Chapter Text
“So what exactly is this thing?” Nero asked, trudging along behind Dante, but slightly abreast of Vergil. It was strange being so near to him, yet still so far away; the brothers hadn’t been back from the underworld for very long, but in that time, Nero had found himself their near constant companion. For him and Dante, it was like putting on a well-worn shirt, familiar and comfortable, and missed. With Vergil, his father, though? His real, living, breathing, scowling father? The man had said perhaps ten words to him and he hadn’t smiled once. In comparison, Dante had regaled him with stories of battles and treks across the Underworld, laughing as he talked about cutting down the remnants of the tree, banishing demons left, right, and center.
“I got my ideas, kid, but no way to know for sure until I lay eyes on it,” Dante said, cutting across his thoughts. “Locals report some gross-lookin freak with way too many legs, so I figured, it’d either a job for us, or someone’s bat-shit insane.”
“Has it attacked anyone?”
“Nope,” the older hunter said, as they picked their way deeper into the light woods just outside the city. “Sightings only.”
Vergil made a noise that Nero might have called a “tch” and he glanced over at him. Things had been icy between them, since he returned, but comfortable, by and large. Dante had done his best to both cover for his brother but also make no excuses. He was usually the first to call Vergil a royal pain in the ass, a stuck up bitch, or a pampered princess, or all three, depending on what the situation called for.
“Something to add?” Nero asked, one eyebrow raised at the older man. Vergil’s nose wrinkled, slightly. While, according to Dante, his time as V softened some of his more razor-like edges, Vergil was still all bones and bristles.
“Only that we may be chasing some human’s boogie man, or nothing at all, based on my brother’s need to be humanity’s wet-nurse,” he said, smoothly enough. Nero wondered, bitterly, if he rehearsed his lines, he delivered them with such efficiency and brutality. Vergil’s tongue was an ice-whip, and he wielded it with next to no deference as to who it hurt or when.
“I thought the same thing about some story about a spoiled brat who wanted to plant an evil tree, but aren’t we all glad I didn’t go with my gut on that?” Dante called, having advanced further than the two.
Can’t argue with that, can you, asshole? Nero thought, watching Vergil’s scowl deepen. Dante kept his older brother on a short leash, or at least as much of a leash as Vergil would deign himself to wear. As much as Vergil would say he needed no one, he didn’t care, and he acted as if all that were true, he still hadn’t cut a hole in time and space with Yamato and disappeared into nothingness. Still, that fact did little to curb Vergil’s acerbic nature.
Their demon-stalking took them deep into scrubland just outside of Fortuna. It was like an in-between, where the paved roads of the city met the wilderness. There were patches of grass, but mostly grey-brown dirt and stones. The further they went, away from the city and nearer to the wilderness, the more uneven the terrain And the more uneven the terrain, the more Nero thought he heard his biological father grumbling.
“Perhaps,” the Alpha and Omega said, clearing his throat just after they had to navigate their way down a steep-embankment. “We could hasten this excursion by splitting up? Covering more ground and finding the beast before we have to spend too much longer in this wretched country – ”
“Fan out the search in three directions instead of one?” Dante asked, pausing to regard his brother. “Doesn’t sound too crazy when you put it that way, but there is an even simpler way to make this hunt go faster.”
Vergil raised an eyebrow.
“How so?”
“When I asked “do you want to come on the hunt with us,” you could have just said “no.””
Vergil scowled and Nero sensed another ball-breaker of an argument coming on between the twins. Dante had slid that jab in, but then busied himself with checking tracks in the dirt and bent stems of tall grass. The elder, however, decided to rise to the bait, as he was wont to do.
“The alternative was that I stayed behind in that rat’s nest of a building,” he snarled.
“My apologies it’s not a palace fit for the King of Hell, but, you see, I got to take on jobs to make money to pay for that shit-hole,” Dante said, airily. He stood, dusted the dirt from the knees of his pants and regarded his older brother. “But .. I guess it would make more sense if we got this thing over with sooner rather than later. So, fine, let’s split into three – ”
“I’m going with you,” Nero said, with a shrug. Vergil frowned, and looked at him, eyebrows knitted together in confusion.
“So .. Two groups?” He confirmed. “You and Dante and – ”
“Just you,” Nero replied, with a shrug. “Probably what you wanted anyway.” He did his best to ignore Dante’s slight disapproving look that bored into the back of his neck. Nero had been doing this since the twins returned. Vergil had been a disappointment to him, and even though he had kept V’s book of William Blake poetry, it remained just that: V’s Book. Not Vergil’s. Not something that he had kept since the destruction of his family home in Redgrave and the murder of his mother, Eva, but V’s.
