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VERGIL
Four months after returning from hell
Memories would often come back in the smallest of fragments. He remembered her name was Julia. He remembered he met her in an archive. She knew him for what he was without him telling her. She was smart, knew more about demonology than Vergil, and had a knack for understanding his moods.
While he wanted to tell Nero more about his mother, he felt he never had enough to go on. He wanted to wait until he had more than the vague memories of a half stranger.
When those memories finally came, he realized he was foolish for hoping.
After a few weeks, Dante made up his spare bedroom for Vergil. He bought new blue sheets, and added a little bookshelf. Small though it was, Vergil was grateful. As much as he had enjoyed this new bonding with Dante, the man was still a slob with an incorrigible personality that drove Vergil up the walls.
Better to handle him in small doses if they were to continue cohabitating.
The biggest downside was that sleeping on his own led to more nightmares. In a way, it was a good thing, as most of his lost memories came to him in the throes of sleep.
On the other hand, most of his memories were at best unpleasant. At worst, it took all he had not to make any measurable noise upon waking. If he ever woke Dante, he never showed it, to which Vergil was grateful. It was embarrassing enough dealing with them at all.
Vergil scanned the horizon from his perch on the Devil May Cry building. The sun was nearly set, darkness rolling in. It seemed Dante would be home late from his job, if at all. Perhaps he and Lady went out drinking.
Being alone at Devil May Cry still sometimes felt strange to Vergil. The building itself didn’t feel like home unless Dante was there. It merely felt like any other building.
Although, his new bedroom was becoming comforting in its own way.
He hopped down to the window leading to his room and slunk inside. Dante had been gracious enough even to find Vergil a few spare changes of clothes, although to Vergil’s dismay they were a little loose in the chest and shoulders.
Just another thing that made them different from one another nowadays. Their time of being identical was lost to childhood.
Vergil turned in for the night, lying on his back straight as a board, staring at the dark ceiling. Falling asleep was difficult. Sometimes, he was unable to do it at all. The best method, he found, was to recite verses in his head.
Tonight, it seemed, his body wanted to sleep, as he began to lose consciousness quickly.
The worst part about the armor, especially in the early days, was that he could still see. While none of his actions were his own, his consciousness would slip in and out as he moved. Sometimes he would be fully cognizant, screaming at a body that refused to listen, other times it was like a daze.
It took a few tries with his new body and his new training for Mundus to accept him. Sometimes Vergil would break free just long enough to kill or harm anyone within reach. Such actions earned him pain.
There were trials, of which failure was met with torture. It was a never ending hell of hurt and frustration caused by his lack of free will, and Mundus’s torturers messing with his mind. But worse of all were the times when he could see.
They used his memories to cause him as much psychological distress as they could. It was part of his conditioning.
He didn’t know how long it had been since he fell into Mundus’s clutches, but there eventually came a time when he was to leave hell. Mundus wanted proof that it all worked, that Vergil was the soldier he wanted, that the armor was every bit the living coffin he wished for. He wanted to exercise the dominion over Vergil that he never had over Sparda.
Vergil led a horde of devils through a hell gate. He was aware of a target, but it was as though his mind didn’t have access to the information. Only the armor, only Nelo Angelo, knew where they were meant to go.
Vergil caught glimpses of places he thought he recognized, but in the fogginess of his thoughts his words felt like a watercolor painting, all color and shape blended together without letters.
No, he did know this place. Fortuna. The archive…Julia?
Were Vergil anything more than a wisp of a thought in this cage of armor he would have raged. As it was, all he could do was think in that impressionist way with colors and shapes of sharp red angles.
It was her, his Julia, struggling to breathe from where she was caught in his fist.
This wasn’t what he wanted. Where was that power he sought? How could he protect anyone like this? He could not even protect himself anymore, his own identity lost to the enemy.
Let her go, he tried to think. It came out as nothing more than a watery bloom of an impression.
Let her go! He commanded his body, the words pushing through and shattering a piece of his cage. She fell to the ground as his hand released her. Vergil tried to hold onto that awareness, but already it was slipping back into an endless sea.
He thought he heard his name, but part of him wasn’t sure he could even remember it.
Nelo Angelo stepped back, and let the demons devour her.
Vergil awoke dripping in sweat, standing on his feet with Yamato in hand. That was real. He knew it was real. Somewhere deep in his bones he knew.
NERO
It was never a good sign when Nero was awoken from sleep by the phone ringing. With a groan he was up in a heartbeat, snatching the phone from the receiver. “Devil May Cry,” he said with a yawn.
For a moment there was no response. “Hello?” Nero pressed.
“Nero,” Vergil’s haggard voice came through. Nero was alert at once.
“Shit, what happened? Did Dante get kidnapped again?”
“N-no, sorry I shouldn’t have…” Vergil paused. Nero had never heard him sound so fragile. “Sorry, this can wait, I didn’t even consider you would be asleep. My apologies,”
“Wait!” Nero cried a touch too loudly, and he heard Kyrie stir beside him. She turned, rubbing her eyes as she gave him a worried look.
“Meet me in my garage in ten?”
Vergil was quiet long enough Nero questioned if he hung up. Then, he said, “It can wait, Nero, I don’t mean to—,”
“If you say you don’t mean to be a bother then you can save it because you already woke me up and I won’t be able to fall back asleep until I know what the hell this was all about, okay? So just get your ass over here and explain.”
