meeting, and she knew she wouldn’t. When the skies had cleared back at the shrine and they’d finally been able to leave, Vergil had stopped her, very quietly touching her forearm to draw her attention.

“Will you tell him?” he’d asked, and she’d had no need to ask who he was referring to.

“Depends. You want me to?”

Vergil had hesitated, doubts and longing shining through his normally carefully crafted mask. At length, he’d shaken his head. “I walk my own path now.”

And he’d done just that, walking off with his arm held tight by the sling against his chest, meagre pack slung over his shoulder, dark panther trailing by his side.

Lady didn’t owe Vergil shit. She could’ve told Dante anyway, but she was pissed at him for lying to her, and everyone--especially Nero. Kid barely talked to them anymore, and he’d have deserved the truth. No way in hell she’d be the one stirring that pot of family drama though. So instead she gave Dante a hard time for months, pretending nothing in particular had triggered it, and prayed she hadn’t misjudged Vergil and he wouldn’t blow half the world up again.

Nothing awful had happened so far, so she guessed she’d be settled soon.

The coordinates he gave didn’t even lead to his infamous cabin. She travelled down a valley, the punishing sun beating down on her for most of the path, until she reached the edge of a pine forest and slipped into the trees’ shade. She hated hot and humid days like these for hunting. Every leather strap and holster clung to her skin, and the Kalina-Ann turned hot even through her protective gloves. When the path dove deeper into the valley and a current of cool air snaked around her, refreshing her neck, she heaved a sigh of relief. Less than an hour later, she arrived at the jagged entrance of a cavern and found Vergil peering inside, his three-tailed coat discarded in favour of a lighter vest.

“You showed up.”

He sounded impatient, as if she was hours late for a rendezvous he’d never indicated a time for. She scoffed. “Might wanna give an hour if you’re gonna bitch about it.”

His head turned and she caught the hint of a smirk. “Must a simple statement of fact always irritate you so?”

“Make a fact sound like a reproach again, and I’ll put a bullet through your head.” She punctuated the threat with a quick spin of her gun and the click of its safety before stomping up to Vergil. “None of your friends around?”

“Inside.” He gestured at the darkened entrance. “It’s a complicated path during summer, so we’ve brought Geryon as close to the portal structure as possible immediately upon arrival. He prefers to stay out of the sun when possible.”

Lady had no idea what he could mean, but she cracked one of her glowsticks and headed in. “I’ll take it you don’t need me killing things until you open the damn portal?”

“No. The shrine itself is safe.”

He fell into line behind her, every stride graceful and calm. Lady lifted the glowsticks to get a better view as the daylight grew dimmer, her gaze racing across every detail it could spot. Three massive grooves had been carved long the passage’s ceiling, each engraved with different patterns--waves, flames, and electricity, she realized after a moment. They’d been familiar, and it struck her as she identified them that she’d been with Vergil the first time she’d laid eyes on them, too--they’d been in his notes.

“This is the Cerberus shrine,” she stated, stopping in her tracks and turning to him. “How’s that gonna help with Geryon?”

“I’ve… modified the runic pattern on its portal, so to speak. It is entirely experimental work, of course, but I’ve cross-referenced with as many other shrines as I could and I am fairly confident in the result. We should be capable of opening a short-lived Hellgate and allow Geryon to return home. It is not, however, a one-way road, and I fear demons on the other side may notice and come running. Hence your presence.”

“My presence is something you’d promised me, jackass. Ya ain’t doing me any favours.”

Vergil lifted his eyebrows and pinched his lips, pausing long enough to consider his answers. “Then I suppose if you intended to be here, you do not need pay.”

“Don’t even try,” she snapped, shaking the glowstick in his general direction. “I’m taking your money and there won’t be any weaseling out of it.”

He only shrugged in answer, so she continued down the path, trying to recall what he’d told her about this particular shrine. He’d first come here a few years ago during winter, as a whole third of the shrine remained inaccessible until the interior lake froze. He’d shown her a sketch of it and the thin path over the ice they’d taken to cross. When they reached the lake this time, she found a long rope with a flimsy raft attached to it and stopped dead in her tracks.