If his biological son’s pointed indifference had any effect on him, Vergil didn’t show it in so many words.
“Fine,” Vergil said, more of a spat, and turned to walk away from the pair.
“Verg,” Dante attempted, but Vergil lifted a hand as he walked.
“This will be over shortly,” he assured the younger twin. “The sooner we kill it or seal it or turn it into a pet for you to coo over, the sooner we can go back home.”
“To the rat’s nest,” Nero muttered. He was sure Vergil heard him, but he didn’t rise to the bait, this time.
“You know what we’re looking for?” Dante asked, resigned to the situation. He never thought he’d be the mature one in any given turn of events, but apparently they brought a little bit of Hell back with them when they crossed back into the human realm.
“I’m quite sure,” Vergil called, putting distance between them.
Dante looked at Nero, hands on his hips.
“ . . . You’re gonna have to talk to him eventually.”
Nero whistled, turning on his heel and headed back into the scrubland, in the direction they were originally headed, his hands behind his head.
“Nnnope~”
Dante signed but followed, coming level with the younger man.
“I’m still not solid on what we’re supposed to be looking for?” Nero asked, after a stretch of silence that made him uncomfortable, despite his dedication to being calm and mature in the face of his former mentor turned uncle. Dante kept a brisk pace, but he did pause to glance at him.
“I have a basic idea, from what I’ve seen,” he began. “Lots of concepts in the human world can run parallel with things in the demon world. You could almost draw a line, actually. My theory is that it came from when the barrier between the two worlds was way thinner than it is now, and there was a lot of intermingling.”
“You put a lot of thought into this.”
“Nah, I just listened to Vergil on days where he wasn’t being a contrarian dipshit and he’d devour the books in our old man’s study,” the legendary demon hunter said, with a shrug. “Anyway, this thing is by and large harmless, if I’m right about what it is.”
“So what is it?”
“Common gargalarion,” Dante said, easily, as if Nero knew what the fuck it was that he just said.
“And just what the hell is a common gargle.. garga… That thing?”
Dante paused, one hand up, one finger pointed, clearly amused, but in a way that made Nero nervous.
“Thaaat’s the rub, isn’t it?” He said, facing Nero square. Nero really didn’t like how pleased with himself he looked. “It’s a demon, naturally. But uh .. How do I explain it?” He hemhawed for a moment, with Nero crossing his arms over his chest in impatience. “You didn’t grow up with sibling-siblings, right?” Nero’s nose wrinkled in distaste. He hated talking about this crap.
“Other kids in the orphanage, then Credo and Kyrie, why?” He asked, apprehensive and annoyed.
“Older brothers can be evil,” Dante continued, waving his hand as if trying to shoo away Nero’s pissy attitude. “Especially when they have an old man who dotes on him, so he takes what Papa Sparda does to him and then immediately inflicts it on me – ”
“Dante, what the fuck does this have to do with the demon?” Nero demanded, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Fine, fine,” he said, putting his hands up. “Just gonna be out with it. You ever have someone try to play “Tickle Monster” with you when you were a tadpole?”
Nero snorted, dirision in his very core. When Dante’s expression didn’t change from frank honesty, Nero’s own started to falter.
“.. You’re fucking kidding?”
“Serious as a heart-attack, Junior. It feeds off of energy, in that way. Like tapping a tree-trunk for syrup. Any-hoodles, it’s harmless, so long as you don’t let it get a firm grip on you to start with, give it a few good bonks on the head, it goes scurrying back into the demon-world, badabing, badaboom, we go back, collect our fee, and assure the good people of this hamlet that we banished the totally bloodthirsty demon that’s been scaring them from the sidelines.”
Nero shook his head, exhaling hard.
“You’re telling me,” he began, slowly. “That I turned own dinner with Kyrie so we could hunt some demon that tickles people to death?”
“Well, not to death,” Dante said, batting his eyes innocently. “Just usually til they pass out and they can’t produce any more food for it.”
“This is fuckin dumb, Dante,” Nero grumbled, deciding to forge ahead. Dante grinned after him, starting to follow.
“Where’s the fire?”
“The sooner we can finish this pants-on-head stupid hunt, the better,” Nero grumbled. The fact he sounded like his father in that moment pissed him off, and if Dante mentioned it..
As they started making their way down another minor embankment, however, something that may have been a sharp yelp rang out, cutting across the mundane natural ambiance. Both demon hunters looked in the direction of the noise and then over at each other, an uneasy glance passed between the pair of them. Dante was the first to break the silence with a “haaaaaaa” before they took off, running, towards the sound.