Chapter Text
She smells the smoke before feeling even a lick of heat on her skin.
Amongst silk sheets and a dark room, this woman lays in her bed. Being pulled out of sleep wasn’t unexpected; she has twin sons to look over. One in particular, the younger one, really loves not sleeping through the night.
But this, of course, wasn’t one of her sons.
‘Smoke…’
She shoots up, golden tresses falling around her face.
The boys!
“Vergil! Dante!” she cries as she jumps out of bed.
Eva Sparda runs from the master bedroom, mauve nightgown kicking with her sprinting as she dashes towards the nursery. Now in the hall, she can hear the clear crackling of a fire. A threatening orange glow illuminates the wood, and Eva knows if she doesn’t get downstairs soon the floor will collapse under her feet.
The closer she runs towards the room of interest, the louder she can hear her precious boys screaming for their mother. Not literally, they’re still babies. Her heart palpitates, the double wailing continuous.
She wrenches open the door to the nursery, running inside. The wailing of small ones clearly rings into the air now, even tears pricking at her eyes.
“Mama is here. Mama is here,” Eva comforts, rushing over. She grabs Vergil first, as he is the closest. She shushes them continuously, grabbing Dante next. The two white-haired babies just keep wailing, even with their mother comforting them. She holds them close in a gentle but ironclad grip, hurrying down the stairs.
Downstairs, it’s absolute pandemonium.
Fire rages, licking up the curtains and anything else it can get its hands on. It’s bright, so bright , and hard to breathe.
Smoke. Right.
Eva gets as low as she can, knowing she can’t crawl with twins in her arms. She still tries to shush them, kissing their temples and mumbling soothing words. They’d get out soon. She can see the nearest door to the outside. It’s wide open, practically baiting for her to come closer.
But wait.
Why is the door open?
Eva gasps, yelling out as her hair is suddenly yanked. The boys wail even louder if that’s possible, making her ears ring.
Humid breath hits her neck, something slimy and cold hitting her back. She doesn’t have to turn around to know what is holding her.
Demons.
Eva cries out once more as she’s pulled back, getting further and further from freedom.
“No! No! ” she cries, struggling against the demonic hold. The clutch is relentless, and Eva is helpless to save herself and her children as she’s suddenly chucked.
Her boys fall from her arms, but instead of hitting the floor, they are grabbed by the very demon which grabbed her. Eva hits the floor with a sick crack, and in that moment she knows she’s broken her arm. She’s disoriented from the hard fall, head fuzzy as she tries to regain her footing.
Crying of her twins reminds her why she was running, and she gets up as quickly as she can.
“Let them go!” she cries. “Give me my sons back!”
The demon easily evades her advancement, another demon appearing from the smoke and ash. Eva doesn’t relent, even with her one arm numb and unmoving. The ceiling above crackles, support beams beginning to fall. Her boys just keep crying, unable to do anything for themselves.
More and more demons appear from the fire, beginning to surround her.
Eva is unafraid, only livid.
She lets out a cry of rage, picking up the first thing she can. A stool, which she holds up defensively with her good arm.
“Give me back my sons! You bastards!” she yells. A voice which would haunt her speaks, it’s voice like rocks falling in a drainpipe. It comes from the demon holding her sons.
“Mundus wishes for them to be alive. Feel fortunate, Mate of Sparda. Your sons will become great heirs to Hell.”
‘Mundus? No.’
‘No.’
‘No, nononono.’
A frightening, bone chilling howl leaves Eva’s throat, rage upon her facial features as she throws the stool towards one of the demons. It’s a fruitless attempt, only making the demons enraged.
“Take care of her. Mundus is expecting them.”
Eva screams, yells, cries her son's names as the other demons take her upon the hair, the clothes, the limbs. She begins to get dragged away, but the mother wrestles against them.
“VERGIL! DANTE!”
Eva is once again thrown like a ragdoll, hitting the wall. A squeal of pain leaves her lips, breathless as she feels her spine crack.
The other demons don’t speak, only hisses and snarls leaving their maws. Eva feels more tears fall from her face, trying to move.
She can’t move.
Why can’t she move?
She tries, tries, tries.
A demon’s claws reach up, and fall.
Sparda, her dearest love. Her boys, Vergil and Dante, who she promised she’d protect with her life. Flash, flash .
Eva knows no more.
Hell is strangely beautiful. White grass, red soil, waterfalls and stretches and stretches of hills, mountains, and plenty of other unique flora and landscapes. There is of course fauna as well, but the fauna is all rather deadly.
A crack in the dimensions, which only happens every few years and only with special conditions, allowed many demons to escape on this perilous night.