“You brought Geryon across in that?”

“Indeed. I’m afraid that single span of ten minutes undid all the trust we’d built over the last few months, but I had little choice. He is healthy and impatient, and I have no wish to proceed to this particular ritual during winter.” He strode passed her and hopped onto the raft, gloved fingers wrapping around the rope. “It’s a peaceful ride without an angry horse. You should sit and enjoy it.”

Lady rolled her eyes. She hadn’t come here to relax, but to kill demons. Still, she settled down cross-legged on the raft, the Kalina-Ann on her knees with the glowstick snapped to it and casting its blue glow about. The lake’s water splashed lazily against the raft as they slid across its surface. Nothing moved and darkness closed in on them from everywhere. Her grip tightened on the rocket launcher, each of her senses on high alert. She couldn’t relax, not when thick shadows surrounded them, holding unknown threats she might never detect in time.

“The shrine is empty,” Vergil stated. “I can still sense them through my three companions, and I assure you, we killed every lesser demon that had initially taken residence here.”

“I’m not gonna stake my life on your word, Vergil.”

And yet she sat on a raft he’d built, in the middle of an underground lake she’d only heard about through him, heavy from several weapons and all the corresponding ammunition. She allowed him to lead her stars knew where, all because he’d said that’s where Geryon and his demon companions were, despite the absolute lack of proof about it. She was staking her life on his word, whether she wanted to admit it or not. Vergil must have known, too, because he replied with a sing-song hm-hmm and she could feel his smirk without even turning around. A spike of frustration shot through Lady and she almost chucked the glowstick at him. Only the perspective of finding herself in complete darkness with nothing but Vergil to guide her senses stilled her arm.

Fuck, but she hated this asshole.

###

From the moment Lady arrived, Griffon started asking about her well-being through their link, then berating him for his curt “she looks fine” evaluation. He maintained he should inquire directly, as if he and Lady cared about each other enough for such niceties. If she had not been well, she wouldn’t have come. Besides, why would he want to know if anything was amiss? Her life did not concern him, and the likeliness of any problems being tied to Dante was far too high for him to risk the question. He much preferred the near silence in which they travelled. It was a welcome change from Griffon’s constant chattering--a fact he made sure to cast out through the link, earning him a slew of protest then the welcome silence of Griffon’s habitual sulking.

Lady relaxed as they arrived in the portal’s area, perhaps relieved at the two electric lanterns he’d set on the ground and the flickering light from Geryon’s blue flames. Griffon flew at her with a loud caw-ha, sending a flurry of sparks at her feet to “test her demon hunting reflexes”. It earned him the exact same number of bullets, all carefully aimed to send a feather flying yet never hit where it’d truly hurt. He cackled at the retaliation and landed on her shoulder, declaring her in fine form. Geryon had snickered at the gunshots, startled by the sudden noise. Between the long lake and these unwelcome sound, he must quickly be losing patience.

“Let us start,” Vergil declared, striding to the altar.

He had reinscribed several runes on it, channeling the three-pronged energy ritual into a spell of his own rather than the calling of a Cerberus demon. The cult had fuelled their ceremony with a heavy blood sacrifice--more than he could give under any circumstances--but with some tweaking, he could manage with any form of demon power. The portal should open yet never call to demons on the other side, leaving it empty for Geryon.

In theory, anyway. Vergil preferred not to dwell on the many ways practice could go wrong.

Vergil stared at the altar in front of him one last time. The stone sculpture had three bowl-like structures, each inscribed with the stylized symbols of waves, flames, and lightning the cult had engraved everywhere in the shrine. They formed a triumvirate connecting to the center, a smooth stone slab upon which the human sacrificed had been tied. Even now, traces of the dried blood from their ritual still stained the stone. Vergil ran his fingers over them, then set to work.

He filched a bottle of water from his bag and poured its content into the first bowl, and the wave pattern lit in blue lines so pale they’d almost turned white. Relief threaded itself through Vergil--at least he hadn’t misunderstood that part--and he moved to the second bowl, placing dried grass and a piece of wood into it, then striking a match and setting these on fire. The bright orange light startled him--it shone far stronger than the ice bowl had.