Vergil’s reply was a curt, “Alright.”
Nero hung up the phone and hunched over in exasperation.
“Is Everything okay?” Kyrie asked.
“I don’t know,” Nero stood and slipped on a clean shirt. “Vergil sounded really weird.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Yeah,” Nero said as he leaned over the bed to give her a quick peck on the cheek, “go back to sleep. I’ll tell you what happened in the morning.”
Kyrie smiled, and fell back onto her pillow. Mere moments passed before she was out like a light.
Nero wasn’t surprised that Vergil was already in the garage sitting on the couch waiting for him. What was surprising was seeing his father with his hair a mess, wearing what looked like an old band shirt and sweats of Dante’s.
“You a fan of Limp Bizkit now?”
Vergil kept his gaze on the ground, “I don’t know what that is,”
Nero almost laughed, but the expression on Vergil’s face prevented it.
“What’s going on?” He tentatively asked as he sat beside Vergil. It was almost eerie seeing him like this. Both because his current appearance made the resemblance between him and Dante uncanny — they really were twins — but also because Vergil looked so utterly defeated.
“Dad?”
Vergil visibly flinched at the word.
“Where’s Dante?”
“I don’t know,”
Nero immediately jumped to a bad conclusion, thinking the trouble magnet might have landed himself back in hell or some such. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“He’s fine,” Vergil assured him, “just out.”
“Okay, then what’s going on?” He took in Vergil’s appearance. He looked like he had just climbed out of bed. “Did you have a nightmare?”
The surprised glance Vergil gave him was all the answer he needed.
“Well, shit,” he said, “must’ve been bad. You,” he hesitated. This wasn’t really a thing they did. Well, it wasn’t something they had ever done, at least. Nero supposed if they really wanted a relationship, it couldn’t hurt to try. He breathed in deep and then asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
The pain in Vergil’s eyes as he looked at his son left Nero feeling hollow.
“I do not think that would be wise.”
“Okay, then is there something else you want to talk about?”
“I apologize, it was foolish to come here,” Vergil moved to stand.
Nero grabbed his wrist. “Hey, none of that. I want to help.”
Vergil sat back down, but he didn’t speak for a long time. Nero was determined to wait him out.
“You know about Nelo Angelo?”
“Somewhat,” Nero replied. This had not been what he expected. “I know only what you two have told me.”
“You know that Mundus and his torturers rebuilt me,” this was less of a question, but Nero still nodded. “I was conscious some of the time, but I couldn’t act in any way. Merely watch.”
Nero couldn’t imagine how that must have felt. He could barely conceive of it.
“If I did something they disliked there would be punishments. I had to prove myself, or rather, Nelo Angelo did. I had no control in those moments, but Mierlda…”
Vergil seemed to lose his breath. Nero had never seen him act so human, other than when Dante was injured. Nero felt goosebumps on his arms. Something about this story was giving him a bad feeling in his gut.
“Mierlda, as you know, had a knack for looking through memories.” Vergil’s hands clenched, grabbing fistfulls of his baggy sweats. He looked straight ahead, determination written in the line of his jaw.
“They knew about her, your mother. They found her in my memory. Mundus wanted proof the armor could contain me, no matter what the mission.”
Nero’s stomach dropped.
“They sent me after her,” A tear rolled down Vergil’s cheek. Nero stared at it, horrified. “They sent me after your mother, and I couldn’t…”
“Did you kill her?” Nero murmured.
“I may as well have. I didn’t save her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
Vergil leaned forward onto his knees, letting his hair fall over his eyes in an almost Dante-like fashion. “I only just remembered. Things come back in my sleep,”
Nero felt a pit in his stomach. He had figured she was gone, but it hurt to know. Taking a deep breath, Nero said, “Thanks for telling me.”
Vergil’s head snapped to him. His eyes were piercing, filled with sorrow and pain. There was a look of confusion on his face. “You’re not…angry with me?”
It struck Nero why Vergil was so nervous and on edge, then. He came to confess to Nero, and he expected to be hated and shunned.
“Why would I be angry with you? You just said you had no control over yourself, and that you didn’t kill her,”
“I didn’t save her.”
“But that isn’t the same thing. And, look, I don’t know you that well, but I know you wouldn’t kill someone you cared about. Plus, you were literally being controlled by Mundus. If I should hate anyone, it’s him.”
Vergil gaped at him.
Nero rubbed his forehead. “Mundus has fucked with you and this family for years, right? Honestly? The fact you didn’t kill her says a lot. Because he wanted you to, didn’t he?”
Vergil’s eyes widened slightly and he looked away.
“Didn’t he?” Nero pressed.
“…yes, he did.”
“And you fought him, right?”
“I tried,”
“Then how could I be angry? Sounds like you did everything you could. It fucking sucks, but sometimes that isn’t enough, trust me, I know. But, that doesn’t make it your fault.”
Vergil went quiet. Nero let him think on things for a while, sitting companionably beside him.
“I am sorry you never got to meet her.”
“Yeah,” Nero replied, “me too.” Vergil slicked his hair back with his hand. He looked calmer. “Hey,” Nero gently tapped his shoulder, “if you remember anything else about her, will you tell me?”
Vergil dipped his chin slightly in acquiescence.
“And, if you ever need to talk about something, you can always call. Not just saying it to be nice,”
“Thank you, Nero.”