And Mundus, the King of Hell, allowed his subjects to go on a joyride. If, and only if , they brought back cargo with them.
The sons of his most hated adversary. The sons of the demon which caused this split between human and demon in the first place.
The Sons of Sparda.
Vergil and Dante.
He senses their presence even now upon his throne of bones, and without hesitance, meets the demon which brought them back.
Said demon stops once three red eyes appear in the distance. Lightning crackles between them, glaring down upon the kidnapper.
“King Mundus,” the demon croaks. “I have brought what you requested. Sparda’s mate is also no more. I wish for my reward, your majesty.”
The high demon maliciously grins.
Once upon a time, Mundus wanted nothing more than the sons to be destroyed. He abhorred their very existence, wishing nothing but for them to be wiped from existence. But the night before tonight, a thought occurred to him.
A particularly dreadful thought. A sickening musing that brought him great, awful joy.
“I must reward you, then.”
The demon keeps it’s head bowed as the boys are taken away. As soon as the sons are out of reach, lightning crackles. Thunder booms. An incredibly large fist swings down.
And the kidnapper is no more.
No one demands from the demon king.
Days later, and the spawn won’t. Stop. Crying .
Mundus thinks he might go mad. But instead of giving up on his plan, he instead channels all his energy into something else. Mundus is a brilliant mind, after all. Even if power hungry.
He holds out his massive palm, energy crackling around his hand until it conjoins together in the center.
In a bright flash of color, a woman kneels in his giant palm.
She looks exactly like Eva.
Her head is bowed, forehead nearly touching his palm as her long, golden hair brushes upon his skin. She wears a long black dress with gold detailing and red shrug; a dress Eva loved when she was alive.
“You will take care of the spawn. See to it that they are taken care of until they can begin to train. Your name is now Trish.”
“Yes, master,” Trish replies obediently. She turns, jumping off his palm and easily landing on her feet like a cat. She stalks off, Mundus watching with a glower.
The castle has a specially made room for the twins. Trish enters said room, pushing the large doors open. Inside, a bassinet lays in the middle of the room. There isn’t much else inside, not even toys. Only an ornate chest, which holds supplies, which sits alone at the wall under a lone window. Otherwise, there’s just two wailing boys, crying for milk and their mother.
Trish sighs, already knowing what to do. After all, Mundus gave her all capabilities of a human mother.
She walks up to them, hesitating before letting a delicate hand approach one twin. Dante, she thinks he is. The moment her skin touches his, Dante calms as if the continuous storm has finally started to separate. His wide, doe-like blue eyes open, tears still streaking down his chubby cheeks. He stares at Trish, bottom lip trembling. Vergil, sensing his twin’s calm, also manages to open his eyes.
The two stare at Trish, almost unblinking. If she wasn’t a demoness, maybe she’d be a little unsettled. Instead, she allows them to just stare at her.
After a moment’s silence, it’s like the storm has broken apart completely. Dante is the first to turn his mood around, little hands reaching as a giggle leaves his lips. While Vergil isn’t as open as his twin, his tears have at least dried and he seems in a better mood.
She picks up Dante first after shifting her dress. She allows him to suckle from her nipple, which he does greedily. Once he finishes, and she’s burped him, she does the same for Vergil. Evidently, these two haven’t had a meal, their last probably hours before they were taken here.
Trish takes care of changing them as well. A bath might suffice soon, but not right now.
Finally, having been taken care of, the twins sleep without restlessness.
Several days earlier…
“There’s a woman here!”
What would be soon known as The Red Grave City Massacre ravaged through the streets of the city hours ago. Now, emergency services sort through the city, collecting bodies and putting out fires. Many become sick from the gorey sights, even the most seasoned professionals. No one really knows how so many people—hundreds, almost thousands—of people were killed in just one night.
Sure, there are rumors. Rumors of demonic monsters, which sliced and diced and ate as they blew their carnage through. But not a lot of people believed the witnesses.
And now we come to here. A fireman, who enters the now charred manor after the department doses the last licks, finds the remains of a woman. He has no tears to cry, he doesn’t know her, but he still can’t help but feel sorrowful that this innocent woman was caught in whatever hellish event happened last night.
He racks his brain for her identity, as he’s heard of this place before. But nothing comes to mind.
“Who was she?” another fireman asks. The original one shrugs, a somber expression on his face.
“Guys, I think you should all come see this.”
The other two firemen join a third, who is hunched over a pile of wood and metal. The two men wince after joining their teammate, even more sorrow pinching their faces.
“Do you think…?”
“I see no bones…”
As for what is in front of them, are remains of two cribs and baby toys.