Vergil watched it spread along the flame engravings, then he climbed upon the stone slab. Despite the scalding weather, the cave had remained cool, and he could feel the cold through his boots. It was time. His heart pounded and his agitation spread to his familiars. Shadow paced closer, circling the altar with a low growl, and Nightmare’s purple eye shone redder, as if warning him. He’d never explained the plan to them, but they had shared his thoughts as he devised a way to draw upon their collective power to fuel the portal and their opinion of it was fairly universal. Griffon made a point of voicing it one last time.

“Ya sure this is a good idea, paper boy?”

Vergil smirked. Geryon trotted closer, impatient.

“Not at all, Griffon,” he replied. “You know what you have to do.”

“Wait, wait, what’s the--”

Lady didn’t finish, or he never heard her. Griffon zapped the last bowl and as purple light coursed down the bolt patterns, the entire altar sprung to life. A cold power climbed through Vergil’s boots, threading itself in his bones and muscles, clawing its way up his legs, into his belly and chest and heart. He gasped and his legs buckled, but the ritual’s magic held him frozen there, strained and in pain but standing as it reached his head and agony slammed through his skull exploded, turning his vision into shards of ice-white, bright orange, and deep purple. At first his entire body buzzed from the intense power, his skin crackling with it, the shock spreading even through the link. The power swirled around his heart, squeezing tighter and tighter, draining everything it could from the rest of him, leaving ears deaf and fingers numb, obliterating his very sense of self and space.

He was nothing. A source. A threshold for others. A gate.

The demon world reached for his heart. He was alone with it, all alone.

Vergil!

A voice, human. Wrong world. He needed to reach, to extend himself.

Paper boy! V! This isn’t--

The second voice vanished as the force holding him touched Hell, and his entire world exploded in pain.

###

“Vergil!”

What the fuck. What the actual fuck?

Why the ever loving fuck had Vergil climbed on that altar if it meant to eat him alive? The moment Griffon had hit it with a bolt, three spikes of energy had jammed themselves through his legs--one for each element, because of course--and then the corresponding lights had climbed up his body and staked itself into his heart. He’d screamed, a whole fucking agony-scream, worse than the horse chomping down his entire arm, but he was still standing there, held tight by the energy.

And as if that wasn’t fucking alarming enough, Nightmare spazzed and melted into the ground. Only it didn’t look voluntary, more like they were clawing at it to hold back and just got sucked right into Vergil. They’d barely vanished when Shadow’s plaintive meow filled the whole cavern. Griffon smashed into the ground, his flight fucked over by obvious pain, and with a pitiful squawk he was gone.

Leaving her alone with a rearing, angry horse. Whatever the fuck was happening had Geryon stomping and neighing, and boy she was not loving it any more than he was. She slung the Kalina-Ann into her hands and aimed it at the altar. Whatever the plan, it’d been a fucked up, shitty one, and she was putting an end to it.

Vergil threw his head back, and the three beams of energy shot out of his mouth, arcing in the air and spreading out to form a triangular portal, fire and water on the ground, lightning on top. In the bright light emanating from the portal, she caught sight of flakes drifting out of Vergil’s skin.

Just like V had, when his power had been running out.

“Fuck this bullshit,” she said aloud. “Geryon, that’s your door. Last chance to go home, horsie!”

The demon world looked like shit, truly. Greyish landscape of jagged cliffs wavering in the portal, which still held Vergil in place. She wouldn’t want to go, but Geryon had trotted closer, calmer now than he’d been two minutes ago. He stopped at the edge of it and snorted. Actually fucking turned its head to look at Vergil, and the flames of his mane flickered, growing dimmer. She really needed to stop every damn demon to grow sentimental or some shit.

“Fucking go, you damn horse! I’ll pass your thanks along!”

Lady had no idea if he understood a single word, but he neighed softly then walked into the demon world, crossing without further hesitation. The moment his fiery tail was all through, she hit her trigger and blasted the entire altar under Vergil’s feet. He went flying as the portal fizzled out… and then that wild energy exploded in turn, and the shockwave hit her hard. Pain jolted through every muscle as she was shoved back and hit the closest wall hard. Her head smacked against the stone.

The cave rumbled as sparks flew before her eyes. She lost sense of time, the world groaning and cracking around her, crumbling as she struggled to fight off the pain and dizziness. Minutes passed, or maybe hours. Her mouth was dry, her back hurt like hell, and she’d never hated Vergil more than in this instant. As soon as she could move, she was putting a bullet through his head. She hoped he was alive to receive it.

Her vision cleared, leaving her staring at clouds of dust through which the faint light of her glowstick was her only guide. She crawled towards it and the Kalina-Ann, gritting her teeth against the pain in her back. She’d hurt for months and she knew it. Vergil better pay up for the additional damage. Wherever he was. Lady sat and coughed into the crook of her arm, each wracking movement setting the muscles along her spine on fire. She bit back a scream or a sob--or both, really--then lifted the glowstick.

Part of the cavern had collapsed, but judging from the scrapes of altar left and Vergil’s position, she managed to orient herself enough to determine the exit hadn’t closed on them. Good. She didn’t want to linger in this shit place a minute more than necessary. Lady used the Kalina Ann for support as she lumbered to her feet and trudged towards Vergil’s prone form. His glasses had shattered and blood had run down his nose and caked his lips and cheeks, but apart from those and the brittleness of his skin in places, he’d seemed miraculously devoid of major injuries. Lady wiped her hand on his vest, removing the little flakes of skin where she’d touched him to examine his head. This was a whole new layer of fucking disgusting.

“You owe me, asshole,” she muttered. “Always checking out on me and shit. Don’t expect sausages when you wake up this time.”

She ought to move. Her head was ringing and if she’d gotten a concussion, getting sleepy and laying down here might kill her. But damn, she didn’t know if she had the strength to drag Vergil with her. Lady put this day down as one more occasion she wished she had Dante’s demon healing and strength, then staggered back to her feet. She always managed some other way, didn’t she? With slow and careful movements, she removed the bayonet from the Kalina-Ann’s wire, then tied the line around Vergil’s waist. She used the emergency bedroll she’d packed to cushion his head, then headed off towards the raft, letting the wire slack and elongate with every new step.

Lady made it to the water’s edge before she ran out of wire. She planted the Kalina-Ann into the ground with all her meagre strength, groaning at the strain on her back, then dug her heels in and hit the winding mechanism. The wire looped on itself as it returned to the rocket launcher, dragging Vergil across the stone floor. She held on tight to keep the Kalina-Ann from flying in Vergil’s direction instead, hissing as every new second amplified the pain in her back. Then Vergil was at her feet again, the wire tight across his chest.

“That’ll leave a mark, but don’t you dare complain,” she told him.

Dragging him onto the raft was equally a struggle, as was every minute pulling them back along the rope, truly alone in the darkness of this shrine, her earlier worries kept at bay only by the much more immediate pounding in her head. What a shit day. She had to do the wire trick three times again before she’d finally reached the cavern’s edge and discovered night had fallen. Just great.

But even worse than that: Lady remembered this fucker had never given her the coordinates to his cabin. She could either ditch him and try to make her way back to the city, several hours of grudging climb out of the valley, or she could stick by his side and hope he wouldn’t be out for thirty hours again. Lady stared at the path long and hard, then collapsed on the ground by Vergil side. She closed her eyes, giving way to the exhaustion seeping through each of her muscles. At least she was out of the dusty, shitty shrine-cave.

“If I die here, I’m still coming back to shoot you.”

Chapter Text

“Hey. Hey Lady. C’mon, little lady, please don’t be dead. You can’t be dead. Just… wake up all right? Ya gotta wake up!”

The distant voice irritated her. Couldn’t it shut up and leave her in peace? Her head was pounding and every damn word it uttered just added to the headache.

“She’s dead. She’s totally dead! And then V, and then me! There’ll be only ol’ Griffon left on shreds of power. We’re all dead!”

He cawed, and that single sound sent a lance of pain through her skull.

“Fucking shut up already,” she snapped, her mouth dry and her voice weaker than she wished. Pain bloomed through her back as she drifted into full consciousness and remembered what had led her here. Vergil and his damn plans.

“You’re alive!” Griffon half-exclaimed, half-squawked.

A breeze blew across her face as he flew above her and she forced her eyes open. Even in the dim pre-dawn light, she could immediately tell he was badly off. Feathers stood every which way, his plumage had lost all its luster, and he held his head weird, as if he preferred to tilt it to one side.

“You look like shit,” she said.

“Well, right back at ya,” he countered, dropping on the ground by her side and folding his wings, as if tucking his whole body in. “I feel like it. Ain’t much energy to go around, and I’m wastin’ it being here. But you’re alive! That’s good, real good, maybe we ain’t all gonna die. You just gotta bring us home.”

That meant moving. And carrying Vergil. Just about the last thing she wanted to do right now, but she pushed herself back to her feet, ignoring the screaming in her muscles. Vergil probably had a bed in that cabin, and she was claiming it if she could.

“How far?” she asked, looking down at Griffon.

“An hour! Just a tiny hour.” He took off, his flight erratic and exhausted. “At, huh, normal speed anyway. We ain’t gonna be going that fast, will we?”

“Not a chance in hell. But whatever.”

She hurt all over, but she didn’t quite feel as drained out as earlier. Lady dug through her pack and got her waterskin out, quickly downing most of the water. Even that little bit of hydration cleared her head, so she unfurled the Kalina-Ann’s wire from Vergil’s body, slung the rocket launcher on her back (fucking ouch), then lifted this damn fool. Her legs screamed at the effort, but she’d climbed the Temen-ni-gru with worse.

“I’ll get there, however long it takes,” she promised Griffon.

The gruelling trek made her regret that promise.

The sun had risen by the time the cabin emerged from the trees and Lady dragged her feet inside. Griffon started speaking nonsense about demon power and human blood and Vergil, but by now his words entered through one ringing ear and left through the other. She dumped the still-unconscious Vergil on a couch, climbed the ladder to the mezzanine with the bed, and collapsed shamelessly into it.

Griffon was laying in wait when she woke up around sunset, and unfortunately her mind could now make sense of his words. She pointedly ignored him anyway, rummaging through the kitchens for shit to eat. She stole his milk and cereal and found herself another seat in the living room, by the cold fireplace. Vergil’s skin wasn’t flaking anymore, at least, though Griffon didn’t look any better now than he had some twenty-four hours earlier. Lady crunched down on her cereal, and when he asked her for the fourteenth time if she was even listening to him, she declared through a full mouth.

“Now I am.”

She wished she hadn’t. He promptly attempted to convince her that the only way for Vergil to regenerate the demon power he’d fed the portal was for him to drink human blood, and that they happened to have all the necessary equipment because he’d kept Geryon fed in that fashion, too. Which was real fucked up, but whatever floated his boat. She sure hadn’t signed up for this vampire bullshit and Vergil would have to take the long route and sleep it off.

She lived on his food, painkillers, and collection of arcane tomes for three days before Griffon's guilt trip and obviously deteriorating condition got to her. It was one thing to let Vergil heal in his own time, and quite another to watch Griffon get thinner and less lively, for his squawking to turned into pathetic squeaks and his wings to have gone a dull, dead blue. She'd already put too much time and effort into this absurd demon family to watch it perish, sunk cost fallacy be damned. Plus she wouldn't get paid at all if Vergil never woke up.

Lady dug up all the blood donation equipment and after a few missed tries, she plugged herself in and let her blood flow. It sounded like a shit plan, bound to kill him further, but Griffon insisted they'd done it with one of Qliphoth's blood clots, and if that disgusting shit hadn't murdered him with one infection or another, then her own blood should be fine. Lady watched the pouch fill up before tearing the needle out of her. She did her best not to think about what she was doing as she sat Vergil half-up, set the pouch to his lips, and forced that bullshit down his throat.

Griffon had perched on the couch by Vergil’s shoulder, and as his host absorbed the blood, his plumage regained its blue shine. He set a spark flying up with a crackling laugh, hopping in place and flapping his wings as if overtaken by too much energy. Then Shadow emerged from Vergil, shaking herself before pushing her massive body against Lady’s legs. By the time the blood pouch was empty, the patterns on the great panther shone a healthy magenta. Shadow jumped up and set her paws on Lady’s shoulder, and Lady’s heart jumped into her throat--until the thick tongue licked her cheeks. A startled laugh escaped her and she set a hand on Shadow’s neck, too stunned to speak.

“That’s a thank you,” Griffon needlessly translated. “Really helps. Nightmare’s well enough to pump some healing back into him, too.”

“So… he’ll wake up soon?”

Griffon answered first with a lazy flap of his wings. “No clue. We’re flyin’ in blind with this one!” He hopped on Vergil’s head, and the additional weight caused him to slide down from his sitting position, back into the couch. “Ya stayin’ with us longer, ain’t ya?”

“Sure am. This asshole hasn’t paid me yet.”

Not to mention she was feeling a little woozy from the blood loss, and her back still hurt like hell. Griffon cackled at her answer, then flew off. He came back a minute later with the board game in his claws, and Lady laughed but allowed herself a few games. She could use a little warm-up before Vergil regained consciousness.

When Lady went to bed that night, Shadow curled up at her feet, covering most of her legs. The weight and warmth surprised her and she almost shooed the big cat away--this was all a lil’ too much demon-loving for her taste. But they weren’t just any demons: they were Vergil’s, and damnit, they’d really grown on her. Lady set aside her protests and mumbled goodnight wishes.

###

Something warm and thick trickled down his chin.

He became aware of it before anything else--before the forced swallows, the curses of a familiar voice, the talons digging in his shoulder and cold fingers holding his head tilted backward. Before the stickiness of his hair on his forehead, the worn down couch under him or the breeze from open windows.

Something warm and thick trickled down his chin, and as he reached for his slow consciousness and heavy limbs to wipe it away, a rough cloth did it for him as if he was a child who’d never learned to eat properly.

Vergil’s eyes snapped open, embarrassment burning through him. It only flared brighter as he met Lady’s mismatched eyes. She snatched both of her hands back, releasing his chin but freezing while holding the bloodied cloth.

Wait. Blood?

Vergil’s gaze found the pouch on her lap, half-emptied, then the bandaid on her arm and the used needle and tube nearby, and his mind pieced together what had happened there, what he’d been drinking. His lips parted but no words followed, only a strangled, shamed croak. He wished he could melt into the couch, or that the shame burning through him would actually consume his physical form and vanish him from here. Vergil turned away, cheeks flushed, and Lady’s chair rattled as she did the same.

Griffon’s mocking cackle broke the awkward silence between them. “Now ain’t that cute!” he declared, taking off from Vergil’s shoulder to circle above their heads.

They were in the cabin--home. Safe. Vergil couldn’t remember most of the ritual and he felt like each of his muscles had turned to stone. He reached for his bonds with all three familiars, the only source of demonic power he’d had left, and his shoulders sagged with relief when Nightmare, Shadow, and Griffon all responded to his silent inquiries. Everyone was all right.

“Ya got Lady to thank for that. We’d be toast if she hadn’t force-fed you that blood.”

Vergil closed his eyes, fighting off waves of nausea at the idea. He hated it--hated how it made him feel like an animal and how he’d been left at her complete mercy on this couch. He never wanted anyone to see him in this state. But it was too late, wasn’t it? He gripped the couch and cleared his throat, but before he could utter a word, his stomach clenched hard and grumbled.

“Nothing’s cooking for Your Majesty this time,” Lady snapped. “Do your own sausages, why don’t you?”

Her anger grounded him, like an immediate return to normal. It dragged a smile out of him and Vergil shook his head. He really couldn’t keep himself conscious around her, could he? And somehow that felt hilarious, like fate would keep playing this trick on him and there was nothing he could do about it except laugh. So he did, in low chuckles at first, but as his body shook with it and his head turned lighter, these became a full blown laughter he had no idea how to stop. His ribs hurt from it and tears pearled in his eyes, but Vergil kept going, ignoring the worried prodding of his familiars. He’d gone all the way past exhausted and ashamed to hysterical relief.

When the mood passed, he flopped down on the couch and sighed. “My apologies. I…”

“Whatever,” Lady interrupted, springing to her feet. “God I hate you. Nothing’s ever simple or normal when you’re around. You better pay me extra. A fuckton of it.”

Vergil turned his head and stared at her. Was that why she’d stayed? To get her money? He’d have gotten it to her eventually, whether she’d vanished or not. He pinched his lips and considered his next words carefully, balancing wounded pride and secret needs.

“With what I now owe you, I may need a payment plan,” he said. It was an open door, and his three familiars tensed at it, their hope filling the collective bonds. They liked her, too. Vergil wondered if she realized it and would notice the opportunity.

Lady scoffed and set a hand on her hip. “Don’t worry, I’ll come and collect as often as I need. I don’t let debts go unpaid.”

Vergil couldn’t help his smile. His brain was too fried from the strange awakening and the last days (weeks?) to bother hiding his satisfaction for now. He pushed himself back up, then attempted to stand, but his legs turned to wool the moment he put any weight on them. As they gave in and Vergil started falling back, Shadow slunk in behind him, catching him before he fell and slowly lowering him into the couch again before reforming as a panther on his lap. He rested a hand on her body, running his fingers over her slick fur and tracing the pattern.

“I’m afraid I may need longer to recover,” he said. “Griffon?”

He didn’t need to complete his request--his mind had been on fruits, and Griffon would know. The bird scoffed, but he must have been worried, because he flew towards the kitchen with nothing but a quick “Barely up and already bossing us around, huh?”--which, coming from him, amounted to ‘welcome back’.

Vergil closed his eyes and tried to find his bearings again. He must have been out for a while because he felt as if every ounce of him was out of sync with the world, as if his entire body had been stretched thin then snapped back into place. The sense of unreality tugged at him, fogging his brain and making long coherent thoughts difficult. He hoped it’d pass with proper rest and time, but he still needed to function for now.

“Geryon said thanks, though not in so many words. Oh, and your glasses were fucked.” Lady sat back down in the nearby chair, and the table’s legs rattled as she dragged it closer. When he heard the characteristic sound of a dice pouch, Vergil had to fight his smile. “Now you’re all caught up, we got a few games to play.”

He cracked his eyes open, eyebrows raising. “I may indulge you, but as I am still reeling from my recent recovery, I do not think any of your victories should be counted.”

She snorted and extended his board to him. “I’m dizzy from blood loss, so you can shove your excuses up your ass, Vergil. A win’s a win.”

Vergil clamped his fingers on the board and set it down on the table. Knots in his stomach unwound as he reframed his mind around sarya strategy and the coming battle of wits.

“Very well,” he said, “I accept your challenge.”

As they rolled the first pool of dice, Vergil found himself wishing Lady would stick around the cabin for a while, even though she’d have no reason to soon enough, and plenty of other jobs waiting for her. She was rude and abrasive, but he liked her company and how she kept him on his toes. Even if she left, however, she had already promised to come back, so he would always have that to look forward to in-between his shrine hunting. It was a strange thought, that he had made a friend out of Lady--stranger still that he even considered calling her such. Yet it was comforting, too, and over the course of the last years Vergil had learned to let such truths stand within him without fighting them.

He watched the first dice fall on the table and set his thoughts aside. There would be ample time to contemplate the consequences of this relationship later. For now, he required the use of his limited concentration for this game. Vergil glanced at his board, considered his options, and snatched a first die from the pool. Lady had already made her pick and dove for hers right after.

By the time they stopped playing and accepted their tie, the sun had long since set, and the grayish light of dawn peeked through the windows once more.